Kill City USA

by Warren Roberts

  The Lake Okeechobee part of the deal could wait.

  ‘How do you know about this?’

  ‘Don’t ask. You don’t want to compromise your bust. An anonymous tip. Heavy breathing on the phone. You handle that.’

  ‘Is it your Englishmen?’

  ‘All will be revealed when I know more. You’ll be in the picture in good time.’

  I got the government agent scrutiny, eyeball to eyeball. It could destroy a seriously romantic moment at a glance.

  I thought about telling her about Tomas and Les Cargill and the MCP scam but I held back. And I wanted to figure how to neutralise the involvement of Tomas with Quaranto before involving the Feds in the present mess. I wasn’t hoping for divine intervention and retribution to solve that problem as I hadn’t been to Mass in a long time. Ever in fact, as I wasn’t a Catholic. If I had to choose I’d probably be into Buddhism, because it doesn’t have the idea of eternal hell. But, how the hell can you believe in heaven if you don’t believe in hell? So I guess I’m an agnostic.

  Cza gave a deep sigh and shook her head, admitting defeat at least for now. ‘If this meal wasn’t so damn good and if I wasn’t so goddamn horny I’d have you run in. The whole story would be beaten out of you by a butch dyke called Luigi who has a Zapata moustache and a hairy double D chest, who we keep on call for such eventualities.’

  ‘She into ravioli wrestling?’

  ‘That’s your bag, huh?’

  I opened the second bottle of red and counted to ten, to give it time to breathe. I’d drunk most of the other two.

  ‘So how do you live your life, Milo?’

  ‘I live it. I enjoy it. I try not to hurt people that don’t want to hurt me.’

  ‘So. That’s the three commandments according to Milo.’

  ‘Yep. They were handed to me by this bearded guy in flowing robes on Albert Bridge one dark and stormy night.’

  ‘So, this shit we do for a living? Is –’ said Cza.

  ‘We?’

  ‘Deal with scumbags.’

  ‘When I grow up I’ll maybe find something else to do, but in the meantime –’

  ‘You ever think of settling down?’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘You know. Wife, kids, a dog, holidays at Disneyland. Would you like to have children?’

  ‘Why? You ovulating?’

  ‘Milo.’

  ‘Well, I like the dog part of your previous statement.’

  ‘That’s my trouble too. That’s the part I like.’

  ‘I thought you’re a cat person?’

  ‘Plan B. Because I couldn’t have a dog with no one here to look after it during the day. Nowhere for it to roam. Plus I like to wake up with something nice near to me in the mornings.’

  ‘So you need a sleep-over-dog-walker, then?’

  ‘Something like that,’ she said. ‘But this time answer my question. Do you get lonely living by yourself? Or does adult bachelorhood suit you?’

  She turned off the kitchen light and held the candle nearer to my face as if it were a thirties interrogation lamp. She looked very sexy in the flickering glow.

  ‘Special Agent Cza. I refuse to answer on the grounds… ’

  ‘Joe.’

  Her look would have received a thumbs-up from Tomas de Torquemada and his Spanish Inquisitors. She slowly relented before moving to the why can’t men take serious conversations about relationships seriously contemplation, her face screwed and slanted.

  I spoke first, buying the insurance policy.

  ‘Of course I do. It’s not human not to. It’s just – somehow something always screws it up. Love, lust, me, talk of marriage, petty arguments, inhibited sex, tears, all that sort of Venus and Mars crap.’

  ‘I know what you mean. In a relationship you sometimes overlook the signs. The telltale signs. The danger signs. Then whammo. There’s no relationship,’ she said, releasing me from her focus. ‘Then you pick up the pieces and move on. Never look back.’

  ‘I agree. Look what happened to Euridyce. She was looked back at. It got her stuck in Hades,’ I said. She smiled at me, as I tried not to look too smug.

  ‘Bad analogy, Milo, That was another relationship-dyslexic-male screw-up. And that look-backer Orpheus got his comeuppance, remember. He had his balls offed at a knacker’s yard for dissing the fair maidens of Thrace. And not just a half-penal Bobbitt either. He got the full genitalia.’

  Unlike me, Cza looked very smug indeed and illustrated her statement with a few graphically deft parries and thrusts of the eight-inch chopping knife that was now firmly grasped in her right hand carving some imagined loins. Her eyes were locked on mine. I felt a cold and numbing feeling in my groin, the genital equivalent of vertigo or of cold feet. Then an out-of-body flashback to the security of the protective batting box I used to wear when playing cricket at school. The sort that provides a batsman’s vitals with armoured defence against an eighty-mile-an-hour hostile bowling attack on a badly rutted pitch, but would be totally useless against a scorned woman with knackerous intentions.

  I changed the subject. Hell hath no fury like a woman dissed.

  ‘I read in a magazine on the flight over that women want a man who’s culturally gay but genetically straight. That the sort of man you’re after? With gonads fully in place, of course.’

  She said, ‘Screw the homosexual bit. I don’t want a guy who whistles Lloyd Webber tunes. Just give me an educated man with his own teeth and his balls intact. Literal and figurative cojones.’

  She put the candle back down on the table and poured more Barolo into my glass. Then she sat and stared at me, elbows tabled, her chin cupped on her fists, smiling teasingly. My senses were glowing, flushed by the wine, by the candlelight, by the music and by her look of impending sin. I was offering little resistance to her covert interrogation technique, and I’d give more than name, rank and serial number.

  ‘How would you like to apply for the position of sleep-over-cat-walker then? On a temporary give-it-a-try-first-to-see-how-you-like-it basis, of course. Before the position’s widely advertised and good looking applicants’ll be beating down my front door.’

  Conversation with Quaranto in a hot tub I could handle. This I could not.

  ‘You look scared, Milo.’

  ‘I’m scared of love.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Love’s dangerous. Like Ernie Moresco.’

  ‘There’s not a lot of it around. Especially not enough to knock it back if it’s offered.’

  ‘It’s also complicated and difficult. You need more courage than I have to be in love.’

  ‘So I could let you enjoy the wonders of love without all the hassle of buying a one-way ticket there.’

  I was trying vainly to think of an answer when she leant over the table and gave me a long kiss, holding my head tightly with her hands. We stood up, moving sideways so the table was no longer between us, our lips tightly together. A plate clattered to the floor. We held our bodies close, exploring each other’s mouths with our tongues. I could see our flickering shadows cast by the candle against the wall.

  ‘I want you to take me, Milo. Take me everywhere.’

  I lifted her up off the bench, our bodies still entwined, her legs wrapped around me. She leant us toward the kitchen door as her hand pulled at my belt, trying to unbuckle it, then she unwrapped her legs and grabbed my hand, dragging me to her bedroom. We threw each other on the bed. She rolled me over so I lay on top of her, her legs clamped around my back, her hands pulling her T-shirt above her firmly-cupped breasts. She pulled my head down to her nipples, as the telephone rang.

  ‘No way José,’ she said, letting it ring. ‘No fucking way. I’m not home.’

  Her voice kicked in with her brief answer message. She tried to roll out from under my body to kick the phone onto the floor. I recognised Gloria’s voice on the answering machine.

  ‘Cza. Sorry to interrupt. Is Milo there? Cza. I need to speak to him. It’s urgent. I’m worri
ed about Jay. I’ve just been to the airport. Hello. Anybody there. Hel –’

  Cza sat up and picked up the receiver and thrust it towards me.

  ‘For you, I believe.’ Her affected English plummy voice got her message across.

  I lay back on the bed.

  ‘Gloria. What’s up?’

  ‘Milo. I went to the airport to pick up Jay. She wasn’t on the flight. I waited for a while and called her sister who told me she got the earlier flight because of the message you left her.’

  ‘What message?’

  ‘You didn’t leave her one?’

  ‘No. Of course not. I would have told you, if I had.’

  ‘What do we do? I hate disturbing you but Dooley’s upstate for the night.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  Cza had stormed out of the bedroom as soon as I had started my conversation. The candle in the kitchen had been blown out signifying the end of our encounter for the evening. She was noisily stacking dishes in the dishwasher with Wagner blaring. Her T-shirt was now firmly tucked into shorts.

  ‘Cza. There’s a problem. A real problem. I’m sorry.’

  I held her, turning her around to face me. Her body came, but her head went sideways.

  ‘Don’t tell me. Your girlfriend had her bus fare stolen in the Big Apple.’

  ‘Look. This is important. I think Jay’s in trouble.’

  ‘So? Tell her to write to an agony aunt. Or call me. I’ll put her right.’ Sandra Bullock as the FBI’s Miss Congeniality she wasn’t.

  I hugged her and she went limp in response. I held her shoulders and went to kiss her mouth. She turned her cheek to me. I saw myself out and went into the unromantic night to find a cab, figuring a lift was out of the question.

  26

  Gloria was waiting for me outside her front gate. I called Liz, Jay’s sister in New York as soon as I went inside the house. She picked up on the first ring.

  She said, ‘She arrived yet?’

  ‘No. What time did she leave New York?’

  ‘She caught an early afternoon flight after getting a message from you.’

  ‘I didn’t send her a message. As far as I was concerned she was arriving here at ten this evening. Gloria had arranged to meet her at the airport.’

  ‘She said your office called early this morning. That you’d wanted her to come earlier so you’d changed her booking.’

  ‘That’s news to me. Did she give the name of whoever it was who called?’

  ‘I don’t recall. I’m looking at the note pad on the desk. She’s written a new flight number here. And there’s a copy of the fax she sent to you yesterday.’

  ‘What fax?’

  ‘It’s here. Addressed to you. Saying she’s looking forward to seeing you tomorrow and she’s reconfirmed her flight details.’

  ‘I didn’t get a fax. Was it addressed to me at the office?’

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Liz. ‘It looks like it was sent to your hotel. It’s got your room number on it.’

  ‘Can you send me a copy here?’

  I gave her Dooley’s home fax number, reading it off his machine.

  ‘Milo. I’m worried about her. All these things going on she’s told me about. These guys from London who’ve come to Miami. Someone shooting you.’

  ‘The shooting had nothing to do with her problem. So just send me that fax and I’ll get back to you as soon as we find out something here.’

  ‘Should I come down there?’ she said. ‘I feel so helpless here.’

  That I did not need. ‘I’m sure there’s some reasonable explanation.’ I sure couldn’t think of one. ‘Let’s just keep in touch. I’ll find out what’s happened.’

  ‘Let me know as soon as you hear something.’ She hung up.

  I had given Jonah my cell phone for the evening as he needed to call for directions to pick up his friend. He didn’t answer my call so I left him a message. I tried Dooley as well on his cell, and at his motel but there was no answer. I left them messages.

  ‘Gloria. Get Rafe on the phone. Have him check if Jay was on the midday flight into Miami. He might have some contacts at the airlines. Hang on. Here’s the details.’

  The fax was coming through from Jay’s sister:

  For Joe Milo Room 1802

  Dearest JM

  Can’t wait to see you back in Miami.

  Just reconfirming am arriving tomorrow American flight

  120 at 2200.

  Hugs and kisses

  Jay

  Liz’s letterhead was at the top. She had added the time sent as 7 am.

  ‘Gloria. I need a car. I’m going back to the hotel to see if there’s any messages. Try to get hold of Jonah and tell him what’s happened. He’s got my cell and it’s either off or out of range. Here’s the number. I need him urgently. See if you can get hold of Dooley and let him know what’s going on. And call Tonique at home. I didn’t leave Jay a message but double check in case someone did. I’ll call you from the hotel.’

  She gave me the keys to her bright yellow VW Beetle. I drove it as fast as it could go, back to the Shelborne.

  The hotel staff at the reception desk had no record of receiving the fax. They said that someone on the morning shift may know something but the next shift didn’t start until 6 am.

  The phone was ringing as I went into my room. Rafe said, ‘Jay was on the passenger manifest of a La Guardia to Miami flight which arrived on time at 4.30. You can get me on my cell if you need anything more from me.’

  I told the hotel reception desk that if anyone called I was going the short distance to the Hotel Delano and I expected to be back shortly.

  Neither Sayers nor Irish answered their phones and I couldn’t see them in the crowded bar or restaurant. I had taken their room numbers from my copy of our surveillance report. They didn’t answer my bangs on their door.

  Back at the Shelborne Gloria told me she had still not been able to get through to Dooley or Jonah, and that Tonique had no knowledge of any call made to Jay. Liz had called again from New York and said she was coming to Miami in the morning, if there was no further news from us.

  I poured two mini-bottles of scotch from the room bar. I really didn’t need it after a gallon of wine. What I needed was a clear mind or better still a phone call from Jay. I put the glass in the refrigerator. Then I changed my mind, and downed it in one. It flexed my internals so I had another.

  I called The Delano, but there was still no answer from Sayers. I left him a message and marshalled my thoughts, which were stewing in my parboiled brain.

  First: Sayers had found out where Jay was, and had persuaded her to come to Miami for a meeting, and she’d decided to do so without telling me. He’d made his position clear to me earlier that day that he wanted no dealings with me.

  Second: Quaranto was using Jay to send me a message to leave town.

  Jay would not have met Sayers without telling me. That discounted number one. And Sayers knew the repercussions of physically messing with her.

  Quaranto had given me an ultimatum that had just expired. But he wouldn’t want to involve himself in kidnapping, which would involve the Feds. There were more subtle and effective ways of getting to me than that. That would discount number two.

  The fax had been sent to me yesterday, and someone who had an interest in me had intercepted the message by bribing a receptionist. They would have found out that Jay was visiting me today. The salutation would have suggested a romantic involvement. Liz’s phone number was on the letterhead so it would not have taken a Newtonian apple moment to figure out how to find her.

  If I discounted Quaranto, I was left with Ernie Moresco, the lethally irritable psychotic. He’d been humiliated by me and had a score to settle. Add the little matter of the shipping scam, and he might also have found out about my visit to Detroit. Quaranto would not countenance a kidnapping. He wasn’t that stupid. Moresco was an unrestrainable psychopath, freelancing.

  I searched for the cell phone numb
er I’d been given by the receptionist at the WPP office for Henry Hill. Fortunately it was in my copy of the report to South Federal bank which I’d kept in my room. The number was Bezzant’s but I hoped it would get me to Moresco.

  I called the number. It was busy and I was switched to an answer service. I hung up. I tried again with the same result. On my fourth try, the phone was answered with a brief hello. I recognised the voice.

  ‘Moresco?’ I said.

  A chuckle. ‘So it’s the Limey faggot. I was wondering when you’d call, douchebag. I believe I got something of yours here.’

  ‘Let me talk to her.’

  ‘Listen carefully, motherfucker. Tell me where you are. I’ll call you right back on another phone. And be there. I’ll call once only.’

  I gave him the hotel and my room number. His phone clicked dead. I didn’t want to call Gloria or Rafe and keep my room phone engaged. I waited. Five minutes seemed an age. I thought briefly of Cza. This just wasn’t my night.

  The phone rang.

  ‘I’m saying this once, cocksucker. You come downtown. Alone. You be here in thirty minutes. Max. A block south of the WPP office is a Radio Shack. You park outside. There’s a pay-phone there. You’ll be called in thirty minutes exactly. Once only. You won’t be called if there’s anyone with you or leaves the hotel with you. Get the first cab on the rank. Don’t carry a cell phone.’

  The phone went dead.

  I called Gloria’s number. It was engaged. I was switched to her answer service so I left a brief message. I wrote a message for Jonah and left it on the room table. I wrote another message to give to reception downstairs telling Jonah to pay Big Paul an unannounced visit. I was thinking on my feet trying to cover all the angles available to me. And I left a message on my cell in case Jonah picked it up.

  The aged elevator finally arrived after I pressed both the down and the up buttons. A room service maid and her trolley were on their way up. So I ran down the stairs. All eighteen flights. At reception I gave a copy of my message to Jonah plus a twenty as a tip, with instructions to make sure he got it as soon as he arrived or called in. I hoped it didn’t receive the same fate as Jay’s fax.