Gold Coast by Elmore Leonard
She said, “Until Ed Grossi’s death, I hadn’t had a cigarette in sixteen years.”
Tina waited. “You feel the need?”
“It’s something to do.”
“Are you . . . in good health?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know, I just wondered. You seem a little tired.”
“Or bored,” Karen said. “In a way, bored. In another way—well, that’s something else.”
“What is?”
“Why don’t you ask what my hobbies are?”
“What’re your hobbies?”
“I don’t have any.”
“Well, what do you do all day?”
“Nothing.”
“You have friends—”
“Are you asking?”
“Yeah, don’t you have friends?”
Karen drew on the cigarette, looked at it and let it drop to the brick surface.
“Not really.”
“Well, why don’t you go out more, do things? Travel maybe.”
“There are reasons,” Karen said.
“What reasons?”
“I told you you weren’t going to get much of a story. I don’t know why you insisted.”
“Because something’s going on,” Tina said, “and I think if you had just a little more confidence in me you might tell what it is.”
“It has nothing to do with confidence.”
“All right, trust. I promise I won’t write anything you don’t want revealed.”
“Revealed,” Karen said. “That’s exactly the kind of word I don’t want to see. Karen DiCilia’s Secret Revealed.”
“I don’t know why I used it,” Tina said, sitting forward in her chair, feeling close to something and forgetting her casual-reporter pose. “It’s a written word, but it’s really not the kind I use. I’m interested in your point of view, how you feel about things, rather than your effect on me. If you know what I mean.”
“Which is what? How do you see me?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I mean I haven’t made any judgments. Right away I think of those words again. Karen DiCilia’s Secret Not Revealed. A very smashing looking woman who keeps to herself, has a gun—”
“Don’t mention that.”
“Isn’t exactly hiding but seems watchful, guarded, quietly aware of something going on she won’t talk about. You must realize you’ve got everybody wondering about you.”
Karen didn’t say anything. She sat with her legs crossed, one slender hand touching the side of her sunglasses.
“All right, if I do a Karen Hill rather than a Karen DiCilia,” Tina said, “do you have any early pictures of yourself?”
“I may have,” Karen said. “I’d have to look.”
A woman by the name of Epifania Cruz, forty-two, had given her daughter and son-in-law a wooden chair that was over two hundred years old and originally from Andalucia. The chair and baby Alicia, her daughter, were brought to Miami from Cuba the night of April 27, 1961, following the defeat at the Bay of Pigs.
It was a low straight chair, more like a three-legged stool with a back support. Epifania gave it to Alicia and her son-in-law with apprehension because he was one of those who dressed like a disco dancer and spent his time at the Centro Español even though he never had a job. Epifania was in Abbey Hospital because of a problem with her colon, when she learned Alicia and her son-in-law, the pimp, had moved away quickly, getting out before they were taken to court, and had left much of what they owned in their rented home on Monegro Avenue.
Nearly a month had passed; but maybe the chair was still in the house. Epifania was told no one else had moved into it. Maybe she’d be lucky.
She went there at night. If she found the chair and carried it away, she didn’t want people to see her even though she considered the chair her own property. She brought with her a large kitchen knife to use to pry open the door, but found she didn’t have to. The door was unlocked.
With the street light shining in the window, Epifania could see well enough. The chair wasn’t in the living room. It wasn’t in the kitchen. She opened the door to the bedroom and stood in the opening. It was too dark back there to see anything. She raised her hand holding the kitchen knife, reaching for the light switch. There was an explosion and Epifania was blown back into the hall, almost to the kitchen.
Roland came out of the bedroom with the 12-gauge pump-action shotgun under his arm, reached into the kitchen to turn on the light and looked down at the woman.
He said, “Shit. You ain’t Vivian.”
23
* * *
MAGUIRE SAID TO LESLEY, “Just tell him I’m whacked out, probably coming down with something.”
“I don’t wonder,” Lesley said. “The three of you get it on at one time, or you and the guy take turns? Hey, is he Andre?”
“Yeah, it’s Andre,” Maguire said, “and his wife. We haven’t seen each other in awhile, so I want to take the day off, spend some time with ’em.”
“He just loaned you his car a week ago, didn’t he?”
“Hey, Lesley,” Maguire said, “you’re gonna be late for work. Tell him, okay?”
“Brad’s pissed at you anyway for not coming back yesterday. He’s gonna want to know where you went.”
Maguire reached the end right there. He said, “Tell him whatever you want. I don’t give a shit.”
“Ca-al!”
She never called him Cal. Did she? What difference did it make? He went into his apartment, leaving Lesley standing by her yellow Honda. (The Mercedes was parked two blocks away.)
Jesus, hunched in front of the television set, adjusting the picture, said, “Look, the house on Monegro.” A covered human form on an ambulance stretcher was being carried down the front steps as the voice-over newscaster described the mysterious shooting, the murder of a woman named Epifania Cruz. The newscaster said the police were now looking for the woman’s daughter and son-in-law, the last tenants of the house.
Vivian Arzola, holding a coffeepot, watched from the stove. She said, “You know what it’s like?” Neither Maguire nor Jesus looked at her, watching the woman’s body being lifted into the van now. “Like in a movie, the people run out of the house, they reach safety just in time and the house blows up.”
They were looking at a commercial now. When Maguire realized it he turned off the television set. Next thing they’d be watching Dinah Shore and Merv Griffin. He said, “We got to do it tonight. Figure out how and set it up—”
“If we’re sure we’re gonna do it,” Jesus said.
They had gotten Vivian out of the house on Monegro yesterday. They weren’t going to sit around here or take her from place to place. Vivian had said she wanted to get far away from here. It wasn’t worth it, looking over her shoulder all the time. She had to go someplace else.
“It’s how we do it, not if,” Maguire said. “It’s got to be at the DiCilia house.”
“Why?” Jesus said.
“Because the police were there already”—Maguire speaking quietly, wanting Jesus to relax and listen—“when Roland tried to grab your sister. Okay, he comes to try again, armed, huh? Only this time we’re there. You’re defending your sister, you shoot him.”
“Me? I thought you were gonna shoot him.”
“One or the other,” Maguire said. “You know how to fire a gun, don’t you?”
“Sure, I know that. But I never shot at anybody.”
“Let’s talk about—first, how do we get him there?” Maguire said. “He comes because he thinks Vivian’s in the house.”
“You’re crazy you think I’m going there,” Vivian said.
“You don’t have to go there. I’m saying he thinks you’re there because we get him to believe it. Like, say I call you from there later. I say, ‘Okay, Vivian, it’s all set. We’ll pick you up, you spend the night here and take you to the police first thing in the morning.’ You say something, he hears your voice, he knows it’s you.”
“I d
“What if he don’t?” Jesus said. “If he’s busy looking for Vivian and he don’t listen to it?”
“I don’t know,” Maguire said, wondering if he had to tell Karen about it and not wanting to. Though if they had to wait around a few days until Roland picked up the tape—it might turn out he’d have to tell her. But he didn’t want to bring her into it. He wanted to get it done and present her with it. There, the guy’s off your back. Making it look, not easy exactly, but not too hard either. There. You have any other problems?
He said to Jesus, “What’s the guy’s name working for him?”
“Lionel Oliva.”
“Okay, you tell Lionel you know where Vivian is. You say you found out Vivian’s gonna be there tonight. Your sister told you.”
“What if he asks why I’m telling him?” Jesus said. “He knows I won’t do any favor for Roland.”
“Tell him—what if you tell him you’re setting Roland up for somebody?”
“Then what’s Lionel get out of it? He says bullshit. If he tells Roland and Roland gets taken out, who’s gonna pay him?”
“You tell him you’ll pay him,” Maguire said. “What’s it worth to him?”
“He’s gonna be scared. You miss, the first one Roland go sees is Lionel, knowing he was set up.”
“How about a grand?”
“You kidding? He’d do it himself for a grand.”
“And get some more stitches in his head,” Maguire said. “I’ve seen Lionel. That Lionel? No, we do it. But he sets it up. All he has to do, tell Roland he knows Vivian’s gonna be there tonight. That’s all he knows. He heard it from you and you told him not to tell anybody, acting very mysterious about it. You think he can do it?”
“Yeah, he can do that.”
“And act dumb?”
“Easy,” Jesus said.
“Then Roland gets the tape, hears Vivian’s voice, he knows it’s true. Even if he doesn’t get the tape, he’s got to go find out after Lionel tells him. But it’s better if he does, because then he hears Vivian’s voice, hears she’s going to the police—it’s much better that way. We don’t want Lionel telling him all that and mess it up.”
Jesus said, “Okay, but what gun do we use? I don’t want to use mine, have to get rid of it after.”
“No, we don’t get rid of it,” Maguire said. “That’s what I’ve been talking about. We call the cops, we have to have a gun to show ’em, right?”
“You want to call the cops?”
Jesus, Maguire thought. He said, “Look. The guy comes in to rape your sister. You shoot him. Somebody shoots him. You don’t throw his body in the Intercoastal, you call the cops and give ’em the gun. That’s what you do. Okay, then Vivian reads about it in the paper. Roland Crowe killed in rape attempt. Vivian goes to the police, tells ’em she knows Roland killed Ed Grossi. The police let the other guy go.”
“I’m telling you, he better be dead,” Vivian said, “or I don’t say a word to them, not even my name.”
“He’ll be dead,” Maguire said. He looked at Jesus. “You don’t want to use your gun—okay, tell your sister there’s a gun upstairs in Karen’s bedroom, top dresser drawer. Tell her to sneak it out of there, bring it down to her room. We slip in the house after dark, she gives it to us. It was Frank DiCilia’s gun. They want to bust somebody for possession they can dig up Frank. But bring your own anyway, just in case.”
“Then what?” Jesus said. “He comes in—when do we do it?”
“That part, we’ll have to wait and see,” Maguire said.
Karen watched him coming out from the house. She stood at the shallow end of the pool drying herself lightly with a beach towel. He was putting on his sunglasses now, taking her all in.
“Do you really have that much nerve,” Karen said, “or’re you showing off?”
“What nerve?”
“Using the phone. You know he’s going to hear it. You disguise your voice or what?”
“He’s got to do more’n hear me, he’s got to catch me.”
“Who were you calling?”
“The guy I work for. Find out if I still have a job.”
“Does it matter?”
“Well, I guess I’d rather quit than be fired. But I don’t feel like working. He was busy, so I still don’t know.”
“I can’t imagine you being worried about it,” Karen said, “the job.”
“I’m not worried, I want to know how he feels.”
Karen said, “I saw the news this morning . . . the house. Strange, the woman wasn’t Vivian.”
“No, we got her out of there. I forgot to tell you.”
“Something’s going on,” Karen said. “In fact I think there’s quite a lot you haven’t told me.”
Maguire watched her walk to the table to get something out of a straw bag. The slim brown body. Effortless moves. The quiet tone. He’d bet she drove a car fast and without effort; he saw the two of them, briefly, in the white Alpha Romeo heading for southern Spain.
He said, “I’ve been thinking the same thing. Like you know something you’re not telling.”
“What’s Karen DiCilia’s secret,” Karen said. “Read the latest speculation in next month’s Goldcoaster. Though this one’s going to be on Karen Hill.”
“Who’s she?” Maguire said.
“Who knows,” Karen said.
“You going out tonight?”
“Like where?”
He wanted to say to her, It won’t be long; hang on. But said, “I’ll see you later then, okay?”
“Fine. Anytime.”
He left Karen in her backyard world putting on sunglasses, lighting a cigarette. Maguire walked up S.E. Seventeenth toward the beach, where he’d left the Mercedes. He wondered if she did know something she wasn’t telling. He wondered about the photos of her in the locked room. When this was over he’d ask her about them.
Was she lighting a cigarette when he left?
He wondered when she had started smoking. Maybe he hadn’t been paying attention lately, looking but overlooking, missing something.
Karen had a glass of distilled water from the refrigerator. She left Marta in the kitchen cleaning vegetables for dinner. Moving along the back hall, Karen paused, looked around, stepped into Marta’s room and quietly closed the door. The cassette recorder was still beneath the bed, with a box of cassette cartridges. Karen brought them out, hunching down on her elbows and knees. She changed the setting from “Record” to “Rewind,” stopped it, pushed the “Play” button and within a few moments heard Maguire’s voice.
“Vivian? Hi, it’s all set. We’ll pick you up at eleven-thirty and bring you right here. Then first thing in the morning we go to Miami.”
Vivian’s voice said, “I’m so afraid he’s going to find me. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. God, I can’t think.”
Maguire’s voice said, “Tomorrow it’ll be over. The Miami Police’ll pick him up, you identify him, that’s it.”
Vivian’s voice said, “I’ll be so glad when it’s over.”
Maguire’s voice said, “Eleven-thirty, Vivian. See you then.”
Karen played the tape back and listened to it again, twice.
She was surprised, puzzled.
Then annoyed.
Karen ejected the tape cartridge. Holding it in her hand, she got a blank cartridge from the box, snapped the new one in position and pushed the recorder and the box back under Marta’s bed.
24
* * *
KAREN BATHED AND DRESSED. She had a martini in the living room while she watched the news. At a quarter to seven she went into the kitchen carrying a handbag and the keys to Frank’s Seville, in the garage.
Marta looked at her, surprised. “I was going to ask if you’re ready for dinner.”
“I’m sorry, I thought I told you,” Karen said, “I’m having dinner out.” She looked at the sal
“No—” She seemed to want to say more.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t want to be alone,” Marta said, “if Roland comes.”
“I thought your brother picks up the tape.”
“Remember, I tole you he doesn’t do it anymore.”
“Well, it’s up to you,” Karen said. “But if you don’t want to open the door when he comes, then don’t.”
“That wouldn’t stop him.”
“Maybe not. It seems funny, though, to be offering you advice,” Karen said. “I tried to help you before. You had a chance to have him arrested and you didn’t.”
“Of course. For the same reason I don’t want to be alone with him. I’m scared, I don’t know what to do.”
“And I don’t know what to tell you,” Karen said. “You’re afraid to let him in and you’re afraid not to.”
“I wish things would be the same, the way it used to be,” Marta said.
“Wouldn’t it be nice,” Karen said. “So, are you going to give him the tape?”
“I guess so.”
Karen jiggled her keys, getting the one for the Seville ready. She said, “Well, I have to go,” but remained by the kitchen table, looking at Marta. “I think what I would do, I’d leave the tape for him outside the door and get away from here for awhile. Maybe a few days. You know? Instead of putting yourself in the middle of something that really doesn’t concern you.”
“Leave here?”
“Why not? What’s anyone done for you lately?”
Just in time.
Roland wheeled his Coupe de Ville into the drive as Marta was backing out, saw her brakelights flash and, before she knew it, was pressed against her rear bumper.
Out of the car Roland said, “Hey, don’t leave on my account. Where we going?” He looked toward the open garage doors and at the house, up at the second-floor windows, as though he might catch someone watching him.
Roland picked up the envelope with his name on it—ROLAND, in big blue letters—from the steps and moved aside to let Marta unlock the door.