“Go ahead.”
“You have with you your gun?” he asked sheepishly.
“No. I flew down, remember? I’m not licensed to carry on aircraft. Guns and aircraft don’t mix.”
“Wait here a second.”
He stood up and went into his bedroom. I used the time to consider what he had said about Spivack. Mr. Roth had definitely planted the seed of doubt and it had quickly taken root. Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t yet see what it was.
Israel Roth stepped back into the living room of his neatly kept condo. He held a rectangular plastic case in his right hand.
“Here, Mr. Moe.” He handed me the case. “I want you to take this for while you’re here. Then, before you go home, you can give it back.”
I opened the case. Inside was a little.25-caliber automatic in pristine condition. I took it out, clicked off the safety, and ejected the bullet that was in the chamber.
“You should never leave a loaded weapon around, Mr. Roth, especially ones with chambered rounds.”
“What, so I should tell the burglar to wait until I put the clip in and put a bullet in the chamber? I got no small children here, Moe, and I keep it well hidden. I’m not a reckless man.”
“I know, Mr. Roth. I didn’t mean to lecture. It’s just that guns are funny things. If you hesitate or are afraid to use them, they’ll get taken away from you and used on you.”
“I wouldn’t hesitate, believe me. In my clothing store on Flatbush Avenue I used to keep a big.38. More than once I had to stick it in somebody’s kishkes when they tried to stick me up.”
“But why do you need a gun down here?”
“I sell a little jewelry on the side, nothing too fancy. Everybody’s got some little side business in this place. The money is nice, but it’s not so much the money as it keeps you sharp, awake. Retired people don’t so much die as they let themselves fall asleep a bit at a time. They become passive and inactive and they forget they’re alive.”
“I understand.”
“So I keep the little pistol when I go to the bank or pick up inventory. That’s all. It makes me feel safer. There are people who prey on the old. I’ve been prey once in my life. Never again. Now it’ll make me feel safer if you keep it for a few days. All right?”
I didn’t hesitate. He’d sufficiently spooked me. Everything had been falling so neatly in line. Maybe too neatly. Mr. Roth had done me a tremendous favor, not necessarily by giving me the gun, but by calling attention to a blind spot.
We chatted for a little while longer. I was glad of it. I wouldn’t have wanted to leave with the pistol being the last business between us. It really was good to see him. My grandparents had been very old when I was a boy and my parents had both died relatively young, so I’d never formed much of a relationship with a man of Mr. Roth’s age. I found his calm demeanor and his perspective a great comfort. Although he didn’t talk about it much, I knew he was estranged from his son. I guess we both filled a niche in each other’s lives.
He went back into his bedroom to put away the gun case, then reemerged with three smaller jewelry boxes.
“I had meant to send these to you for Hanukkah, but I prefer to let you take them home with you. This one we’ll open here. It’s for you,” he said, a proud smile washing over his face as he raised up the lid of the blue velveteen box.
Inside was a Star of David. It was lovely, the points of the star formed by overlapping pieces of gold that were shaped like the number 7.
“When we were up in the Catskills, Mr. Moe, I noticed you didn’t wear one. I hope you don’t think it is presumptuous of me to-”
“Not at all. Will you help me put it on?”
We were quite a sight there, the two of us with our hands shaking, trying to get the clasp open.
“Thank you, Israel. I don’t know what to say.”
“The look on your face is thanks enough. There’s one there for Katy and for Sarah, too. I only hope they are as pleased as you look.”
“They will be. I better get going,” I said, tapping my watch.
We wished each other well. He promised to come visit in November during his biyearly pilgrimage to the Catskills. I told him Katy would never forgive him if he didn’t show.
“I promise. I promise!” he shouted as I retreated down the hall.
During the drive back to Miami, I couldn’t help touching the star. It had been so long since I’d worn one that it felt odd against my chest, even a little uncomfortable. A little discomfort was a good thing, I thought. It made you pay attention. On the other hand, I had almost forgotten about the pistol tucked in my jacket pocket. Strange, the things you get used to.
The red message light on my motel-room phone was flashing madly when I reentered the dank world of peach and teal. The calls were all from Barto, each successive message more feverish than the last. Where was I? He’d found the middleman. It hadn’t been easy to arrange a meeting, but the meeting was set. It would be just me, the middleman, and Barto.
“You show up on your own. I’m gonna get there ahead of you just to make sure the coast is clear and that he ain’t fucking with us. I’m pretty sure this guy’s on the up-and-up. My sources tell me not to sweat it,” he said in his fifth and final message. “This guy’s a pro, a moneyman. He’s got no use for violence. Bad for business, he says. I’ll see you later.”
I was ten minutes early. The Black Flamingo was an abandoned art deco hotel on the wrong end of Miami Beach. There was nothing unusual in that. The most prominent design features in this part of town seemed to be foreclosure signs. Apparently, the cocaine economy had yet to trickle down to this end of the beach. As seedy as it was, there was a kind of decadent charm to the area, an echo of great things that once were. And the ambient sound of the ocean only added to its down-at-the-heels allure.
There was a gap in the plywood at the back of the old hotel, as Barto had said there would be. In spite of the ex-marshal’s assurances about the remoteness of violence, I felt better for having Mr. Roth’s little.25 in my pocket. There was no getting around it. I’d carried a firearm strapped to some part of my body almost every day going on fifteen years. Although I’d never had occasion to fire a single shot in anger, I felt naked without a gun. Unfortunately, Mr. Roth’s.25 had about as much stopping power as a spitball.
I snapped on my flashlight and stepped through the hole at the back of the hotel into what had been the kitchen. I could see the flickering shadows of candlelight beneath the doors that led out of the kitchen into what I assumed was the dining room. I made my way ahead around the dusty stainless-steel kitchen fixtures. With a flashlight in one hand and my other hand nestled around the.25, I used my right shoulder to push through the double doors.
I used a little too much nervous energy and spilled sideways through the doors. Before I could regain my balance, I stumbled over an old bundle of linens left carelessly in the middle of the floor. Except it wasn’t a bundle of linens at all. I think I knew that even before I hit the ground. The candle blew out.
“Fuck! Barto!” I scrambled to the body, clenching madly at the flashlight. In one panicked motion I flicked the flashlight back on and rolled the body onto its back. “Barto, are you all right?”
Only it wasn’t Barto, and he was as far away from all right as I was from Singapore.
“You’re a little early, Prager. I see you’ve met Gedalia Morenos.” Barto’s voice bounced off the tile floor and plaster walls in the darkness. “He was a big man in Little Havana. He had a special talent for getting dinero back to Cuba to help out the families left behind.”
“Like the Alfonsecas, for instance,” I said, trying to keep Barto talking.
“Oh yeah, just like them.”
“So it was you who arranged for Alfonseca to take the fall for Moira’s murder.”