Split Images

by Elmore Leonard

  "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.

  She said, "You didn't learn to say it like that in Spanish class."

  He said, "You go to Holy Trinity grade school for eight years with Chicanos and Maltese you learn how to pronounce all kinds of words. Some pretty good ones, too."

  She said, "Let's get dressed and do our shopping now instead of later on."

  "If you want."

  "You need some outfits desperately," Angela said.

  He didn't like the sound of that. He didn't like articles of clothing put together to make "outfits."

  He liked shirts and pants, sweaters, combinations that came together and didn't seem to mind, but were not thought out in advance.

  "First," he said, "you have some pictures of Daniels, don't you? That you took?"

  "Dozens."

  "You have 'em here?"

  "Yeah, in my case.""I wonder if we could send a few to Annie,"

  Bryan said. "Something she can show around."

  Angela nodded, seeing some of the shots flash in her mind: Robbie in his thin sweater over bare skin scratching his stomach, Robbie grinning, Robbie gesturing; he could be a male model. She said, with hesitation, "Do you think he killed Curtis?"

  "It's possible," Bryan said.

  "But why would he?"

  "You're backing off." Bryan said. "You told me, not too long ago, you think the man likes to kill people."

  "Is that what I said?"

  "Those were the words."

  "Yeah, but . . ." It was different now, looking directly
at the possibility. "Robbie seems so . . ."

  "What, charming?"

  "No--"

  "Fun-loving?"

  "Are we gonna play that again?"

  "You're the writer," Bryan said. "What's the word? Robbie seems so . . ."

  "Harmless," Angela said. "But weird."

  "You were there when he shot the Haitian. You said there was something strange about it and you tried to talk to him after, later on."

  "I did. I asked him, did you have to shoot the poor guy? It was the first thing I said to him after thepolice left. And Robbie said, very serious, 'You're writing about me and you have to ask that?' "

  "Maybe blowing smoke at you," Bryan said. "I think he goes for dramatic effects."

  "Or maybe telling the truth," Angela said. "As though he was saying, 'If you know me, then you'd know I had to shoot the guy.' After that, for the next few days, I tried to corner him to find out what he meant. But he avoided me--I mean to the point of being rude. He made excuses, never had time to talk. And he was strange. Off somewhere in his mind." Angela said then, "Do some people--have you ever met anyone who shot people for the fun of it? For kicks?"

  "Whatever the reason," Bryan said, "yeah, there're people who like to shoot people. There're cops who look for an excuse. There're guys who get into armed robbery, I'm pretty sure, hoping they'll have to use their gun."

  Angela was quiet for a moment. "At the hearing, the plaintiff's lawyer asked if you'd ever shot anyone."

  "He asked if I'd killed anybody lately," Bryan said. "He knew. He was making a comparison, with Walter."

  "Well, have you?"

  "What, killed anybody? No, I never have. Or had the desire.""What if you did have to, sometime?"

  "Then I'd do it." Bryan said. "If there's no choice, I guess you do it."

  Annie Maguire said to Robbie, "You've got an awfully nice house. It reminds me a little of where they signed the Declaration of Independence. The outside."

  "It's comfortable," Robbie said. Leading Annie through the front hall to the study, his sneakers squeaked on the marble floor. He let her go in first, then rated her as she looked around the study. Nice can filling out the skirt of the beige suit. She wore a dark blue button-down shirt with it; a well-worn brown-leather bag hung from her shoulder. He wondered what kind of gun was inside. She wasn't bad looking at all: the clean, wholesome type. He imagined a spray of freckles over motherly breasts.

  There was that to be said of some older women: they offered a comforting, maternal sexuality that could be a nice change. Annie, he judged, was about thirty-four.

  "You know who you remind me of? Julie Andrews."

  Annie said, "Jim Malik--he's the one I told you on the phone was coming out with me? But something came up he had to do. Jim says I remind him of her too. Except I'm fatter and I don't talk funny."

  "I certainly wouldn't call you fat," Robbie said.

  "In fact, the first thing that came to mind when I opened the door--you know what I wanted to do?"

  Annie smiled. She said, "What?"

  "Tie you up," Robbie said, deadpan, "and fuck your socks off. I've never slept with a cop before."

  He maintained his bland, almost melancholy expression, waiting for her reaction, ready to break into a grin.

  Annie said, "Someone else said that to me one time." She walked past the big chair facing the television console and sat down on the couch of soft brown leather. "When I was working Sex Crimes."

  Robbie didn't get a chance to grin. He said, "Sex Crimes?"

  "We handled criminal sexual conduct. Rape, in varying degrees," Annie said. "That was before I got into Homicide."

  "Sex Crimes," Robbie said again. It had a ring to it. He dropped into his chair, swung his sneakers, laces untied, onto the ottoman. The policewoman showed up very well against the rich brown leather.

  "How about a drink?"

  "No thanks," Annie said. "Anyway, there was a guy we were after who came to be known as the Weekend Rapist. He'd go into a house Saturday or Sunday night--we'd find cigarette butts out by thegarage where he watched the house until the lights went out. Then he'd go in. And always with a gun.

  He wasn't a cat burglar, the kind that sneaks in and out. This guy stuck the gun in their face, whoever was home, and took what he wanted. Mostly jewelry, valuables, things like that. Cash. And if there was a woman in the house he'd rape her. Actually he forced the woman to perform fellatio and then he sodomized her."

  "Wow," Robbie said.

  "Anyone else in the house--the husband, kids- he'd make them lie on the floor in the same room and cover them with a blanket so they couldn't see him. But they could hear, and this guy would give a blow by blow--"

  Robbie grinned. "If you'll pardon the expression, uh?"

  "--of whatever he was doing. Though mostly what they heard was the poor woman crying. Then he'd thank her, take the stuff and leave."

  "What'd he wear?" Robbie asked.

  "Watch cap, dark sweat shirt with a hood and aviator sunglasses. He had a beard too."

  "Fascinating," Robbie said.

  "But he didn't always say please and thank you," Annie said. "Twice--and the women were alone both times--he put a pillow over their face, pressed a twenty-two revolver into the pillow and shot them in the head.""Unpredictable," Robbie said.

  "In some ways," Annie said. "In other ways, no.

  He always used his girl friend's car, as it turned out, and that led us to our suspect. A guy who was out on parole following a B and E conviction--there had been an attempted rape in that case too, but it was dropped in the plea bargaining. Anyway we brought the guy in--Dennis Kenzie, I'll never forget his name--and I handled the interrogation.

  Well, right away he started to come on to me, making sly remarks, saying what you said about tying me up."

  "Really?" Robbie sounded disappointed, upstaged.

  "We were pretty sure Dennis was our Weekend Rapist, just from little things he'd let slip. But we couldn't get a positive I. D. from any of the victims and we didn't have nearly enough to bring him up.

  But then," Annie said, "he started calling me, asking me to go out with him. And he started hanging around. Twice I ran into him in Greektown. And finally I was pretty sure he followed me home. A few days later I came in the house--there he was waiting for me in his knit cap, his sunglasses, pointing a gun at me. He took my purse, pushed me in the bedroom and told me to take off my clothes. He'd even brought a rope to tie me up."

  "Jesus," Robbie said, "what'd you do?"

  "I reached under the mattress, pulled out myspare thirty-eight Chiefs Special and told Dennis to drop his gun," Annie said. "And when he didn't, I shot him."

  Robbie liked it and began to smile. "Just like that. Did you kill him?"

  "No, he survived. He's doing mandatory life,"

  Annie said, "with a limp." She smiled back at Robbie now with that sweet-girl way that opened hearts and said, "Mr. Daniels, were you at the Detroit Plaza Hotel any time Saturday morning?"

  His smiled remained, part of it, the smile becoming vacant with the effort to maintain his composure, giving himself time.

  He said, "You know who picked up the Japs- after I accused Walter and we almost got in an argument over it? I did. We had so many buyers in that day . . . Well, everything's gone now, all the equipment . . ."

  "Did you pick them up at the Plaza?"

  "No, it was the Ponch. I'm quite sure."

  "Did you pick any body up at the Plaza?"

  He appeared to give it some thought. "I don't think I did. I know I dropped some people off there, later."

  "What kind of car were you driving?"

  "Saturday? . . . I had the Mercedes."

  "What color is it?"

  "Well, we have a black one and a yellow one, to go with whatever mood you're in. Saturday I was insomething of a funereal mood, the end of an era, seventy-five years of nuts and bolts . . ." Robbie gave her a sly look and began to smile again. "You know, you're quite attractive. W
ere you ever a model?"

  Annie said, "Are you serious?"

  "Were you ever on television?"

  "On the six o'clock news a couple of times," Annie said. "Walking a prisoner from 1300 to the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice."

  "That's not all," Robbie said. He pushed up the remote-control box from the table next to him and pushed a button. "Watch."

  Annie was looking at him and wasn't sure what he meant until he nodded toward the television console.

  She turned and saw herself on the screen, in color, walking toward the couch. She saw herself and heard her voice saying, "Someone else said that to me one time. When I was working Sex Crimes." She heard Daniels's voice, offscreen, say, "Sex Crimes?"

  Angela had walked down to the beach while Bryan was on the phone again with Annie. She felt him near and opened her eyes. The hair on his chest moved in the wind.

  He said, "Walter left yesterday with the Mercedes. Robbie's coming down tonight. How does he usually fly?""He hitches a ride on some company jet," Angela said. "Or he charters one. He very rarely flies commercial."

  Angela waited. Bryan was looking off at the ocean.

  "I think we ought to move to Palm Beach," he said. "You know of any places?"

  "I know a Holiday Inn," Angela said. "I know many Holiday Inns, all over." She waited again.

  "Robbie told Annie I should give him a call. He wants to play golf with me. You said he was weird," Bryan said. "I believe it."

  "I also said he was harmless," Angela said.

  "Yeah--we're not so sure about that part," Bryan said. "I would like to get to know him better."

  Angela said, "Can I watch?"

  The rental car was a Buick Century he could not say anything for or against. It was dark shiny brown in the hot sunlight. It took them north out of Boca on 95 while he told Angela about Annie's visit with Robbie.

  "He doesn't think he picked up anyone at the Plaza," Bryan said. "Does that sound like him?"

  "No," Angela said, "if anything he's Mr. Positive. But what he'll do, he'll look you right in the face and lie. Then have that little-boy impish grin ready in case you call him on it.""The weird part, Annie said he videotaped her.

  He has hidden cameras mounted in the study and showed her a movie of herself on TV."