LaBrava

by Elmore Leonard

  “Joe, come on . . .”

  “Don’t ask, you won’t have to worry about it.”

  “You don’t carry a gun anymore, Joe, you’re a civilian now. You and I can talk, I appreciate it; but you got to stay out of it when the time comes. You understand? It’s not anything personal, it’s the way it is.”

  “I know that.”

  “You don’t want to get mad, do something dumb.”

  “I’m not mad at anybody.”

  “Yeah? How come you broke the guy’s arm?”

  “I didn’t mean to. He raised it to protect his head.”

  Torres said, “Oh, Joe. Man, come on . . . You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”

  LaBrava said, “Yeah, I’m kidding.”

  For a while last night he had become detached, able to respond impersonally rather than in a role with conditions. He felt this detachment again and liked the feeling, content to be a watcher, though not for too long.

  Mrs. Heffel, the Della Robbia lady who picked up the envelope from the floor and placed it on the marble counter, said it was not so long ago that she found it. She put it there at once. She said she didn’t open it and read it so don’t accuse me. Maurice said, no one is accusing you; these gentlemen want to know what time it was and if you saw anybody in the lobby might have left it. Mrs. Heffel said, I put it over there, I minded my own business, so please don’t accuse me, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

  It was close to four o’clock by the time Jean and then Buck Torres read the note lying open on the marble counter. It was typed on the same kind of steno paper as the first one and said:

  Here we go. Put the Hefty bag with the money in it in the front seat of your car and no place else. You are to drive ALONE north on I-95 to Atlantic Blvd, Pompano Beach. Go over to AIA and drive up to the market on the corner of Spring St. where you see the Coppertone sign (almost to the Hillsboro Inlet) and you will find 4 outside telephone booths. Wait at the second phone from the left as you face the street. Be there at exactly 6 PM ALONE. No cops. No tricks. Or you will be sorry. I am watching you.

  LaBrava read the note and became an observer they let hang around.

  He saw the plainclothes cops, Jean, Maurice, everyone in a hurry to do what was expected, hurrying to follow instructions. He wanted to talk to Jean, but it wasn’t possible now. After he read the note, he went into the area of the hotel kitchen where the police had set up their telephones and recording equipment. A detective was talking to the resident FBI man in West Palm, requesting traps on the Hillsboro phones. Jean Shaw was unbuttoning her blouse. He watched Jean, he watched Torres, solemn, impassive, tape a GE body pack to her rib cage, close beneath the white bra cup covering her right breast. The pack was smaller than a package of cigarettes and contained microphone, battery and transmitter in one. She would be wired without wires. He saw her eyes gazing at him, solemn—everyone solemn—over Buck Torres’ dark head bent close to her body, as though he might be listening to her heartbeat. She didn’t say anything to him. She raised her eyebrows a little, resigned, that was all. She buttoned her blouse. Maurice came in with a detective carrying the Hefty trash bag that bulged out in a smooth round shape about half full; not heavy, the detective carrying it easily with one hand, holding it by the neck that was secured with a twist of baling wire. An I.D. technician came in and gave Jean and Torres each a handwritten copy of the second note. Jean went upstairs to get her purse. Torres spoke to the West Palm R.A. on the phone, giving him a description of Jean’s Cadillac and the three surveillance cars they would be using. Another detective was talking to the Broward County sheriff’s office. All of them serious, playing the game almost deadpan. The only evidence of emotion before they left: Torres wanted to get in the back seat of Jean’s car, lie on the floor. She refused. He tried to insist and she said, then she wasn’t going. She said, “It’s my life, not yours.” Torres gave in.

  * * *

  Maurice said, “Thank the Lord it’s cocktail time,” sounding more relieved than worried. He poured Scotch over ice at his credenza, brought one to LaBrava looking at a photograph on a wall of the living-room gallery, and climbed into his La-Z-Boy.

  The photograph, a half century old, showed a bearded man in a dark business suit standing in sunlight at the brushy edge of a stream.

  “Guy claims that’s the site of the original Garden of Eden,” Maurice said. “On the east bank of the Apalachicola River between Bristol and Chatahoochee, and you know the kind live up at Chatahoochee. Guy also said Noah built his ark right there, in Bristol. When the flood came he floated around about five months, landed on Mount Ararat and thought he was in West Tennessee. Kind a mistake people make all the time.”

  “Did you give her the money?”

  “I loaned it to her. That would be ridiculous have to mortgage her condo. This guy, he don’t know what he’s doing, they’ll pick him up. Guy’s a clown.”

  LaBrava came over and sat down. “You went to your bank and drew six hundred thousand, just like that.”

  “Signed some bonds over to her. You want to know how much money I got? Don’t worry about it.”

  “Can you afford to lose it?”

  “Joe, I ran a horse book. Don’t try and tell me anything about risk, what the odds are in a deal like this. It’s a lot of money, but at the same time it’s only money. I know what I’m doing.”

  “The cops think it’s Jean’s.”

  “They’re suppose to. Jeanie doesn’t want it to get out I’m the bank, give anybody ideas. So don’t say anything, even to your pal.”

  “Jean’s idea.”

  “We agreed it’s the way to do it. I never went in for publicity like some guys. I don’t say anything that ever gets on the financial page. I could, Joe. I could tell the experts a few things, where to put your dough while the government’s fucking up the economy; but nobody asks me and that’s fine.”

  “You don’t seem too worried about her.”

  “Yeah, is that right? You know what I’m thinking?”

  “She doesn’t seem too worried either. Everybody’s just sort a going along with it.”

  “Your experience, Secret Agent X-9, what would you do?”

  “No—what I’m saying, it can’t be this simple. There’s gotta be a surprise . . .” LaBrava stopped and looked at Maurice. “You put real money in the bag?”

  “You think we cut up paper? You gotta assume the guy’s gonna look at it, whether he does or not.”

  “And he could take her along, couldn’t he?”

  “I worry the guy might be psycho, yeah, do something crazy,” Maurice said. “I’ll tell you, Jeanie gets into some situations. She’s very bright, except she’s not too good a judge a character—some of the bums she gets mixed up with, guys on the make. But she’s a tough lady, she always comes out okay. Sees what she has to do . . .” Maurice looked over at the wall of photographs. “Like Noah . . . Guy says he built the ark out of Florida gopher wood and if you don’t believe him look it up.”

  LaBrava had never heard of gopher wood. He said, “Has this ever happened to her before?”

  “What?”

  “Extortion. Somebody threatens her.”

  “Oh no, nothing like this. Couple of times she got in the hole gambling—she was in that movie she thinks she knows how. They threatened her, yeah, but they didn’t have to. She paid. Another time she paid off a guy’s wife was gonna drag her into a divorce action. She gets into these situations, she seems to have a knack for it.”

  “I thought she was smarter than that.”

  “She’s smart. But like I’ve said, Joe, you gotta remember she was a movie star. Movie stars are different than you and I.”

  23

  * * *

  SHE HAD WRITTEN a script once, walked into Harry Cohn’s office at Columbia and handed it to him. In a bright red cover. He threw it on the desk, said, “Tell me what it’s about in three sentences, and no cheating.” She told him: smart, attractive girl is offered anything
she wants by rich playboy who’s nuts about her, furs, jewels, you name it. Harry Cohn said, “Yeah?” Girl turns him down because getting it that way is unsatisfying, too easy. Harry Cohn said, “She nuts? I never met a fucking broad yet’d turn down anything.” Jean said, wait. The girl cons the playboy out of a lot of money and is happy because she did it, she earned it herself. Harry Cohn said, “You mean the broad wins?” She said, “You bet.” He told her the idea stunk.

  The pay phones, four in a row, were in Plexiglas shells mounted on metal posts. Jean stood by the second phone, waiting, giving it another minute. It was 6:12. Two of the police surveillance cars were across A1A at the Sunoco station; she didn’t see the third one, or signs of any local police. Her purse rested on the metal ledge beneath the phone, open toward her. She might as well do it now. Sgt. Torres, his nose practically in her bra, had told her to speak normally, they’d pick up her voice. She straightened, getting ready, and could feel the tape pull against her skin.

  Jean said, as though talking to herself, “If he doesn’t call, what do I do? This has to be the right place.” She waited a few moments, then took the folded sheet of steno paper from her purse.

  Ready? With curiosity, then surprise:

  “There’s something . . . It looks like . . . My God, it’s a piece of note paper just like the ones . . . It’s sticking out of the phone book.” She unfolded the sheet and looked at the note she had dictated to Richard. “It says . . . ‘Go directly to your apartment. Now. Bring the money with you. Now. I am watching you.’ “

  She looked up, looked around for effect. She could see them, inside the cars at the Sunoco station. They started their engines. She said, “I’ll leave the note here.”

  Victim eager to cooperate. Don’t think. Play the part.

  * * *

  Seventeen minutes later, in the guest parking area of Jean Shaw’s condominium on Ocean Drive, Boca Raton:

  Torres sat in the communications surveillance car, a black Mercedes sedan that had once transported heroin, and watched Jean Shaw walk into the building, her upper body slightly twisted, using both hands to hold the trash bag bouncing against her leg.

  Her voice said, “I don’t see anyone.” The sound thin, coming from a tunnel or from across the ocean. “Isn’t someone supposed to be here? . . . I’m going to pick up my mail.”

  He had told her police would be in the building, never more than a few seconds away from her. The FBI’s West Palm resident agent and people from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s. The West Palm R.A. would be up on her floor.

  “I’m entering the elevator now.”

  Nearly thirty seconds passed.

  “I’m at my apartment . . . I think there’s someone . . . I heard the fire exit close, at the end of the hall. If it isn’t one of ours you’d better get up here.”

  He liked her voice. No strain. Being transmitted from beneath those softly scented breasts. The tape had stuck to his fingers and he’d had a time trying to act natural, putting the body pack on her. She had a mole beneath her left breast, about an inch down.

  Her voice said, “I’m in my apartment. Should I wait for a call? I don’t see a note anywhere.”

  Torres picked up his Walkie and said to the West Palm R.A., a guy named Jim McCormick he had met for the first time at the Sunoco station, “Jim, she’s in there. The door should be open. See how she’s doing.”

  Almost a minute passed. Her voice said, “Do you think he’ll call?” Torres could hear sounds, another voice. A couple of minutes passed.

  The West Palm R.A.’s voice came on the Walkie. “Sergeant, we got another note. It was in with the mail.”

  Torres, feeling a degree of relief, said, “Then it’s your case, man.”

  The West Palm R.A. said, “It wasn’t mailed, it was stuck in the box, hand delivered.”

  Torres said, “Oh.”

  The West Palm R.A. said, “This guy thinks he’s a joker. Now we go back. Ms. Shaw is to proceed to Fort Lauderdale, take I-95 to Sunrise. Proceed east to Northeast Twenty-fourth and turn right past Burdine’s in the Galleria Mall. Turn left on Ninth Street and proceed to the end. You got it?”

  “It’s not clear,” Torres said.

  “Then write it down,” the West Palm R.A. said.

  “I did write it down. What else does it say?”

  “ ‘I am watching you.’ “

  She liked the idea of leading a procession of law-enforcement officers—city, county, federal, losing some, picking up others as she left Palm Beach County and entered Broward—and not a soul through miles of freeway traffic knew it . . . all these people poking along, heading for their little stucco ranch homes and an evening of real-life nothing. She liked the idea of reaching Sunrise with the sun poetically down, to drive east toward a darkening sky, still in traffic, taking her time, wanting the light down fairly low for the last act.

  She wasn’t sure, at first, if she liked having the West Palm FBI guy along. Then decided she liked it, because he added a little class without being much more than an observer. She liked him for the same reason she liked Torres—good casting, big-city cop type with ethnic color—and liked having Joe LaBrava involved. Though she was just as glad he wasn’t in the procession, noticing every detail; he could be scary. She liked them because working with professionals brought out the best in you; you could count on them for cues, sometimes inspiration. Whereas amateurs could ruin your concentration and timing, make you look awkward. She guessed she liked Joe LaBrava for a lot of reasons. He was imaginative. He acted without acting. Played a street character with marvelous restraint, a natural innocence. He was agreeable, understanding, sensitive. He liked Maurice a lot, a big plus. Seemed to have an open mind. A fairly keen one. He certainly had a sense of the dramatic; look at his pictures. Finally, and it could be worth putting at the top of the list, he was a fan.

  True fans understood and were willing to make excuses. If they had to. Joe was a fan for the right reason, he recognized her as an actress.

  But, my God, he didn’t miss a thing. Had even identified and photographed Richard’s little helper—whom she was about to meet for the first time and had better get mentally prepared. She hoped he would have something heavy enough to break the glass. She hoped he would be reasonably calm but quick and, please, wouldn’t have a gun.

  The shopping center was coming up on the right. She had to assume there would be Lauderdale or Broward Sheriff’s cops around somewhere. There was Burdine’s, the name against the rising wall of the store. Just beyond were Neiman-Marcus and Saks. She approached the light at Northwest Twenty-fourth.

  The instructions were intentionally vague from here, Twenty-fourth to Ninth Street to the end, because she wasn’t going that far.

  She would turn right onto Twenty-fourth, follow the street-level underpass to the rear of the mall and be out of sight of the surveillance cars for about fifteen seconds. No more than that.

  The light was green. She turned, passed beneath the drive-through to Ninth and turned left. She was now approaching the only weak sequence in the script. Later, she would have to explain in detail why she suddenly left Ninth and turned into the parking structure instead of proceeding to the end of the street, according to instructions.

  For the time being, she said to the mike beneath her breast, “There’s someone waving!” Got some urgency in her tone, then doubt, fear, saying, “Is he one of ours?” and let it go at that.

  They heard it in the Mercedes approaching Twenty-fourth. Torres said, “Go—” and the detective driving mashed the accelerator, then had to brake hard to make the turn. “Where are you?” Torres said, as they came out of the underpass and did not see the Eldorado. “Say something.” But there would be nothing for the next minute or so, until they heard the sound of breaking glass.

  Cundo Rey watched the Cadillac come out of the underpass, dull white car way down there. Yes, the same one, the windows fixed now. He turned and moved down the nearly empty aisle to the ramp, where cars turned off at
this level, and stood against the column with a brick in his left hand, a red brick with some mortar stuck to it. He wore white work gloves, new ones. He could hear the Cadillac, inside now, somewhere below him.

  Richard said he didn’t need to have a gun, she would be so scared she would let him have the money and not give him any trouble. He had the gun anyway, under his shirt hanging out. He didn’t know this woman; what if she had a gun? He knew what he was going to do. Step out, raise his right hand . . .

  Richard said don’t say anything because the woman would have a wire on her. Richard, the creature, knew a few things, but not too many.

  The car sounded like it was in a hurry, tires squealing in the turns. It reached the third level. Now it was coming, he saw the front end, coming up the ramp. The car got louder. He stepped out, extending his right hand, stopping the car like Superman, the fender coming to touch his hand gently, without a sound. There she was looking at him. He took the brick in his right hand, saw her turn away, bringing up her arm, as he smashed the brick through the passenger-side window, unlocked the door, opened it. Yes, she was a beautiful woman and very calm, her eyes looking at him. Taking the trash bag by the neck he had to say something to her, so he said, “Thank you very much, lady—” and ran for the exit sign above the door to the stairway.

  He would go to the ground level and walk behind the stores to come out on Twenty-sixth Avenue where the new Buick Skylark, stolen this afternoon, waited on the street. Nothing to it. He wished he could take off in the Skylark, go to Georgia right now; but he had to go back to Miami Beach to get his car. Sure, he could buy a new one. But he loved that car too much. He felt good in that car. He said, “Yeah? Well, how does it feel to be rich?” He said, “You kidding me?”

  She couldn’t afford to wait too long—twenty seconds from the time the Exit door closed. She concentrated a moment, worked up a feeling of agitated fear, careful to keep it just short of hysteria, and shouted, “He’s got it! He broke the window!” She paused, opened her door and heard tires squealing, more than one car, and pulled the door closed. “Will you please hurry? He’s getting away!” Without telling them the direction he’d taken. A lapse she would attribute later to fear, anxiety, so much happening at once—wring hands and look helpless. The black Mercedes was coming off the third level, up the ramp now, followed closely by another car, then another. She could hear sirens outside. Torres was in her rearview mirror, running toward her with a radio in his hand.