The Consummata Page 16

  “How long ago?”

  “Oh...five years...seven years.”

  “What was the ‘important concept’?”

  “Morgan, that’s classified—you know I can’t...”

  “Crowley, you said yourself Parvain never delivered. What was the concept?”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was murdered two days ago. Under the Richard Best name.”

  Crowley’s eyes widened. “Christ. What were the circumstances?”

  I told him.

  Then I said, “What was the invention he promised but couldn’t come through on?”

  Crowley’s sigh seemed to come from his toes. “It was an extension, an expansion of his original idea. This was a device that could detect the presence of atomic materials on the ground...from the air.”

  “You mean—a spy plane could know if an enemy had a storehouse of nuclear materials? Could pinpoint the location of missiles in silos? Could—”

  He raised his hand. “Those applications and many more. When Parvain began his work on the project, we were especially sensitive to the threat of nuclear warheads in Cuba—it was a way to make sure the Russians hadn’t secretly outfitted Cuba with missiles.”

  I let out a low whistle.

  With a weary shrug, the man in the bathrobe said, “The government put a lot of money into the project, but finally pulled the plug. Parvain insisted on working alone, without supervision. He was, frankly, a crank. And then a crazy crank, and finally an alcoholic one. Morgan, you don’t seriously believe he did finalize those plans?”

  Now it was my turn to sigh from my shoes. I rose. I put the .45 away.

  “Walter, if a scientist being crazy or a boozer precluded his ability to come up with innovations, you and I would be going to work every day in a horse and buggy.”

  And I left him there to think that over.

  That and the rest of it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  There’s an old Army dodge that anyone carrying a clipboard stacked with printed forms, a pocketful of yellow pencils, and one of those inspection team expressions was a guy to stay away from. In a hospital, just add a white lab-type coat, and watch everybody you pass get suddenly too busy to talk, finding only enough time to smile politely and scurry away on unknown business.

  Watch out for the man with clipboard, people! What you don’t tell him, he can’t write down....

  So there was no trouble getting to the right floor and the right room at Miami General. The police guard on the door was a sleepy-eyed kid of maybe twenty-three sitting on a folding chair. His head was down and he might have been napping when I approached and cleared my throat. His eyes popped open and his chin jutted upward.

  In my most officious tone, I asked, “Has any unauthorized party tried to get in to see Miss Prosser?”

  “N-no, sir,” he said, and began to get up.

  I motioned for him to stay put. “Has she had any visitors this morning?”

  “Just Sgt. Patterson of Homicide and Lt. Davis from Burglary. You’re, uh, with the hospital, sir?”

  I glared at him. “You’re just getting around to asking me that?”

  And I shook my head disgustedly and went into Tango’s room, shutting the door on the young cop’s sputtered apology.

  Her eyes were closed. Possibly she was asleep, but in any case, breathing regularly, hooked up on an I.V., the shapely slenderness of her tall frame obvious under the sheet. Even battered and swollen and bandaged, her face held the striking exotic beauty that had allowed her to get out of her drunken father’s house—of course, she’d only traded it for a brothel, but still an improvement. Her bed was cranked up some-what, and her arms weren’t under the covers, her dark tan a stark contrast with the hospital gown and sheets.

  As I approached the bed, her eyes half opened. “Doctor...?”

  “No,” I said. “My name’s Morgan.”

  Her eyes opened all the way, not quite startled, big dark brown pools. This was a lovely woman, all right, even after that bastard Halaquez had got through with her.

  “You’re Bunny’s friend,” she said.

  “Yes.” I gestured to the white lab coat, and tossed the clipboard onto her bedside table next to the water and Kleenex box. “This is just a get-up to avoid too many questions, coming to see you. How you doing, kid?”

  She smiled. “I have a little button I can press when I want more morphine.”

  Her mouth, even without lipstick, provided a wide, attractive frame for perfect teeth that must have come from God, because her old man surely hadn’t paid many dental bills.

  “You been pushing the happy button much?”

  Her laugh was just a little punch of air. “Now and then. I’m doing all right. Nothing was broken. But that Jaimie... he, uh...really knows how to hurt a girl’s feelings, huh?”

  I leaned in. Spoke softly. “You prefer Tango or Theresa?”

  “I feel more like Theresa right now.”

  “Okay, Theresa. Did they tell you that Halaquez got away, but that his helper didn’t? That the helper got killed in a struggle there in your motel room?”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t spread it around,” I said, and risked a smile, “but I’m the guy who cluttered your room up with that trash. I wish I’d gotten there sooner. And your friend Jaimie slipped through my damn fingers, I’m not proud to say.”

  “Jaimie was...was never my friend. I knew him from the Mandor, a little. I heard about him from other girls. I don’t go that route.”

  “What route?”

  “The bondage route. That’s Jaimie’s thing, you know. He wants to be hurt. Then later...he wants to hurt you. That’s what I hear, anyway, from my co-workers. He, uh...really does seem to know his way around torture.”

  “Then why did you have his picture? It was in one of your purses in your room at the club.”

  “Dickie gave that to me.”

  “Dickie. Dick Best?”

  She nodded. “He gave me that picture and said that if anything ever happened to him, give it to the police. I took it and said I would, but never did, or...haven’t yet. When I heard Dickie was dead, I was sorry...I cried. But I didn’t want to get involved any more than I already was.”

  “But you recognized the picture.”

  “Yes, only I didn’t tell Dickie. He might have misunderstood if he thought I knew Jaimie. Might’ve thought I’d been one of Jaimie’s girls at the Mandor, even though I wasn’t. You see, Dickie...he was different. He was...special.”

  “How so, Theresa?”

  “He was an older man, you know...he only wanted to protect me. Wanted me to go off with him and...and we would start over somewhere. Dickie was a very smart man. He was an inventor....”

  “I know. Theresa, I have to ask this. You don’t really like men, do you? I have an idea you like women better.”

  Her smile was a tiny white thing in the beautiful battered face. “I don’t like sex at all, Mr. Morgan.”

  “Just ‘Morgan.’ Then why would you go into the sex-formoney trade?”

  “Because it’s just that. A trade. I am a good-looking woman, or anyway I am when I’m not covered in bruises and burns. My looks, Morgan...they’re really all I’ve got. I’m not stupid, but I’m not smart.” The exotic face took on a sudden hard cast. “I’m a good-looking piece of ass, and so that’s the commodity I sell.”

  “Is that how Dickie Best looked at you? As a good-looking piece of ass?”

  Her smile disappeared. Her eyes moistened. “No. He said I was his...his poor little lost lamb.”

  “Your relationship wasn’t sexual?”

  “Not...not mostly sexual. Dickie, he...oh, he liked sex. We had sex sometimes. Mostly I just...I just used my hand. That seemed enough. He was more a friend to me. Someone I admired. Someone who was kind. Someone who loved me, but didn’t force me to do anything I didn’t want to.”

  The decent father she never had, if you factored out the hand jobs.

  “We we
re going to go off together,” she said. “Dickie said he already had a...his words were, ‘Decent amount of money.’ But he could get more. He said he thought he could...I don’t know exactly what this means, Morgan, but this is what he said...he said, ‘I think I can shake half a million out of them. Then we can go to Mexico and live like royalty.’ He said it was cheap to live in Mexico.”

  “Do you have any idea who it was he planned to shake that money out of?”

  “It must have been Jaimie Halaquez. Otherwise, why would Dickie leave me that picture? And why would Jaimie come to my motel room and...and do what he did?”

  “What did Jaimie want from you?”

  “He wanted to know everything that Dickie had said. I told him. I didn’t tell him about the photo because I thought that might get me killed. But I told him everything else. Only...that wasn’t enough. Jaimie was convinced that I had something, something valuable, something that Dickie had given me. But I didn’t. I don’t.”

  “What was that valuable thing?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “When he worked you over, Theresa, didn’t Halaquez say what he was looking for?”

  “No! Just...’Where is it?’ Over and over again...where is it!”

  The door opened and I turned, wondering if I’d been made, hoping that if it was cops, Crowley calling off the dogs included alerting the local canines that I was off the federal wanted list.

  But it wasn’t a dog at all—it was a Bunny.

  Funny to see her in a black-and-gray business suit, looking more like an officer at a bank than a whorehouse madam. Even all that blonde hair was pinned back in a dignified way, though there was no hiding the purple streaks.

  “Morgan,” Bunny said, and rushed to my side. “How’s my girl doing?”

  “Ask her yourself,” I said, turned to smile and nod at the patient, then stepped aside.

  I took a chair in the corner while the two women talked for about five minutes. Nothing touched upon why I was here. Finally I called Bunny over and she pulled a chair around, so we were facing each other. I saw Theresa thumb her morphine button, and her eyes closed, and she drifted off early in my conversation with Bunny, which was whispered.

  “You’re taking a chance, being here,” Bunny said to me.

  “Not as big as it used to be. I’ve worked out a truce with that fed, Crowley, though I’m not sure the white flag extends to the local fuzz.”

  “I can spread that word to my contacts on the Miami PD,” Bunny said, “if it’ll help.”

  “Worth a try. What do those cop contacts have to say about Tango’s situation?”

  “Nobody has any idea that Morgan the Raider was in that motel room. They think another guest at the Vincalla heard the scuffle, got involved, and one of Tango’s torturers got himself plugged with his own gun in the process. The fuzz figure this guest called it in and then made himself scarce.”

  “And that’s as far as it goes?”

  “No, they’re investigating. Questioning the other motel guests.”

  “Good. That’ll keep ’em busy. Did they say anything about the Best killing? I understand cops from both Homicide and Burglary were here talking to Tango this morning.”

  Her eyes and nostrils flared like a filly’s on its hind legs. “Damn, Morgan—you pick up information like blue serge does lint. As it happens, there’s an oddity about the Best killing that’s come up. Seems two neighbors at Best’s apartment house report hearing what might have been a scuffle next door, tallying with the approximate time of death.”

  “That’s not surprising.”

  “No, but these neighbors also heard noises later on...not another scuffle, but sounds that could have been Best’s room being tossed...that same night. About two hours after.”

  “Really? Interesting.”

  “Interesting? That all you have to say, Morg? What’s it mean?”

  It might mean Halaquez had killed Best prematurely, and whoever he reported to had sent Jaimie’s dumb ass back to search for the same unknown item that Tango had been tortured over.

  “No idea,” I told her.

  “Listen, there’s something that may or may not mean a damn thing. Gaita’s kind of...well, fallen off the map.”

  “What?”

  “Morgan—easy. I probably overstated it. She took off early yesterday, without saying anything, which is unusual. Today’s her regular day off, but I don’t get any answer where she stays, when she isn’t at the Mandor.”

  “I should check this.”

  She held up a hand. “I already did. I stopped by on my way here. Her landlady was there and said Gaita hasn’t been around for several days. I asked to look in her room, but she wasn’t there.”

  “Any sign of a struggle? Anything unusual?”

  “No. Sometimes that girl just takes off, to be by herself. The only thing really unusual is, well...with what’s going on lately, I would think she would stick around. In case she was needed.”

  “Did you check with her friends in Little Havana? Pedro and Maria...?”

  “Yes. They haven’t heard from her either. Really, it’s probably nothing. Hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. But I figured you should know.”

  I nodded, troubled but not sure if I needed to be, and not knowing what the hell I could do about it, if I did need to be.

  Theresa was asleep as I headed out, so when Bunny called to stop me, her voice was hushed: “Oh—Morgan. Something else....”

  I went over to her. She was getting in her purse.

  “This came today,” she said, and handed me an opened envelope. It was addressed to Bunny at the Mandor Club, no return address, and inside was a kid’s birthday card with bunnies on it.

  Tucked in the card was a thousand dollars in C-notes.

  No signature.

  “Best?” I said.

  She shrugged and nodded at the same time. “I think it’s that late birthday present he promised me. Must have been forwarded by a lawyer or something.”

  “Was there anything else in the envelope?”

  “Yes...but not addressed to me.”

  She got back in her purse and found a tiny manila envelope that said: Please give to Tango for me. R.B.

  My fingers told me it was a key.

  “I’m taking this,” I said.

  She didn’t argue. “What is it?”

  I tore open the envelope, shook the contents into my palm, showed her the key there. It said UBS 117.

  Glancing over at the battered beauty, I said, “I think it’s what Tango got the hell beat out of her over.”

  I gave the startled-looking Bunny a kiss on the cheek, slipped the key back in its little envelope, and dropped it in my sportcoat pocket.

  On the way out I told the young cop at the door to stay sharp.

  “Somebody may to try to kill that woman,” I told him, jerking a thumb at the hospital room door.

  His eyes popped. “You really think so?”

  “A possibility. One other thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Start checking I.D.”

  He was nodding at the wisdom of that as I walked away.

  The Union Bus Station on Northeast First Street was fairly dead just after lunch. I was all alone at the wall of lockers when I searched out number 117, tried the key, and found nestled within a black leather bag that resembled the sort of bag doctors carried, back when house calls were more common.

  I admit to being surprised—I figured on finding an envelope, a much larger manila one than the little key had come in. Surely what Halaquez and his boss were after were the finished plans to that improved version of Best’s atomic divining rod.

  How else could the crackpot inventor have expected to come up with the kind of loot he’d told Tango he could “shake out of them”?

  I wandered into the men’s room. There were half a dozen sinks and as many stalls, but right now I had the place to myself. Taking no chances, I selected a stall, faced the toilet, put a foot on the stool, a
nd propped the Gladstone bag against my leg—no lock on the thing, it just popped right open....

  The money was stacked in there with a scientist’s precision. It was all kinds of bills, mostly small and well-used, and I wasn’t about to take the time and trouble to count it; but odds were this was the bulk of the seventy-five grand that my Little Havana employers had asked me to recover.

  It should be at least $1000 short, because Bunny had earned her late birthday present for being the buffer between Tango and the hidden loot.

  And now I got it.

  Now it made sense, everything falling into place like the tumblers of a lock picked by an expert safecracker.

  Dick Best recognizes Jaimie Halaquez at the Mandor Club from back when both were working with the CIA on various Cuba libre projects. The aging inventor approaches Halaquez and tells the Cuban that he’s developing an atomic-materials detector, a potentially key discovery in the Cold War arms race.

  Halaquez steals $75,000 from the Cuban exiles’ treasury and funds Best’s research project. In the meantime, Halaquez goes into hiding, moving from one safe house in one city to another in another, until finally returning to Miami to collect on his investment.

  But for reasons unknown, Best does not or cannot deliver— possibly the inventor had been scamming his angel all along, or likely Best demanded more money, saying additional research was required.

  Either way, Halaquez decides to cut his losses, and the only further payment Best gets is a fatal karate chop to the back of the neck.

  But when Halaquez reports in, his superior sends his heavyhanded minion back to Best’s apartment to search it—for either the atomic plans, the money...or both.

  Torturing Tango was likely an attempt to find those plans, not retrieve the relatively paltry seventy-five grand. But the importance of the invention Best was dangling in front of the Commies explained why heavies from Cuba had been imported to give Halaquez a hand....

  This was speculation, of course, but informed speculation, and as if more proof were needed, the door to my stall was kicked open, swiping me across the back and sending me off balance, only to catch myself with a hand against the wall. I looked back and saw a guy a head taller than me with skin the color of coffee-with-cream—spiffy in a sharply cut brown suit with black lapels—grinning (he had a golden incisor) the way a big rapist does at a little girl.