Split Images (1981) (16 page)

She came in to have her drink in a terry-cloth robe and that was fine. They'd see how long they could keep their hands off each other.

Gary Hammond, the Palm Beach squad-car officer, couldn't believe it when he saw them coming. The same girl, the house-guest; in a white sweater and slacks. She looked better than she had last month when it was cool and she wore the dark turtleneck.

The Detroit homicide cop, Lieutenant Hurd, looked in shape. Not the big-city beer-gut dick he expected.

Gary stood up, bumping the table and grabbing his glass of beer. He was glad he'd cleaned up, put on a sport shirt. The girl was smiling at him as they came in past the hedge to the sidewalk tables.

She said, "Well, it's nice to see you again," sounding like she meant it, and introduced him to the homicide lieutenant. Up close the homicide lieutenant made Gary think of a major-league baseball player; something about him. He looked like he should have a wad of tobacco in his jaw. Though he seemed very polite, soft-spoken. One of those quiet guys who looked at you and seemed to know things. He asked if Gary would mind telling about Daniels shooting the Haitian, the circumstance and the investigation. Gary said, "Well, I'm glad somebody's interested, except it's a closed issue." He told the story and the homicide lieutenant listened and did not interrupt once. Then he began asking questions. Good ones.

"You believe the Haitian--what's his name?"

"Louverture Damien."

"You believe his intent was burglary?"

"Yes sir, I'm pretty sure now."

"Why didn't you think so at first?"

"Well, it wasn't I thought he come for any other reason, it was just nobody looked to see if he might've."

Lieutenant Hurd seemed to like that. "Do you know where Daniels got the gun? Where he kept it?"

"No sir, nobody asked that either."

Angela said, "When I saw him in his study with Walter, the day I left, he had a gun in his hand. But it wasn't the one he used."

Lieutenant Hurd said, "Do you know if he has a gun collection?"

"Now that could be," Gary said. "I asked Detective Kouza if the Python was registered, the one Daniels used, and Detective Kouza made some remark like, you want to check him for priors, too?

But at the hearing Mr. Daniels was asked that and he said yeah, he'd bought the gun from a reputableshop where he was known and often used their target range. See, like he'd been dealing there a lot."

Lieutenant Hurd said, "You think Daniels might've had the gun on him? Is that what bothers you?"

"No sir, it was his story about the Haitian coming at him with a machete."

"Whose machete was it?"

"There you are." Gary Hammond grinned. "The guy didn't come all the way from Belle Glade carrying a machete. His wife says he never had one in his hands. The first he heard about it was in the hospital, dying. So I say to myself either the Haitian's lying or Mr. Daniels, one. It turns out the machete was from the tool shed on his property. See, but how would the Haitian know to go in there and get it?"

"Was it locked?"

"I asked the gardener, he says no. I asked him was the machete, could it have been left out? He goes, hell no, I take care of my tools, put them away . . . and all like that."

"Was the machete checked for prints?"

"No sir. See, I got there--there was the Haitian on the ground, shot twice, bleeding all over the place, with the machete lying close by. But it wouldn't do no good to check it now. The gardener's probably been cutting scrub with it anyway."

"Did you ask Walter why he didn't have it dusted?""No sir, it was his investigation. I was mostly waving at traffic on South Ocean Boulevard . . .

Hey, don't you all want a drink?"

Lieutenant Hurd said, "How about ballistics on the gun?"

"There was no need for it, nothing to prove."

"You keep the two slugs or did Walter throw 'em away?"

"No, they're in a envelope, in the file."

They sat back and talked about Palm Beach and the season, sipping bourbon, looking at the outfits in the cafe, trying to tell the tourists from the regulars, those who had money and those who didn't; Gary saying there wasn't much excitement other than stopping drunks and then you had to be careful who you pulled over. Palm Beach was a playground for the rich people and they okayed the rules. Place swung from Christmas to Easter, then rolled over and went to sleep.

Lieutenant Hurd said, "What do you think of Walter Kouza?"

Gary had to give that a few moments.

"Well, to tell you the truth, I thought basically he was dumb. I mean I don't think he was any good in school, if he ever went. But he knew things. We'd pick some guy up for vagrancy-- Detective Kouza seemed to know if the guy had any priors and he'd usually get the guy to cop. We have a problem withvandalism, broken windows, something like that, I can't even get twelve-year-old kids to cop. Detective Kouza, he has 'em in the room there a couple minutes, they tell him whatever he wants to hear."

"What about when he left?" Lieutenant Hurd asked if Walter had said anything about what he'd be doing.

"He did and he didn't," Gary said. "He made it sound like foreign intrigue, like he was going to work for the CIA. But he really didn't say anything you could put your finger on. So I just figured, you know, it was bullshit."

"Trying to impress you."

"Yeah, he was always laying a trip on you, his twenty years experience," Gary said. "Like he had seen it all. I guess more than anything, Detective Kouza wanted you to think he was important."

Looking at the stars she said to Bryan, "I'd walk out in the desert--it's all open land back of their house, up in the Santa Catalina foothills. I'd go out just to be alone for a few minutes. And then I'd hear my dad. I mean I could sneak off, leave him asleep in his chair. The next thing, I'd hear his voice. 'See those lights over there?' " Her voice lower, a more serious tone. " 'That's the new Las Palmas condo development. Then over there yougot Casas Adobes and Vista del Oro.' " She stopped and then said, "I'm putting you to sleep, aren't I?"

Bryan said, feeling as content as he could feel, having her right there and knowing she would be there for a while, "You were gonna tell me why you went home. The real reason."

She said, "All right. I didn't go home because it was my birthday."

He said, "You went home to see an old boyfriend. Look him over one more time."

"I don't have an old boyfriend."

"Since your divorce--what, ten years, you've never had a boyfriend?"

"You don't have boyfriends anymore. And I was never anyone's old lady."

"And nobody dates," Bryan said.

"No, you don't date. I went with a guy who played with Frank Zappa and had known my husband. In L. A. It was kinda fun, but he was spacy."

"Not serious?"

"Never . . . You want to hear some music? I could go in and turn the radio on, open a window."

"I'd rather listen to you," Bryan said. "You can tell me anything you want."

He liked her voice, quiet and close to him, with the sound of the ocean breaking out of the darkness. He liked to sit and follow the specks of amber light that were ships in the Gulf Stream and seemedas far away as stars. People out there staring at shore lights. He looking at them and they looking at him, with fifteen miles between them. She got up and went inside. But no music came. She returned with glasses of cold Chablis, sat down in her deck chair--the arms of the chairs touching--and raised her legs to the low cement wall.

"Thank you . . . So you didn't go home to see your old boyfriend."

"No. I went home to see my dad."

When she paused he said, "Rich people don't say my dad. They say dad, like their dad is the only dad."

She thought about it and said, "You may be right. If I do the book on rich people I'll check it out."

"Go on about your dad."

"Okay. You reminded me of him quite a bit, as soon as we met. And I wondered if that's why I thought I knew you and felt good with you right away. I mean not only comfortable, I felt protected.

Which could be a big mistake. Like giving me a false sense of security."

"Right. I'm not your dad."

"You sure aren't. And you're not anything alike, either. That's the amazing part. You might sound alike, a little. But your attitudes are so different."

"Does this turn out good?""There. That's the difference right there. He's serious about dumb things and you aren't. Of course it turns out good, because I think you're right. The way you look at things. You're not cynical especially, you're . . . I can't think of the word."

"Objective."

"No . . . Well, partly."

"Carefree."

"No."

"Romantic?"

"No!"

"Straightforward."

"Come on--"

"Erect."

She said, "Macho man returns." She looked off at the pinpoint glow of stars and running lights.

She said, "Are you? Really?"

In the big double bed in darkness in the middle of the night she said, "God, I love you."

They could hear the surf through the open windows. No other sounds.

He could tell her. He could tell her a few things about how he felt. But he couldn't hear himself telling her. Not yet. He said, "We're there, aren't we?"

She moved her hand down to touch him andsaid, "You're not only not romantic you're not too erect anymore either."

He said, "Keep your hand there. Pretty soon we'll hear violins."

IT WAS THE NEXT MORNING Annie called Bryan. She asked him how the weather was. Perfect, he told her. She asked if Angela had got hold of him. She certainly did, he told her.

Annie said, "The valet-parking cashier came through. Remember, she thought there was a goodluck piece or something on the keys Curtis took?

She saw another one just like it, a circle with three spokes. A Mercedes insignia."

Now you're moving, Bryan told her.

Annie said, "Wait. I talked to the last of the hotel guests that came in that morning around ten or before. One of them was very friendly, I liked him. He checked into the hotel with his wife." Bryan said, yeah? "But he lives in Bloomfield Hills." Bryan said, oh. He said, well, the guy probably took his wife down for the weekend. Annie said, "He's a talkative type, sort of a bullshitter. At least he was at first. But as soon as he found out what it wasabout, he shut up." Bryan asked, then what was it she liked about the guy.

Annie said, "Before he shut up he remembered seeing a dark-colored Mercedes sedan. It was in front of him with the door open and he couldn't pull up to get past. But there was no Mercedes down in that area of the garage, near Curtis. So the question is, where did it go?" Bryan said, maybe the car only picked somebody up. Annie said, "That's possible. But I checked to see if anyone we know owns a Mercedes. And you know who does?"

Robbie Daniels, Bryan said.

Annie said, "You rat."

Bryan told her if she wanted him to be her straight man she'd have to set it up better. Or not sound so eager. What else?

Well, she'd finally got hold of the Japanese buyer.

"But he didn't stay at the Plaza and Walter didn't pick him up."

Then why did Daniels make an issue of it? Why did he keep insisting Walter picked the guy up? Unless he wanted to confuse them, throw them off.

"I don't know," Annie said. "I did talk to a couple of buyers who remembered Walter, but they came in later in the day. I'm having trouble getting hold of the guy in Mexico City. Carlos Cabrera.

Nobody at his company seems to speak English.

But I'll keep trying if you think it's really necessary."Bryan asked her how you could tell what was necessary from what wasn't until you did it.

Annie said, "As long as you're having a good time, Bryan, don't worry about it."

They hung up. About twenty seconds later Annie's phone rang.

"Annie, go out and have a talk with Daniels. Ask him who he picked up, if anyone. Fish around, see if he's hiding anything. Okay? And take somebody with you . . . Annie? What's the name of the guy's company in Mexico City?"

She told him Maquinaria Cabrera, S. A. And asked if he wanted her to spell it.

He said, "Maquinaria? If I can say it I don't need to be able to spell it." He wrote the name Carlos Cabrera on an Ocean Pearl postcard that showed the resort with palm trees on a perfect day. Then asked her for the phone number.

Anything else?

"Yeah," Bryan said. "Set Robbie up if you can.

Look him in the eye and ask him if he was at the Plaza Saturday morning."

Angela, in the terry-cloth robe, sat at the breakfast table with the Miami Herald. She watched Bryan, in his bathing trunks, get up from the phone and begin to move around idly, looking out the windows, deciding something. She said, "What's maquinaria mean?"

"Mah-kee- nah-r'yah." Bryan stopped to look at her. "Machinery." His bathing trunks, that he'd been wearing for ten years, were dark blue sunfaded to a washed-out purple. They reminded Angela, she had told him, of an old junk car, though she wasn't certain why.