Elmore Leonard - Cat Chaser

“Why would they?”

“Because Andres de Boya would be dead, George, and you and the missus could sail off in the sunset.”

Moran actually saw a picture of a red sunset, sky-red night… but put it out of his mind as he said, “What about Nolen? Is he in it?”

“I tell you the deal, Nolen dresses it up, adds a little inspiration. He’s like my p.r. man, George, get you interested. It’s the only reason I talked to him.”

Moran said, “You’ve been thinking about this for some time, uh?”

“Walking around it,” Jiggs said, “scratching my head. Then you come along and I think, here’s a chance to do something for the happy couple. If they’ll do a little something for me.”

“I think you’re crazy.”

“I know you do, George, at the moment. But what you got to do is examine your conscience. You Cath’lic?”

“Sort of.”

“You remember when you go to confession you examine your conscience? Let’s see, I had five hundred impure thoughts and I entertained the idea of killing Sister Mary Cunnagunda. Examine your conscience, George. Go ahead, and tell me if you’re doing anything wrong. It’s in the intention where the guilt is. Your intention is to give me information. What happens after that is out of your conscience and into mine and I think I can handle it.”

“You might be from New York,” Moran said, “but you didn’t learn to think like that at Fordham.”

“No, I never quite made it, George. But the inference there, what you’re driving at-well, you want to get philosophical and discuss whether a blow job from a married woman is the same as committing adultery or you want to make your life easier? I can get the guys and go in with blazing six-guns and tear the place up, we’ll find it. But that’s the hard way and I can’t be responsible if an innocent bystander, if you understand what I mean, gets in the way. Or we can make arrangements, do it quietly. It’s up to you.”

“Why’re you telling me this?”

Jiggs was patient. He sat back, pushed his glasses up, then hunched over the edge of the table again. “George, correct me. Didn’t I just tell you?”

“I mean how do you know I won’t go to the cops?”

“With what, a story? Come on, George, whatever way this goes down, you think I’m gonna be a suspect? Guy like de Boya, you make it look political. Write on his wall ‘Death to Assholes’ and sign it the PLO or some spic revolutionary party, that’s the easy part.”

“He’s got armed guards,” Moran said.

“This town you better,” Jiggs said. “No, that’s something you take into consideration. But he’s only got one guy dumb enough to stand in there with him, young Corky, and I’m taking that into account.”

Moran sipped his beer, making it last. Maybe he had time for one more. Carefully then, thinking of what he was saying: “If this money de Boya’s got, it’s like an emergency fund?”

“Right, case he has to bail out in a hurry.”

“Well, if he’s ready to do it like at a moment’s notice,” Moran said, “why don’t you spook him? Turn in some kind of false alarm.”

“Yeah?” Jiggs said.

“He runs with it and you’re waiting for him. Saves tearing his house apart.”

Jiggs didn’t say anything for a moment.

“That’s not bad, George. That’s not bad at all. Sounds to me like you’re in the wrong business.”

“Or maybe I could tell fortunes,” Moran said. He picked up his beer glass and gazed at it. “I see a guy murdered in his house. I don’t see anything about him being robbed, no money in the picture. But wait a minute. I see the police have been given information about a suspect. Ah- ha , guy runs a motel and is a good friend of the victim’s wife.” He looked at Jiggs. “That how it works?”

Jiggs said, “George, I offer you the stairway to happiness and all you gimme back’re ideas. I’m telling you, you’re in the wrong business.”

SOMETIME BETWEEN12:45 and 1:00 A.M. an explosion blew the boat dock at 700 Arvida Parkway into Biscayne Bay.

The charge took out the wooden surface of the dock, the heavy planks, the steel davits, ripped out a section of the cement retaining wall, sheared off the pilings to leave splintered stubs that barely cleared the surface of the water, and shattered a sliding glass door on the sundeck of the house. Fortunately Mr. de Boya’s $350,000 yacht, El Jefe , was moored at Dinner Key where Mr. de Boya had picked up guests, business associates, earlier in the evening and had returned there to drop them off at the time of the explosion. It was heard in downtown Miami.

Coral Gables Police called Dade County Public Safety and a bomb squad was at the scene by 1:30. They picked up pieces of wood and metal strewn over the lawn and would find out through gas chromatograph tests of residue the explosive used was C4 plastique. A Coral Gables detective said, “The fuckers are at it again.” He put 700 Arvida on the computer to see if it was a hot address, if it had ever been used as a “safe house” where marijuana and cocaine were off-loaded, and found no reference. Andres de Boya’s name went into the computer and came out clean. They didn’t notice the graffiti, spray-painted in red on the cement pillars in front of the property, until daylight. They thought about calling in the Bureau but decided to wait. Dope or political, it was still within their jurisdiction and the graffiti could be either. Some kind of Latin dramatic effect that said, on all four of the cement pillars:

MUERTE A

DE BOYA

When Corky pulled up to the Jordan Marsh entrance to Dadeland the doorman was on the spot. He offered Mary his hand and slammed the door as Corky said, “Wait!… Mrs. de Boya?” She stooped a little to look at him through the dark glass, almost invisible behind the wheel of the Cadillac. He was gesturing as he said, “I’m suppose to go in with you. Wait, please. I have to park.”

Mary said, “That’s all right. I’ll see you here in about an hour.”

She heard Corky say, “What? Wait, please!”

“Tell him, will you?” Mary said to the doorman. She tried not to run entering the store. But once inside restraint gave way to eager expectation; it hurried her through Jordan Marsh and down the length of the Dadeland Mall to an entrance near the east end. She sprinted now, out into sunlight, saw the old white Mercedes waiting and almost cheered.

“I’m late,” Mary said, catching her breath now, inside the car, as Moran drove through the crowded parking area toward an exit.

“Five minutes. Boy, you look great.”

“I’m perspiring.”

“Good. We’ll take a shower. You know we haven’t taken a shower yet?”

She seemed surprised. “Where’re we going?”

“A new place. Change our luck.”

They drove up Dixie to the University Inn across from the U of M campus where Moran had already got a room and iced the wine, just right, waiting for them. He poured glasses as she slumped into a chair, legs apart, flattening her tan skirt between her thighs on the seat.

“Here.”

She took the hotel-room glass of wine and drank half of it down before her shoulders sagged and she began to relax.

“You better love me, Moran.”

“Look at me, I’m dying.”

“I mean you better be in love with me.”

“I am ,” Moran said. “Listen, if it was just getting laid there a lot easier ways.” He’d better soften that and said, “You bet I love you. Boy, do I.”

She said, “Do you, really?”

He wondered how a woman like Mary could have doubts about herself. He came over in the pale light and pulled her up gently, wrapped bare sun-brown arms around her and told her how good she made him feel and how he thought about her and couldn’t be without her. She said again what she had told him before, “I don’t want to lose you.” He told her it wasn’t possible. He told her they couldn’t lose each other now. He paused. Was he holding back? No, he was running out of words. He told her they couldn’t be pried apart with a crowbar or cut apart, they were sealed together for good. He believed it with the feeling she did too, now. Everything was all right; even with Corky waiting they could make slow love and lie in silence after, looking at each other. Save conversation. What more was there to say?