"The same guy?"
"He's at the Paramount Hotel on Collins," LaBrava said. "Or was."
While Torres was making a phone call LaBrava went downstairs to the darkroom. He came back with a black and white eight-by-ten of Cundo Rey standing on the beachfront sidewalk, one hand going up to his face, almost to his chin, his eyes alive, a startled expression, as he looked directly into the camera held by the guy in the curvy straw hat sitting in the wheelchair.
"He's at the La Playa on Collins," LaBrava said. "Or was. I almost made him last night busting windows, but I wouldn't tell it in court. You don't want him for busting windows anyway. I'll give you the negatives, both guys."
Buck Torres made another phone call. He came back and asked Jean about Cundo Rey. Jean shook her head. She stared at the photograph a long time but still shook her head. Finally Torres asked the question LaBrava had been waiting to hear:
"Why six hundred thousand?"
Jean didn't answer right away.
Maurice said, "What difference does it make? It's a nice round number with a lot of oughts."
Torres said, "So is five hundred thousand. So is a million."
Jean said, "I've been wondering about that. The only reason I can think of, my condominium is worth about six hundred." She paused, looked at Maurice as though for help, then back to Torres and said, "I hate to admit it, but I did tell him one time my apartment was paid for. Richard has a very... sort of homespun way about him."
He does? LaBrava thought.
"A country-boy charm."
He remembered her saying that, in this room, telling about Nobles that first time.
"He gives you the feeling you can confide in him, trust him," Jean said. "I think I told him the apartment was really the only thing I had, making a point that appearances can be misleading, that a lot of wealth down here is like a Hollywood set, a facade." She said, "Now that I think of it... I remember one day in the parking lot I ran into him. He mentioned a couple in the building had their condominium up for sale and were asking four hundred and fifty thousand. I told him they ran from about four to six hundred, as you go up. He knows, of course, I live on the top floor, oceanfront."
LaBrava listened to her quiet delivery, Jean Shaw being contrite, owning up. He wondered if it was hard for her to tell it.
"Obviously I misjudged him. As I told Maury, and Joe, you were there"--looking at him for a moment--"Richard comes on as a friendly, honest guy; so I was nice to him, I didn't treat him like one of the help."
"But he intimidated you," Maurice said. "Kind a guy, you give him a hand he grabs it, he wants more. What'd I tell you you first mentioned the guy? I said he's out for something, he's gonna take you for all he can get."
"You did," Jean said, "I know."
"I told you, guys like that, they been working Miami Beach since the day they built the bridge. Now they hop on the freeway, go up to Boca, Palm Beach."
Torres said, "Did he ever come right out and ask for anything?"
Jean said no. "But he seemed to take for granted he could stop by whenever he felt like it. After a while he became--the only word I can think of is possessive."
LaBrava remembered her saying, that first night, when she had told them about Nobles, The way he walks around the apartment, looks at my things.
But she didn't say it this time.
Torres said, "Have you seen him since you've been staying here at the hotel?"
"No."
"But he knows you're here."
She said, "That's fairly obvious, isn't it?"
Torres was thoughtful, arranging information in his mind and coming down to: "Six hundred thousand, it's a lot of money."
And LaBrava remembered her saying that first night, Then there's nothing to worry about, because I don't have any.
But this time she didn't mention that either.
In the afternoon LaBrava took Maurice's car and drove past the Paramount Hotel and the La Playa. The Miami Beach detectives were hard to spot using confiscated cars rather than the plain unmarked Dodge and Plymouth models they drove on duty. He made one cop doing surveillance in a red Chevy cab, No. 208, knowing that official Central Cab numbers were in the 1100s or higher. When he returned to the Della Robbia a Southern Bell truck was parked in front.
Torres was going according to the handbook: he'd got State Attorney OK for a wire tap on Maurice's line and was letting the telephone company do the installation. They would put a second phone in Maurice's apartment along with the tap. If a call came for Jean Shaw Maurice would use the second phone to call Southern Bell security and they'd trap Maurice's line to get the source of the incoming call. At the telephone switching office they would install Pen Registers on the lines of both the Paramount and La Playa hotels to record the numbers of all out-going calls; no court approval required. A police command post, with phones and a recorder, was located in an area that used to be part of the Della Robbia kitchen, next to the darkroom. LaBrava believed the taps and traps would prove to be a waste of time.
Torres knocked on his door a few minutes past six. Torres said they had the Eldorado towed to a Cadillac dealership, dusted it for prints and left it to have the glass replaced. For a while then they sat with cans of beer, Torres quiet, tired; LaBrava patient, still in his waiting period. He had resolved, as a civilian, not to ask questions or offer opinions unless asked. But when Torres said, "Well, all we can do now is wait."
LaBrava said, "For how long?"
"There you are," Torres said. "Do it right I need almost half the Detective Bureau, pull three shifts a day at three locations. They're sitting in cars, hotel lobbies--all the bad guys hanging out would love to hear about it. See, if it goes down soon, right away--get the money in two days, deliver on the third--we're all set. Otherwise I have to bring in the federales."
"He's not gonna call," LaBrava said.
"You don't think so."
"He was a cop. He knows about traps and voice prints."
"Yeah, but he's strange," Torres said. "You ever hear of one like this? The guy wants a garbage bag full of money. He says, use hay-baling wire, it's good. Guy's right off the farm. Look how he tried to intimidate, use that old protection shit. Like he was trying to get caught."
"You know where he is?"
"Sure, he's at his hotel. He walks up to Wolfie's, walks back. Only place he's gone."
"You got a tap on his room phone?"
"His Honor the judge said no. So all we got is the Pen Register. He calls her we'll know it."
"What about the boat-lifter?"
"He hasn't been home."
"He check out?"
"No, he just hasn't been around. We had a guy owes us one go in and ask for him."
"Why don't you take a look in his room?"
"His Honor the judge said no."
"What about the boat-lifter's car?"
"Nowhere around. You can't miss that kind of car, but it's no place we've heard, Dade, Broward or Palm Beach."
"What bothers you the most?"
"About what?"
"The whole thing. How it looks."
"Is the guy this dumb? That's what I keep asking," Torres said. "You say he was a cop, he was a gypsy. Then a rent-a-cop, four bucks an hour. He's got a license for a three-fifty-seven, that's pretty interesting. But does he know how to work extortion or is he dreaming?"
"What else?"
"I don't believe he knows what he's doing."
"Thank you, Jesus--you hope and pray. Please let him fuck up, quick. What if nothing happens?"
"The Major says after three days we bring in the Bureau. Let the college boys run it. Send the letter to Washington, they analyze it sideways, upside down and tell us it's a Smith-Corona on steno notebook paper, done with a black ribbon. Oh, is that right? Hey, thanks. Let's go, boys, get out there and find that fucking Smith-Corona. The guy moves, Joe, or he's full of shit and he doesn't."