“Tomorrow,” Karen said. There was a pause. “Do you miss me?”
She sat by herself in first class, no one in the seat next to her; wore sunglasses much of the time; sipped three martinis and California red with her roast fillet; was polite to the flight attendants though she side-stopped conversation; read a book, The Kefauver Story, by Jack Anderson and Fred Blumenthal, which she had found in Frank’s office, and reread a Xeroxed copy of an article from the June, 1951 issue of American Mercury, entitled “Virginia Hill’s Success Secrets,” she had got from the Fort Lauderdale Public Library. She thought of Cal Maguire. Don’t tell him obvious things: like not to call the house or how to do his job. Be nicer. She thought of Roland Crowe and thought of Julie’s line in the Italian film, changing the tense and applying it to Roland so that it came out, “I hate him. I think it would be swell if he were slain.”
THE QUESTION IN MAGUIRE’S MIND, coming up more frequently now: What was he getting out of this?
He would recall and hear again the sound of Karen’s voice on the phone. Almost impersonal. Nothing about being glad he’d called. Then asking if he missed her. Not saying she missed him. He had said, “You bet I miss you, a lot.” He should have said, “Well, I think I do, but I’m not sure.”
Friday, the day she was coming home-his day off-he drove to the DiCilia house again, left the Mercedes over by the garage doors, next to Marta’s car, and rang the bell at the kitchen entrance.
Marta seemed surprised. “She isn’t home yet.”
“I came to see you,” Maguire said. “You got any coffee on?”
In the kitchen that was like a restaurant kitchen, pans hanging from a rack above the table, he had to ask Marta to sit down. He could see she was aware of being alone with him in the house. “You know I’m her friend,” he said. “You know I want to help her.”
“Yes,” Marta said.
“And you want to help her, too.”
“Yes, but she said not to give anyone the number where she was.”
“No, that was fine. I talked to her, and she’s glad you did. She just forgot to mention it was okay to tell me.” Forgot to mention-Christ. “She’s got a lot on her mind”-looking for a way to get to the point-“but you know she’s very grateful you told her about the tape recorder and all.”
“I had to,” Marta said. “It bothered me so much.”
“Has Roland been back since she’s gone?”
“Two days ago he came. He asked me where did she go. I told him I didn’t know.”
“Yeah? What’d he say to that?”
“He walked all over the house like he owned it, looking around in places he shouldn’t.”
“He take anything?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“But you’re not sure,” Maguire said.
“He might have, yes. But I don’t know.”
“You told him you didn’t know where Mrs. DiCilia was. Then what’d he say?”
“He threatened to do something to me.” Marta hesitated. “So I told him, California.”
“That was okay,” Maguire said. “He’s been listening to phone calls, he could’ve figured it out that’s where she’d go. That’s okay.” He sipped his coffee and sat back, showing Marta he was at ease, not worried about it. “What I’d like to do, if I could, is talk to your brother.”
“My brother?”
“From what I understand- See, she told me everything you told her. How he’s quit, doesn’t work for them anymore, all that. But I was wondering, maybe he could tell me a few things about Roland, the people he works for. Like Vivian Arzola. You know Vivian?”
Marta shook her head. “No, only the name.”
“Or maybe your brother could tell me something about Roland that might help us. You never know.”
“I could talk to him,” Marta said.
“Could you call him? See if he’ll meet me somewhere?”
“I think he may have gone to Cuba. Or he’s going, I don’t know.”
“So maybe we don’t have much time. You want to call him now? No, you can’t do that, call from here.” Maguire waited, letting Marta come up with the idea.
“I could go somewhere and call him. The drugstore by the causeway.”
“Hey, would you do that?”
“Only the man’s coming to fix the bed. He was suppose to come yesterday.”
“Nuts.” Maguire waited, thoughtful. When he’d given it enough thought, he said, “Why don’t I stay in case the guy comes?” He paused, beginning to grin. “I know where the bed is.”
Karen had walked from the patio into the house that night, was gone only a few minutes, and returned with a gun wrapped in tissue paper and forty-five new one hundred dollar bills.
He assumed she had put the gun back, somewhere in the bedroom- (He had thought of it lying with her in the broken-down bed. In one of the nightstands? In the dresser? Or behind the wall of mirrors in the closet?)
And assuming there were more new one hundred dollar bills hidden somewhere- (Lying in the bed he had thought of the money, too; first beginning to wonder what he was getting out of this.)
Maguire stood in the bedroom, alone in the house, Marta gone to phone her brother.
He had not told himself he was going to take the money; because at this point he could say, What money? You don’t even know it’s here. No decision to steal had been made. What he was doing-he told himself-was taking advantage of an opportunity. Seeing where he stood. Surveying the situation. So that if, in the end, he did have to grab something and run as an act of survival, for traveling expenses, it would be something portable and not the Louis XVI bergère or the Peach-blow vases he’d have to wrap in newspapers and pack in a crate.
Where would she keep a lot of money?
In a safe.
But there was no safe in the bedroom or in the closet. In the top dresser drawer he found a box of jewelry, unlocked, with some fine-looking pieces he assumed were real; though he’d never made a study of jewelry.
Next to the jewel box was the Beretta, still wrapped in tissue paper, loaded, a cartridge in the chamber. He rewrapped the gun, put it back in the drawer and told himself, okay, he knew where it was if he needed it, if he ever had to come running upstairs looking for a weapon.
But he was thinking mostly of 45 one hundred dollar bills, Series 1975, with consecutive serial numbers. Clean money, he assumed: thirty of the bills accepted at the post office without question when he’d bought the money orders. New but almost five years old, dating back to… Frank DiCilia. And thought of stories of how the wise guys always kept a lot of cash hidden away but handy, a stake, in case they ever had to run, their idea of traveling money. Sure, there had been a guy in Detroit, the feds had gone in with a search warrant, looking for something else, and found a couple hundred grand in the basement, hidden under the guy’s workbench. Andre Patterson had said, Hey, ‘magine hitting a man’s house finding something like that? Pick out one of those old Eyetalian guys supposed to be retired. Andre couldn’t even talk Cochise into it.
But the man dead, and happening to come across his stake, that was something else.
Except it could be anywhere in the house. Assuming it was here.
Maguire tried the door leading into the next room. Locked. He went into the hall and tried the outside door to the room. Locked. And thought, What’s going on? Jewelry in an unlocked bedroom; the next room, the mystery room, locked. He remembered something, went back into the bedroom to the dresser, poked around in the top drawer again and found a half dozen keys, most of them to suitcases, one for a door lock.
He tried it, felt it slide in and turn, and stepped into what had been Frank DiCilia’s office at home. He saw the desk, the typewriter, the file cabinet-
He saw the photographs on the wall.
Photos of Karen. Enlarged photos or photostats, blowups of snapshots taped to the wall, blowups of newspaper photos in bold black and white.