The Consummata Read online

  Saladar and I were on our way out when Pedro stopped us, a hand on my arm.

  “Señor Morgan,” Pedro said hesitantly, “as much as we are honored by your company...and would gladly offer you shelter tonight...it is best you not risk visiting here again. I will give you my phone number and—”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll call in. No more dropping by. Jaimie Halaquez isn’t the only one with a price on his head.”

  Ten minutes later, Luis Saladar and I were in Domino Park, in the shadows of tall palms that hovered as if eavesdropping.

  The park remained deserted, the streets nearby light with traffic, both pedestrian and automotive. I walked the distinguished Cuban freedom fighter to just the right bush, held it back, and gave him a look.

  Perhaps out of respect for the dead—any dead—he removed his ivory-color plantation owner’s hat, then crouched, took a lingering examination, then turned his head and nodded.

  Rising, he said, “That is the Angel, señor.”

  “Angel or not, I don’t figure he’s flying upward tonight.”

  “No. I would doubt this myself.”

  We moved away to the sidewalk and strolled slowly.

  “Luis, did you have any idea this character was in the States?”

  “No. None.”

  “What does his being here suggest?”

  His eyes flared. “Only that what you said before makes sense, Señor Morgan—that this must be more important than just the seventy-five thousand dollars that was stolen from my people.”

  We walked toward where I had parked Bunny’s station wagon.

  I asked him, “Is there any way you can run a check on who else Halaquez dealt with back home?”

  His expression turned grave. “Not without risking getting our own people in difficulty. I can try, señor, but I could not press hard for results, this I admit freely.”

  “Then try your best.”

  “Very well, señor.”

  He tipped his hat and walked off toward the sounds of Latin music and laughter.

  Not that goddamn good with a gun and blade, I thought.

  Muddy Harris met me in a diner on lower Biscayne Boulevard. He was red-eyed and mussed, his clothes baggier than ever, and when he sat down in the booth opposite me, he made a grimace of disgust and called over for a coffee and pie.

  I passed on coffee—I was still buzzed on that Cuban stuff I got at Pedro and Maria’s. Sweetened Southern-style iced tea was my excuse for taking up booth space.

  “You do know, I haven’t hardly slept since you come around, Morgan?”

  “Tough.”

  “Sure, slough it off...you don’t have anything to lose.”

  “Just my ass.”

  He patted his comb-over and his fleshy face made his fold of a smile. “Hell, it’s been like that so long with you that you’re used to it. Me, I got a business to run. I got mouths to feed.”

  “And secrets you don’t want the cops to know. That’s why I got Kirk to alert you in the first place. You live in the same damn limbo world I do.”

  “No argument there.”

  “So turn off the self-pity machine. You know I’ll take care of you—you’ll wind up with a slice of any action.”

  He let a tobacco-stained grin show through his day-old beard. “Okay, Morgan, okay.”

  No more posturing. Good.

  But Muddy waited until his pie and coffee was in front of him, and the waitress gone, before he said, “For what it’s worth, I do have something, but in the interest of fairness, I have to level.”

  “Interest of fairness? You are Muddy Harris?”

  “I’m just saying, it wasn’t me who ran this down. You know that kid at the Amherst?”

  “Sure, the little smart-as-a-whip bellhop.”

  “That’s the one. I mean, I played a role. We kind of angled it out together.”

  He shoveled some all-American apple à la mode in his pie hole. He talked as he chewed it—not a pretty sight.

  “Seems like he thinks you’re quite a guy, Morg. Quite... a...guy.”

  “Some people have taste.”

  “Seems like he found out who you are, too. That you’re a living legend and all.”

  I looked at him and didn’t say anything.

  “These refugees,” he went on, “stick together. They have their own crazy little grapevine.” His expression crinkled in thought. “You think I ought to know more about how they work it, Morg? Might come in handy in my trade.”

  “No. Go on.”

  Muddy washed some pie and ice cream down with coffee, some of the latter dribbling down his chin like dirty rain. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “Guess you’re right,” he said. “That’s a whole world of its own.”

  “Yeah. Wipe your chin.”

  He did. “Anyway, the kid found two bottles of high-price booze stashed away in that old porter’s digs—buried under a pile of junk in the closet of the basement room the geezer used there. Wasn’t the grade of stuff he usually swilled down at all—he was more a Muscatel man.”

  “Less commentary, Mud, more facts.”

  “Facts? How’s this for facts—there were three pawn tickets stuck back there, too, in that closet—one for a cheap portable transistor radio the old fart got a buck for, one for a travel clock he likely swiped out of a room, worth another buck, and another for an old signet ring that had his initials on it, which got him a whole two dollars.”

  “So he was hard up,” I said.

  “Just goes to show the old man never had a dime. And what he did have went for cheap wine or booze...that is, until the night that room blew apart. That night, from a joint four blocks away? The codger picked up three quarts of the finest hooch...and told the liquor store guy that a hotel guest had just given him a big tip.”

  “That,” I muttered, “is what you get when you pay a drunk in advance.”

  Muddy blinked at me, freezing between bites of pie. “What, Morgan?”

  “If the old porter polished off one of those quarts, that explains why he didn’t set the timer right.”

  “Yeah, or maybe you just got lucky, is all.”

  He finished the pie, swirled the coffee around in the cup, polished it off, and smacked his lips.

  “So,” Muddy said, “the kid and me start nosing around at what’s left of the Amherst Hotel to see who the old man’s contact was. We went round and round until finally we get one of those cleaning maids to talk. Seems a few hours before the explosion, she remembers that the old boy asked her to cover for him for a while.”

  “Did he tell her why?”

  “Indeed he did—turns out grandpa had an errand to run. She agreed to help him out, and said he was gone for a couple of hours. When Pops come back, he was acting funny, the maid says, nervous-like, and had something with him that she figured was just another bottle in a brown bag. She nips from her own jug from time to time, so never thought anything much of it.”

  “Tell me there’s more.”

  “Oh, there’s more. After that, it took a whole lot of legwork, but the bellhop and me, we found a place where the old man went for some chili and beer. Seems he was eating when a guy come in, sits next to him and strikes up a confidential sort of conversation. The counterman didn’t hear what they were talking about, because the jukebox was blasting away, but when they left, the guy paid for the old boy’s eats.”

  “Get a description?”

  “Absolutely,” Muddy said, nodding. “The counterman came through. The dining companion was about thirty-five, pretty sharp looking and big for a Cuban type, tall, dark, and nearly handsome. Nearly ’cause of a squashed boxer’s nose and a scar kinda like a lightning bolt on his cheek. Not sure which cheek. Anyway, counter guy never saw the big Cuban before, and said he hoped he never did again, ’cause this character looked like the type you didn’t mess with.... Honey! Honey, do this again, would you?”

  Muddy was holding his empty plate out to a passing waitress, and lifting his c
up, as well. She stopped, took the plate, and filled the coffee with the pot she was hauling.

  When she was gone, Muddy said, “Now here’s the kicker. When the big Cuban comes in, he’s carrying a package. Only when the two of ’em left? The old man had it.”

  I nodded thoughtfully.

  “Got him pegged?” Muddy asked me.

  I nodded. The description fit Jaimie Halaquez, but I didn’t tell Muddy that.

  “So don’t tell me,” Muddy said, shrugging. “Send me out for information, but keep the damn context to yourself. That’s a good way to get nowhere fast.”

  I ignored him.

  He had a slug of the coffee—it must have been hot because he said, “Ow,” before asking me, “Maybe you’d like to know something else?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You got that Walter Crowley guy really screwed up. They got a make on the spic who really belonged to those car-wash coveralls. Right now they’re figuring you’re long gone from the scene.”

  But it hadn’t stopped Crowley from sending my photo around to the hotels.

  “Where’d you hear that, Muddy?”

  “Big ears, thin walls. It’s what makes my world go round.”

  His new round of pie and ice cream arrived. He dug in.

  “Anything on this Consummata dame?” I asked.

  “Couple of things.” He kept eating.

  “Don’t let me interrupt,” I said.

  He swallowed a bite, which meant at least I wouldn’t have to watch him masticate while he talked. “Morg, are you aware that this is an older doll?”

  “Who?”

  “The Consummata!”

  “How old?”

  “Her activities go back to before the war, in Europe. That means, if she started out in her early twenties, you know, real precocious and such like, she’s got to be pushing fifty, anyway.”

  “Last time we talked she was a rumor. A legend. Now she’s a broad of fifty? What gives, Muddy?”

  He shrugged expansively. “Who the hell knows, for sure? But my guess is, she may be a political operative.”

  “Attached to whom?”

  “Who can say? Maybe freelance. Nazis, Allies, Commies, NATO, it’s up for grabs. But when you have some special somebody with key information, and that somebody has a kink in their make-up? That’s a sweet way to squeeze information out...and ideal blackmail material. Whether it’s for money, or military intelligence, it’s a great gambit.”

  Like the Club Mandor, only more so.

  I sipped iced tea, kept my tone casual. “You said a couple of things about the Consummata. What else?”

  Now he leaned forward, as if suddenly there was something worth being confidential about. “There’s a big old house, built in the thirties, one of them stucco mansions, out on Palm Island—near the old Capone estate. Nobody’s lived there for years, but it gets rented out, for parties and so on. Word is somebody took it for the next couple months. Paid top dollar to do so.”

  “Somebody.”

  “Some woman. Some beautiful woman.”

  “About fifty?”

  “No age. No description. I can dig further and get more, maybe lots more. I can put private eyes on it, if you have the bread. We could stake the place out, see who shows up. Doesn’t have to be your Consummata babe. It’s a long shot. Longer than any they play at Hialeah. But it’s a shot.”

  Maybe not so long a shot. A mansion on private grounds, out on Palm Island—what better place to install a whipsand- chains playroom or two? Where better to set up an elaborate if temporary dungeon? Elegant enough to suit her clients, secluded enough to let them scream for mercy, or more. What else could the Consummata ask?

  “Keep digging,” I said.

  “And it will be worth...?”

  Discreetly, I passed him another three hundred bucks off the roll. “Enough?”

  He slipped it away. “For now. If you pay for the pie.”

  “I’ll pay for the pie. You just deliver. I’m in no position to go out on the snoop myself.”

  “I gather that.” He glanced at me speculatively. “Anything else you want?”

  “Yeah. Get what you can on anybody engaged in traffic with the Cuban mainland. Even suspected activity. Castro shut the casinos down, but I hear he doesn’t mind selling the decadent West illegal dope. You know, just to help along the decline of democracy.”

  Muddy whistled, or anyway tried to. “Brother, you’re asking for a lot. That’s military ground you’re troddin’ on. And what isn’t military is Mob.”

  “Information can be bought. That’s your business.”

  He shrugged. “I guess you’re right—anything and anybody can be bought, can’t it?”

  “Not everybody,” I said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I took a circuitous route back through the night to the beginning of the maze Gaita had led me into, reaching into my memory for the right paths and the tunnels that had been part of an abandoned Prohibition brewery.

  At intervals I stopped, listened for any feet that might be following my own, wondering whether Walter Crowley would still have kept any of his men posted in the area— Muddy had said the chase had been called off, yet I knew Crowley had only recently sent my photo around to the hotels.

  When I was sure I wasn’t being followed, I felt my way through the last brick-lined corridor that curved over me like a vault to the nearly invisible door at the end, swung it open on its silent hinges and took a flight of considerably less silent stairs to the top. I laid my ear against the panel, heard nothing, then slipped my fingers in the recessed handle and slid it open.

  She was sitting there at the dressing table, her eyes so intent on fixing her makeup, she didn’t notice me until I was all the way in. Then she stiffened, snatched a pair of scissors from the tabletop, and spun around in the chair.

  “Hello, Gaita,” I said.

  She took in a soft gasp, laid the scissors slowly down, and allowed a tremor of relief to take her body.

  “Morgan,” she said, “you bastard. Don’t do that again—not ever! People, they can get killed that way.”

  “People can get killed a lot of ways.”

  That melted her glare, which became a self-conscious smile as she realized the negligee had partially opened, and the suddenly shy little courtesan, with a deft motion of her fingers, folded the lapels one under the other, covering the fullness of her dark-tipped breasts.

  “You look like you’re dressed for a client,” I said.

  Her eyebrows rose indignantly and her nostrils flared with pride. “Señor Morgan—do not mistake me for the others who work here. Gaita chooses her own company—I am the only one at the Mandor Club with this privilege.”

  “Any guy you choose would be a lucky devil.”

  She shook her head and dark curls bounced off her shoulders. “These days I choose to be alone.”

  “Expensive choice in your trade.”

  She ignored that, cocked her head and peered at me. “You surprise me, Morgan.”

  I sat on the edge of a bed. Soft, springy, with a tropical floral spread.

  “There aren’t many places left for me to go in this town,” I said. “The hotels aren’t safe. They either have a photo of me, or my room blows up before I get there.”

  Gaita let seconds drag past before she replied, never taking her eyes from my face. “That’s why I have been waiting, Morgan. I knew you would come back.”

  “I thought you said I surprised you.”

  “I didn’t hear you enter. But I knew you would come. You have questions?”

  I glanced at the door, then back to her.

  “It is locked,” she said. “Even Bunny does not have a key. We have privacy.”

  That meant a guy could slap her around till she talked, or toss her lovely behind on the lush carpet and ravish her, and with a hand over her mouth, who would know?

  Instead I just there sat on the edge of the bed, realizing for the first time how damn tired I was. Somehow
a few days had slipped by and there had just been odd fragments of sleep grabbed in even odder places.

  With no menace at all, I asked, “Why’d you pick the Amherst, Gaita?”

  “Because it was a hotel I could afford. It was not a special place, only out of the way, where I thought you would be safe.”

  “Nobody suggested it to you?”

  “No, Señor Morgan. It was my idea only.”

  “Your friend Tami—you trust her?”

  “Completely.”

  I slipped out of my sport jacket and tossed it on a chair. The .45 in the shoulder sling was showing now. “How’d you make the arrangements?”

  “By phone from here.”

  “I don’t see a phone in this room.”

  “I used Miss Bunny’s private line.”

  And Bunny had assured me her phone wasn’t tapped.

  “Could anyone have overheard you?”

  “I do not think so. The door, it was closed. I spoke softly. With my hand cupped, like this? No, I’m sure there was no one listening.”

  “Could Tami have passed the information on?”

  Gaita gave a slow negative shake of her head, her hair swirling softly about her neck. “Already, I have asked her. Nada did she remember mentioning to anyone, not even accidentally. And she knew of the importance of your escape, if not the reasons.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Her chin raised. There was no fear in her voice but I could make out a slight movement in her dark eyes. “Morgan, do you suspect me? Do you think that I....”

  “No,” I said.

  “You trust me? You believe me?”

  “As far as it goes. I just don’t think it would’ve gone down that way.”

  “What way, señor?”

  “That simple. If I escaped from the trap at the Amherst—and that’s what I’m known for, doll, escaping—they’d know you’d be the first person I asked. They’d probably expect me to torture the truth out of you.”

  “Then they have not paid attention to the legend.”

  “What legend?”

  “Your legend, Morgan. The legend of the Raider—a man of light who lives in the darkness.”