“I don’t know what happened,” Vincent said. “Ever since I got shot I’ve been horny. It started, lying in the hospital looking at the nurses. What is it about nurses? Almost every woman I look at now I take her clothes off. Not all women, but more than you’d think.”
“Who doesn’t?” Lorendo said. “Man, you don’t have to get shot.”
“It’s like I’m starting over again, looking at girls.”
“It’s your age. How old are you, forty?”
Vincent said yes, and then said, “Forty-one.”
“Sure, it’s your age. Maybe getting shot, too. You see you aren’t going to live forever, you don’t want to miss anything.”
“Maybe . . . You ever been shot?”
“No, I’ve been lucky.”
“It can happen,” Vincent said, “when you least expect. I was off duty, walking home . . .” He said, “You know, I could retire with fifteen years in. I could stay right here and draw three-quarters of my pay for life.” It would buy a lot of cod fries and crab turnovers, get him a nice place near the beach. He could live here. Why not? He said, “I could stand to get married again. It’s what people do, they get married. But not to Iris. That’s never entered my mind.”
“Good. There’s hope for you.”
“You know what she has for breakfast? Toast and a Coke.”
“You need to go back to work,” Lorendo said. “You think she has a problem. You’re the one with the problem. You nice to a girl like that, give her what she wants, oh, everything’s fine. You don’t give in to her, what happens?”
“She whines, she breaks things . . .”
“Vincent,” Lorendo said, amazed, “this little girl, she’s leading you around by your bicho. You know that?”
“All she talks about is going to the States.”
“Of course. It’s the dream, marry some rich guy. They all want that. Man, you stick your nose in there, you bring all this on yourself. I love it.”
“Well, now she’s going. This guy Donovan that owns the hotel, she says offered her a job as a hostess. In Atlantic City.”
“Ah, Mr. Tommy Donovan,” Lorendo said. “Now we’re getting to something.”
“Not here, Atlantic City.”
“I heard you. They built a place there last year, cost a hundred million dollars.”
“I want to talk to him.”
“Go out to the hotel. You take the T-One bus.”
“He’s never in his office,” Vincent said, “or he’s in conference. And his home phone’s unlisted.”
“So that’s why you take me to lunch. You want me to get you his private number.”
“And his address. I want to look him in the eye.”
“I don’t believe this,” Lorendo said. “You going to see this guy, head of one of the biggest private companies in Puerto Rico, he’s in land development, man, he’s in hotel casinos, to ask him about Iris?”
“You just put your finger on it,” Vincent said. He pushed his plate of crab shells away from him to lean on the table. “Tell me why a guy like that wants to take a girl like Iris all the way to Atlantic City? As a hostess—whatever a hostess is.”
“Because,” Lorendo said, “he can do anything he wants. That’s the thing that gets you, isn’t it? Man, it’s becoming more clear to me. You resent this guy Tommy Donovan. It doesn’t matter you don’t want Iris, you don’t want him to have her. Vincent,” Lorendo said, “she’s a whore. What whores do, if they can, they go where the action is.”
“She quit.”
“Oh, you believe that?”
“Get me the guy’s address,” Vincent said. “Would you do that for me?”
He paid the check. Lorendo, waiting for him outside, was talking to the investigator who had approached their table. The investigator nodded to Vincent as he came out, looking at his rattan cane, his rubber sandals, and Lorendo said, “Vincent, my associate was asking, he would like to know what happened to the man who shot you.”
“He died on the way to the hospital,” Vincent said, looking directly at Lorendo’s associate, straightfaced. “I think he lost his will to live.”
* * *
Calle del Parque, Number Fifty-two, upstairs.
Teddy knocked on the door and knocked and knocked until it opened a few inches and there was a pretty sleepy girl looking at him over the chain. Her eyes puffy, what he could see of them in all that hair.
“Hi. You remember me?”
Iris said, “I’m still sleeping.”
“We met in the taxicab yesterday. How’d your business appointment work out? I remember you said you were going to Atlantic City. I thought, hey, maybe you’d do me a favor.”
“Listen, why don’t you come back—”
Teddy held up the crisp hundred-dollar bill, folded twice, between the tips of two fingers, laid it on the chain right in front of her nose. “I got something I need delivered. That is, if you’re going.”
She seemed to wake up, staring at that C-note. “I don’t know for sure. I think tomorrow or the day after.”
“That’d be perfect. See, my mom’s birthday’s pretty soon. I got something special for her”—he patted the camera case hanging at his side—“but she won’t get it in time if I send it by mail. I was thinking—see, it’s only a few miles from Atlantic City down to Margate. You ever play Monopoly? She lives in Marvin Gardens.”
“What?” She frowned at him.
“Hop in a cab, you’re there.”
“For that money?” Iris said.
“It’s worth it to me. My mom’s gonna be seventy.”
It surprised him that a Puerto Rican girl would be so cautious. He usually got into apartments with the old survey routine. “Hi, I’m with International Surveys Incorporated”—show the phony card—“We’re conducting a study to learn what young ladies such as yourself think of current trends in . . .” the price of bullshit. You could tell them almost anything.
He palmed the C-note as she closed the door to release the chain and that was that. It was dim and quiet inside, the way he liked it. With just faint sounds out on the street. It smelled a little of incense, or perfume. She held her silky green robe closed, then relaxed, yawning, and let the robe slip open before pulling it together again, though not in any hurry. She was wearing little white panties under there, no bra. He sat down in a sticky plastic chair without waiting to be asked. Shit, he was in now. Reaching into the camera case he almost began to recite his International Surveys routine. (“If I might ask what your husband does . . . He’s at work, is he?”) Taking out the handicraft parrot wrapped in tissue paper he said, “I don’t have a box or anything to mail it in, either.” Fool around for a minute, make sure they were alone. One time a big hairy son of a bitch had come walking out of the bedroom in his undershirt . . .
She was yawning again, hair hanging in her face. He liked that sleepy look. She stretched, arching her back. The robe came open to give him a peek at a brown nipple, a big one. He liked that, too.
“How’s your boyfriend?”
“My boyfrien’, who’s that?”
“Guy you’re with at the beach every day.”
“He’s not even a frien’ of mine no more. Listen, when you going to pay me?”
“Guess I was wrong. I met him one time. His name Vincent Mora?”
“Yea, Vincent.”
“He live here with you?”
“Man, are you crazy?”
“I thought you two were pretty tight.”
“What happen to the money you had in your hand?”
“I got it.” Teddy showed her the C-note. “Right here.”
“Yeah, what do I have to take to your mother?”
“This.” He showed her the package. “It’s a parrot. Mom loves parrots. She’s got a real one sits on a perch outside the cage. You know what it says?”
Iris shook her head.
Teddy constricted his throat to imitate the parrot. “It says, ‘Hello, May! Hello, May! Want a drink?’ That’s how it sound
s. The parrot’s name is Buddy. She’s got parrot dishes and cups, parrot ashtrays, parrots made out of china sitting on the mantel. Let’s see, she’s got a satin parrot pillow. She loves parrots . . . Yeah, I thought you and Vincent might be living together.”
Iris said, “No way, José.”
Teddy grinned. “That’s cute . . . Let me ask you, Vincent lives—I was told he lives over by the Hilton on that street runs next to it? In the Carmen Apartments? That’s what they said at his office when I called there.”
“Yes, the Carmen Apartments.”
“Is that the place there’s a liquor store in it? I didn’t see a sign or nothing, I wasn’t sure.”
“Yes, in the downstairs.” She kept looking at his hundred-dollar bill.
“Handy to the beach,” Teddy said. He glanced around the room. “You live here alone, ‘ey?”
“Till I move to the States. I can’t wait.”
“You bring guys here?”
She began to frown now and looked mad. Got up on the wrong side of the bed, his mom used to say.
“What do you ask me questions for? You want me to take that thing? Okay, give me the money.”
Teddy folded the hundred-dollar bill between his thumb and two fingers, then folded it again into a tight square. He said, “Catch,” and threw it at her.
Iris let go of her robe and caught it, showing good reflexes for a crabby girl. She had probably had money given to her in some interesting ways. He watched her slip the C-note into the band of her panties. She said, “I be back,” and walked out of the room.
Teddy waited a few moments and followed her, into a little hall, then left a few feet to the bedroom. He watched her from the doorway, her back to him, taking the money out of her panties and slipping it into the top drawer of her dresser. There were clothes on the floor. The bed was a mess, the sheet all tangled up. But it was a bed, and there she was next to it.
So easy.
Iris turned, raising her eyes to Teddy, not at all surprised to see him. “Will you excuse me so I can go to bed?”
Should he whip it out?
No, too easy.
The best part, always, was seeing that shit-scared gleam of terror in their eyes, the woman realizing this wasn’t any survey of current trends, what housewives liked or didn’t . . .
This one was different. Now that he hesitated and thought about it, this one was a survey. Find out exactly where the guy lived. Now he knew. Now, if he watched himself, didn’t get carried away, he could fool around with this girl. Play with the cop’s girl. See what it was like.
Teddy said, “Why don’t I get in there with you?”
“Please, I’m very tired.”
Teddy raised his sport shirt hanging out of his pants to show her the money belt that was like a blue nylon cummerbund around his middle. “You know what this is?”
Her expression seemed different now, her mouth open a little like she was thinking, about to make a guess. She said, “Is it a life preserver you wear for swimming?”
Teddy grinned. “You’re pretty cute, Iris. You know it?”
She said, “It’s not I-ris, like your eyes. It’s Eer-es.”
“Like your ears?” Teddy said. He thought she’d laugh, but she didn’t. She was staring at his money belt.
“What do you keep in that?”
Teddy said, “Let’s see,” and put his chin on his chest as he zipped open the flat pouch. “I got a comb. I got a little penknife I use to clean my fingernails. A pack of Certs, breath mints. Let’s see, I got rubbers. My mom must’ve put ’em in there.” He looked up and winked at her as he said it. She didn’t laugh or even smile. He continued the inventory and got a note of surprise in his voice as he said, “What’s this? Why, it looks like a bunch a money.”
Iris said, “I hope you don’t think you can give me money and go to bed with me.”
Teddy said, “No way, José,” grinning. Shit. “I’m gonna go to bed with you, sweetheart, then leave you a present, a gift. If you know what I mean.”
Iris said, “Because you adore me.”
“Not only that,” Teddy said, “it’ll be my first time in over seven years.”
Iris frowned at him. “Since you did it?”
“With a woman,” Teddy said. “I been away.”
Vincent took a shower that afternoon after the lunch with Lorendo Paz, thinking about what he had said outside the restaurant. “He died.” The guy who had shot him. “Lost his will to live.” Talking cop to cop, offhand, nothing to it. It was all right; maybe cops needed to do that. Play it down. Though he might have asked them about scaring guys to keep them alive, what they thought of it. In his mind, not paying attention, he slipped getting out of the shower, caught himself but banged his hip against the tile wall, hard. God damn it hurt. He had to sit on the bed to pull his pants on: khakis fresh from the laundry. With a blue shirt, he decided, dark blue tie and the linen sportcoat that cost ninety bucks on Ashford Avenue and almost matched the khakis but was lighter: his suit, his best outfit. Dressing up to go see Mr. Donovan.
He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. Moved closer, picked up the scissors and snipped at his beard, attempting to weed the thin streaks of gray, aware of himself in the silence, look, getting older. He would have to shave off the beard to get rid of the gray. But he liked the beard, so keeping it was a compromise. Living here would be the same thing, if he decided to stay. He didn’t know what he wanted. If he quit the police and stayed would it be because the guy shot him or because he shot the guy? Was he going to see Donovan because he was concerned about Iris? Or to get back into it, to be doing something, practice his trade? Analyze that.
His hip still hurt as he hobbled out on his cane through the courtyard of the Carmen Apartments that was like a small parking lot for the liquor store. People parked on the sidewalk in San Juan; they parked everywhere. He tested himself moving through the cars: walk all the way over to Fernandez Juncos, in some pain, to hop a T-1 bus, or get a cab at the Hilton for the ride to Isla Verde? This was no way to live—without the city providing a car. Even a gray Plymouth Reliant with nothing on it.
The guy in the straw hat and sunglasses was studying a map spread open on the roof of his car. The guy looked up and said, “Excuse me?” As though he weren’t sure if he should be excused or not.
Vincent recognized him from the beach: the tourist who came in the black Chevy cab and took pictures.
“I think I’m lost.”
Vincent thought of saying to him, No, you’re not. His cop mind telling him the tourist had been waiting for him. Which could mean the tourist had followed him or knew beforehand where he lived. The tourist didn’t act lost. He didn’t have the proper lost expression, helpless or annoyed. The tourist was grinning, the grin saying, Look what a nice guy I am. And Vincent thought, bullshit; the guy was trying too hard. Guys like that made him nervous.
“I came over from Condado Beach,” the tourist said, “the traffic across the bridge was going both ways. Now it’s one way and I can’t figure out how to get back.”
The guy had come up with a good one. Maybe he was all right. Vincent said he’d show him and got in the car. Then was sorry. The guy was a terrible driver. Vincent would feel the guy looking at him, see the rear ends of cars lighting up in the traffic and have to brace against the dash as the guy hit the brakes.
The tourist said, “The PRs sure play their radios loud. You notice?” He said, “They can’t drive for shit.” He said, “I think I’ve seen you someplace. I know I saw you on the beach, I mean before that.”
Vincent waited.
“Was it in Miami?”
Vincent said, “I don’t know. It might’ve been.”
“That’s where you’re from, ‘ey?”
“Miami Beach.”
The tourist took his time. “You’re a cop. Huh?”
Vincent glanced at him to make sure he had the guy in his mind, then looked back at the traffic. “If we’ve met before, tell me about it.
”
“I understand you got shot.”
Vincent didn’t like this guy at all, the feeling he was getting. He said nothing and listened to the guy’s voice, his unhurried delivery, the words rehearsed.
“I bet it hurts to get shot, ‘ey?” The tourist wearing sunglasses and a straw hat, props, with the sun gone for the day, off behind them somewhere. The tourist said, “You don’t have no idea who I am, do you?”
Vincent would be willing to make a guess now, in a general area, and bet money on it. But he said, “I’m afraid not. Help me out.”
“It was seven and a half years ago.”
“What was?”
“When we met.”
“Take a left at the next light. It goes straight through to Ashford, if you want the beach.”
“We first met I didn’t get a good look at you,” the tourist said. “But after that I had time.” He paused, making the turn, before he said, “Four days in a row.”
“Dade County Court,” Vincent said.
“That your guess?”
Vincent said, “You can let me off at the corner there’ll be fine. I appreciate the ride.”
The tourist kept going. He said, “Do I make you nervous?”
Vincent said, “Your driving does. Jesus.”
The light at Ashford was red and the tourist stopped on the left side of the one-way street, so Vincent would have to get out in the traffic. The tourist said, “I’m gonna let you think about it, Vince. Till we see each other again.” He took off his straw hat and sunglasses, giving Vincent one more chance to make him.
Vincent got his left leg out of the car before pushing himself up to stand in the street. The light changed. Horns went off close behind him. He hunched over in the doorway, his back to the noise. “You know why I don’t recognize you?”
“Why?” the tourist said.
“Because all of you shifty ex-con assholes look alike,” Vincent said. He slammed the door, limped around behind the car and into Walgreen’s drugstore.
Vincent reversed the charges on his call to Buck Torres, Miami Beach Police. Torres came on with, “What’s the matter? Is anything wrong?” Vincent asked him how it was going and Torres said, same old thing, trying to stay ahead of the assholes. They talked for a minute, Vincent watching the traffic, the young Puerto Rican guys in their cars, turning onto Ashford to make a slow loop through the Candado tourist section, playing their radios. Vincent said: