This time I kissed her.
We moved away from the spray of the showerhead, to the rear of the stall where she pushed me against the wall like a suspect, but she did not interrogate me, she went down on her knees, she went down on me, and for a moment I thought of Kim, but just a moment, because then the Cuban kitten was rising and turning and leaning against the wall with her hands flat against the tile, glancing back at me with sultry insistent invitation, offering the rounded cheeks of the most perfect posterior that fool Castro ever banished from his country.
And not doing something about it would have been goddamn insulting, so I entered her and she said, “Si!” with every stroke, grinding back at me in a rhythmic sexual samba that required no music but our heavy breathing and the percussive insistence of the shower.
We wound up on the floor of the bathroom on a fluffy little rug, first with her riding me, her eyes shut dreamily, her mouth beaming with bliss, rocking, grinding, rocking, then with me on top, stabbing her sweetly, and when she came, she cried out in a language neither Spanish nor American, but I understood it perfectly.
Finally I was sitting, out of breath, on the lid of the can, feeling like I was the one who’d been ravished. She had already disposed of the rubber she’d so stealthily slipped onto me, practiced doxy that she was.
Now she stood and toweled herself off, shamelessly at ease with her body, and then in the mirror carefully applied her lipstick, put on a touch of eye makeup, and undid the ponytail and shook all that hair like the lioness mane it was, looking at herself, pleased with what she saw.
“I told you,” she said into the mirror but speaking to me, “that I do the choosing.”
She turned to her exhausted conspirator and said, “You are not married. You will not be married until the marriage it is consummated. This is no sin, señor. You remain pure.”
That was a hell of a way to look at it.
On the other hand, she was the first woman I’d been with since I married Kim.
And maybe it didn’t hurt to stay in practice.
CHAPTER NINE
The taxi let me out on the corner and I walked the rest of the way to the Vincalla Motel. Traffic had dwindled and— while the lights of Miami Beach still lit the sky across the bay—this side was quiet and sleepy, the only activity around being restaurants and nightclubs catering to the singles scene.
I looked like just another Miami swinger, Bunny having come up with a black sport jacket, charcoal sport shirt and black slacks for me. I had requested black sneakers, wanting to keep the sound of my footsteps minimal, and the madam of the house had come through for me on that score as well.
Between Bunny and Gaita, I could hardly have any complaints about the service at the Mandor Club.
I skirted the motel office out front, crossed the lawn that circled the pool, and headed toward the room I’d been told was Tango’s, down on the right.
At the opposite end, a party was going on, split between two rooms, the blare of a hi-fi playing rock ’n’ roll and raucous drunken laughter covering the sound of my feet on the concrete walk. The motel’s parking spaces, outside the bottom tier of rooms, were filled, license plates about evenly divided between local and out-of-state. With the exception of three rooms up top and four below, all windows were darkened, Tango’s among them.
For a second I stopped, checked behind me, and slow-scanned the area toward the street to see if anyone was silhouetted against the street-lamp and traffic glow. Five feet away was Tango’s room, and I could see the windows curtained with no light bleeding through at all.
If Bunny was right, the man-hating hooker was probably just asleep—the motel was where she went to relax and cool it. But I still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong with the play.
You can’t call it instinct, because it’s learned; but it’s nothing mental, strictly physical, as the back of your neck prickles and your belly tightens and your eyes narrow and your mind becomes a resonating space where caution calls to you in vague yet not uncertain terms.
So I just stood there, looking around again and sorting out the details until my inner warning system found the flaw for me.
Tango didn’t have a car. She always traveled by cab, Bunny had said.
Yet all the car slots were filled.
Maybe some of the partygoers down at the other end weren’t guests at the Vincalla, and the overflow had filled up some extra slots.
But down here on this very quiet end of things, a blue Mustang convertible was parked in the stall right outside Tango’s room, and its hood was still very warm. Hot.
I snaked the .45 out, cocked the hammer back and took a run at the door, smashing it open with a kick, then rolling inside just as the phut of a silenced gun poked two fingers of light directly over my head. I scrambled to my knees, brought the .45 up, and a foot kicked the gun out of my hand.
But I got that hand on my would-be assailant’s other leg, yanked hard, and a cursing, flailing heavyweight came down on top of me, the rod in his fist smashing against my back and shoulders trying to find my skull.
I gave him just enough leeway to think he had me nailed, then drove my head up against the point of his chin and, when he reeled back, grabbed him between the legs and squeezed so hard the scream that started in his throat never got anywhere, choking off into an anguished sob as he jackknifed forward with incredible pain.
That put me over onto my back, and I was under him, with no idea where my .45 had got to, and for all the pain he was in, he did still have that silenced rod in his mitt, he’d managed to hold onto it, so I glommed onto his gun hand before he could get his pain in check, and twisted my grip on his wrist, thumb slipping under the butt of the gun into the fleshy palm, digging my thumbnail in, hoping to make his grasp go away, but instead in the struggle I again heard that little phut and a bullet angled up and into him, his sob whistling off into a throaty rattle that had bubbles in it.
I pushed him off me, still wondering where the .45 had got to, and moved to where the door stood open, and peeked out to see if anybody had heard the noise of the struggle. But there was nothing out there, just the laughter and rock music of that party down the way.
Luck was still with me, it seemed.
Only it wasn’t—I never figured on a second man. Never figured the guy I’d tangled with, who was still giving off his death rattle on the floor, had a friend with him, a friend who would quietly wait in the darkness of the bathroom to see how the fight between his partner and the intruder turned out.
Those well-honed instincts had let down, and the only sign luck was still with me was when the karate chop missed the back of my neck, because I was just starting to turn, the blow hitting between my shoulder blade and spine, sending pain through me like a hot spear and maybe cracking or even breaking a rib, but not killing me, not hardly.
And when he shoved me into that open door, rattling my teeth and banging my head, damn near putting my lights out, he didn’t take time to try another karate chop—maybe he knew enough about me to want to avoid any direct confrontation— and just rushed past me.
In the second I needed to recover, I saw that almost handsome face fly by me, with its squashed nose and lightning bolt scar.
Jaimie Halaquez.
My .45 was M.I.A., but Halaquez had a gun in his hand, another silenced automatic that went phut phut, sending two chunks of doorframe exploding into splinters and flying into my face.
Then he was in the Mustang, squealing out, and flashing a white grin of adios at me—I wasn’t dead, but he’d beaten me. He had beaten me.
Me, with no gun. I didn’t even have a goddamn car, having returned Bunny’s station wagon.
Shit!
The only saving grace was nobody seemed to have heard or seen a thing. Only silenced shots had been fired, and the hand-to-hand had been brief if brutal.
But why hadn’t Halaquez waded in to help his partner?
Hadn’t wanted to risk exposing himself, I guess
ed. He’d figured his crony would take me out, no trouble, and if not, Jaimie boy would deal with me.
Heaving a disgusted sigh evenly divided between the unkindness of fate and my own stupidity, I went back into the still dark room, shoved the door shut, propped a chair against it, and flipped on the light.
Tango was sprawled on the bed.
What had originally been a pretty face was now a battered mass of welts and bruises; a strip of two-inch wide adhesive covered her mouth, another strip binding her hands behind her. The remnants of her pajama tops were tossed on the floor, and she was naked to her waist, pert perfectly-formed breasts exposed, but there was nothing remotely sexy or erotic about it.
Not unless you were a sick son of a bitch.
I felt my face tighten as I took in the ugly red pits that had been burned into the smooth tanned flesh of her stomach and breasts, the mark of lit cigarettes in the hands of her interrogators. I wished I could have taken longer with the bastard on the floor, given him a slower, more painful sendoff to hell.
And when I finally nailed Halaquez, I would remember this beautiful body made hideous.
But at least she wasn’t dead—not yet, anyway.
She was unconscious, probably a blessing at the moment, her pulse light and unsteady. When I yanked the tape from her mouth, she never even stirred. I cut her wrists free and released her arms, retrieved my .45 from under a chair, then went over for a better look at the dead man.
He wasn’t as big as Halaquez, but larger than the average Latin—Jaimie did not seem lacking in brutal henchmen from his native land. As the gurgling I’d heard had indicated, the bullet had caught the prick in the throat and exited at the back of his neck. The gun was still in his hand.
I went through his pockets, found nothing except his car keys, some loose cash, and a half-empty pack of cigarettes. His clothes were all well worn with labels common to stores in every big city, and the touch of the professional was there in every detail. Nothing but his basic appearance identified him as a Cuban, with or without a green card.
The drawers of the motel-room dresser were open, and had been tossed, but not much was there—no sexy working clothes, just casual stuff and underthings. She’d arrived, apparently, with a single suitcase, and what was left of it was shredded over by the wall, a blade having gutted its lining. Next to the dead suitcase was the woman’s emptied handbag, by a scattering of the usual female junk, the bag apparently tossed there in disgust.
Whatever Halaquez had been looking for, he hadn’t found it in this room. His next step had been to try to squeeze it out of the girl the hard way.
But now a peculiar little factor had popped up.
Tango wouldn’t have been the type to keep quiet under that kind of treatment. If she had anything to say, she would likely have talked, not been subjected to beating and burning.
That left just one answer. Whatever Halaquez wanted from her, she either didn’t have...
...or didn’t know she had.
Yet somebody thought she had it, or that she maybe knew something.
I picked up the bedside phone with my handkerchief, dialed the police, told them where to find the trouble, and to send an ambulance.
“I’m a guest here at the Vincalla Motel,” I told the dispatcher.
“Sir, what is your name?”
“John Smith. I’m sure you’ll find it on the register.”
I hung up.
There was nothing more that John Smith, Good Samaritan, could do for Tango now. I rubbed my handkerchief on anything else I might have touched, gave the corpse one last dirty look, then shut the light off, eased out of the room and got back out to the street.
From the south I could hear the wail of sirens over the rock ’n’ rolling partyers.
We were in Bunny’s office now. She looked damn fetching for an older broad in a gold lamé halter top and matching loose pants. She was behind her desk where a .38 was serving as a paperweight on those ancient papers of her husband’s that she’d shared with me earlier.
But her face was again showing her years, as the dismay over what had happened to Tango mingled with fear generated by the events of recent days.
She said, “But why torture her, Morgan? What did they want? What did she know?”
I was seated across from her. “No idea. She was out when I got there, and still out when I split. What did the hospital say?”
Bunny sighed. “Severe concussion and suspected skull fracture. She hasn’t regained consciousness.” The madam covered her face with her hands, her shoulders limp. When she looked up her eyes were misty and tired. “She’s on the critical list.”
“Think the cops can connect her to you?”
“Maybe not right away, but they will. She’s always used the address of her family, on the north end, and all that’s left there is her father, and they won’t get anything from that drunken bum. She paid his bills and went up there a couple times a month, but all he knows is that she worked someplace in Miami. She told him she was a waitress.”
“A waitress who could pay all his bills?”
“Reprobate parents getting their bills paid by their kids, Morg, don’t ask a lot of questions.”
“Good point. Otherwise she stayed here at the Mandor?”
Her shrug was grandiose. “Where else? She has her own room, like the others. My girls are welcome to live here fulltime, if they like. Most, like Tango, have an apartment or motel room somewhere, to get away on their days off, at least.”
“Let’s see her room.”
Bunny sat and watched me, her mouth tight. “Morgan...I think it’s time to let this thing end.”
“Look...”
Her expression beseeched me. “Look at all you’ve brought on, since you got here! Two men dead. And we have a girl who may die because of it.”
“Not my doing, Bunny. And I didn’t bring anything on. It was already here.”
“You can’t deny you’ve stirred things up.”
So I dropped the bomb on her.
“Bunny—one of the two men I tangled with in her motel room? Not the one who bought the farm, but...the other one?”
“Yes?”
“He was Jaimie Halaquez.”
Her expression fell and all the blood drained from her face.
Silently, I rose, slipped off the sport jacket, draped it over the back of my chair, then I slipped off the sport shirt and turned my back to her.
Showed her the nasty welt there, a welt about the size and shape of the side of a human hand, swung as a weapon.
With my back still to her, I said, “If I hadn’t moved a fraction of a second before he struck the blow, that would have hit my neck. And I’d be on a slab next to your old pal Dickie Best.”
She said nothing. She sat staring at the sheaf of papers and the revolver playing paperweight on top of them.
In the meantime, I got back into my shirt and jacket. “I figure you have a doc on call, right?”
She frowned in confusion, then nodded.
“Well, could you call him, and get him over here to check me out, in between passing out penicillin tablets? I think maybe Halaquez busted a rib for me. I could use taping up, and some decent damn drugs.”
She swallowed, nodded, and reached for her phone.
When she hung up, she said, “Half an hour.”
“Cool. While we’re waiting, let’s go see Tango’s room.”
Tango lived in relative simplicity. Her clothes were few, if expensive, the opposite of the casual things in the dresser at the motel—these were working clothes, or in some cases, evening wear. After all, she’d been known to date Richard Best.
“She didn’t meet johns in this room,” I said.
Bunny said, “No. Each of the girls has her own living quarters, modest but her own. You’ve been in Gaita’s. There are suites designed for entertaining guests—the girls share those. Those spaces are assigned when the client and a hostess are matched up.”
That explained the s
implicity of a room bare of decorations except for two bowls of artificial flowers and a few abstract paintings of the starving artist variety. The only expensive item was a 21-inch color television set nestled in one corner with a battered comfy armchair before it. Tango’s small desk held a few cancelled bills, a dictionary, and a dozen historical romances with bodice-bursting damsels and swashbuckling bare-chested heroes on the front—everybody had their fantasies, even a woman who represented other people’s fantasies.
Her irritation with me ever more obvious, Bunny said, “Well? Does it send you any messages?”
I ignored her and went to the closet again. Tango’s shoes were neatly aligned in a rack with a matching handbag above each. Out of curiosity, I took the handbags down one by one and looked in them. Each one had some odd toiletry items along with a few coins. One had a letter from an old friend sent to her home address, four months ago, full of chatter about the other girl’s marriage and children in a more normal life than Tango had managed so far. I noted the street number of Tango’s house, and put the letter back.
But the blue bag held the kicker.
In the side pocket was a worn-edged picture that I held out for Bunny to see.
Softly, she said, “My God...it’s Jaimie Halaquez.”
“I thought Tango didn’t take to men. Especially younger men.”
Bunny frowned and handed the picture back. “That photo doesn’t mean she flipped over him or anything.”
“Hell, Bunny, it’s the only photo she has.”
“So?”
“You ever notice them together? Was Halaquez a client of hers?”
“Morgan, in this business, it’s a business to be together. You know already that he was a client here. Sure, he knew her, but he liked variety too much to single any girl out. Understand, this Halaquez was a real self-styled stud.”
“And an S & M freak. Don’t leave that out.”
“Yes, and not all of the girls were willing to go down that road. So that does narrow it for you. Within reason, if the money was right? Tango was willing.”
The Consummata Page 13