Cundo Rey glanced at him. "What's your trouble now?"
"Open the goddamn window."
"Man, I got the air on."
"Open the fucking window, will you! Turn around."
"Hey, what's the matter with you?" Cundo scowling.
Guy acting like he was going crazy, like he was trapped, clawing at the door.
"That's the guy, the fucker 'at hit me."
"Where? That guy with the girl?"
"Turn the fuck around, now."
They had to go down to Twelfth. Cundo backed into the street and came out to move north on Ocean Drive.
"Put your window down."
"I can see okay. Be cool. Why you want to get excited for?"
"I don't see 'em." Nobles hunched up close to the windshield.
"There," Cundo Rey said. "On the porch."
Nobles turned to look past Cundo, and kept turning.
"Guy is opening the door with a key," Cundo Rey said. "So he must live there too, uh? Is that the guy?"
"That's the guy," Nobles said, calm now, looking out the back as they crept past the Cardozo. "That's him." He didn't straighten around until they came to Fifteenth, where Ocean Drive ended and they had to go left over to Collins.
"I didn't see him too good in the dark," Cundo Rey said. "You sure is the guy?"
Nobles was sitting back now, looking straight ahead. He said, "Yeah, that's him. That's the guy."
"You want me to go back?"
"No, I don't want you to go back just yet."
Looking at him Cundo Rey said, "You sound different."
Chapter 9
THERE WAS SUNLIGHT in the window. LaBrava picked up the phone next to his bed and the girl's voice said, "I woke you up, didn't I? I'm sorry." He recognized the voice now. She said, "I don't know what time it is and the goddamn nurse won't come when I call..."
He drove past the hospital thinking it was a resort motel or it might be a car dealership with all the glass and had to U-turn and come back for another pass before he saw the sign, Bethesda Memorial.
Jill Wilkinson was alone in a semi-private room. She looked different, smaller and younger, out of character as victim. She had been diagnosed as having a slight concussion and was under twenty-four-hour observation, chewing on crushed ice when LaBrava came in.
"This is all I've had to eat since yesterday afternoon. You believe it? They won't give me anything else till I'm all better."
"You look pretty good."
"Thanks. I've always wanted to look pretty good."
He leaned over the bed, close to her, looking into her face clean of makeup. Her eyes were brown looking at his, waiting. "You look great. How's that?"
"Better."
"You fish for compliments?"
"I don't have to, usually."
"Your head hurt?"
"It's a little fuzzy. I feel dragged out. Used up."
"That what he did, he used you?"
"He tried to. He had ideas. God, did he have ideas."
"What stopped him?"
"I did. I said, 'You put that thing in my mouth I'll bite it off, I swear to God.' "
"Oh."
"He had to think about that. I told him I might be dead, but he'd be squatting to take a leak for the rest of his life."
"Oh."
"He put his gun in my mouth--and you know where he got that. And then that gave him the other idea."
"He hit you?"
Two people talking who knew about violence.
"He pushed me around. I tore his epaulets and he got mad. I tried to run in the bathroom and lock the door, but he came in right behind me, banged the door in, and I fell over the side of the tub and cracked my head against the tile."
"He had his uniform on."
"Yeah..."
"Were you knocked out?"
"I was sort a dazed, you know, limp, but I wasn't out all the way. He put me on the bed and sat down next to me--listen to this--and held my hand. He said he was sorry, he was just goofing around."
"Did he look scared?"
"I don't know, I wasn't all there." She shook the ice in the paper cup, raised it to her mouth and paused. "Wait a minute. Yeah, he tried to take my blouse off, he said he'd put me to bed, and I grabbed one of his fingers and bent it back."
"Then what?"
"Nothing, really."
"He touch you?"
"Did he give me a feel? Well, sorta. He gave it a try."
"You tell the police that part?"
She hesitated and he thought she was trying to remember.
"I didn't tell them anything."
"You didn't call the cops?"
"I called South County, my office. I got Mr. Zola's name and number and I called, but there was no answer. Last night."
"How'd you get my number?"
"I had your name. I took a chance you lived in South Beach, near Mr. Zola, so I called Information, this morning."
"You haven't told the cops anything."
"No."
He waited a few moments. "Why not?"
Now Jill waited. "He really didn't do anything. I mean you have to consider the kind of creepy stuff I run into every day, at work. A guy making a pass isn't all that much."
"How'd he get in your apartment?"
"I don't know."
"You don't think he broke in."
"No."
"What he did comes under attempted sexual battery. In this state it can get you life."
She said, "How do you know that?"
"But you say he really didn't do anything. What would he have to do?"
"You want to know the truth?"
"I'd love to."
"I'm going to Key West for ten days. It's my big chance to get out of that place and nothing's gonna stop me."
"What do you think he wanted?"
"I sign a complaint, I know damn well what'll happen. Get cross-examined at the hearing--didn't I invite him over? Offer him a drink? I end up looking like a part-time hooker and Mr. America walks. Bull shit. I've got enough problems." She coaxed ice into her mouth from the paper cup, paused and looked up at him. "What did you ask me?"
"What do you think he wanted?"
"You mean outside of my body? That's why I called--he wants you. 'Who was that boy, anyway?' " Giving it the hint of an accent. " 'What newspaper he with?' About as subtle as that crappy uniform he had on. He's a classic sociopath, and that's giving him the benefit of the doubt. I know his development was arrested. He probably should be too."
"But you're going to Key West."
"I've got to go to Key West. Or I'll be back in here next week playing with dolls. I don't think that asshole should be on the street, but I have to put my mental health first. Does that make sense?"
LaBrava nodded, taking his time, in sympathy.
She said, "He thinks you hit him with something."
"I should've," nodding again, seeing Mr. America in his silver satin jacket. The shoulders, the hands. "But there wasn't anything heavy enough."
"I told him you didn't hit him, you put him down and sat on him."
"Oh."
"That's when he got mad. I should've known better."
"Well, I don't think it would take much... Let me ask you, did he mention Mrs. Breen? The lady we picked up."
"No, I don't think so... No, he didn't."
LaBrava was at ease with her because he could accept how she felt and talk to her on an eye-to-eye level of understanding without buttering words to slip past emotions. She was into real life. Tired, that's all. He wouldn't mind going to Key West for a few days, stay at the Pier House. But then he thought of Jean Shaw and saw Richard Nobles again.
"How did he get in your apartment?"
"If I tell you I think somebody gave him the key, then we're gonna get into a long story about a naked Cuban who thinks he's Geraldo Rivera."
"Well," LaBrava said, "even Geraldo Rivera thinks he's Geraldo Rivera. But I could be wrong."
"Do my eyes look okay?"