Powder Burn (15 page)

Meadows knew what came next: the phone call.

“We do a routine trace,” Nelson says. “Shocking! Meadows, initial C, is not calling from Manhattan. He’s calling from some fleabag hotel on Miami Beach.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Meadows cried, tossing his head back and forth the way a quadriplegic might try to dislodge a leech.

Nelson sucked on the dead cigar. “You’re not a totally stupid man,” he said after a moment. “I won’t tell you we’ve got a first-degree murder case against you, because we don’t.”

“Why the hell would I buy an airline ticket if I was trying to set the guy up?” Meadows protested. “Why would I hand that lady a twenty? And why would I come here, for Chrissakes?”

Nelson nodded. “Good points. Self-defense is what I suppose your big shot mouthpiece is going to argue. Then the prosecutor will ask: Why didn’t he call the cops? Why did he hide the knife? Why did he pretend he was in New York?” Nelson shrugged amiably. “We don’t have a first-degree murder case,
amigo,
but we do have a case.”

Meadows stifled a moan.

“Suppose we go for second-degree or, assuming we get a pussy prosecutor, manslaughter. What does a trial like that do for an architect’s career? Real lousy publicity, no? You might spend the rest of your life dreaming up pretty gymnasiums or bait-and-tackle shops.”

Meadows closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Nelson spoke slowly, hammering every word.

“That’s not the worst of it, my friend. The best lawyer in Miami can snow a jury, but he will never convince Mono’s friends that you were merely an innocent victim. Or that their brave
compadre
deserved such a death. So it boils down to this: Guilty, you go to jail, a very nasty place. Innocent, and you’re dead two days after you’re back on the streets.”

Meadows was beyond shock. Heads you win, tails I lose. He wished his mother had taught him better how to pray.

“As far as I’m concerned, the worst thing,” said Nelson, “is not that Mono is dead—who cares about that dirtbag?—but that you made him die at precisely the wrong time. I tried to tell you at your place the other night: Mono was never important as Mono. He was a fucking drone, Meadows. He interested me only because he worked directly for
el Jefe,
the ringmaster of the whole fucking cocaine circus.”

“And that’s your prize? Your big promotion?” Meadows sneered.

“I want him badly. Domingo Sosa would have led me to him eventually. It had to happen.”

“Who
was
Sosa?”

“A killer,” Nelson replied. “He moved down from Union City. He had steady work. You were just a little overtime. It must have been quite a fight.”

Nelson watched Meadows’s eyes for an admission. The architect stared back, saying nothing. Nelson could see the fear. Intuition alerted him to the fury that underlay it.

“Mono brought some helpers,” the detective said. “Charming fellows; like lobotomized linebackers. I almost eyeballed them myself a couple nights ago on a surveillance in Little Havana. I’d love to know who they are because I’ll bet they’re about to become
el Jefe
’s new enforcers now that Mono is dead.”

“Newly promoted killers.”

“Sure.” Nelson tapped ashes onto the threadbare carpet. “They stick together. In their line of work it’s not easy finding people you can trust. They are here, that much I know.” He began to stand up. “Well, my friend, time to go.”

“I know who they are,” Meadows said dully.

“What!” Nelson sat down again quickly.

“They were at the dog track with Mono. It was pretty obvious who was boss.”

“Do you know their names?”

“No.”

“Could you describe them?”

“Yes.”

Nelson was excited now.
“Madre de Dios,
tell me what they look like!”

“Why should I?”

Nelson slapped his thigh in exasperation. He leaned back in the chair and made a ceremony of relighting his cigar.

“I don’t blame you, I guess. Use what you know when you need it most. Maybe you can talk to the state’s attorney.”

Nelson puffed the cigar. Meadows coughed. Neither spoke.

Meadows abandoned the idea of flight: too risky. There had to be some other way, some way out. He thought frantically.

Nelson, too, was thinking: To arrest Meadows would please only Pincus and the police department gnomes who assembled crime statistics.
Pobre cabrón.
The gnomes should give medals to citizens who kill killers.… He came to a decision. Screw Pincus and the gnomes. Meadows could recognize Mono’s companions. That mattered most.

“You know,
amigo,
you ruined a three-month investigation by killing that scumbag. If you could help me get things back on the track, maybe we could strike a deal.”

“I’m not interested,” Meadows said quickly, but Nelson saw the flash in the architect’s eye.

“Even if we could agree that Mono’s death goes into the books as one more unsolved drug murder?” Nelson said.

“I didn’t murder anybody,” Meadows replied stubbornly.

“Let’s say I believe you. And then let’s say as a token of good will you do me a favor.”

Nelson had Meadows’s attention now. He could almost see the gray cells churning back from the brink of despair.

“Then?”

“Then you go your way and I go mine. Mono’s dead. Nobody knows who did it. Too bad.
Que descanse en paz.”

“Just like that,” Meadows said.

“Well, a few people in the department would have to know that while one of my sources was working for me, he happened to kill
el Mono
—and I’d have to sit on Pincus. But that’s all. Nobody in the department will weep for him.”

“Yeah, sure. And whose word would I have for all that?”

“Mine.”

“Yours!”

Nelson fought against the color that rose to his cheeks. He was close now. Patience.

“Maybe it’s not much.” Nelson contrived a shallow smile. “But then”—hard now, to the gut—“have you got anything better,
amigo?”

Meadows stared at the yellowed ceiling. He could see himself in handcuffs and, later, as the star attraction in some pompous courtroom. He could see himself stuffed with cocaine and swinging from a varnished wooden beam. No, he had nothing better than the cocky Cuban cop, even if that meant he had nothing. Meadows was tired of being punched. Given a little rope, he might find a way to punch back.

“What do you want?”

“Tell me about those men you saw with Mono. Could you sketch them, like you did Mono?”

“No. It was Mono who interested me.”

“Would they recognize you?”

Meadows mentally reran the scene at the dog track. The lighting had not been good. There had been a crowd. The thugs were not likely to have picked him out. He meant nothing to them.

“They might, but I doubt it.”

Nelson sprang quickly from the chair.

“OK, you’ve got a deal. Get up. You’ve got a tie, haven’t you? Take a shower first; you stink of sweat.”

Cold water helped Meadows restore his equilibrium. Nelson wanted him to do something that was reckless. Surely he would not be content with a description of the junior killers or even a sketch. Nelson would want more, much more.

The architect in Meadows pleaded for caution. It was stupid to deal with the devil, even if he was not lying. Take your chances on the courts. It
was
self-defense.

And fatal not to deal with him, said the bruised and terrified man that was also Meadows. What difference can it make? A drowning man doesn’t care how deep the water is.

When Meadows emerged from the shower, there were no preliminaries.

“The deal is this. I will deposit you, tonight, in a public place where Mono’s friends will be among several hundred people. You will identify them. You will get to know them so well that your sketches of them would make their mothers swoon with delight. If possible, you will learn their names; your Spanish is good enough for that, right?”

Meadows snorted. “A couple of sketches.”

“There’s more,” Nelson said quickly. “I think the man I call
el Jefe
will also be there, somewhere in the crowd. He will surely make contact with Mono’s associates. He needs them now, badly. Watch and listen very closely. Get him for me, Meadows. Bring me a sketch of
el Jefe,
and Mono is forgotten. My word of honor.”

“How can you be sure he will be there?”

“I know my people.”

“Then why don’t you put one of your bushy-tailed narcs in there with a camera? Pincus would blend in about as smoothly as I would.”

Nelson raised a hand. “Let’s just say this is my investigation, OK? Where I am sending you tonight, I could never go myself. Why? Because I’ve probably arrested relatives of half the people there and shared dinner with the rest. Now I’m getting tired of this conversation. Let’s go.”

A hundred questions sprang into Meadows’s mind. What setting, how many people, what kind of light, how much freedom of movement—the kinds of questions an architect might ask a client before he sat down to draw.

“What kind of place is this?” Meadows said.

“You’ll see.”

Two other questions, both vital.

One was whether Nelson would keep his word. There was no sense asking that, so Meadows asked the other.

“Suppose I’m wrong? Suppose Mono’s goons
do
recognize me. What then?”

Nelson shrugged.

“Que sera, sera,”
he said.

Chapter 13

WILBUR PINCUS
did not show up at the Dade Community College for Police Management 202. Instead, he left his two-bedroom apartment about nine and drove his well-polished 1977 Mustang coupe toward Miami Beach. With Nelson out picking up the architect, there was something Pincus had to do.

As he crossed the MacArthur Causeway heading west, the young detective surveyed Biscayne Bay, glass calm under a brilliant summer night’s sky. The sight left him breathless; he wanted to stop just to watch the ivory white yachts rumble south in the Intracoastal.

A group of fishermen clustered on one of the bridges. As Pincus drove past, he noticed one of the rods bent double under the silver muscle of a terrific game fish. He fought the urge to pull over and enjoy the battle.

Pincus came to the turnoff for Hibiscus Island, an exclusive dollop of real estate halfway between the Miami mainland and the beach. A heavy-lidded security guard scuttled from a wooden gatehouse and waved him down.

“I’m going to see Mr. Nelson,” Pincus said.

The guard peered into the car and nodded. “Need your name,” he said, lifting a clipboard.

“Wilson. Gregory Wilson.”

The gate opened, and the Mustang cruised through.

Pincus already knew the address by heart. It was an easy one: 77 North Hibiscus. A quick call to a friendly clerk at the tax appraiser’s office had bought him more: five bedrooms, four and a half baths, a swimming pool on two acres, waterfront, of course. Purchased eighteen months ago for $195,500.

Pincus found it all very interesting, but nothing so much as the curious fact that Roberto Nelson was able to put down $100,000 on the house. Octavio Nelson never talked about his brother, and Wilbur Pincus was beginning to understand why.

The house at 77 North Hibiscus was ringed with an eight-foot sandstone wall. A red phone hung by the wrought-iron gate—nothing out of the ordinary for the sort of people who lived on these islands, but damn unusual, Pincus ruminated, for a cop’s brother.

Pincus eased off the accelerator as he passed the gate. A pair of headlights emerging from Nelson’s driveway caught him squarely in the eyes. Pincus sped off.

In the rear view he saw a car pull out. It was not a beige Mercedes, but a small sports car. Pincus pulled into another driveway and turned around. By the time he reached the gatehouse the other car was halfway across the bridge, heading for MacArthur. Pincus broke a few traffic laws catching up. He fumbled in the glove compartment for some eyeglasses. The car, in front of him now by only six lengths, was an orange Alfa Romeo. The tag was also orange, a dirty orange. Either New York or Pennsylvania: GDU 439.

The driver was a man. Pincus noticed the cut of the hair, the size of the head, the way the fingers drummed on the dash; the guy was playing his stereo. He wasn’t paying attention. The driver ran a red light at Bayshore Drive, and a Metro bus driver flicked him the finger.

Pincus got stuck behind the bus and lost the Alfa Romeo. At Biscayne Boulevard the young detective made a right turn and started hunting.

ROBERTO NELSON
had been sitting at the bar of the Royal Palm Club for twenty minutes when the stranger came in. He was tall and muscular, and his radically short blond hair was damp with sweat. He wore small round glasses with tortoise-shell frames and he sat alone at the end of the bar farthest from the band.

“New talent, Joanie,” one of the barmaids said to her partner. “I’ll see what he wants to drink.”

Roberto Nelson paid no attention. He drummed on the bar, glancing occasionally at the pudgy lead singer with the gelatin breasts.

Soon a thin dark man sat next to him. Roberto grinned and leaned over to whisper. The two men rose together and threaded through the tables toward the rest room. When they came out, a full five minutes later, they were met by the stranger with blond hair.

“’Scuse me,” Wilbur Pincus said shyly, stepping aside to let the men by.

“It’s OK, bubba.” Roberto Nelson smiled.

Inside the rest room, Pincus entered the toilet stall and locked it behind him. He waited for half a minute, but no one else came. Then he crouched on one knee to examine the tile floor. Flecks of dried urine near the toilet bowl. Some hairs. Scuff marks. And there…

Pincus pressed the palm of his right hand to the tile. It came up spangled with tiny ivory crystals.

THE BATTERED DODGE
swept across the MacArthur Causeway and threaded Douglas Road toward Little Havana. Meadows and Nelson rode in heavy silence. To Meadows, there seemed nothing to say. Nelson seemed preoccupied. Once the police radio squawked, and Nelson spoke briefly.

“Five-six-one-five,” summoned a metal voice.