“Can I use your phone?” Maguire said.
“Karen, how are you?”
“Who is this?”
“You know who it is.”
“Let me see. Is it Howard?”
“Come on-”
“Don’t you know when I’m kidding?”
“Well, I thought I had a sense of humor, but I think it was just ruined for good. Like pouring sugar in a gas tank.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at work. Listen, let’s meet tonight.”
There was a silence. Karen wondering what to say.
“At the Yankee Clipper. No, I’ll try to pick you up about eight, then we’ll go there. Okay?”
Tentatively, “Okay.” A pause. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, there’s somebody I want to see. So wait for me to pick you up.”
“I understand,” Karen said.
Jesus Diaz had taken Lionel Oliva to Abbey Hospital to get thirteen stitches in his head and four inside his lower lip. They were in the Centro Vasco the next day, in the afternoon, Jesus having something to eat, Lionel Oliva drinking beer, holding it against the swollen cut in his mouth, when Roland came in. Roland said, “What’s the matter with him?”
“He hit his head,” Jesus said.
“I want you to pick up the tape after supper and drop it off,” Roland said.
Jesus looked up at Roland and said, “I’m going to Cuba.”
“What d’ya mean you’re going to Cuba? Shit, nobody goes down there. It’s against the law.”
Jesus had, only this moment, thought of Cuba. If he wasn’t going there he’d go someplace else. “You can go there now,” he said. “I got to see my mother. She’s dying.”
“Well, shit,” Roland said, “I got things going on, I got to go up to Hallandale-” Roland was frowning; he didn’t like this. “When you coming back?”
“I don’t know,” Jesus said. “I have to wait to see if she dies.”
“Well, listen, you pick up the tape and drop it off ‘fore you go to Cuba. Don’t forget, either.” Roland turned and went toward the front of the quiet, nearly empty restaurant.
“Where did he get that suit?” Lionel Oliva said, not moving his mouth. “It makes you close your eyes.”
Jesus Diaz was still watching Roland, the hat, the high round shoulders, the light behind him as he moved toward the front entrance.
“I’d like to be able to hit him,” Jesus said. “I would, you know it? If I could reach him.”
“When you going to Cuba?” Lionel Oliva said.
“Fuck Cuba,” Jesus said. “Man, I’d like to hit him, one time. I think I’d like a Tom Collins, too.”
Roland liked Arnold Rapp’s balcony view a whole lot more than his own. You could look straight down on the swimming pool and some palm trees or turn your head a notch and there was the Atlantic Ocean. It didn’t make sense. Here was Arnold, about to have a nervous breakdown, with the good view. Whereas Roland, who had the world by the giggy at the present time, had a piss-poor view of the ocean down a street and between some apartments.
He said to Arnold, “You don’t get outside enough. Look at you.”
“Look at me?” Arnold said. “How’m I gonna get outside, I’m on the fucking telephone all day. Now, you know what I gotta do now? Borrow money, for Christ sake, a hundred grand, guy I know in New York-if he was here I’d kiss him, shit, I’d blow him, he says he’s gonna come through. That’s what I have to do, get deeper in hock so I can buy time to put together some deals, I ought to go outside.”
“You got this week’s?” Roland said.
“What’re you talking about this week’s? I don’t owe you till Friday.”
“Couple of days, what’s the difference?”
“You kidding? Almost eight grand a day, man; it makes all the fucking difference in the world.”
“Ed don’t think you’re gonna pay it.”
“He doesn’t, huh.”
“He thinks you’re gonna get on a aeroplane one of these days,” Roland said. “He thinks we ought to settle up. So he said go on see Arnie, get it done.”
“Get what done? Jesus Christ, now wait a minute-”
Roland reached inside his suitcoat and brought out a .45 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver with a six and one-half inch barrel, one of the guns he kept stored for this kind of work.
“Now come on-Jesus, put it away.”
Extended, pointed at Arnold sitting on the couch, the big Smith covered Arnold’s face and half his body. Roland reached down to the easy chair next to him and picked up a satin pillow. He held it in front of the muzzle, showing Arnold how he was going to do it as he moved toward him, the poor little guy pressing himself against the couch, nowhere to go, looking like he was about to cry.
“I’m gonna pay you. Man, I’m paying you, haven’t I been paying? I got some money now you can have.”
“Shut your eyes, Arnie.” Roland took the pillow away so Arnie could look into the .45 muzzle that was like a tunnel coming toward his face. “Close your little eyes, go seepy-bye.”
Those eyes wild, frantic, the gun right there in his face.
“Ready?” Roland said. “Close ’em tight.”
Arnold grabbed the barrel, wrenching it, twisting, rolling across the satin couch. Roland yelled out something, his finger caught in the trigger guard, then grabbing the finger as it came free, holding it tight, the finger hurting something awful, and there was Arnold aiming the gun at him now, pointing it directly at his chest, Arnold closing his eyes, the dumb son of a bitch, as he held the Smith in both hands and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Pulled it again.
Click.
And again and again.
Click, click.
Roland grinned.
Arnold hunched over and started to cry.
Roland took the gun from him, lifting it between thumb and two fingers by the checkered walnut grip and slipped it back into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He patted Arnold on the shoulder.
“It ain’t your day, is it, Arnie? Come on out on the balcony.”
Arnold pulled away from him, his mouth ugly the way he was crying without making much of a sound.
“You dink, I ain’t gonna throw you off. We’re gonna sit out in the air while I tell you how you can get born again.”
“I don’t see why I can’t meet him someplace here,” Arnold said. He was sighing, but starting to breathe normally again.
Poor little fella, his nose wet and snotty. Roland handed him a red bandana handkerchief.
“You got Drug Enforcement on your ass, you dink. Ed ain’t gonna chance being seen with you around here.”
“I don’t see why Detroit.”
“Arnie, I don’t give a shit if you see it or not. That’s where Ed says he’ll meet you.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow, maybe the day after. You go to the hotel there at the Detroit airport and wait for a call. Ed’ll get in touch with you.”
“Yeah, but when?”
“When he feels like it, you dink.” Shit, maybe he ought to forget the whole thing and throw the dink off the balcony.
“Then what?”
“Then you meet someplace, you tell him your deal.”
“What deal?”
“Jesus Christ, you told me to get Ed to bank a couple of more trips, and he could take it all. Didn’t you tell me that?”