What was going on?
Maguire turned to the file cabinet. The key was lying on top. Then he looked at the wall of photos again.
If you did something like that, he thought, put up about a dozen pictures of yourself and a few of somebody who didn’t look like you but did in a way, the expression, the dark glasses-trying for a certain look maybe? Going back to earlier pictures and finding the look there? An attitude? Why would you do it?
He opened the file cabinet-it was unlocked-began fingering through folders, papers. He came to a manila envelope, a big one, tightly packed, opened the fasteners, looked in and said, out loud, “My oh my.” He took the envelope to the desk that was covered with newspaper pages, clippings, negative photostats-Karen in reverse; but didn’t stop to look at them. Six packets of new one-hundred-dollar bills slid from the envelope. Five thousand dollars in each of five packets, five hundred in the sixth one. Twenty-five thousand five hundred dollars, 1975 Series bills, the same as the ones Karen had given him-right out of the sixth packet.
He thought of something. That the room had been locked because of the photos, not the money. He was sure of it.
He thought of something else. It was decision time. There it was, twenty-five grand, the most money he had ever seen at one time. Take it and run.
Or leave it.
Or lock it in the trunk of the Mercedes, which wouldn’t be taking it because it was her car. The rationale: protecting it from Roland. But having it ready to grab.
Shit, if he was going to take it, take it.
He heard a sound, somewhere downstairs, a door slamming.
Marta came out from the kitchen to see Maguire in the front hall, at the foot of the stairs.
“I found him. My brother says okay. He’ll meet you at Centro Vasco on Southwest Eighth Street. You know where it is? Maybe about Twenty-second Avenue, in Miami.”
“I’ll find it.”
“But he doesn’t see how he can help you.”
“I’ve been trying to remember where I saw you before.”
“At the fish place.”
“No, I mean before that. Ten years ago,” Maguire said.
He thought about it, looking past Jesus Diaz to the tables of people talking, having lunch at Centro Vasco, almost all of them Cuban.
“I know. The Convention Center, over on the Beach.”
“Sure, I was there plenty times. I used to work out at the Fifth Street gym.”
“You fought a guy by the name of Tommy Laglesia. He was doing something, I forgot what; everybody could see it but the ref.”
“Butting me, the son of a bitch kept butting me in the face, the fucking ref don’t say a word.” Jesus straightened and leaned on his arms over the table. “You saw that, uh?”
“Yeah, it’s funny-I used to go to fights, but not so much anymore.”
“No, well, who’s there to see?” Jesus said. “You saw that, uh?” He drank some of his beer, settling back again. “You know the other day-I didn’t want to do nothing to you.”
“No, I know you didn’t,” Maguire said. “But the other guy-I had to try and hit first, you know, try and get an advantage.”
“Man, you hit him all right. He had to get stitches.”
“I wish it’d been what’s his name, Roland.”
“Yeah, I wish it, too.”
“Had enough of him, uh?”
“Man, forever.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Last week. Then I see him on TV, but that’s all. I don’t work for him no more.”
“Who else does?”
“Nobody. He’s by himself.”
“I was wondering,” Maguire said, “with Grossi dead, what do you think might happen?”
“What do you mean, what might happen? To who?”
“Mrs. DiCilia if Roland, you know, is gonna still bother her.”
“I don’t know. He don’t work for Mr. Grossi no more. Why would he?”
“Well, he sees a rich lady, all alone-”
“She got friends of her husband there. Mr. Grossi wasn’t the only one.”
“Yeah, maybe Vivian Arzola. You know where she is?”
“No, I don’t know. She got a place in town; another place, I hear about in Keystone, but I don’t know where.”
“You know her phone number?”
“No, I don’t know it.”
“Mrs. DiCilia’s anxious to talk to her.” Maguire paused. “She have family in Miami?”
“No. Wait, let me think,” Jesus said. “Yeah, I took something to her mother once for Vivian. She lives in Homestead. Vivian gives her, you know, the support.”
“What kind of car does she drive?”
“Vivian? A white one with like a flower or something on the antenna. Some foreign car.”
“You want to help Mrs. DiCilia find her?”
“I think I’m going to Cuba.”
“If you don’t go, I mean. She’ll pay you whatever you think it’s worth.”
“Maybe I could do it,” Jesus said.
“Sure, Cuba’ll be there. You know where Roland lives?”
“Miami Shores. A place on Ninety-first Street called the Bayview.”
“He live there alone?”
“Man, you think anybody would stay with him?”
“You want to go see him with me?”
“I don’t think so. Not even stoned.”
“How about with a gun?”
Jesus’ hand was on his glass of beer. Looking at Maguire he seemed to forget about it.
“You ever do things like that?”
“If I have to.”
“Yeah? Is that right?” Jesus continued to study Maguire. “Mrs. DiCilia, she want it?”
“She wants it, but she doesn’t know she wants it, if you understand what I mean.”
“She don’t want to think about it.”
“Something like that. But she’ll pay you to be on her side, whatever you think it’s worth,” Maguire said. “Like five thousand, around in there? It’s up to you.”
“Around in there, uh? Let me think about it,” Jesus Diaz said.
AFTER ED GROSSI’S FUNERAL, relatives and close friends came to Grossi’s house on Hurricane Drive, Key Biscayne, to give Clara their sympathy and help themselves to a buffet. The friends and relatives who had not been there before, and even many who had, took time to walk up the street to 500 Bay Lane to see where Ed Grossi’s neighbor, Richard Nixon, had lived. They came back saying shit, Ed’s place was bigger.
Roland didn’t care anything about historical sites. He got a plate of fettucini with clam sauce, a big glass of red and some rolls, and went over to sit with Jimmy Capotorto in the Florida room that was full of plants hanging all over, like a greenhouse.
Roland said, “It’s a bitch, huh, something like this? Man, you never know.”
Jimmy Cap had finished eating. He was smoking a cigar, looking out at the Bay, five miles across to South Miami. He asked Roland if the cops had talked to him.
Which was what Roland wanted to get over with. He said, “You kidding? Man, I’m the first one on their list. That Coral Gables Discount deal-shit, they picked me up before they even thought of you.” Reminding Jimmy Cap, just in case.
Jimmy Cap said, “They tell me, say it was a setup, you know that. I say how do I know that? They say, this Arnold Rapp, he shoots Grossi and puts him in his own fucking car, come on, and leaves it at the airport? I say I only know what I read in the Herald.”
“They give me the same shit,” Roland said, “I didn’t say it to them but I’ll tell you, which you probably know anyway from Ed. This Arnie was a pure-D queer. I mean you look at him cross he’d piss his pants. I’d go over there to collect, have to shake him a little sometimes? He’d bust out crying. I’d say, Jesus Christ, you dink, cut your crying and pay up, that’s all you got to do. See, he was a nervous little fella ‘sides being a queer. It doesn’t surprise me at all he fucked up, left Ed in his car. By then all he was thinking to do was run.”