Split Images (1981) (10 page)

"I'm not a virgin," Angela said. "I was married; but even if I hadn't been, I still wouldn't be a virgin.

I'm not giving up anything or making any kind of claim. I know what I want and I know what I don't want."

Bryan was lying on his back beneath the sheet and blanket, staring up at her, his hands behind his head now.

He said, "We haven't even done it yet."

She said, "Do you know why?"

He said, "I think I was asleep when you came out of the bathroom and you didn't wake me up."

"So it's my fault." Very dry.

"No, I held back, it was out of respect.""Respect and dope," Angela said, "and a fifth of Jim Beam. I'll tell you what I don't want first, I don't want it to be a morning quickie."

Bryan said, "I don't either. I'm hoping it'll last a good ten minutes anyway. Why don't you open your coat?"

She did. Opened it and closed it, giving him a flash of suntanned skin, small pale breasts and slim white panties.

Bryan said, "You want to wait, huh? Little candlelight and soft music?"

She half-closed her eyes, a seductive, bored look, did a little one-two, one-two go-go step and flashed him again.

Bryan said, "Okay, tell me what you want."

Robbie left home at twenty past nine Saturday morning, came out on Lake Shore Drive and had to put his visor down at the spectacle of sun on water.

Both of his homes faced bodies of water. Not so much because he was drawn to the sight, but because people as rich as Robbie who lived in Palm Beach looked at the Atlantic Ocean and if they lived in Grosse Pointe, where there was less frontage, they caught glimpses of Lake St. Clair; one body of water reaching to Africa, the other, beyond the horizon, to Canada; one a deep blue, the other, green. At least today the lake was a summery green, though it lay flat and empty and it would be a month before the sailboats were out.

Lake Shore became East Jefferson, leaving behind Better Homes for a run through HUD country to high rises on the river and into downtown some twenty minutes later. Robbie turned his black Mercedes into the Renaissance Center--now the glass-towered face of Detroit in travel-magazine shots--bore to the right and came around to the entrance of the Detroit Plaza Hotel.

Now the tricky part.

Spot Curtis Moore. Time it so that Curtis takes the car and no one else.

Robbie nosed the Mercedes into the dim threelane area beneath the port cochere, hung back to study the people standing around, the traffic flow, the procedure. Then moved up in the outside lane for a closer look. There was more activity than he thought there'd be this time of the morning: maybe a convention leaving or another group coming in.

There were two doormen dressed as French policemen. Or redcaps. Two young black guys in red blazers handing out claim checks to the parking attendants who wore drab industrial-blue uniforms and were hard to spot in the half-light. They would give part of the ticket to the owner, jump in the car and take a sharp right down a ramp to the garagelevel, then reappear some minutes later, coming out a door that was off behind the cashier's window and marked Authorized Personnel Only.

Robbie had to leave his car and go over to stand near the door before he was able to identify Curtis.

No cornrows this morning, a moderate Afro.

His movement, his walk seemed different too, less studied. He was offstage now doing his work . . . giving Robbie a look as he came past the cashier's window. Do I know you?

Robbie was wearing sunglasses, dressed in a gray suit and rep tie beneath a buttoned-up raincoat. He held out a ten-dollar bill.

"I think I'm next."

Curtis said nothing. He took the bill, went over to one of the parking maitre d's in the red blazers, got a ticket and came back.

"How long you be?"

"Couple of hours."

Curtis tore a stub off and handed Robbie his claim check. Now Robbie watched him slide into the Mercedes and take off as he slammed the door closed; gone.

Robbie waited near the cashier's window where several people stood with their backs to him. It would take a few minutes. There were no more than four or five parking attendants working, so three or four should come through the Authorized Personnel Only door before Curtis appeared again. Well, you never knew. The door opened, a blue uniform appeared. The door closed and opened again within a few moments and there was Curtis.

Out of order, out of character. It bothered Robbie, gave him a mild tug of alarm. Even a minor miscalculation would not do in this business; or else several dozen popular novels had given him the wrong information. But he had to proceed right now or throw out the plan and start over.

He held up his parking ticket, caught Curtis's eye.

"You just took my car down. I have to get something out of it."

Now the lassitude, the slow move, the look of indifference as Curtis shifted and got back into character, pleasing Robbie more than Curtis could imagine.

"What do you do in a case like this?"

"Want me bring your car back?"

"That doesn't seem necessary," Robbie said.

"Why not take me down, show me where the car is?"

"Ain't allowed. Just the people work here."

Robbie showed him the folded ten-dollar bill he had ready. "What if I stand over there by the ramp?

No one will see me. The next car you take down, stop for a second and I'll hop in."

"I don't have the key."

Robbie felt instant irritation. "You just took the car down." It couldn't be this complicated."I put the key over in the cashier place"--Curtis pointed--"see, then I come out."

Robbie said, "Well, then get the key."

"I don't know I can do that."

Robbie brought his billfold out of an inside pocket. "I'll bet you twenty bucks you can."

Curtis went back in through the Authorized Personnel Only door. Robbie waited. Christ, complications. Curtis came back out.

"I get in a car," Curtis said. "Wait till you see the man owns the car goes inside the hotel. Or you see the dudes in the red coats looking? No deal, man.

You understand what I'm saying to you?"

Robbie waited. He watched Curtis go over to pick up a gray four-door Lincoln Continental, watched him get in before he moved to the ramp opening, timing it, hearing the car coming and then a faint squeal of brakes. Robbie opened the door and slid in, the car moving as he slammed the door, down the right-curving chute, Curtis cranking the steering wheel, nicking the Lincoln's bumper along the cement wall.

Robbie said, "Where's Carlos?"

The flat tone was just right.

Curtis was holding the steering wheel cocked, tires squealing on the pavement. Now they were down, rolling along the aisle past rows of cars gleaming in fluorescent light.

Robbie said again, "Where's Carlos?"Curtis braked abruptly. He said, "I seen you someplace. Else I don't know the fuck you talking about." He twisted around to look past the seats, backed the Lincoln into a space in one effortless move and pulled the keys from the ignition. He got out. Robbie got out.

Robbie said, "Whether you admit it or not, I know you're with Carlos." Staring at Curtis deadpan, the way it was done.

"I know I'm in deep shit you don't get out of here," Curtis said, handing Robbie his keys and then pointing. "Your car over there."

"You gonna wait for me?"

"I don't know you or what you talking about- fucking Carlo, whatever you saying." Curtis started to walk off. "I be back."

Robbie liked the way the Mercedes was parked, front end out. He got behind it and lifted the trunk lid. The canvas tool kit lay to one side of the spotless luggage compartment. He rolled it open, took out the frame of his High Standard Field King, then the ten-inch suppressor tube and grooved it onto the frame, hearing the click of the lock mechanism. The target pistol was ready, the clip fully loaded. He ducked down as a Seville came off the ramp and swept past. Robbie remained low. Another car came down. He listened to doors open and thunk closed. He listened to footsteps on the cement floor, heard voices yell back and forth,words that sounded to him like some Gullah dialect echoing through the concrete level, then laughter. Another car came down. He raised enough to watch the parking attendant get into a Buick Riviera and squeal off toward the exit ramp, following an arrow.

A green Chevrolet station wagon came down, Curtis Moore behind the wheel. Robbie unbuttoned the top half of his raincoat, slipped the target pistol that now measured close to sixteen inches in length inside the coat and held it there, like Napoleon. A car door slammed. Footsteps approached the Mercedes. Robbie moved past the side windows to the hood of his car. Curtis was across the aisle, coming this way.

Robbie said, "Curtis?"

Curtis looked up. "You got what you need?"

Then stopped, looking right at Robbie. "Hey- how you know my name?"

Robbie wanted to hurry, but he had to play it out. Or else why bother? He said, "Because I know you work for Carlos."

Curtis was scowling, giving him a mean look.

"Man, I work for the hotel's who I work for."

Robbie brought out the pistol, extending it like a blue-steel wand and began shooting Curtis, aiming high and seeing Curtis throw his head from side to side doing a backstep dance, the snout of the gun giving off hard punctuations of muted sound, cas-ings ejecting, while off beyond were metallic pings and pops in the cement confines and the windshield behind Curtis sprouted spiderwebs. Robbie jammed the gun under one arm, got to Curtis, who was turning red, smearing chrome and sheet metal red, slipping off the red car fender, got to him and eased him down--eyes glassy, sightless--between the cars, careful not to get any of the red on his raincoat, then shoved Curtis with his foot, hanging onto a door handle for leverage, and got most of him hidden beneath the car. A sporty Chrysler LeBaron. Robbie liked it. It seemed an act of loyalty, the least he could do.

Driving up the exit ramp in his Mercedes he became inspired and saw a billboard statement in his mind, lettered in red:

"When it comes to hiding victims I'll take a Chrysler every time!"

With his name beneath it in neat black type.

Robinson Daniels, well-known sportsman. Hey, yeah.

Less than a minute later, at five past ten, the Mercedes turned the corner and pulled up in front of the main doors to the Renaissance Center, the area far less congested than the hotel entrance around on the side. Robbie, in his gray suit, maize and blue striped tie laid across his shoulder by the riverbreeze, stepped out of the car, stood in the V formed by the open door, waved toward the entrance and yelled out:

"Mr. Cabrera? . . . Here!"

The buyer from Mexico. A gentleman in a dark suit, followed by a young, darker-skinned gentleman in a dark suit, came out from the entrance shade nodding, smiling all the way to the Mercedes.

"Sorry if I'm a little late," he said now. "Hi, I'm Robbie Daniels."

"I hope there's a moral to this," Angela said. "I mean I hope you're making a point." With her dry tone.

"If I don't forget what it is," Bryan said. He was sitting up in bed now with his coffee, the covers across his waist. White skin, dark hair on his chest.

Angela sat in an unfinished rocker he'd brought back from Kentucky years ago, Angela still in her navy coat, legs crossed, letting him have a glimpse of tan thigh.

"Go on."

"Where was I? Yeah, Donnie and--I want to say Marie--Donnie and Lorie finally get married. But Margo won't leave."

"Why didn't they throw her out?"

"Well, for one thing it's Margo's house. Thethree of them're trying to get along the best they can, but Lorie says she can't take it anymore."

"Why didn't Lorie and Donnie move out?"

"Because nobody was working. They're living on food stamps. Donnie says you can't work full time and disco at night, it can't be done. See, his one ambition, he and Lorie, was to get on 'Dance Fever.' So he doesn't like Lorie working either.

Margo goes out and hustles a couple nights a week and that's the only money they've got coming in.

But, as you can imagine, Margo isn't too fond of the setup. She became, Donnie says, hateful and inconsiderate. And Lorie, meanwhile, every time she gets Donnie alone she tells him she can't live this way. If he doesn't get rid of Margo she'll leave him."

"I don't believe this," Angela said.

"It's true, every word." Bryan sipped his coffee.

"Well, they finally work out a plan. They borrow enough money from Margo, like a hundred and fifty bucks, and take out a life insurance policy on her life, Margo's, for ten thousand. That part was Lorie's idea. Lorie keeps telling him, if you really love me you'll do it. Donnie would tell me--he'd get a sad, faraway look and tell me, 'I love that girl.

I love her more than words can say.' "

Angela said, "Yeah," meaning, go on; interested.

"So finally one night the three of them have aparty. They get Margo drunk on Scotch, Donnie takes her in the bedroom, gives her a last jump--"