The Day I Died

by Lawrence Lariar

  Sue would be coming with him to Miami, he knew.

  Sooner or later, he would have her there …

  CHAPTER 13

  The phone booth was hot and Nick Bruck mopped his steaming brow and said: “Put me through to Masterson.”

  He looked through the glass door of the phone booth and across the airport lobby, his eyes as vacant and dull as a dreaming schoolboy’s. Yet the tide of passersby was a moving current under his gaze. He was watching only those pedestrians who moved toward the exit up there. It would be easy to spot the limping kid with the lean face. Over six feet tall and wearing a dark brown felt, brand new, with a small feather in the band, red-tipped and sporty looking. He would be wearing a gray suit with a thin pinstripe and a blue tie. He would be easy. The face, first of all, was different and distinctive. The face was handsome, but not in the usual way; nothing soupy and pretty-pretty about it. Nick Bruck continued to stare when the voice sounded against his ear.

  “I’m here at the airport, boss,” he said.

  “He’s going out?”

  “On the next one to Miami.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He took her out this morning and he bought her a lot of stuff,” Bruck said. “They went into a fur store and a jewelry store.”

  “In what neighborhood?”

  “Up on Fifth Avenue, near Fifty-seventh.”

  “Out of the cheap belt.” Masterson laughed.

  “She isn’t exactly what you’d call a cheap doll. It must have cost him plenty. But listen, boss, this character loves to throw it away. You ought to see him now. He’s a new man. He loaded himself up with fancy duds, too. I’m beginning to figure maybe I was right. All he needed was a good piece, a doll like Suzie. She must have given him the business last night.”

  “Where did he leave her?”

  “Last I saw she was saying goodbye to him, outside a fancy dump on Park Avenue, a restaurant.”

  “Her name;” said Masterson. “Give it to me again.”

  “Sue Welch,” Bruck said. “She’s on every night at Florian’s. She’s the one Duke Mortimer put on him last night.”

  “Duke didn’t tell me about her. Who is she?”

  “She’s on the books with Duke Mortimer, boss. She’s a fifty-dollar lay and she’s kind of fussy about her trade. She came to Florian’s out of Chicago. She’s smart as hell. But she’d murder her own mother for a quick buck. Duke said you wanted somebody who didn’t look cheap. That was why he picked her. You give her a quick look, she could be a kid out of college, if you get what I mean, not one of the hard dolls at all. She’s got a pretty fancy build, too. The way I see it, she’ll stay with him so long as we pay her off good. For fifty a day, she’ll tie him in knots.”

  “She sounds all right,” Masterson said. “Stay with him down there. Pay him off, but don’t lose him, is that clear?”

  “It won’t be so easy now,” Bruck said. “He’s waking up.”

  “What exactly does that mean?”

  “I’m pretty sure he saw me. A couple of times.”

  “Don’t let it bother you.”

  “It don’t break me up, boss. Just figured you might want to know.”

  “Sometimes you surprise me, Nick. Forget it and do what I told you to do.”

  Bruck hung up and stared at the mouthpiece for a long moment. Then he shook his head and shrugged his shoulders and pushed the door open and let himself flow into the crowd of people pouring slowly toward the field. He did not see Coyle move behind him from the side of a group of passengers waiting near the newsstand. He did not know that Coyle would enter the plane on his heels, to watch him take his seat toward the rear.

  Bruck pulled a comic book out of his pocket and opened it and was beginning to read it when he saw Coyle take the seat alongside him. The thing that made it funny was the way the kid looked at him. Smiling? At what? For what? Bruck appraised the smile and knew what it meant when he saw the small beads of sweat standing out on Coyle’s brow. It wasn’t that hot in here.

  Coyle lit a cigarette, and squinted glassily at Bruck.

  “Going to Miami?”

  “Miami Beach,” Bruck said. He opened the comic book again.

  “You get around to the craziest places,” Coyle said.

  “Like which?”

  “Like all the places I get around to.”

  “That’s a funny one.”

  “I don’t think it’s so funny.”

  Bruck seemed lost in the comic book now. He grinned down at the pages and shook his head at the colored figures jumping around down there. Coyle watched him, wondering whether he should slap the thing out of his hands now. The plane trembled and the motors roared and they were rolling along the concrete path, into the wind. Bruck turned to look out of the window. In profile, Bruck had the expression of a suddenly roused bulldog, his lower lip slightly protruding, his flat jaws grinding at the gum he chewed. He had a broad, squarish nose, bumped and ridged where some pug had nailed him a long time ago. There was a white scar high on his right cheek, up close to his veiled eyes. The dull and heavy-lidded eyes blinked slowly, as mechanically as the movement of his jaws. The stupid bastard could think. He was thinking now. It bothered Coyle to sit so close to the man and yet feel so far outside the orbit of his attention. It was like standing outside a cage in the zoo and waiting for the great black leopard to open its eyes and stand, finally, and move in one way or another.

  Coyle said: “How did you know I’d be on this plane?”

  “I get around,” Bruck said, not bothering to look at Coyle.

  “Did Sue tell you?”

  “Sue? Sue?” There was a hinge on the man’s head and he used it, swinging his doubt and confusion slowly, like a mechanical man in a penny arcade. “I know a couple of hundred broads with that name, mister.”

  “Welch,” Coyle said stubbornly. “Sue Welch. She works at Florian’s.”

  “Never heard of her. Me, I can’t afford expensive joints like that,” Bruck said sadly.

  “Why not? Don’t you work for Masterson?”

  “Smart.” Bruck heaved a mighty sigh and picked up the comic book and opened it to a lost page. His big hands were scarred on the knuckles. “This here Dick Tracy,” he said. “A panic, isn’t he?”

  Coyle swept the comic book out of Bruck’s hand and it hit against the window and dropped to Bruck’s lap. But Bruck only sighed again and began to thumb the pages.

  “So I work for Masterson,” he said. “You happy now?”

  “Where did you pick me up?”

  “I never lost you, Buster. You were easy to tail, all the way.”

  “What’s Masterson worried about?”

  “Ask Masterson that one. Maybe he figures you need watching.”

  “And how do you figure me?”

  “I don’t get my dough for figuring. I just hang around,” Bruck said.

  “Like a goddamned leech.”

  Coyle spat the word at him, half turning to await the expected reaction, the fury that would make this man seem more human. It was right for the Rock to preserve his frigid poise at all times. But this ape? What was he trying to do? Imitate his celebrated boss? Coyle was getting very angry at the man now, angrier than he should have been, because Bruck only continued to study his comic book. Bruck grinned at Dick Tracy.

  “You don’t want to blow your top,” he said to Dick Tracy. “You’ll maybe stay healthier if you stay nice, Coyle.”

  “Mr. Masterson himself,” Coyle said.

  “Bruck,” said Bruck. “The name is Nick Bruck.”

  “Go to hell then, Bruck.”

  “You got a bad temper, Coyle.” Bruck put down the book and studied the clouds. “You don’t want to blow your top. What for? Miami Beach now—it’s a big dump. You and me don’t have to crap in the same can, do we now?”
/>   “God forbid.”

  “So relax, then.” Bruck slumped in his seat and adjusted his stubby figure to a more comfortable posture and folded his big hairy hands across his chest. Then he closed his eyes, still smiling at some secret idea that amused him. “Now be a good kid and clam up, will you? I need some shut-eye.”

  And after five minutes, Nick Bruck began to snore …

  CHAPTER 14

  When night blanketed the bay, Coyle stood at the long window of the cottage, looking back at the Carrillon Hotel, down the colonnade of palms where the bright lights from the canopy filtered through the intervening gardens. The foliage hid the place from view of the main walk near the hotel. There was a feeling of isolation here at the cottage, despite the fact that the tiny house lay less than two hundred yards from the main driveway of the Carrillon. The two lights up there were the twin beacons in the turrets of the hotel, blinking red and sharp. To keep the planes off? And out there in the bay, was it a boat that crawled near the long pier? Somebody shouted out of the blackness that was the water. There was the sound of feminine laughter and then the quick burst of noise from the boat’s motor, followed by more shouting from the pier, the voices somehow fiat and dead in the night.

  And then silence. A salted breeze pushed the drapes back into the room and hung them there, billowing and puffing. Everything burned in Coyle’s eyes; everything seemed staged and new, so that he moved slowly and carefully, not yet used to the sights and sounds in the cottage, feeling strange and a little lonely and restless. Would he be here tomorrow? New places always saddened him until he grew accustomed to them. He walked out on the terrace and stared deep into the gloom. Beyond the ridge of the walk, the waves were a thin white thread, remote and vague, the sound of distant breathing. A couple walked in the dark out there, etched briefly against the sky, and then passed toward the cabañas where he lost them.

  He walked back into the cottage and turned the radio on loud, filling the small room with the blare of quick music. The rumba did nothing to kill the memory of Sue, reminding him of Florian’s muted band, somewhere out of sight last night, the drums soft and pulse-like through the walls. She would be back there now, with another sucker, drinking and laughing and building him up for the big moment in her room. Would it be a fast pitch for the new stranger? Or did she mean it when she said she would join him here? He wanted her and the confusion of his longing emptied his mind of any immediate purpose, so that he became annoyed with the rumba music and killed the radio with an angry gesture. The hell with Sue, Coyle decided.

  He was on his way out of the cottage when he saw the two men approaching up the shadowed path. They were two silhouettes, a Mutt and Jeff combination. The smaller man reached the patio first and sucked hungrily at his cigarette and then flipped the butt in a high arc, out over the garden.

  “Barney Diaz.” The short man smiled, and shook Coyle’s hand with an exaggerated strength. “Meet Mr. Kepper, my manager.”

  “Glad to know you both,” Coyle said.

  Kepper said nothing. He followed Barney Diaz up the terrace and stood against the brick wall. Coyle accepted a cigarette and stared at Diaz, a puzzling name, a baffling name, a name he had heard before and could not place. Diaz? It was like seeing a familiar street in a strange town. You saw it and knew it and knew that you couldn’t know it. And Diaz? From what buried conversation did his name emerge?

  “A custom here at the Carrillon, Mr. Coyle. A personal welcome from me and my manager.”

  “Well, that’s nice,” Coyle said.

  “You comfy here?”

  “It’s perfect, Mr. Diaz.”

  “Barney,” smiled the little man. “Everybody calls me Barney.”

  “Okay, Barney.”

  “You here for four months?” Diaz licked his lips on every word, grinning broadly as he spoke, a little man with a lot of big smiles. He smiled at everything, the room, the window, and finally, Kepper. Kepper did not return his grin.

  “Isn’t that what the desk man said, Kepper?”

  “That’s it,” Kepper said.

  “Four months?” Diaz asked.

  “The season,” Coyle said.

  “Alone?” Diaz licked at the word.

  “Right now,” Coyle said. “But I’ll be having guests.”

  “Sure. You’ll let us know when?”

  “Tomorrow, maybe.”

  “Sure. This is just routine, you understand?” Diaz overworked his face to show his friendliness. “For how long? The guest, I mean?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “You bet. Just routine, so they’ll know at the hotel, meals and all.”

  “Anything else, Barney?”

  “How about the place? I’d like to show you around, that is if you don’t want to turn in, or anything. Something I always do with new guests, but it can wait until the morning if you don’t feel up to it.”

  “I think I’d like it,” Coyle said.

  “You bet,” said Diaz, and turned to Kepper. “All right, Sam.”

  And Kepper went out, across the terrace and down the path under the palms. Kepper lit a cigar there and stood off to one side with his back to the house. Then he turned and walked off toward the entrance to the Carrillon. Diaz began to talk at once. Coyle listened, working the little man’s face over on his mind. It was strange and different, nobody he had ever seen before. Barney lapped and licked his words and drooled with delight over his hotel. A staccato recital of its features; the broad lobby and the tricky Marine Bar, and the big terrace facing the bay out there. He was sounding off, running down the list as though he had memorized the patter. What bothered Diaz? He fidgeted and jerked like a fly on a hot pan. And he was so sallow that the puffs under his eyes seemed purplish and dead. How could a man live in Florida and remain so pale?

  “Your friend Zadek always liked it here,” he was saying. “So he told me.”

  “Zadek’s one of the best,” Coyle said, enjoying the game now.

  “Too bad he won’t be here this season,” Barney said. “Or will he?”

  “Not this season.”

  They were standing at the Marine Bar. A four-piece combine squatted in the corner, beating out muffled music, a rumba and after that a quicker tempo thing. People danced on the small circle of floor, tight and close. Coyle saw it all over Barney’s shoulder. Barney was very short. Barney was short enough to be fifteen years old. But not in the eyes, he wasn’t. What was coming now? The little man was ordering milk and sipping it thirstily, in between handfuls of peanuts.

  “Doctor’s orders,” Barney explained soberly. “Me, I’m maybe in my second childhood now, Coyle. Milk and peanuts, God help me. You like the room here? What do you think of the place, anyhow?”

  “Nice,” said Coyle. “Nice atmosphere.”

  “Zadek liked it, too. His favorite spot down here.”

  “Zadek has good taste.”

  “Thanks. It’s small, but the people come here anyhow. Ha! But it smells a little, compared with those big traps up in New York. I know. You don’t have to tell me. I’ll bet Masterson would laugh at a place like this.”

  Coyle downed his drink. Was this the end of the road, in Barney’s little game? He had grabbed another handful of peanuts and was popping them into his mouth again. He was lifting a finger to signal the bartender to refill his glass of milk. He was jerking and twitching, nodding and smiling at some people who just came in. How are you, Joe? Hello, Abe. Hello, hello. Turning and giving them all his professional grin, the cracked smile set and steady. But where were his eyes? What was the brain doing while the mouth smiled?

  “Masterson?” Coyle said. “Who the hell is he?”

  “Jesus, you don’t know Masterson?”

  “The name is familiar. Should I know him?”

  “Listen, shouldn’t you know Harry Truman?”

  “Another of
the same,” Coyle said to the bartender. Barney wasn’t pushing it. One of the performers came over, a girl with fat lips and hips to match. Barney bought her a drink and introduced her and waited until she left for the little stage. She broke into a ballad, hot and deep, using her navel as much as her larynx. She sold the song and the people applauded and Barney joined them.

  “I thought everybody in New York knew him,” Barney said, slapping his hands together, but producing little sound. “Masterson’s supposed to be big up there. Jesus, he’d break your head if he knew about this.”

  “He’d what?”

  “What I mean is, he’s big, Coyle. Maybe the biggest.”

  “The biggest what?”

  “An operator.” Barney sucked deep of his fresh milk. He took out his handkerchief and mopped his thin lips delicately. “I’ll tell you a little secret. Lots of people down here think he owns International.”

  “I never heard it mentioned up in the office,” Coyle said.

  They went out to look at the Carrillon pier.

  Out here Barney said little, only showing off the big boats his customers owned and making much of the people of great wealth who preferred the Carrillon. Coyle listened. He was fascinated by the little man, challenged by the mystery of his identity, plumbing the recent past for a clue that would bring Barney into focus. Nothing came to him. They walked back to the beach and Barney shook his hand and said good night, still smiling softly.

  Coyle watched him go. He was smiling when he turned abruptly and started back for the terrace outside the Marine Bar. A wisp of smoke curled up and away from his head, blowing in the thin stream of air from the bay. There was something queer about the way Barney walked. Crablike? Purposeless? His head was bent low and his hands were clasped behind his back and he seemed to take a long time to get back to the Carrillon. On the terrace, he stood for a long time, staring back into the gloom. Was he shaking his head at Coyle?