Out of Sight

NINE

Her dad, reading the paper, said, "They're finally offering a reward, ten grand for information leading to the arrest…"

The doorbell rang.

"That's on each one. Somebody could make thirty grand."

Karen got up. Leaving the room she heard her dad say, "He's late," and something about missing his program. It was eight-fifty in the evening of the third day following the escape.

She opened the door for Ray Nicolet, smiling at her in the porch light.

He said he couldn't find the house, all the trees and vegetation, and came in saying, "It's like a jungle out there."

"It is a jungle," Karen said.

"I asked my dad if he remembers what the house looks like. He said, Teah, it's white."

"He needs a gardener."

"He has gardeners, he likes the seclusion. When my mom was alive you could see the house from the street. She was outside every day trimming, weeding."

"So, you having a nice visit?"

"He took the week off so we'd have time together. So far he's played golf every day. He watches Jeopardy during dinner and English murder mysteries after. Inspector Morse, Wexford…

You never see a MAC-10 or blood on the walls." She told Ray this bringing him through the dark house to a screened sitting room of chairs and sofas slip covered in green and red hibiscus patterns.

Her dad sat in soft lamplight with the paper. Outside, beyond the garden and a sweep of lawn, was the fifth fairway of the Leucadendra Country Club. Karen said, "Dad? Ray Nicolet?"

Watching them shake hands she said, "Ray's with the Violent Crimes Task Force, working on the prison break."

"I see that," her dad said, and Ray turned to Karen holding his jacket open to show the task force inscription on his T-shirt in red, her dad saying, "In case no one knows what he does."

Ray said, "The reason I'm late-" Got that far as her dad said, "Ray, answer a question for me."

Karen felt her body tense; but then decided it was okay. Her dad had the paper open looking for a story; he wasn't going to ask Ray about his personal life, his marriage, separation, was he still living at home, any of that.

"Here it is. It says in the headline, "I slept with a murT derer," says shaken Miami woman." She lives in Little Havana.

The guy comes to her door, says he's a rafter, just made it here from Cuba and doesn't know anybody or have a place to stay.

She fixes him pork chops and rice, the next thing you know they're making love on the sofa. She says he was very gentle."

"I spoke to her," Ray said.

"The guy told her he missed his little girl and she felt sorry for him."

Her dad said, "That's how you score now?" He looked at the paper again.

"Listen to this.

"Afterward, she went to sleep in the bedroom with her children." She says, quote, "I don't allow any man other than my husband in our bed."

The husband's out of town, working. The next morning she fixes the guy Kellogg's Corn Flakes for breakfast and sends one of the kids to the store to get him a can of Colgate shaving cream, regular scent."

"You see it," Karen said, "as a testimonial, an ad. Escaped con swears by Colgate shaving cream."

"Regular scent," her dad said.

"No, I was wondering how they know this guy's Chirino."

"From her description of him," Ray said, "down to his tattoos, a bee on each forearm. Stings like a bee-the guy was a fighter before he went up. The woman also said he stole her husband's gun, a twenty-two pistol, and some of his clothes." Ray said, "But listen, I have to tell you die latest."

"Wait." Karen's dad held up his hand.

"The woman's married.

She goes to bed with this guy because he misses his little girl and then tells the world about it. But you don't reveal her name, you protect her. It sounds like you're saying it's okay as long as her husband doesn't find out about it. Like the guy who cheats on his wife saying what she doesn't know won't hurt her."

Her dad picked up his drink and Karen said, "Why don't we let Ray tell us what's going on, okay?"

"I'm pretty sure it'll be on the news tonight," Ray said.

"We got one of them."

Her dad put his drink down.

"No kidding. Where was this?"

"Out in West Dade, near the turnpike."

"As soon as I saw you offering a reward…"

Karen said, "Dad."

"… I said to myself, those guys are done, it's over."

Karen said, "Dad."

He looked up at her.

She said to Ray, "Was it Foley?"

They'd had to run almost five miles along the cane before they came to the gas station on 27, climbed in the back of an empty truck, a big semi-trailer, and came all the way here that night to find this place called el Hueco, the Hole: hidden away in the weeds, a camp of vagrants, men who lived in shacks made from things thrown away, sheets of plywood, corrugated metal, old doors, seats from cars-all the men here Cuban; there were no women. Chino said he was from a raft that broke up but came ashore, thanks to Holy Mary Mother of God. He said he didn't know the other one who came-wearing the same clothes he did-and tried not to be seen with Lulu, ing him, "Don't follow me anymore. Stay away." By the third day the two of them worth twenty thousand dollars to any vagrant who could read a newspaper and think yes, maybe, why not, and walk one mile to the highway police.

It was Lulu who came to him this morning with the newspaper and accused him of being with the woman, showing him in the paper where the woman said she slept with a murderer. Chino said yes, of course, he went to find a woman; it had been eight years since he was with one. And Lulu said, "You've been with me." Hurt. But also with the anger beyond reason of a jealous woman. Perhaps the same way he was when he shot his roommate nine times in the head with a machine gun. Chino gave Lulu a shirt and a pair of pants from the woman's house and told him he'd see him later, when it was dark. Now he went to talk to a man who prepared cafe Cubano and smoked Cohiba panatelas listening to Radio Mambi on his ghetto box; a man named Santiago who trained fighting cocks, the roosters with their thighs shaved he kept behind chicken wire in cages; a man who had been here since Mariel, the boat lift and knew this world. Chino said to him, "You know the one you've seen speaking to me? He's a homosexual."

"I believe it," Santiago said.

"I know he's also a murderer and wants to kill me for a personal reason. But I can't go to the police, they know me from another time.

But if you go and tell them where to find the homosexual, they'll give you ten thousand dollars. Do you understand what Fin telling you?"

"Clearly," Santiago said.

"Our phone number and the address of the command post on NW 27th were in the paper, so the guy knew where to come."

Ray Nicolet sat at one end of the sofa now, close to Karen's dad. Ray would look up at Karen, standing-she wouldn't sit down-in her jeans and shirt hanging out, and then look at her old man sipping his drink as Ray told them:

"The guy, his name's Santiago, walks in with a dead cigar in his mouth and says he can give us two of the escaped convicts, they're hiding out in this squatters' camp way the other side of the airport. I'd been there before, raiding cockfights; it's like a junkyard with banana trees. We showed him a mess of pictures.

He points to Chirino and Linares and goes, "Him and him. When do I get my twenty-thousand dollars?" We told him to sit tight, we'd be right back. By six-thirty we're out there, FDLE, FBI, Metro-Dade, local cops; there were even guys from Fish and Game. Once we were in position, helicopters came in and lit up the camp like a football field. You heard roosters, you heard these people yelling in Spanish scared to death, they're coming out of the shanties with their hands up. The order was, you see anybody run, give them a warning, and if they don't stop on a dime, shoot. Linares ran right into a Metro-Dade cop, kept running and was popped four times. We looked all over for Chirino, under every rock, you might say, but he wasn't there.

Linares died on the way to Jackson Memorial."

Karen got out a cigarette and picked up the lighter on the table next to her dad's chair. He was asking Ray, "Did you pay the guy the reward?"

"Yeah, as soon as we got back."

"What do you do, write a check?"

"No, we paid it in cash. It was late, the banks were closed-I asked Santiago if he wanted to keep the money in our safe till tomorrow. You kidding? No way. Skinny old guy with dark skin, he looked like a chicken. He walked out with the ten grand in a shopping bag."

Karen drew on her cigarette and blew the smoke out.

"Foley hadn't been there?"

"This place was strictly Cuban," Ray said.

"If Foley had a ride he must have his own agenda. He's the only one seems to know what he's doing."

The late TV news became weather reports and Buddy clicked the remote to turn off the set, on a stand surrounded by plants.

Foley and Buddy, on the imitation Danish sofa, didn't move.

"What do you think?"

"I thought Chino would have a better place to hide. It looked like a hobo jungle."

"They said he wasn't there."

"If Lulu was, he was. He got out. You know what I'm wondering?" Foley said.

"If he thinks I set him up. See, he asked me if I want to go with him.

I said no, but didn't tell him I'd made my own plans."

"Why not?"

"It wasn't any of his business. But now he reads the paper, he sees I'm out. He knows it didn't happen the way Pup said all of us ganging up on him in the chapel. He's gonna ask himself what I was doing there with Pup. Did I tell him they were going out? I did, but it was to get Pup in the chapel, for his uniform. It wasn't like they would've all made it if Pup hadn't been there and seen them. As soon as they're out you know they're gonna be spotted-the hack in tower seven, or they touch the fence, the shaker wire sets off the alarm…"

"He's running for his life," Buddy said, "he doesn't give a shit about you."

"Unless he thinks I snitched him out. He does, he'll come looking.

It's the way those guys are, they're big on revenge."

"Yeah, but he'll never find you. How could he?"

"Maybe through Adele."

"He knows where she lives?"

"I didn't tell him, no. But we were talking one time, sipping rum and confiding, you might say. He tells me how he came here from Cuba, twelve years old, born in '47. He tells me how he always wanted to be a fighter, might've had a chance at a title and blew it when he took the dive, all that. I mentioned Adele, told him how I did the bank so I could give her some money, how I got caught fucking around with the guy in the Firebird…"

Buddy said, "If you didn't tell him where she lives-she's not in the phone book…"

"No, but I mentioned she worked for a magician and Chino got interested. Yeah? How does he saw the woman in half? He saw a show in Vegas when he was fighting out there. How is the woman in the cage changed into a tiger? Does Adele ever get changed into an animal? He wanted to meet her. Or get a look at her if she ever came to visit."

Buddy got up.

"I'm gonna get a Diet Pepsi. You want one?

Or a beer?"

Foley shook his head. Buddy started for the kitchen and stopped.

"You tell him the magician's name?"

"Emil the Amazing," Foley said.

"Yeah, I think I did. You want to call Adele for me, just in case?"

"What do I tell her?"

"Don't talk to any Cubans."

"Her phone'll be wired."

"She knows your voice?"

"I'm pretty sure."

"Just say it and hang up."

As soon as it was dark Chino had walked away from the camp, down the road to 12th Street and then east past open fields to the Cafe Cuba Libre sitting by itself. Santiago had told him this was where he came to get drunk and Chino believed he would come this evening to celebrate becoming rich. He bought six bottles of Polar and took them across the street to wait in the trees. Wait for this cock fighter the way he had waited in the Fifth Street Gym for the fight promoter. His life coming to this because of countless reasons, all beyond his control.

His hands had been broken too many times.

He never had time to train properly.

He never had a manager who could influence the right promoters.

He never had gauze for his hands; he had to use cotton wraps and wash them every day when he trained.

What else?

He had never owned a hooded running suit.

The big one. He had never had people handling him who cared. The cut man should have told him not to clear his nose after taking the shot in the eye from Palomino. Blowing his nose put pressure on the blood vessels, the eye became swollen and closed and the fucking referee stopped the fight, the one in Vegas Jack Foley saw, or said he did. You couldn't be sure, since Foley was a liar who pretended to be a friend.

It was all the bad luck and then blowing his nose that time. If he didn't blow his nose he would have beaten Carlos Palomino and then would have had shots at Cuevas and Benitez, Duran, Curry, anyone, and wouldn't have had to take the dive with the white kid he could have beaten lefthanded, thirty-nine years old.

In the trees across from the Cuba Libre he drank one of the beers, waited, and began to drink another. The gun he had taken from the woman's house was a Ruger.22 with a long barrel, he believed a target pistol, not a high-caliber gun, but it should be enough. At exactly seven-thirty he heard the police helicopters and saw the searchlight beams shining down on what would be the squatters' camp over there, about a mile away. He wasn't sure if he heard gunfire, maybe. He continued to wait, drinking the beer slowly to make it last. Three hours passed before he saw Santiago's pickup, the truck so old Chino didn't know what kind it was, coming from the direction of Miami. He walked across the street, the pistol in his belt beneath the woman's husband's shirt. The truck was in front of the cafe now, among a few cars parked there, Santiago getting out, locking the door. Chino called to him and Santiago turned. In the streetlight and in the red neon that said Cuba Libre, Chino saw the man's look of surprise change immediately to innocence, wide-eyed now, ready, even smiling a little.

"They pay you?"

"It was as you said."

"Where is it?"

"Oh, you think I have it? No, I left it in their safe for tonight.

They said tomorrow I can have it."

Chino turned his head to look in the pickup truck.

"What do you have in that bag?" It was on the floor of the passenger side.

"Only some things I bought."

Chino said, "Do you want a beer?"

He had never seen a man appear so grateful, Santiago saying, "Yes, indeed," smiling again, turning to go in the cafe.

Chino took the man's frail arm in his hand.

"Not in there. I have some I already paid for. Why waste it." He brought Santiago across the street, the man saying no, let's go to the bar, it would be his treat. Saying, listen, he was going to give Chino half the reward; he was going to surprise him with it, tomorrow.

When they were in the trees Chino said, "I'm going to use your truck."

Santiago said, of course, anytime. Chino said,

"Where are the keys?" Santiago said here, in his jacket. It was a black nylon with a hood that hung down in back.

Chino said, "Take it off." Santiago said it was his, whatever he wanted. He turned to look across the street at the cafe in red neon, at the cars and the pickup truck in front, people inside but no one coming out, as he took off the jacket. Chino, behind him, drew the pistol from his belt. He shot Santiago in the back of the head and shot him twice again lying on the ground.

Chino walked to the truck with the jacket covering the gun in his hand, got in and drove toward Miami to find a telephone book.