“Man, that is so weird,” Leo interrupted. “I was just thinking that exact same thing —” He was about to say “on the way over” but Negrito cut him off with a ringing slap that made his eyes water up again.
“I’m responsible for this particular situation. That’s lucky for you.” He was totally calm, not a note of emotion in his voice. “Because if it was up to my uncle” — he shrugged to show Leo there’d be nothing he could do — “or the Quiet Man, forget about it.” He shook his head. Slowly. “You hear me?”
“I think I do,” Leo said.
“You might never be completely forgiven,” Negrito said, “but I’m gonna give you the chance to right this wrong. And if I were you, I’d be hoping Negrito was pleased with my solution. Understand what I’m saying?”
Leo understood. He was getting a reprieve, but it wouldn’t last long. He wondered if the solution Negrito was referring to meant he was supposed to kill Fernandez, too, but his voice got smothered with fear, and he didn’t want to seem so stupid he had to ask. This was the difference between Negrito, a genuine tough guy that people were afraid of if people were smart, and that shit bucket JP Beaumond, always fronting how tough he was. Negrito didn’t need to act crazy or dangerous because he was crazy and dangerous.
It wasn’t that long ago, two, three days, Leo’s luck was running hot. He thought about it, walking back to where his car was parked. He was calling the shots, sketching the plan for Beaumond and Fernandez, finding out when Harry would be getting out, sending him to Manfred. Admittedly, meeting Harry in the first place had been pure, unconscious providence, but figuring out how to take advantage of it — that had all been Leo, and he’d been on fire. So when had it all gone to shit?
Then he thought of something else. What if Negrito was using him to take care of Beaumond, or Beaumond and Fernandez, he hadn’t decided yet, and then planned to kill Leo anyway? He started feeling sick again.
This was a situation that had taken a dark, dark turn. It was like getting shelled in the ninth when you’d been cruising through the line-up all day. There was definitely something to this, his baseball-situations theory. Once this whole mess was finished and his mind wasn’t cluttered with so many other things, Leo was going to start carrying a pen and a pad. He got a lot of ideas. He’d write them down. Work them out.
Chapter Four
When operating under an alias, Harry felt it was best to hang on to your own first name. For example, if you switched to George or Bill, that’s what people would call you, all the people who had no idea your name was Harry, and after thirty-five years of answering to Harry, you might ignore a George or a Bill aimed your way. That’d make people suspicious, or it could lead them to believe you were a moron who didn’t even know his own name. Either way, potentially embarrassing. So Harry lopped off the Healy and substituted his middle name for his surname, becoming Harry James, like the bandleader his old man named him for.
First order of business was finding a place to stay. Fort Lauderdale worked hard to shake its image as a municipal frat party, but the Fiorella-type fleabags that warehoused whatever college kids still showed up in spring were legion. Harry had lots of choices.
The Wind N’ Sand, set close to the street at the top of a shallow horseshoe driveway, was eighteen rooms laid out in a row, wedged between a Muffler Man and a Pancake Palace. Breakfast All Day. It lacked the least hint of anything resembling glory, past or present. A sign promised prospective lodgers TV and air-conditioning. In red and blue block letters it said SPRING BREAKERS WELCOME. The torn screen curling from one of its windows looked very encouraging.
The office was a Formica counter and an empty mail grid, an ice machine, a soda machine, and a glass box that vended pretzels and orange crackers stuffed with imitation peanut butter paste.
A woman in her late twenties was working a word search puzzle in the same newspaper that brought Harry to Fort Lauderdale, pinching the last drag out of a Kool 100. She was a dishwater blonde with ears that winged her skull at 45 degree angles, and she told Harry she didn’t have any vacancies.
“That’s not what it says on your sign.”
“It says Spring Breakers Welcome. My guess is the last time you were inside a classroom, Gerald Ford was president.”
“Jimmy Carter,” Harry said, “but I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything. My money’s as good as any college kid’s.” He was holding a twenty dollar bill on the counter between his thumbs.
“I’ll tell you right now, that’s not gonna get it,” the woman said. She had a diamond of acne on her right cheek, pimples she’d been picking at, a furious fuchsia bomber on her chin.
“Okay,” Harry said. “What’re we talking about here?” He went into his pocket for a fifty and laid it over the twenty.
The woman looked at the bill and she looked at Harry. “How long did you plan on staying?”
“I’d like to pay for the week.”
“And what name did you plan on using?”
“I’m Harry James,” Harry said, getting used to it.
The woman stood and slid Harry’s seventy bucks into a pair of brown corduroys washed and worn so many times that the nap had gone flat at the knees and the ass, a plum of an ass, wide and thick and high. Her navel was exposed under a white halter and she was wearing a silver chain around her belly. Too bad about her skin.
“You know, Mr. James, it isn’t about money.”
“It never is.”
“That’s not what I mean. I can tell you got trouble. You look like trouble from across the street, and if there’s one thing I don’t need, it’s somebody else’s trouble. My name’s Darlene,” the woman said finally. “Please don’t ask me for anything.”
South Florida’s News Leader kicked off a telecast with Manfred’s murder, and the story made the papers a few days running, in paragraphs of shrinking size. The reports said police had no suspects at that time. Which may or may not have been the case. Law enforcement only leveled with the media when it served their purpose, and Harry wasn’t setting his clock by those guys.
There seemed to be an inordinate amount of cops in this town, but that could’ve been his imagination. Harry spotted them cruising the wide streets and held his breath, not looking at them, forcing himself not to look away, either. Then the Manfred story lost steam, and nothing happened.
Harry tracked the Lauderdale strip, two boulevards that right-angled the ocean, and skipped the places that looked too small or too hard-core local to hire out-oftowners. He thought he’d give Myrtle’s a shot. Its antiseptic scent threw him, its cool dim interior. The place was supposed to be a supper club, but there was no stage and no dance floor Harry could make out, and with its tight-assed fuss of tables and chairs, the joint looked like a cafeteria.
Harry poked around until he found the manager processing words in her office. Glazed in the green glow of her computer, she had auburn hair. She was wearing a beige suit and glasses. She said most of their security people were off-duty police officers, but Harry could fill out an application if he was interested. She sent him into the cafeteria with a pen. As she turned her head to face the screen, Harry saw her right eye flutter with a nervous tic.
Okay, for a residence he could provide a fleabag motel. He couldn’t think of a single reference outside of Frankie Yin, and he couldn’t remember Frankie’s phone number, never knew his address. He didn’t recall graduating junior high school. He passed the sixth grade with flying colors, but that seemed to fall into the grammar school category, an academic milestone the application ignored. And hadn’t she mentioned they employed off-duty cops? Harry folded the form and stuck it in his pocket. He left the pen on the table, and held the door as it was closing, so he wouldn’t make any noise on his way out.