Elmore Leonard - Cat Chaser

Moran listened to the sound of a single-engine plane in the night sky, the sound taking forever to fade. He didn’t try to think of anything to say. He felt a hand touch his arm. He saw de Boya staring at him. He heard Scully’s voice very quietly say, “Come on.”

He saw de Boya staring at him.

He felt the hand grip his arm tighter. “George? Let’s go.” Still looking at de Boya staring at him. He was thinking now, Yes, he’d better go; turned and walked off with Scully, Scully saying, still quietly, “Let’s take it easy now, George, not do anything you be sorry for, okay? Let’s just get out of here before you say anything. Then you can say anything you want, that’ll be fine, George, but not right at the moment…” Scully’s voice soothing him, talking him all the way out to the car.

They were on Interstate 95, heading north to Pompano before Scully spoke again. He said, “That little spic makes a point he makes it, don’t he?”

Moran was thinking of things he might have done or tried to have done. He was thinking of Mary in that house. He was thinking of what he would say when he called the police. He remembered the number, 442-2300. He wondered if the same impersonal voice would answer and if the voice would change, indicate a person inside, when he said he wanted to report a murder.

Jiggs said, “George, don’t do what you’re thinking. They get those funny calls all the time. Sergeant puts his hand over the phone. ‘Who knows a guy name Moran? Got a swimming pool murder.’ No, George, our friend Rafi Amado’s on his way to the Gulf Stream right now and I don’t mean the racetrack. The cops go to Seven hunner Arvida Parkway, nobody knows what you’re talking about there. ‘Somebody drown in the pool? Well, the pool’s right outside here, officer, you want to take a look.’ “

Moran said, “Tell me something.”

“What’s that, George?”

“How’d he know Rafi couldn’t swim?”

Jiggs took a few moments. He said, “George, in the light of eternity, what difference’s it make? The guy comes flying in from Santo Domingo with the hot setup, he’s gonna try to make a score, right? It’s called to my attention and I think to myself, What is this? This guy know what he’s doing?”

“And you hired him,” Moran said.

“Well, actually I never met the guy in my life till tonight. He was Nolen’s boy.”

“You’re using Nolen,” Moran said. “What’s the difference?”

“George, you got a suspicious mind and now you’re getting off on something else,” Jiggs said. “What we’re talking about here, all the guy does is spray-paint some bullshit on de Boya’s gatepost. It doesn’t matter the guy can swim or not, what I want you to look at here is the way de Boya handled it. He call the cops? It’s an act of vandalism, you get a fine, maybe ninety days chopping weeds for the county-uh-unh, de Boya believes in capital punishment.”

“You delivered him,” Moran said.

“You want to look at it that way,” Jiggs said, “I offered him up, like a sacrifice so you can see where we’re at here.”

Moran opened the car door.

“George, just a minute. Let’s consider the documented fact you got something going with the guy’s wife.”

Moran slammed the door closed and Jiggs raised his hand, a peace sign.

“I’m not questioning your intentions, George. Where I live down on the South Beach-Hotel Lamont, sounds like class, uh? You should see it-down there you fall in love with some old Jewish broad on food stamps or you go uptown a mile and find a hooker. No, true love is beautiful, George; but in seeking it you got to be sure and keep your nuts outta the wringer.” Jiggs paused and the inside of the car was quiet except for a faint ticking sound, the engine cooling down. “I’ll bet you asked his wife-I’ll bet it came up in conversation and you asked her where the general keeps his going-away money. Am I right?”

Moran opened the car door again.

“The only point I want to make about this evening, George-de Boya does that to a spray-painter, what’s he gonna do to a guy he finds out’s been jazzing his wife, room one sixty-seven the Holiday Inn? He’s already pretty sure. The man’ll believe anything I tell him.”

Moran got out of the car this time. He said, looking in at Scully, “You want to tell him, Jiggs? Tell him.” He swung the door closed and walked off toward the motel office.

Maybe it was the only way. Let it happen.

TRUJILLO HAD SAIDhe was riding a tiger and if he ever fell off the tiger would devour him.

“Please don’t talk like that; put it out of your mind,” Andres had told the old man, the Benefactor, who not only ruled his country for thirty years he owned it and was worth-with his sugar, his rice, his sisal, cattle, cement, his tobacco-some $800 million the day he fell off the tiger and was devoured.

Andres had tried for the next few days to transfer bank accounts and titles to property, searching for people he could trust to help him, and finally had to run for his life to Miami by way of San Juan with less than twenty thousand in cash and a cardboard box of photographs.

They hung in his study, all that was left of that time. Photos in black and white of Andres with Trujillo, with Peron, with Batista, with Anastasio Somoza, with Pérez Jimenez of Venezuela. A photo with U.S. Marine officers taken when U.S. Marines maintained tranquility and could be trusted. There was the photo of Andres holding the submachine gun that belonged to Trujillo’s brother, Arismendi. They would go out on Trujillo’s yacht-Andres and Arismendi, who was called Petán-and fire the submachine gun at the sharks off Monte Cristi, the sharks gorging on the rotten meat the sailors threw over the side, the two of them having a splendid time blowing the man-eaters to pieces.

Here it was another kind of boat-ride with a different species of shark circling, waiting for the boat to tip over. Riding this boat or riding a tiger it was the same end if you weren’t careful. Trujillo had got old and failed to listen, failed to keep his enemies frightened of him. Which was easy enough to do.

Choose one from a group of suspected enemies and shoot him. Or drown him, it didn’t matter. The others would look at the ground or close their eyes, not wanting to meet the eyes that would choose the next one.

But he had stared at Moran and Moran had not looked at the ground or at the man drowned in the pool. Moran had stared back at him. Perhaps he should have given Moran to the Mendoza brothers to be taken to sea with Rafi. It was possible Moran was not involved in the plot, but Jiggs Scully had made a point saying, “Either way you got to do Rafi. So let Moran watch and have second thoughts in case he is involved. Give him pause, as you say.” Jiggs said he had questioned Rafi and there was nothing to learn from him, he was a “third stringer.” Whatever that meant.

Jiggs said he had discovered Rafi through informants and was closing in on the others. Jiggs saying so much, Jiggs finding out about this plot and the people taking part in it. Jiggs giving, he said, all his time to it. But not saying anything about being paid.

Andres, the day before, had called Jimmy Cap to discuss this with him, to say he appreciated Jimmy Cap’s concern, sending Jiggs to help. See if he had actually sent him. But Jimmy Cap was in Buffalo for several days and could not be reached.

So now late at night Andres sat behind his seven-foot desk drinking Cognac, staring vacantly at his past life in photographs, wondering what was taking place in the present.

Trying to see it clearly without interruptions.

First Corky. Corky in the doorway, a manila envelope under his arm, saying the business with Rafi Amado was finished. Then, remembering the manila envelope, coming into the study only far enough to place the envelope on de Boya’s desk next to the brandy decanter, Corky reaching out, not wanting to intrude himself. “It came today from Marshall Sisco.” The door closed. Andres picked up the envelope marked personal & confidential.