Harry nodded and it was quiet again.
He said, "I appreciate your telling me what's going on. I know you're sticking your neck out."
"I don't want to see you hurt," Torres said, "on account of this asshole McCormick."
Harry said, "Well, I'm not going to worry about it. If it was ten or twelve years ago and Jimmy told Tommy Bucks in those words, 'Handle it,' that would be a different story. I mean back when he first came over," Harry said. "Tommy's a Zip. You know what I mean? One of those guys they used to import from Sicily to handle the rough stuff. Guy could be a peasant right out of the fucking Middle Ages, looks around and he's in Miami Beach. Can't believe it. They hand the Zip a gun and say, There, that guy.' And the Zip takes him out. You understand? They import the kind of guy likes to shoot. He's got no priors here; nobody gives a shit if he gets picked up, convicted, put away. If he does, you send for another Zip. Guy comes over from Sicily, he's got on a black suit, shirt buttoned up, no tie, and a cap sitting on top of his head. That was Tommy Bucks ten, twelve years ago when he was Tomasino Bitonti."
"So you hope he's changed more than his suit," Torres said. He stared at Harry. "You don't look too worried."
"I can always leave town," Harry said.
Torres grinned. "You're a cool guy. I'll give you that."
Harry shrugged. Man, was he trying.
Chapter Two.
To Harry, Tommy Bucks would always be the Zip: a guy who was brought over to kill somebody, stayed, learned English and how to dress, but was still that person they imported.
He'd be coming anytime now. Or waiting somewhere. Harry, sure of it, was thinking, If you'd gotten out when you were sixty-five...
Someone had picked that age as the best time to quit whatever you were doing and Harry believed now it could be true. By forty you've lost a step, your legs aren't what they used to be, and twenty-five years later all your parts are starting to go. Something he'd never considered until last year when they stuck the tube up his artery, from his groin to his heart, and told him he'd better change his ways. If he had gotten out right after that, last year...
He thought about it not as a regret or with any feeling of panic, but as a practical notion. If he were no longer here he wouldn't have to worry about this Zip coming to see him, if that's what "handle it" meant. This primitive greaseball in a twelve-hundred-dollar suit, no education, spoke with a garlic-breath Italian accent -- though not much of one, considering, and was not as dumb as most of the guys in Jimmy's crew, sitting around their social club. The Zip was coming. The only thing to wonder about, what was he waiting for?
Harry Arno packed a suitcase as soon as he got home that Thursday afternoon, October 29, not with the idea of taking off, not yet, but in case he had to. He packed going from the dresser with shirts and underwear to the suitcase on the bed to the front windows to look down at Ocean Drive three floors below. Every twenty minutes or so that afternoon he'd make a side trip to the bathroom, the idea of the Zip's arrival affecting his bladder. Or a combination of the Zip and a swollen prostate. He'd stand there taking a leak, imagine the Zip walking into the building and he'd shake it and hurry back to a front window. A couple of times he almost picked up the phone by the bed. But if he called Jimmy and told him what was going on, went into how he found out he was being set up... The way Jimmy would see it: "Oh, you're tight with this cop? They offered you a deal?" He could swear he'd never talk to a grand jury, it wouldn't matter. He'd be putting his life in the hands of a three-hundred-pound semiliterate slob who never smiled or had finished high school. Some things about Jimmy Cap you could anticipate. Harry knew that if he ever told Jimmy he was retiring Jimmy would have to say, "Oh, is that right? You quit when I tell you you can quit."
The Zip he didn't know well enough to anticipate. They had never been formally introduced or spoken more than a few words a year to each other. As far as Harry could tell, the Zip didn't talk much to anybody. The other guys in the crew seemed to stay out of his way. Women liked him, the semipros attracted to those guys, or they were afraid not to act as though they did.
Harry had a suitcase and a hanging bag packed now, put away in the bedroom closet. He stood at a window looking down at headlights in the dusk, dark shapes moving, wondering now if he'd forgot anything.
Bathroom stuff. What else?
Jesus, his two passports.
Someone knocked on the door. In the living room.
Harry felt himself jump, in the same moment remembering he hadn't packed his gun, the gun he'd used to shoot the deserter forty-seven years ago and he'd brought home as a souvenir. A U. S. Army Colt .45 sidearm. Wrapped in a towel on the shelf in the closet, not loaded, with the Zip at the door. Harry sure of it.
A black guy in a flowery blue-and-yellow sport shirt came in first, Tommy Bucks behind him in a sharkskin double-breasted suit, a white shirt against his dark skin and a maroon-patterned necktie. Harry stepped aside for them, the black guy looking straight into his face as he came in. The Zip put his hand on the guy's shoulder and gave it a shove, saying, "This is Kennet."
"Kenneth," the black guy said.
The Zip was looking around the room now. "It's what I said. Kennet." He turned on a lamp and stepped close to a wall of black-and-white photographs, saying, "Kennet, who is this guy here? Can you tell me?"
"Yeah, this is the guy," Kenneth said, looking at Harry. "I laid down five dimes each on the Saints and the Houston Oilers and paid him off on Monday, eleven grand with the juice, outside the hotel here. Was a friend of mine with me can testify to it."
Harry said to Kenneth, "You never saw me before you walked in this room," and turned to the Zip. "Ask Jimmy if I ever collect payments outside. My players know where to find me, and it ain't out on the fucking street." He said it again, "Go ask Jimmy," looking at the Zip hunched over studying a photograph.
"What is this one?"
Walking over to him Harry said, "The guy that used to own the hotel lived in this apartment. He was a photographer at one time." Harry looked at the photo. "That's a Georgia chain gang, nineteen thirties. You know, convicts." The Zip nodded. "That one, that's a turpentine camp, same period. The turpentine drips into those buckets? And then they boil it. The old man was commissioned by the government to take these pictures, during the Depression." Maybe the Zip knew what he was talking about, maybe not. Harry was showing the Zip he was relaxed. "Maurice Zola was the old guy's name; I used to know him. He married a woman about half his age who was a movie actress at one time. I've forgotten her name. You'd see her picture in the paper, appearing at a condominium opening. The old guy died, it was only about a year after they were married, and the movie actress sold the hotel to Jimmy Cap and moved away. So then Jimmy got rid of all the old women used to live here and brought in a bunch of hookers. It was like a girls' dorm in here for a while." Harry added a chuckle he didn't feel. "Broads running around with hardly anything on. Now there're only a few still here." Relaxed, talking to be talking, Harry keeping this between him and the Zip. Both on the same side.
"Was out in front I paid him," Kenneth said. "Saw the man at Wolfie's on Saturday and laid the bets down and paid him off on Monday. Out in the park they have there."
The Zip said, "What's this one?"
"You hear this guy?" Harry said. "He never placed a bet with me in his fucking life. I can name all the colored guys I know around here that're players and, believe me, this spook ain't one of them." He looked at the photo he thought the Zip was looking at. "That? That's an elephant on the beach. Used for some kind of a promotion."
The Zip said, "I know a fucking elephant when I see one," turning his head to look at Harry next to him. "Not that picture. The one here."
This close he seemed all nose, the nose dominating his dark face, younger than Harry had thought, early forties maybe, his eyes not so dreamy as partly closed, heavy lids giving him a tough-guy look that worked.
"Those are Jamaicans digging drains in a canefield," Harry said.
> "This one."
"Seminole Indians. Or Miccosukees, I'm not sure. Drive out the Tamiami, you'll see them. They give airboat rides."
The Zip walked into the bedroom.
"There're no pictures in there," Harry said. He turned to Kenneth standing by a window. "You know what you're doing to me? You're getting me fucking killed."
"You shouldn't have taken the money," Kenneth said over his shoulder. "Man, I can't help you." His head turned to the window again.
The Zip came out of the bedroom. He ran his hand over the smooth vinyl backrest of the La-Z-Boy recliner aimed at the television set.
"Ask this guy why he's setting me up," Harry said, watching the Zip slide into the recliner and begin working the footrest lever, raising and lowering it.
"I like this chair. Be good for watching TV."
Kenneth said, "I have me two of those at my house. Just like that with the Magic Ottoman."
"Goddamn it," Harry said to the Zip, holding on, not raising his voice too much, "ask him about the plea deal he made with the feds. You know what I mean by that, what he's doing?"
"Let me ask you one," the Zip said. "Why you have those suitcases in there full of clothes. You going someplace?"
There was no way to talk to him. The Zip decided it was time to leave and that was that. Harry wanted to tell him, Look, we're both on the same side if it comes to believing this colored guy or me. I go back twelve years with Jimmy Cap and another ten with the guy before him. But once the Zip was out of the chair...
Harry even thought of mentioning Italy, something else they had in common. Tell the Zip he'd spent fourteen months over there during WW II and loved it. Ask him if he'd ever been to Montecatini, not far from Pisa, where he'd spent a month and had a ball drinking wine, getting laid, at the time the Second Armored was broken up and his company was put in an infantry outfit, the 473rd, activated in the field. Tell the Zip his war story, how he shot the deserter, a black guy from the 92nd, the colored outfit. Tell it in front of Kenneth. How he had misjudged the guy, thought of the deserter as a GI who'd messed up, gone AWOL too long, that's all, and would do some stockade time, hard labor at the Disciplinary Training Center and be sent back to his outfit. Both of them on the same side. That was why he couldn't believe it when the guy grabbed the carbine and tried to kill him, both of them in a hallway, close, looking in each other's face as the guy raised the carbine to club him with it and Harry had time to use the .45 sidearm the lieutenant had given him. Blew the deserter off his feet with it, killing him. And didn't find out till later the deserter had nothing to lose, that he'd raped and murdered an Italian woman and was going to be tried by court martial and no doubt executed.
Ask the Zip if he'd ever been to the place where the condemned prisoners were hanged. Aversa? Something like that.
Ask him -- what else? There was no time to say anything, find out where he stood. Once the Zip was out of the chair he waved Kenneth to come on and pushed him out the door. The only thing Harry knew for sure, the Zip thought the recliner would be perfect for watching TV.
Plan something for forty-seven years and all of a sudden you're out of time. Do it now, this minute, or maybe never get another chance.
He took the .45 from the shelf in the closet and cleaned it, stripped it and put it back together without too much trouble, and loaded the magazine. Harry hefted the automatic, three pounds of metal, stuck it in the waist of his pants, and walked around the room trying to get used to it.
He phoned Joyce.
"I have to talk to you."
"What's the matter?"
"Can you come over?"
"In about an hour. I just put my hair up."
"I have to talk to you now."
"Then come over here."
He had to think about it.
"Harry?"
"All right. Watch for me."
"Harry, what's wrong?" He hung up.
It was less than a fifteen-minute walk to Joyce's apartment on Meridian, five blocks from the beach. This evening, though, Harry felt he should drive, not be walking along these streets at night. His car was in a lot on Thirteenth, behind the hotel: his '84 Eldorado he'd have to do something with before he left. Maybe sign it over to Joyce. She didn't do too bad as a catalog model, but it was seasonal and she had to work in between jobs as a cocktail waitress. In one catalog she'd be a young matron in sportswear; in the next, a swinger in gauzy lingerie, garter belts, her hair all curly. Harry would open a catalog thinking, Okay, which model would you most like to jump? He told Joyce, kidding, to guess which one nine times out of ten he'd pick. Her. He told her thinking she'd say he was sweet, but all she did was look at him funny.
Usually he ducked out the service door of the hotel that opened on the alley; the parking lot was right there. This evening Harry came out the front entrance past the rows of metal chairs to the street, Ocean Drive, and looked both ways, taking his time, noticing a good crowd at the Cardozo for a Thursday night, all the sidewalk tables occupied. He turned the corner and walked along the side of the hotel to the parking lot, a small one, two rows of cars squeezed in there, an open space down the middle, a streetlight at the far end. Harry paused in the alley; he pulled the .45 from his waist, racked the slide and slipped the pistol into his waist again, inside his sport coat. His car was toward this end, the third one in. He came to the Eldorado's white rear deck sticking out. The guy who ran the lot told Harry he'd buy the car whenever he wanted to sell it. He wasn't here at night.
No, but somebody was. A figure in the open space between the rows of cars. Coming this way now, a dark shape. It wasn't the guy who ran the lot, he was a little guy. This one was taller, over six feet. Harry wanted him to be cutting through the lot heading for Ocean Drive. Now this guy Harry had never seen before said, "That your car?"
About thirty feet away.
Harry said, "What, this one?"
"Yeah, is that yours?"
Harry stood at the Eldorado's right-rear fender looking across the trunk at the guy approaching. He felt the bulk of the .45 against his stomach and said, "What do you care whose it is?"
The guy said, "I want to be sure you're the right one." Saying then, "Your name Harry?"
Harry was telling himself as the guy spoke to pull the .45, do it right now, seeing the guy coming the same way the deserter from the 92nd came at him with the carbine. That one, the deserter, didn't say a word.
This one did. He said, "What you doing, taking a piss? Have your hands full?" He said, "I got something for you, Harry," his right hand going inside his coat, "from Jimmy Cap."
Harry brought up the .45 in both hands and saw the guy stop and raise his hand that wasn't inside the coat. He looked like he was going to say something and maybe he did and Harry didn't hear it, with the noise. He shot the guy three times with that gun from the war and watched the guy fly off his feet backward, throwing a cut-down shotgun in the air to clatter off the trunk of a car and drop to the pavement.
Harry walked over to look at the guy. He was white, about fifty, wearing a tractor cap still on his head, an old suit coat over bib overalls, and work boots. Some redneck from the Glades. His eyes open, false teeth coming partway out of his mouth, the cleanest thing about him in the streetlight. Harry didn't touch him or the shotgun lying on the pavement. He went back to his apartment and phoned Buck Torres at Miami Beach police headquarters.
He wasn't there. Harry said it was urgent, that Sergeant Torres should get in touch with him right away. Waiting then, he felt he wanted a drink more than he ever did in his life, but held off. He thought of calling Joyce but held off on that too. Finally Torres phoned, not sounding in too good a mood. Harry said, "I just killed a guy. What do I do now?"
They talked for a few minutes and Torres told him not to move, not to do anything dumb.
"Like what?"
"Just don't do anything dumb."
Harry said, "Why do you think I called? If I was going to do something dumb, would I have called you, for Chri
st sake?"
He hung up and phoned Joyce.
She said, "No." She said, "You didn't.... Did you? You're putting me on and it's not funny."
By the time he heard the radio cars outside Joyce sounded like she believed him, asking what he was going to do and what she could do to help out. Harry told her not to worry about it, he didn't see a problem.
He wasn't thinking ahead yet. His mind kept looking at the scene and he'd feel pumped up at the way he'd known what to do and didn't panic, remembered to take a breath, hold it, let some out, remembered to squeeze the trigger, fired three times and hit the guy three times. When he did think ahead he pictured Torres and some other detectives at the scene shaking their heads, commenting among themselves over the way he'd played it. Man, don't mess with Harry Arno. Blew the guy away before he could get off a shot. They'd go over the scene and then talk to him, ask him exactly what happened, maybe have him sign a statement. Ask him to stick around, in case they had any more questions. After that, what?
Chapter Three.
After they talked to him for two hours he spent the rest of the night in a detective-division holding cell. The next morning Harry told the Crimes-Against-Persons detectives it was just as easy to fix eggs the right way, over easy, for Christ sake, as it was to fry them till they were stiff as leather. One of the detectives let him know the eggs were from the Cuban joint down the street. Call them up if he wanted to complain.
Harry couldn't believe it, the way people he knew over the phone were treating him.
They transferred him to the Dade County jail, where he was booked and printed. That afternoon, at his first-appearance hearing in circuit court, he entered a plea of not guilty. The next thing he knew he was charged with second-degree murder and a bond was set at one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He couldn't believe it. He said to his lawyer, "I understand this was a preliminary hearing, but you might've mentioned the shotgun the guy had."
His lawyer, actually the son of the lawyer who ordinarily represented Harry when he was brought up but was out of town, said, "What shotgun?"