The Consummata Read online

  “Shit,” I said. I felt like I’d taken a body blow. “How?”

  Art had helped us with surreptitious transport on the Nuevo Cadiz mission, but I’d stayed out of contact with him since, for his own protection—or anyway, what I’d thought was his own protection.

  “A plane crash,” she said. “He was a pilot—what better way? Pilot error, they say, flying one of his small aircraft.”

  “In a pig’s ass,” I said.

  “You said Art wasn’t in on that forty-million haul, Morgan ...but are you sure?”

  “I guess under the circumstances, I can’t be. Maybe that’s why Art helped me out when he shouldn’t have risked it—maybe he felt bad that I wound up blamed for a score I had nothing to do with.”

  “But a score somebody signed your name to,” Kim said. “What about the other two on your crew?”

  “Deceased. You know that.”

  “Just in the last couple of years, right? Again, well after the money-truck heist? Meaning everybody on your crew but you, Morg, is dead now.”

  I frowned, thinking it through. “One died of cancer, the other in an automobile accident—I never considered their deaths might have been liquidations.”

  She cocked her head, raised an eyebrow. “The Company has given more people cancer than Phillip Morris. And do I have to tell you that a car crash can be staged?”

  I shook my head. “Damn. I should have seen that. Damn!”

  “Don’t beat yourself up—until Keefer’s convenient death, I didn’t put it together, either.”

  She stroked my cheek. Kissed me with a tenderness that made my heart ache almost as much as something else was aching.

  “Darling,” she said, “we’ve both been working on this, from our respective positions. I know what you’ve been doing, all these months. Besides keeping your head down, you’ve been moving from coastal city to coastal city, going to museums and rare book stores and university libraries, tracking your namesake....”

  “Sir Henry Morgan,” I said, nodding. “Before I shot my old buddy in the head, back in Nuevo Cadiz, he said he’d hidden the forty mil where Sir Henry kept his treasure. I figure the original Morgan’s treasure is long gone, but my old pal found one of the treasure hideaways and buried the loot. I have half a dozen good leads to track down between Panama and Jamaica.”

  “Find that money,” she said, “and turn it in, and with my testimony to back you up, you’re a free man again. No more federal hounds on your trail.”

  “Right.”

  “But, darling, don’t you see, there’s another way...expose the government traitor who set you up! And I believe the name of that traitor can be found, right here in Miami.”

  I squinted at her, as if I were trying to bring that lovely face into sharper focus. “You said you were deep cover. What are you doing in Miami?”

  “You and I are after the same prey—Jaimie Halaquez, the man who raided the treasury of the Cuban exiles here.”

  “I thought the CIA was out of the Cuba business.”

  “Overtly we are. Even covertly, not so much now. But these people were our allies, are our allies, and we keep an eye on them, their activities, and those who move against them. And they have something in common with the Company that I work for—they, too, have a traitor in their midst.”

  “Halaquez,” I said.

  “No,” she said, and shook her head firmly. “Halaquez is just a henchman for a traitor still among them. But if we can find Halaquez, and make him talk...and we can make him talk, Morgan...he will lead us to the one he’s working for. The one who has seen to it that for the last several years, all of the efforts of Little Havana’s Cuban exiles have gone for nothing.”

  I laughed without humor. “I had that bastard in my damn hands, but he slipped out of them.”

  “Halaquez?”

  “Yes,” I said, and filled her in on my side of things.

  It took a good ten minutes, going through in a linear fashion, starting with Pedro and company recruiting me to recover the stolen seventy-five grand, and winding up with the beating of Tango in her motel room, with me killing Halaquez’s crony there and Halaquez himself getting away.

  “This has to be about more than just the seventy-five thousand dollars,” she said, when I finished, her expression and tone intense. “Two Cuban heavies, imported to back Halaquez up? It has to be much more.”

  “The answer,” I said, “is tied up with this Richard Best character.”

  “Him I’ve never heard of,” she admitted. “That’s a new lead...and maybe you should keep chasing it down.” She took my face in her hands and said, “We’re very close. You keep up your efforts on the Best front. Can I contact you here?”

  “Yes, through the madam—Bunny.”

  She nodded. “I know Bunny. This house is an intelligence resource for the Company. Morg, you can reach me at the Raleigh Hotel. I’m registered as Kim Winters.”

  That made me smile—Winters was the name I’d married her under, using “Morgan” as a first name.

  “Spies shouldn’t be sentimental slobs,” I told her.

  Her smile turned up wickedly at one corner. “I never said I was perfect, did I?”

  “No. That was me who said that about you.”

  She gave me a kiss, nothing hot, just friendly, and slid off the bed.

  “Gotta go,” she said.

  I followed her to the hidden door. “Why? Look, that bed is as good as any other. We’ve talked our business. So let’s get down to business.”

  She shook her head. “I would like nothing better than to crawl under those covers with you and not come out for a week. But we don’t have a week, and I’m just stubborn enough to want to start this marriage off with better than a quickie.”

  “Aw, Kim, for Christ’s sake....”

  “Morg, do you know who I report to? Do you know who’s in town, running the Halaquez operation? Or did your ego tell you you were the star of the show?”

  My mouth dropped and the words crawled out. “Not... Crowley.”

  “Yes. Your own personal Inspector Gerard himself. I report directly to him, and he knows about us, so he’s been watching me like a hawk. That’s why I’ve waited for days to risk this. My love...we must be careful.”

  I took her by the arms, firm, almost rough. Almost. “I want to see him.”

  “What?”

  “Crowley. Goddamnit, Kim, we’re working on the same case. I want Halaquez, and so, apparently, does he. I want a chance to sit down with him at a neutral place, and see if we can’t come up with a truce till this thing is over.”

  “Morgan, I don’t really think that’s—”

  “Kim, I am trying to conduct an investigation, a manhunt, from a goddamn whorehouse bedroom. I have something in common with the Cubans—I want some freedom. What do you say?”

  Her eyes were slitted with worry. “If he knows we’ve had contact, I would be in a shitload of trouble.”

  “Then make up a story. Say I tracked you down, and we talked just long enough for me to make this request.”

  She thought about it.

  Then she nodded, crisply. “All right. Is there a phone in here?”

  “No, but Bunny has one.”

  Bunny—who was learning not to ask too many questions—gave us the use of both her office and her phone.

  Kim dialed the Raleigh, said, “Room 414, please,” and moments later had Crowley on the line, telling him she was sitting in an all-night diner near the City Curb Market, and that I’d come out of nowhere and braced her.

  “Crowley wants to talk to you,” she said, putting just the right alarm and hesitancy in her voice.

  She gave me the receiver.

  “Hi, Walter. Long time no see.”

  “Morgan,” Crowley said, giving it the inflection of a curse. “I guess I should have kept a tail on that wife of yours.”

  “She’s not my wife. That was just a cover story, old buddy. I want a few minutes of your time. We have some m
utual interests here in Miami that could be served.”

  “...All right. You’ll want the meet in a neutral place.”

  “Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock, Bayfront Park. Find yourself a seat in that amphitheater, and come alone. Keep in mind what happened to Mayor Cermak in that arena.”

  “All right, Morgan. I’ll keep that in mind. And I’ll come alone.”

  “I see any sign of agents backing you up, no meet. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  I hung up.

  Kim said, “He agreed to it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’ll have agents there, Morg.”

  “Oh, I know. They’ll be hard to spot. They’ll be the assholes in dark suits and ties.”

  That made her smile.

  Then I walked her up to Gaita’s room and, before I could convince her that another half an hour would be worth risking, my bride had flown.

  The cab dropped me under the front awning of the Raleigh Hotel, a 1930s-modern hotel dating to the pre-war boom, when that ten-mile sandbar called Miami Beach really took off. In a black sport jacket, charcoal sport shirt, and gray trousers, I looked like just another fairly well-off tourist, though my only baggage was the .45 under my arm.

  I didn’t enter the lobby, instead skirting around the building to where a massive if oddly shaped swimming pool was alive with Latin-styled popular music, laughter, and splashing. A nice salty breeze was rolling in off the ocean, but it was still a warm night. Lots of pretty girls in bikinis sunning by Hawaiian-type torchlight were getting plied with mixed drinks by determined guys in bathing suits, who knew that at a little after one o’clock a.m., they better get lucky damn soon.

  Avoiding the lobby probably hadn’t been a necessity—I wasn’t checking in, or even asking for information, so the desk having my photo probably didn’t come into play. Though I supposed it was possible that some security was lounging in the lobby.

  But I didn’t think so. An advantage the hunted has over the hunter is that the hunter is seldom in hiding. The hunter never thinks about getting stalked himself.

  So when I knocked on the door of room 414, it only took two knocks before it cracked open, without even a “Who is it?” Which meant I’d wasted time coming up with the “Telegram, Mr. Crowley” gag.

  I pushed the door open, grabbing Crowley by the arm with one hand—he was in a terrycloth Raleigh bathrobe over blue silk pajamas—and with the other whipping the .45 out, kicking the door closed behind me.

  I dragged him into the hotel room—not a suite, just a good-size room with sea-foam coloration and modern furnishings, if 1937 was your idea of modern. I dumped him on the bed, went over and double-locked the door, using the night latch, commenting, “You ought to try this thing—it’s the latest in security measures,” then came back, pulled up a rounded pink chair that was more comfortable than it looked and sat across from him. Pointing the .45 at him in a not terribly menacing way.

  Just menacing enough.

  “Hello, Walter.”

  “You’re out of your goddamn mind!” Crowley spat.

  That bland mug of his actually worked up some emotion, the tiny dark eyes dancing with outrage in the pale oval face under the thinning amber hair. His fists were clenched, and they looked small, like a child’s. He wasn’t a small man, but he was smaller than me, and fish-belly pale.

  Bureaucrats can make your life a living hell, but they often don’t look like much in the flesh.

  “I decided to move our meeting up a few hours,” I said. “And change the location. Last-minute changes for meets, there’s another security measure you Company boys may want to consider.”

  “Morgan, there are half a dozen agents on this floor!”

  “Yeah, all snug in their beds, or maybe down by the pool trying to get laid. Guys on your side of the fence never figure they need any protection. You’re big bad G-men, after all.”

  “What the hell do you want?”

  “Like I said on the phone—I want to talk. I just don’t want to get my ass hauled off to the slammer before we have the chance to confab.”

  “I told you I’d come alone tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, well, you were lying. But I don’t hold that against you. I already knew I wasn’t going to show up at that park.”

  His upper lip curled back in outrage, exposing too much gum and tiny white teeth. “Where is Kim Stacy? What have you done with Kim Stacy!”

  “I left her in that diner. She’s probably back in her room, by now, down the hall, if you’re to be believed. Why don’t you call her? But she might be cross, if you wake her up.”

  His eyes tightened. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this?”

  “No. But I did talk to her, and she did admit that you people are looking for Jaimie Halaquez, too.”

  His eyes stayed tight and his chin crinkled. Should he talk to me? Finally he decided. “That’s right, Morgan. We are.”

  I grinned at him. “You weren’t in Miami looking for me. You were already here on the Halaquez case. And I just walked into it.”

  Crowley nodded. “But I think we gave you proper attention. I don’t think you need to feel neglected.”

  “No, no complaints. You’ve kept me hopping. It’s tempting just to shoot you, so I can hijack that bed for a decent night’s sleep.”

  He smiled a little. It bordered on a sneer. “But you’re not a killer, Morgan. You kill, but only in self-defense.”

  “Well, Walter, I’d guess I’d have to agree with you. But that’s more a rule of thumb than a rule. You still don’t want to get on my bad side.”

  “I would guess I already am.”

  “Not really. You’re just a guy trying to do your job. You’re a working stiff who’s confused and doesn’t know it, because you’re on the wrong track. I’m not the guy you should be going after.”

  That got half a smile out of him, putting a dimple in that smooth face. “Really? Who is the guy I should looking for?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. All I know is, I didn’t take down that money truck. Kim Stacy told you what she heard on that runway in Nuevo Cadiz, didn’t she?”

  “She did. But we discounted it. You have a reputation for having a certain...charm. Especially with the ladies.”

  “And yet you kept her on the company payroll? Didn’t discipline her in any way?”

  Crowley’s tone was gently mocking. “Why should a woman be disciplined for loyalty to her own husband? Besides, she’s a fine agent.”

  “Sure, Walter. And there’s that other little thing.”

  “What other little thing is that, Morgan?”

  “That someday she might lead you to me.”

  “And here you sit.”

  “And there you sit. While here I sit with a gun.”

  “You won’t use it.”

  “Don’t push it, Walter. Look, I don’t expect you not to do your job. But since you didn’t come to Miami looking for me—since Jaimie Halaquez was the man you were after—why don’t you just postpone the Morgan manhunt until the other job is done?”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “Because I’m looking for Halaquez, too. I’m working on behalf of the Cuban exiles he robbed. I want to get their money back for them. And I’d be glad to turn him over to you when I’ve shaken that dough out of him.”

  He laughed. A small laugh, but a laugh. “You think you’ll get him before we do? We have an operation already well underway.”

  “Well, I have my charm, remember. It’s possible, going down my own paths and byways, that I might get to him before you do. My priority is that money.”

  He stopped smiling. He was thinking.

  Finally, cocking his head, he said, “What are you proposing?”

  “Not that we throw in together, not exactly. Just call off the dogs. Let me move freely through this city. I’ll keep you informed, calling you here at the hotel. And if I find him, and don’t have to kill him...he’s yours.”

  Crowley’s ey
es moved with thought as he tried to find a flaw in my proposal.

  Then he asked, “And what then?”

  “After I turn him over...or after you catch him, if I’m not part of it...you pay me the courtesy of giving me twenty-four hours before you open the Company kennels again. It’s a fair request, Walter.”

  “It’s fair, but it’s nothing my superiors would endorse.”

  “Don’t ask them. Someday I’ll prove my innocence, and you’ll know you did the right thing.”

  Crowley thought some more.

  Then: “Oh-kay....but there’s nothing I can give you but my word.”

  “I accept that.”

  He laughed, loud enough to ring off the plaster walls. “Are you sure? You didn’t believe me on the phone when I said I’d come alone tomorrow.”

  “We’re in the same room, and we’re looking at each other. And you’re looking down the barrel of my gun. I’ll take your word.”

  He nodded. “What now?”

  “I’ve already briefed Kim Stacy on my activities of the last few days. She can fill you in.”

  And that would leave how much she told Crowley to her own discretion.

  I went on: “But with one of the byways I’m going down, I could use some help.”

  “You said we wouldn’t be working together.”

  “This is just some information that I could use. You may not even have it.”

  “All right. Go ahead, Morgan. Ask.”

  “Does the name Richard Best mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “How about Richard Parvain?”

  Now he frowned. “Parvain you say? You wouldn’t be talking about an inventor by any chance?”

  “That’s right. What’s the story on him?”

  His eyebrows went up, stayed there a few seconds, then came down again. “Well, he never worked for the government, not as an employee. Always on contract. I can’t tell you what he was working on—”

  “I can tell you. He was developing a sort of Geiger counter that could make its readings from a great distance. Like in an airplane.”

  His eyebrows went up and down again, more quickly this time. “All right. I won’t deny that. The device was helpful. But then Parvain had a nervous breakdown, and a drinking problem, and he became a bad risk. He had another, even more important concept that he never delivered on. Finally, ties were cut with him.”