[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.The bullet took Redbirt between the eyes.Bermúdez replaced the gun, brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his lapel and rose to leave.He was halfway to the door before he realized his mistake.Wiping his hand in a clean white handkerchief, he rummaged swiftly through Redbirt’s desk.The tape recorder was still spinning.Bermúdez flushed.He took both spools and glowered with scorn at Redbirt.Then he shot the corpse twice more, once for each ball.“Gringo de mierda,” said José Bermúdez, mayor-to-be.The wall clock said 5:40.LATER THAT NIGHT Bermúdez let himself into the darkened cigar factory in el barrio.Once more he had two calls to make.The man Chris Meadows knew as the Peasant answered on the first ring.“We are ready now.You may begin,” said Bermúdez.“Muy bien.”“I will be sending you some more names.”“It is no problem.”“You have two weeks.Work quickly and well, hermano.”“In Mono’s memory,” promised the Peasant.The old man in Bogotá was slower to the phone, but no less obliging.“Things are moving nicely here,” said Bermúdez.“I am very pleased, Ignacio.Here as well.”“Will you be coming for dinner?”“Whenever you say.”“Two weeks from tonight.”“It will be my pleasure.But not spicy food, please.My stomach rebels.”Chapter 17WHEN HARRY APPEL called Monday morning to say he had an interesting new homicide victim, Captain Octavio Nelson wanted to retch.It was no way to start a week.“This one’s special, for a drug murder.White, young, affluent,” Appel reported.“Shot late Friday, by the looks of it.You’d better come see for yourself.”“Shit.” Nelson sighed.The architect, had to be.And it was Nelson’s fault, deserting the poor bastard like that.What seat-of-the-pants insanity, sending him into Hidalgo’s to eyeball those pukes! Jesus, what if Pincus ever found out about that little brainstorm?Nelson was morose by the time he got to the medical examiner’s office.Appel led him directly to the morgue, where a bare pale corpse gleamed on an autopsy table.“I’ll be damned,” Nelson said.“You were expecting somebody else?” Appel said.“Yeah.Who is this asshole?”Appel lifted a clipboard and read aloud: “Dale Lane Redbirt, attorney at law.Age: thirty-four.He lives at—”Nelson waved an arm.“Who? Who? I said.”Appel shrugged.“You’re the detective.”“Harry! Tell me what you know.”“It’s a small firm, even smaller now, Smith, Turner, Redbirt and Feldman.They do mostly criminal defense work.Redbirt here specialized in hookers and two-bit possession cases.In either event he often accepted fees in services rendered, if you know what I mean.His law partners say he was doing OK, no F.Lee Bailey, but pulling in maybe thirty thou a year.Has a wife, two kids and a secretary who screws anything that walks, him mostly.”“Sounds like the all-American dream.”“Right,” Appel said.“Except for the new Porsche and a refinished thirty-eight-foot Bertram.And how about a condo in Vail? And, oh, yeah, there’s this.” Carefully Appel opened a small brown envelope and turned it upside down in his hand.A heavy gold bracelet slid into his palm like a small glittering viper.“Solid gold, of course.Cost about five grand,” Nelson mused.“You think he was freelancing, right?”“Nelson, that is only an opinion.” Appel grinned.“I’m just a coroner.”Nelson studied the body.He counted three wounds, one in the face, two in the scrotum.“Not nice,” Nelson said.“No more screwing around for you.”“He got shot in his office over near the river.The weapon was a Beretta, not the usual Cuban doper’s choice.A Colombian preference.”Nelson asked, “And his wife?”“Truly bereaved.”“His partners?”“In shock.”“His friends?”“Catatonic.Total disbelief.”“Any drugs in the blood?”“Some coke, a touch of speed,” Appel said.“Nothing lethal.”Nelson and Appel walked out of the dank morgue.“Can I have some coffee?” the detective asked.“It’s been a lousy morning.”“Captain?” It was a thin red-haired secretary in one of the office cubicles.“You partner phoned.He wants you to call him…some report you forgot to sign.”Nelson groaned.“See what I mean?”He and Appel drank in silence for several minutes.Appel scribbled some notes on an autopsy report, stopping only to hit the intercom button and fire directions to scattered employees.“It was not robbery,” he said finally.“The gold chain?”Appel nodded.“They would have snatched the bracelet.”“Anything else?”“They didn’t touch the office, and they didn’t take the cash.”“How much cash?”“Two grand, and change.”“Dopers for sure,” Nelson concluded.“Yup,” said Harry Appel.TWO HOURS LATER Nelson slouched in a phone booth in Coral Gables, sweating like a pig.He was almost out of quarters.“¿Oye, gusano, qúe tu sabes?”“Hey, Capitán, cómo estás, chico?”The punk’s Spanish was atrocious.Nelson switched to English.“Know a lawyer named Redbirt?”“Used to.I heard he bought it over the weekend.”“Word gets around, don’t it? ¿Qué pasa?”“I’m broke, Captain, that’s what’s happening.Help me, and maybe I can help you.”“Fifty is all I got,” Nelson said.“Tu madre!” the worm sneered.“A hundred.No tengo más.”“Bueno.” The worm blew his nose.Nelson held the receiver away from his ear.He flicked the soggy stump of his cigar into the traffic of LeJeune Road.“Your lawyer friend is the first of many,” said the gusano.“The snow is going to melt for a while.”“Says who?”“Los Cubanos.”“Oh yeah? And our friends from Bogotá and Cartagena? They all retired all of a sudden?”“Believe it or not, it’s all been settled.No more fighting in the family.Hay paz.”“I don’t believe it,” Nelson grunted.“It’s what I hear, is all,” the worm whined.“Things are going to be very tight for a while, is what I hear.Where do I get my money?”“What about Redbirt?”“He had good connections, dealt a lot of coke.He was working his way up.A lot of the downtown crowd bought from him because he was, you know…”“Gringo.”“Sí, gringo.”“Your money will be in the usual place,” Nelson said coldly.“¿Cuando?”“Tonight; six o’clock.You got anything else for me?”“Nada.”“Still pulling those b-and-e’s around the river?”“Not me, chico.”Nelson hung up and fished in his pockets for more change.All he came up with was three pennies; Wilbur Pincus would damn well have to wait.WILBUR PINCUS thought about what he had: He had caught his partner in two lies.Captain Nelson had lied about the Mercedes-Benz to cover up for his brother, a brother who obviously was into cocaine.At precisely what level of enterprise, Pincus was not sure, but it was lucrative, if judged by the price of Bobby Nelson’s house.Pincus was deeply troubled.Octavio Nelson surely knew about his brother.But how much? For how long?The second lie was equally disturbing, maybe more so because it could never be explained away as family loyalty.The missing architect was nobody’s wayward brother.Pincus knew Meadows had been hiding out in the Buckingham Hotel when Nelson arrived.Witnesses had seen both men leave together, yet Nelson had told him that the architect had spooked off before he got there.It was a total lie, and it angered the young detective.Now Meadows was missing, and Pincus couldn’t shake the gut feeling that he was gone for good, that hunks and snippets of his lean flesh would be feeding the pinfish in Biscayne Bay for a long time.These thoughts clogged his mind as he sat in his Mustang, parked in the grass under the mossy arms of a ficus tree
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]