Powder Burn

  “Coke!” Pincus exclaimed.

  “Yeah, the lab techs, bless their lethargic little hearts, will tell us for sure. My guess is that the contents of one or more of these little beauties was discharged right into Nelson’s bloodstream.”

  “That’s fatal?”

  “In large amounts, certainly. Different things can happen. Usually the brain goes haywire and stops telling the lungs to breathe. Massive respiratory failure. If that doesn’t get you, some sort of heart arrhythmia probably will,” Appel explained. “You see, the human body simply wasn’t made to absorb this much of a powerful stimulant. It’s like plugging a hundred-ten-volt toaster into a two-twenty-volt socket. You burn it up.”

  “I figured it was a stroke or something,” Cline said sheepishly.

  “Just a smuggler’s special,” Appel said. “Another couple hours, and he would have passed these fine. He would have been home free. This kind of constipation is deadly, Wil.”

  “I figured he was carrying something,” Pincus said. “I had Customs do a body search at the airport.”

  “Well, Customs doesn’t give enemas,” Appel said. “You better call your partner now.”

  “No,” said Pincus, his face as gray as the new corpse, “not me, Doctor.”

  Chapter 29

  VICTOR GLOWERED and tugged peevishly at his Vandyke. The boy was a tease. Either he delivered that night or he went back on the street. Victor could not abide teases.

  The old grandfather clock read 8:25, and the small dining room was nearly full. The clink of crystal and the murmur of voices soothed Victor. At least dinner was proceeding as smoothly as ordained. Quiet, elegant.

  Several main courses remained to be ordered. There were a few groupers left in the tank, and Victor knew he would have to push them hard, else they would probably die overnight. Wretched beasts.

  “Hey!” To Victor the call was like a curse at an opera. He flinched, and several other diners’ heads raised. The Gómez table again. Victor didn’t know who they were, but he vowed they would never be back. Four nasty little men who should be shining shoes. Two pairs of them, really, and not friends either. In their ill-fitted suits and pointy toes they had circled like dogs at first, as though uncertain whether to fuck or to fight.

  “Hey! Fat man!”

  Victor hurried over.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “We want to eat now.” The man in the skewed necktie spoke in atrocious gutter Spanish.

  “May I suggest grouper? Grilled with a light sauce of butter and garlic, it’s quite delicious.”

  “Not fish,” said a dark man with a black mustache. He was from the second pair.

  “The veal is very good tonight,” Victor ventured.

  “No. Chicken. Arroz con pollo. With plenty of black beans.”

  Victor brooded. Did they think they were in a cantina?

  “You can make arroz con pollo, can’t you?”

  “It’s not usual, but of course we can make it.”

  “Good. Hurry, we are hungry.”

  Victor turned to go.

  “And more beer,” the Mustache Man added.

  “Not me.” The man in the shiny brown suit spoke for the first time. “For me another scotch and Coca-Cola.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Victor, mentally deciding how much he could pad their bill without causing a scene.

  “And send one to the lady,” the man said, gesturing toward the window where a lovely Latina in a skintight dress slit almost to her waist sat alone.

  “The lady,” Victor said icily, “is waiting for her husband.”

  “Send her the drink, fat man.”

  “That is my dessert,” announced the Peasant when Victor had shambled away.

  “I saw her first,” complained the Mustache Man.

  “She smiled at me,” said Cauliflower Ear.

  “What about the husband?” The fourth man was thin and wore a large emerald ring.

  “Fuck the husband.”

  “No, fuck her.”

  They all laughed loudly while Victor quivered impotently.

  When the red-coated waiter brought the drink, the woman shone a dazzling smile of thanks at the four men. Her tongue drew a slow and lascivious circle around full red lips.

  “We are all friends now,” the Peasant said tightly. “We will share her.”

  THE OLD MAN skillfully dipped a morsel of lobster into the cup of hot butter.

  “Excellent, Ignacio, truly excellent. I congratulate you.”

  “Yes, it is a good place. I’m sorry you did not bring your wife.”

  “Next time perhaps. This is a working trip, too important for her.”

  “But not for your two associates.” José Bermúdez gestured through the screen of palms toward the sound of merriment beyond.

  “Ah, Pepín and Alberto. I seldom travel without them. Rough men, but their hearts are good.”

  “Yes.” Make peace, but prepare for war. Canny old bastard.

  “Your men seem to be showing them a good time.”

  “Yes.”

  “It is well. They should know and respect one another. I believe that specialists should always respect their peers, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you and I, Ignacio? When do we exchange information?”

  “Tomorrow. If you will come to the bank at nine. I have everything ready.”

  “Splendid. I have brought things for you to see, too.”

  “We will not be disturbed for the whole day, I promise you.”

  The old man smiled thinly. “And what business is it that brings me to the bank tomorrow, Ignacio?”

  “Of course, I’m sorry. It is a textile agreement. You want to build a new factory in Cartagena, and we are interested in financing it. The papers are all ready, and we will sign them. In another ten days the deal will collapse in a dispute over mortgage interest.”

  The old man speared another chunk of lobster.

  “Excellent, Ignacio. Excellent.”

  OCTAVIO NELSON HAD not been this tense since the long-ago afternoon he had clung to a rock with a bloody arm and prayed that the Batista patrol would weary of the hot sun. His palms itched. His stomach clenched.

  José L. Bermúdez’s big Seville rested peacefully in the parking lot. Nelson had seen that much in his first quiet prowl through the darkness. But what was happening inside La Cumparsita? Was Meadows there? Nelson had not seen him go in. Who else was there, and what were they doing? If Meadows had only given him a little more notice, he could have wired somebody and sent him inside.

  Nelson skirted the pale circle of light from the restaurant windows and walked along the left side to the door leading to the bar.

  “Reilly, have you got a watch with a second hand?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Are you sure you know what to do?”

  “Captain, relax, I’m not stupid. Exactly one minute after we hear you guys go in the front and the back, me and Bloom seal this door. Our people slide out the door in the meantime, right?”

  “How many people?”

  “Three people, Captain. Two guys and a gal. Relax, willya? You’re makin’ me nervous.”

  “OK, Reilly, OK. Sorry.”

  Nelson returned to the front of the restaurant to await Meadows’s signal.

  Jesus, he thought silently, I would give my soul for a cigar.

  “NOW THAT’S SOME nigger,” the Peasant smirked. All four men turned beerily toward the door.

  The black man who stood there seemed seven feet tall, an effect encouraged by a gigantic wide-brimmed hat topped by a gaily trailing ostrich plume. The hat matched the leisure suit and the shoes. They all were shocking pink. A heavy gold medallion peered comfortably from the rippling black chest. The black man froze the restaurant.

  “Good evening all,” he proclaimed to no one in particular and strode to the table by the window. He bussed the solitary Latina firmly on the cheek, ran proprietary fingers lightly across her lap and squ
eezed into the chair opposite her.

  Victor came quickly. The evening was becoming bizarre.

  “My good man. A planter’s punch to match my suit, if you please, and a cup of black coffee to match my true love’s eyes.”

  Victor felt giddy. At the Gómez table the tension was suddenly electric. The two distinguished men in the far corner took no heed. They were talking business.

  “Arthur,” asked Terry from between her teeth, “where did you get those clothes?”

  “Chris told me to be ostentatious.”

  Terry suppressed a giggle.

  “What time is it?”

  Arthur ignited a quartz watch, and the numbers glowed fiercely against his wrist.

  “It’s exactly five minutes to takeoff. Sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  “I’m nervous as a cat, Arthur.”

  “Honey, when Chris Meadows builds something, it stays built. Everything will be fine.”

  “Those men are animals, swine.”

  Arthur looked over at the four men. They looked back through angry obsidian eyes. Arthur smiled and waved a big left hand, a gesture of greeting or contempt.

  “When I was playing my way through college, it took more meat than that just to slow me down. Here, drink from my glass—that’ll make them even madder.”

  VICTOR WAS UP to his arms in salad when a voice at his back surprised him. He whirled, and two handfuls of Bibb lettuce and fresh-cut cucumber flew like confetti.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” said the intruder, a tall man with sandy hair and cool green eyes. He wore a gray workman’s shirt with Dade County stitched over the pocket.

  “What are you doing in my kitchen?” Victor blustered. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “The name is Kelly, and I’m with the county building department. We had a call about a possible structural problem on your side of the building. Apparently one of the beams buckled. I knocked a couple times, but no one answered. The kitchen door was open.”

  “I’ve got a roomful of customers out there,” Victor said irascibly. “Come back tomorrow afternoon.”

  “You the owner?” the inspector asked.

  “Of course.”

  “This afternoon one of your people told the other inspector to come back tonight. Here I am. I won’t disturb your customers; it’ll be quick.”

  Victor dried his hands on a towel. Structural problems, he fumed. Nobody had mentioned a word to him.

  “Look, Inspector,” he said reasonably, “why don’t you have something to eat here with us in the kitchen and a nice cold glass of wine and then we can work out a more suitable time?”

  “You offering me a bribe?”

  Victor foamed. “No, of course not. But I do have an obligation to my customers. Inspection tonight is quite out of the question.”

  “OK, wise ass, we’ll play it your way. I find this building to be structurally unsound. Shut it down. Now.”

  “But, but…” Victor surrendered with what little grace he had left. “Please go ahead and do your inspection. I am sure you will find everything in perfect order.”

  With a grim bureaucratic shake of his head Chris Meadows strode through the swinging doors of the kitchen at the rear of the dining room. He turned hard left and walked the seven paces to where the blueprints had told him the small men’s room would be. Luckily it was empty.

  Meadows locked himself into the only stall. He spun the combination locks on each side of the expensive brown leather briefcase and took from it a small laundry bag. It took only a second to strip off the inspector’s shirt. It went into the bag.

  From the briefcase he extracted a bright yellow T-shirt. The rococo lettering on the front read Viva Me. He put it on and added a pair of wraparound sunglasses with mirrored lenses. The chrome-plated pistol he tucked carefully into the waistband of his twill trousers.

  Meadows made sure that the rest of the briefcase was as it should be and then wiped it carefully, inside and out, with toilet paper. The laundry bag he dropped into the tank behind the toilet. Meadows tousled his hair and checked his watch. Right on time.

  Meadows had his hand on the stall door when he heard someone come into the bathroom. He cursed silently and decided to wait.

  After thirty seconds Meadows chafed with impatience. After a minute he writhed. After a minute and a half he could wait no more. The unseen man’s capacity was astonishing. To wait longer would throw off the carefully arranged timing Meadows had worked out with Terry and Arthur.

  Meadows opened the door to the stall and came face-to-face with Cauliflower Ear.

  The gunman had just turned from the urinal; his hands were still groping at his fly. His zipper was down. Meadows could smell the beer on his breath from three feet away. Was there a dawning glimmer of recognition in the man’s bloodshot eyes? Meadows couldn’t be sure, but the risk was too great.

  Meadows dropped the briefcase, snatched the pistol from his pants and jammed it, barrel first, into the gunman’s groin. Cauliflower Ear took an involuntary step back and doubled in pain.

  “On the floor, macho,” Meadows hissed. “On the floor now, or you will never use it again.”

  The gunman slumped to his knees, dazed. Savagely Meadows twisted the bloated ear. The man yelped in pain and flopped onto his belly.

  Meadows reversed the pistol and hit the gunman once so hard across the temple that the jolt raced up Meadows’s arm and ignited a cord in his neck. Cauliflower Ear was silent.

  Unconscious or dead. It didn’t matter. Meadows collected his ragged breathing and looked at his watch again.

  “Not yet, Arthur, please. Just a few more seconds; that’s all.”

  Meadows returned the gun to his pants, checked his appearance in the mirror and picked up the briefcase. After twisting the lock in the bathroom door so it would bolt behind him, Meadows strode purposefully into the dining room.

  Arthur hadn’t failed him.

  Every eye seemed riveted on the black giant who stood at the table by the window. Feet planted, plume waving, arms extended as though in benediction, Arthur was in fine fettle.

  “Innkeeper!” he demanded in a rich baritone that filled the room and ricocheted off the walls. “More wine for the virgins and an aphrodisiac for my lover.”

  At the rear of the restaurant Meadows turned left again and strode unobserved nine paces to the corner table. He skirted the protective screen of palms and sat down, briefcase at his feet.

  “Ignacio, man, sorry I’m late. If there’s no food left, I’ll just help myself to a drink,” Meadows said.

  José Bermúdez had a forkful of veal halfway to his mouth. It stopped there for a long heartbeat.

  “I’m sorry, you must be mistaken,” Bermúdez said finally.

  Meadows reached across to a silver salver on the table and tore off a chunk of French bread.

  “Mistaken? Really?” he said, spewing crumbs. “Who’s the spic?”

  “This man, who is he?” the old Colombian demanded in Spanish.

  “I don’t know.”

  Meadows laughed caustically. “You don’t know? Really, José. I mean, Ignacio forgive me, a slip of the tongue.” Meadows drained Bermúdez’s wine with a loud glug. Color ebbed from the banker’s face.

  “Leave instantly or I will call the police,” Bermúdez demanded. His voice was shrill.

  “The police. Now that’s funny. What is this, fellas, the amateur hour?” Meadows propped the sunglasses on the top of his head. “I’ve got your merchandise; I want my money. Simple, no?”

  “I am leaving right now,” the Colombian said, wiping his mouth with an embroidered napkin.

  Bermúdez was trapped between two fires. “Wait, my friend, please wait. This is a mistake,” he begged the Colombian.

  “My mistake was coming here,” the old man said, and started to lever himself up from the table. “You are as foolish as the greedy cowboys who work for you.”

  Bermúdez glared at Meadows. “You will die for this.?
?? He clapped his hands twice.

  “¡Violeta.!” the old man shouted.

  Both were well-rehearsed signals, but neither worked, for they drowned in a hellacious commotion from the front of the dining room.

  The striking salt-and-pepper couple at the table by the window had exploded.

  “Honky hussy!” the black man snarled.

  “¡Ayuda! ¡Socorro!” the Latina screamed.

  “Two-timing bitch!”

  “¡Polica!”

  He was choking her. Everyone could see that. A waiter saw it and dropped a skillet of crêpes flambé. A fat woman diner saw it and screamed. A middle-aged Cuban businessman saw it and started over to help. The three killers saw it, and they erupted as one, toppling their table in their haste to help. They never heard their masters’ summonses.

  In the darkness outside, Octavio Nelson intently watched the front of the restaurant from the shelter of a large cabbage palm. One of his detectives materialized suddenly.

  “Captain, there’s an urgent radio call for you.”

  Nelson’s gaze never left the restaurant.

  “Not now, I’m busy.”

  “It’s something about your brother, Captain. And Detective Pincus. They said it was very important.”

  Nelson stifled a groan. Wilbur Pincus and Bobby Nelson were the last two people on earth he wanted to hear from just then.

  “Mike,” Nelson muttered angrily, “you will go back to the car. You will tell the dispatcher you cannot find me. And then you will turn off the fucking radio. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  In La Cumparsita, Terry wriggled in apparent helplessness as the giant’s weight bore down on her. Then Arthur abandoned the theatric chorus of grunts that had accompanied his assault.

  “They will be here in a second,” he whispered. “Do it now, Terry; there’s no more time.”

  He released his grasp, and Terry fell back against the front window. Carefully she pressed her open palm against the glass, clenched her fist and again showed the palm.

  Octavio Nelson saw it, and his English deserted him.

  “Vamos,” he screamed. “Vamos.”

  With a gentle shove Arthur directed Terry toward the front door.

  He caught the first of her would-be saviors with a stiff arm under the chin. The second went down under a pink-toed kick. Arthur was grinning like a maniac as he himself started backing toward the door. Child’s play. Not a linebacker among them.