Lawrence Sanders - McNally's caper

Antonio Rossi wasn’t lolling in the sun or walking the beach at night, and I knew the Feds sure as hell weren’t. They were all busy, every day and every night. Sooner or later, if we stayed where we were, they would zero in on us.

It was as simple as that: We couldn’t hide; we had to run.

Donohue returned about 4:30 P.M. He was soaked through, his face drawn, his teeth chattering. He peeled off his wet clothes and got under a hot shower. By the time he came out, I had a cup of hot black coffee and a big glass of brandy waiting for him. He gulped both greedily, cursing when the coffee scalded his tongue. He solved that problem by pouring brandy into his cup.

We sat awhile without speaking, listening to the rain smashing against the windows. The wind was a low moan, like a child crying. Occasionally lightning flared over the ocean; thunder rumbled like distant guns.

I looked at Jack. He had stopped shivering, but kept both hands wrapped around his coffee cup. His wet hair was plastered to his scalp. He had lost his color; his face was pale and shiny. His eyes showed tiredness and strain. He slumped at the table, shoulders bowed, head hanging. My hero.

‘Are you hungry?’ I asked finally.

He groaned. ‘I had lunch with those banditos. Chicken and rice, with a pepper sauce hot enough to bring the sweat popping. It didn’t seem to bother them, but it sure as hell did me in. I can still taste that crap.’

‘Where was. this?’

‘A little grocery store on a rat-trap street in the Cuban section. It had a small restaurant in back. Four booths. I think the grocery part was just a front. Lots of traffic, but no one bought any groceries that I could see. Might have been a betting drop, or maybe they were peddling happy dust. Anything is possible on that street.’

‘How did you make out?’

‘I wish I knew,’ he said, sighing. ‘What they want is this: that necklace I showed Manuel Garcia the first time we met, plus another one of equal value.’

‘My God, Jack, that’s almost half a million!’

‘Retail value maybe,’ he reminded me. ‘About thirty percent of that from a fence. And worth absolutely nothing wrapped up in a towel in our suitcase.’

I couldn’t deny that, but it was hateful that others should profit from our suffering and fear.

‘What do we get out of it?’

‘Passports, visas, Social Security cards, drivers licenses — the works. For Arthur and Grace Reynolds, residents of Chicago. That’s us. Plus a plane ride, all expenses paid.’

‘Where to?’

• ‘How does Costa Rica grab you?’

I thought a moment.

‘I’ve heard of it, of course, but I don’t know where it is, exactly.’

‘Central America. Between Nicaragua and Panama.’

‘And we can live there?’

‘With the right papers, which they’ll furnish. The permits will have to be renewed every so often, but they claim they’ve got some local officials in their pocket and we’ll have no problem.’

‘We’re taking a lot on faith,’ I said.

‘We got a choice?’ he demanded.

‘You agreed to everything they asked for?’

‘Not all of it. We kicked it around for a while.’ He showed his teeth in a cold grin that had no humor in it. ‘Those were hard boys, babe. There was this Manuel Garcia plus two other desperadoes who I would not care to meet in a dark alley. When the argument was going hot and heavy, one of them took out a shiv big enough to gut a hog and started cleaning his nails. He just kept staring at me with those black button eyes and using this sticker on his filthy nails. Nice, civilized people. Made me feel right at home.’

‘I hope you had your gun handy.’

‘Handy? In my lap, babe, in my lap! Under the tablecloth. One wrong move and there would have been three greasy clunks, believe me. I think this Garcia knew it, because he told the other guy to put his blade away.’

‘What were you arguing about?’

‘First of all they wanted both necklaces before they delivered the papers and we got on the plane. I said no way. One necklace before we left and the other handed over to their man in Costa Rica when we got there safely. Garcia finally agreed. Also, I insisted that at the final meet here, Garcia come alone with the passports and stuff. I figured that would cut down the possibilities of a cross. But he said we’d have to have passport photos made, and his paperman would have to be there to trim them, paste them in, and put the stamp on them. So I okayed the one guy but no one else. Garcia agreed to that. Finally we argued about where the final meet would be made. Garcia wanted it right there at midnight, after the grocery store closed. I wasn’t about to go into the back room of that place after dark. So they jabbered awhile in Spanish. I know a few words, but not enough to follow what they were saying. Finally Garcia suggested an old wreck of a hotel on Dumfoundling Bay. I think that they use it for a dope drop. It’s somewhere between Golden Shores and Sunny Isles.’

‘Golden Shores and Sunny Isles?’ I said incredulously. ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’

‘What’s so funny? That’s what they’re called. So I said I’d look the place over this afternoon, and if it was okay I’d call him and the deal would be on.’

Manuel Garcia had given Jack very exact directions on how to find the deserted hotel on Dumfoundling Bay. It was just east of North Miami Beach, less than ten miles from where they had met in the Cuban grocery store. But still, Jack got lost twice and it took him almost an hour to find the place.

He had spent another hour driving around the area in the rain, reconnoitering approach routes and roads that could be used for an emergency escape. Then he had parked the car and inspected the wrecked hotel on foot, which was when he got soaked through.

He said he figured the hotel had been built in the 1920s, during one of the first Florida booms. Originally it had been an ornate white clapboard structure with a lot of gingerbread trim. There was a main building with a pillared portico, and two wings. But one of the wings had been destroyed by fire and was now just a mess of blackened timbers fallen into the basement. The rest of the hotel had been beaten gray by wind, sun, and rain.

All the windows were broken, part of the roof of the main building had collapsed, and the outside doors hung crazily from rusted hinges. Donohue said the hotel grounds were separated from other buildings and lots in the area by a high chainlink fence with a padlocked gate. There were No Trespassing signs posted all over.

But the fence had been cut through in several places, and Jack thought the grounds and falling-down building were used by local kids for picnics, pot parties and — from the number of discarded condoms he saw — for what he called ‘screwing bees.’

He said the hotel was on about a four-acre plot, and back in the 1920s there must have been lawns, gardens, brick walks, palm trees, and tropical shrubbery. But at some time, maybe during a hurricane, the waters of the bay had risen, inundated the grounds, and lapped at the base of the hotel.

‘You can still see the high-water mark,’ Jack said. ‘About halfway up to the second-floor windows.’

Now the ruined building was in the center of a mud flat — nothing left but patches of scrub grass and a few ground creepers. The palm trees were all gone, and any other plants of value had died or been stolen. Even the bricks from the walks had been dug up and carted off. The grounds were dotted with piles of dog faeces, so local residents were probably using the place to run their hounds.

The front door had a faded legal notice tacked onto it, warning that trespassers would be prosecuted. It was closed with a chain and padlock, but that was silly since all the first-floor windows were broken and the French doors leading to the wide porch were swinging open.