The Consummata Read online

  Then he grabbed me by the shoulders and dragged me out of the stall and flung me against the row of sinks. The doctor’s bag of money, which I hadn’t snapped shut, stayed in the stall, clunking on its side on the tile floor, spilling cash.

  I hit hard, but not so hard that I couldn’t whip my .45 out from under my arm, only the big guy, who looked like a linebacker but had a ballet dancer’s grace, nimbly kicked the gun from my hand, his pointy Cuban boot jabbing my right wrist. The automatic skittered and spun on the tile floor, way out of reach. He was coming at me with clawed hands outstretched and with a gold-toothed grin that seemed at once menacing and simple-minded, and I braced my hands on the edge of sink behind me, lifted myself and kicked out with both feet and caught him in the chest.

  He went windmilling back, slapping open and returning to the stall he’d dragged me from, moisture catching his fancy boots and depositing him on the floor, the stool stopping him, and this time it was my attacker who was clawing for a rod under his arm, a .22 automatic that was aimed right at me when I was all but on top of him, and I batted it away and took him by the legs and upended him. He conked his head on the porcelain edge of the crapper, dazing himself, and then I lifted him up and over and dunked him in, so that he made a splashing underwater headstand in the bowl. I had him around the waist and I hugged him like I loved him, his feet kicking harmlessly above me, his hands trying to swim in the air but getting nowhere, swiping at me but seldom landing and then with more hysteria than power, and it took him probably two gurgling minutes to drown.

  I pulled him up and out and sat him loosely on the stool. His eyes were open but not seeing anything, and his hair, which had been slicked back like George Raft’s, was trailing down his forehead in damp seaweed tendrils now. I had gotten pretty wet myself, my pants anyway, and I was exhausted. You try holding a two-hundred-pound bastard upside down in a john and see if you don’t come out wiped.

  When I shut him in there, all you could see were two feet visible under the door of a stall. The floor was a little waterpooled in there, but otherwise it was normal enough a sight.

  I retrieved my .45 and stuck it back under my arm.

  At the row of sinks, I repacked the Gladstone bag, some of the bills pretty damp. With the party over, I was more attuned to the danger of somebody coming in on me, but either nobody at the bus station had time to go before catching their ride, or I was even luckier than usual.

  I even took time to throw some water on my face and stand there till my breathing was back to normal. I looked at myself in the mirror and answered my own unasked question.

  He must have been watching the hospital, spotted me, and followed me here. Whoever he was.

  But I knew, didn’t I? This was the third Castro Cuban I’d killed in two days....

  On the way out, I understood why we hadn’t been disturbed— my assailant had thoughtfully hung an out of order sign on the door. I guessed I owed him one, but didn’t feel too bad I’d never get the chance to repay him.

  The diner I was meeting Muddy Harris at was only half a dozen blocks from the bus station, so I walked it, and the Miami sunshine dried my trousers by the time I got there. I spotted the bail bondsman in a back booth, waved at him, he waved back, but first I needed the men’s room.

  For a less strenuous session, I hoped.

  It was a one-seater with a single urinal, and you could lock the door, which I did. At the sink, I unloaded the bag of money, and did a fast but probably accurate count.

  There was one-hundred-and-twenty grand in the bag. So Best had squeezed that $75,000 out of Halaquez, and a little more. That gave me an extra $45,000 to play with. If I were a great guy, I would hand that over to the Cuban exiles, too. But I was Morgan the Raider, who just drowned a guy in a toilet, so I would pocket the excess for my trouble.

  That Muddy was having a piece of pie did not surprise me. That he could eat that way, and carry all that weight around, and still find clothes that looked baggy on him, remained a mystery.

  “I hear the heat’s off,” he said cheerfully.

  “Temporarily,” I said. “I struck a deal with Crowley.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “We have mutual interests. He’s after Jaimie Halaquez, too. What is that, coconut cream? À la mode? Are you kidding?”

  His frown was disgusted and disgusting, white-smeared as it was. “Do I look like I need health tips from Morgan the Raider? Listen, I can assure you the Mob is no part of what’s been going down.”

  “You can, huh?”

  He nodded, licked ice cream from his upper lip. “The Mob boys have really distanced themselves from the Cuban exile crowd, the last couple years. Not to mention the CIA— they feel they got burned. Anyway, it’s looking obvious the casinos aren’t going back in, in Havana, any time soon. And you were right—Castro’s made a deal with Trafficante, and dope is flowing. Big heroin source.”

  “Which means...the Mob isn’t part of this.”

  “Yeah, didn’t I say that? But that’s not the big news.”

  “Do I have to buy you more pie before you spill it?”

  “Naw. I’m just having the one piece...that bring-yourown- whips-and-chains party on Palm Beach? At that rented mansion? It happens tonight.”

  I sat forward. “You know this how?”

  “I have ops staking out the area, like you requested. They have this very day seen hookers streaming into that joint like ants to a picnic. These are not your run-of-the-mill chippies —real beautiful pieces, and word is, they are specialists. Domination. Bondage. The whole ball-gag bit.”

  “Coming from out of town, you think?”

  “Oh, no question—some, anyway. There aren’t that many of this specialized type of sex worker in Miami.”

  “And the Consummata herself?”

  He shrugged, patting his comb-over in place. “Well, we don’t know for a fact that this is the Consummata, Morgan. It just fits her M.O., is all. And how would I know her if I saw her? Other than she’s a well-preserved old broad, by all accounts. I mean, she wears a leather mask and the whole nine yards. You know, the Lone Ranger or Zorro, they got nothing on her, and they don’t have tits.”

  “What if I wanted a blueprint on this mansion?”

  He didn’t bother hiding his smugness. Both his grin and tone conveyed it. “I’m ahead of you, Morgan...but it’ll cost you a thousand.”

  “What do I get for it?”

  “How about floor plans? Also, the position of the dock off the back lawn, if you should want to show up by boat.”

  “Done.”

  The fleshy face creased in a smile and he pushed the cleaned plate aside, just as the waitress was coming by. She snagged it but Muddy stopped her, touching her arm. “Do that again, sweetheart, would you? But hold the ice cream. I’m watching my figure.”

  “Bring me a Key Lime,” I said, smiling at her. She was a cute kid. “And some unsweetened iced tea.”

  I’d worked up an appetite.

  “And sweetheart?” Muddy said to her back. She glanced over her shoulder. “Give my friend the check, would you?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  From a phone booth outside a gas station, I tried to get Kim at her room at the Raleigh. She didn’t answer, but I did catch Crowley in his.

  He said, “Was that your handiwork at the bus station?”

  “It was self-defense.”

  “How do you drown somebody in self-defense?”

  “Well, you have to be willing to get wet. Prick shouldn’t have interrupted me in that stall. Whatever happened to common courtesy?”

  “Jesus, Morgan. I give you a free pass and you—”

  “What do the cops know?”

  “Nothing to speak of. I haven’t seen the body yet, but judging by the description, I’m thinking it’s another of these hardcases imported from Cuba. I’m pretty sure we’ll come up bupkus on prints.”

  “Yeah, I sincerely doubt he had a green card.”

  Crowley grunted. �
��Something a lot more important than a seventy-five grand score brings that kind of talent to town.”

  “No argument. I recovered the seventy-five thousand, by the way.”

  “How?”

  “Not important. Let’s just say, I found what those tourists from Havana were looking for. Any objection to my turning those greenbacks back over to the Cuban exiles?”

  “If I had any objections, would it do any good?”

  “No.”

  “Well...you have my blessing, anyway. More power to them. We weren’t looking to recover that money as much as Halaquez himself. He could be a major source of information, under the right interrogation techniques.”

  “You better find him before I do.”

  “Morgan, you’ve done enough killing....”

  “I’m not going to kill the bastard.”

  “No?”

  “No. I’m just going to turn him in to the people he screwed over. Maybe they’ll have some ideas of their own.”

  “Morgan—”

  I hung up.

  Once again, a taxi took me to Little Havana. By sunlight, it was a different place, with only the familiar coffee and tobacco scents to say otherwise. The Spanish architecture of Calle Ocho, its sidewalks shaded by nicely spaced palms, made an authentic backdrop to the outdoor cafes, gift shops and magic-potion dens courting tourists.

  I was in a tan suit with a brown sport shirt and Ray-Bans, just another gringo rubbernecker. Only this gringo had a .45 under his arm and a money bag in his fist.

  I’d called ahead, and soon I was sitting at the familiar dining table in the simple room of second-hand furnishings and Catholic icons in the living quarters over that grocery. Pedro, in a yellow pleated button-down shirt, had a matching cap before him on the table, like a dish he was preparing to eat. Next to him, dignified Luis Saladar—his plantationowner white hat on the table—wore a cream-color suit with yet another black bolo tie.

  Both men were smiling, but especially Pedro, his upraised grin at odds with his down-tipped bandito mustache.

  No food was being served at this table—Maria wasn’t with us this afternoon, working downstairs in the tiendo—but a feast had been served up. By me. I had dumped the black leather bag onto the table and turned Richard Best’s neat stacks into an ungainly pile of money, all sorts of denominations, though rarely over $20, representing hundreds of small but hard-earned contributions from the Cuban exile community.

  “That’s seventy-five thousand,” I said, “on the nose.”

  Saladar’s smile became a curious frown. “Halaquez had not turned it into foreign currency, as you had thought?”

  “No. No need. He was using it to fund a project here in the States.”

  “What project, señor?”

  “Not important. What is important is that pile of cash.”

  Pedro, so happy his eyes brimmed with tears, said, “But you did not take out your payment, Señor Morgan! Do we not owe you another six-thousand-and—”

  I held up a hand. “The five-thousand-dollar down payment will cover it, and my expenses. I recovered more money than this...” I nodded toward the cash “...and I’ve helped myself to the excess.”

  Saladar was really frowning now. “How much more, señor?”

  “Does that matter? I fulfilled my contract at a bargain rate.”

  Pedro didn’t care about such trivialities, though the exile leader remained troubled.

  “I don’t know where Halaquez got the extra dough,” I said, answering the question in Saladar’s eyes. “I will say he was working on something bigger than raiding your treasury. Three asesinos from Castro’s Cuba have been backing him up, of late. I’ve taken out all three.”

  Pedro’s smile finally vanished and he raised his hands as if in surrender. “Perhaps it is best you do not share all of this informacion with us, señor. We are very satisfied with these results. We do not...begrudge, is that the word? We do not begrudge you making a profit from your hard and most dangerous work.”

  “You’re only disappointed,” I said, reading it in his voice, “that I haven’t killed Halaquez, or better still turned his sorry ass over to you.”

  “Señor....”

  “Well, me, too, Pedro. But before I move on...and soon I’ll have to, because the federales will come down on me before long...I have one last chance to catch this bastardo, Halaquez.”

  Still troubled, Saladar asked, “Would this require further payment, Señor Morgan?”

  “No. This is something I can do toward that extra money I recovered. Plus, three times this son of a bitch has tried to have me killed. And who’s to say he won’t stay at it?”

  Pedro said, “What can we do to help, amigo?”

  “I need a boat. A cruiser, if possible. Something I can arrive in quickly, and leave the same way, with room for a passenger or two.”

  Saladar had lost his frown, and was thinking about smiling again. “A passenger like Jaimie Halaquez?”

  “You got it. And I may need to keep it.”

  “Keep the boat, señor?”

  “It may become my getaway ride from this part of the world. If I do keep it, I’ll pay the freight, but you might have to wait for the money till I’m somewhere I can properly get it to you.”

  Pedro looked pointedly at Saladar. “What about your boat, Luis?”

  That Saladar had access to a boat did not surprise me—the Cuban exiles would have any number of uses for one.

  Saladar was already nodding. “I was thinking the same. Señor Morgan, I have the Chris-Craft. It is thirty-three feet. Two V8 engines. Would that do?”

  I grinned at him, nodding. “That would do fine. It’s your boat, you say?”

  “Si, señor.”

  “What value would you place on it?”

  “It is hard to say. It is several years old. Perhaps ten years. Still, it would be a considerable cost to replace it. And we would, señor, need to get another.”

  “How considerable?”

  “I would say...fifteen thousand American?”

  “All right. I may not have to hang onto it. That’s just one of a number of things that I won’t know until the time comes.”

  Saladar sat forward. “Do you need someone to watch your back, amigo?”

  “Luis, I would hate to impose on your generosity yet again....”

  He made a bowing gesture like a Middle Eastern pasha. “To accompany you would be an honor, señor. I will bring a gun, no?”

  “You will bring a gun,” I said, “yes.”

  The night was as clear and warmly windy as you might imagine of Miami, though under a sickle slice of moon, Biscayne Bay seemed uncommonly dark, with more light from the shorelines than the sky. And shorelines was right, because there were assorted islands to navigate, some—like Palm Island—man-made.

  I sat with Saladar up on the flybridge of the Chris-Craft Futura, letting him play captain—these were his waters, after all, smooth waters right now, with only a gentle refreshing spray to remind us where we were.

  We’d started out in a marina near Bayfront Park and cut between islands and under the MacArthur Causeway, which ran parallel to the ten-mile-wide Palm Island, coming up on the dockside down behind the old stucco mansion.

  The boat Saladar provided was a good one, a rare Sport Express model dating to ’57, black hull with brown and white trim, rakish as hell, the words Black Beauty on its stern. The cabin below had built-in couches and tables, and a wellequipped galley, with forward sleeping quarters. Not a bad candidate for Morgan the Raider’s new galleon.

  Cutting a dashing figure with his well-trimmed mustache and spade beard, Saladar had at my request worn black, a cap in place of his plantation hat, his shirt another of those pleated button-down jobs, his pants sporting a gaucho flare, with a .38 long-barrel revolver low on his hip, gunfighter-style.

  My suit was a sharp charcoal number I picked up in Miami Beach, though the coat was a size up to help disguise the shoulder sling with .45, and to give me
easy access to the razor-sharp six-inch throwing knife in the sheath strapped to my left forearm. My shirt was black, my tie midnight blue—dark enough to blend into the night, but a look suitable for just another sleazy well-off guest.

  When we tied up, ours was the only boat at the little dock—no surprise, since no one lived at the mansion right now. Rows of palms bordered a back yard big enough to build half a dozen tract homes on, and there was just enough moonlight to reveal that the swimming pool was empty, cracked, and dirty looking.

  The abandoned pool was halfway between here and the mansion, its neo-Spanish structure typical of the 1920’s real estate boom, a little landscaped rise putting the massive structure up on a pedestal it no longer quite deserved. In the meager moonlight, I couldn’t tell whether the house was white or beige or yellow, though the tile roof appeared to be a shade of dark green.

  “Just sit up in the flybridge,” I advised Saladar.

  Right now we were on the dock.

  He frowned and cocked his head. “I will be out in the open, Señor Morgan.”

  “Yes, and there’ll be security working this shindig. They may notice you. Be friendly and just say you are waiting for the senator.”

  “What senator, señor?”

  “Any senator. That’s all you’ll have to say, most likely. If they get nasty, show them your gun, then tie them up with that green tape I gave you.”

  “Si, señor.”

  I had a roll of duck tape in my jacket pocket, too—I’d learned in the military that you could fix anything from a gun to a jeep with that stuff, and it made excellent gags and bindings. No way to conceal that bulge...but a necessary tool tonight.

  I hoped not to kill anybody on this mission—even Halaquez. This was, after all, just a party for perverts, who probably deserved a spanking but not to be shot. And why spank somebody who would only enjoy it, unless maybe it’s a beautiful willing woman?