There was one.
Sweet boy sitting on the wall with his hands folded.
But he'd better check on Cundo first. So Nobles walked out to the street. The Play House Bar was almost right across the way. There didn't seem to be any little Cubans hanging around anyplace. Well, it wasn't one o'clock yet. He'd make a quick score and then look for him. So he cut back through the trees to where that boy was waiting, sitting on the low cement wall, waiting for a lover. Shit, guy like that, anybody'd do.
Sucker had designs--like big flowers, Nobles saw as he got closer--all over his shirt. No, they weren't flowers, they were palm trees and sailboats. Guy had trees and boats for Christ sake all over his sport shirt.
The guy looked up at him, just a few feet away, and said, "Richie, how you doing?"
Nobles had to take a moment. He said, "Je-sus Christ, look-it who's here. I been wondering what in the hell ever become of you, you know it? It's something, meeting like this again, ain't it?" Nobles glanced around, both ways. It was nice and quiet here.
He had time. He couldn't think of the guy's name now. Joe something, like a dago name. He sure did not look like any government agent Nobles had ever seen. It was in his mind to make a remark about that when he remembered just in time, shit no, he wasn't suppose to know anything about the guy or even he was the guy'd been taking his picture and was a friend of the cops. He had to realize all that at once now, try to play dumb and not make any mistakes.
What shook him was, thinking that, right as he was thinking that, the guy saying, "Are you dumb, Richard?"
He didn't know how to answer. The guy wasn't calling him dumb, he was asking him if he was, like he wanted to know. Then the guy was confusing him some more, saying, "Hay-baling wire is good."
Je-sus Christ.
"Your Uncle Miney said your dad used to whip you with it. Teach you humility."
Nobles stared at him.
"But that isn't something you need for extortion, is it? And if you're any good and get the six hundred grand, the last thing you're gonna be is humble, huh?"
"Oh my," Nobles said, "we sure think we're clever, don't we?"
"You're not supposed to know what I'm talking about."
Nobles said, "Mister, I'm gonna run my hands over you. I feel a wire, me and you are gonna say nighty-night. I don't, well, we can see where it goes. Stand up and turn around."
LaBrava got up slowly, raising his arms straight out to the sides as he turned, and Nobles moved in close to run his hands up to LaBrava's shoulders, took hold of the muscles close to his neck and began to pinch hard. LaBrava tried to hunch and twist free and Nobles grabbed him by the hair with one hand and punched him in the back of the neck with the other, jabbed him hard with the knuckles you use to knock on a door.
"So you're the blindsider," Nobles said, and rabbit-punched him again. "Huh, is that right?" Pulled up on his hair and drove those knuckles in again. "You the blindsider?" Rabbit-punched him again. Then punched him with shoulder behind it, letting go of the hair. LaBrava fell forward to hit the low wall made of cement and coral and had to catch himself, hold on with his thighs to keep from going over. He hung there, moving his head carefully from side to side, feeling pain, throbs of it up through his skull, and seeing black objects crawling around the edges of his vision. Nobles, behind him, kept at it. "Yeah, blindsider, they like to sneak up on you, hit you when you're not looking." LaBrava was looking down at sand on the beach side of the wall, close to his face, hoping for his head to clear. High overhead clouds moved and moonlight edged toward the wall--Nobles saying yeah, goddamn blindsider, I love to get me a blindsider--and now LaBrava was looking at the softball bat lying in the sand, the bat the same color as sand. His hands, hanging over the wall, went to the handle right-over-left to bat right-handed. He was about ready.
When he came up with it he pushed off the wall with his knees, came around from the left and saw Nobles doing a quick backstep jig, right hand going into his silver jacket--LaBrava seeing it and believing in that moment he should be hitting from the other side tonight. But it was all right. Nobles brought up his left arm for protection, instinct jerking it up, and LaBrava found it between wrist and elbow with a bone-cracking, line-drive swing that brought a gasp from the big guy, and his right hand out of the silver jacket empty to grab hold of the broken arm. LaBrava came back for good measure with a left-side, cross-hand swing to pound shoulder and muscle, getting a grunt this time, Nobles covering his head with his good arm. So LaBrava hit him across the shins and that brought him down to the grass with a scream, trying to curl up, cover himself. LaBrava was finished with the bat. He dropped it as he straddled the big guy, yanked the .357 Smith out of his belt and worked the blunt bluesteel tip, once again, into Nobles' mouth.
LaBrava said, feeling he should tell him, "I think you're in the wrong line of work. You've got size and you look mean enough, but I believe you lack desire. Open your eyes."
Nobles had them squeezed closed and seemed in pain. LaBrava slipped the gun out of his mouth, barely out, laying the sight under the lower lip, and Nobles said, "Jesus Christ, I'm hurt. My goddamn arm is broke." He turned his head to look at it, outstretched on the grass.
LaBrava said, "I hope it is. But let me tell you what's more important, to your welfare as well as your health. You like to deal. I think you ought to make one, give the cops the boat-lifter."
"The what?"
"Cundo Rey, your little buddy."
Nobles stared at him, maybe thinking faster than he had ever thought in his life, but thinking within his limitations. He did appear dumb, the vacant look giving him away.
"Let the cops have Cundo... and whoever else you got. They'll make you a nice deal."
Look at him thinking. Now trying to show some pain, going for sympathy.
"The cops have you made, Richard. You know that. They can put Cundo with your uncle and you with Cundo."
"I never saw Uncle Miney. I told 'em that."
"Doesn't matter," LaBrava said. "You don't give 'em Cundo Rey they'll pick the little Cuban up--guy like him, he's hard to miss--they'll offer him the same kind of deal and he'll give 'em Mr. Richard Nobles. He'd be dumb if he didn't."
Nobles was listening closely to this.
"He gets something like five to twenty up at Raiford, you move up there for life. He'll do three out of the five, and if you don't get him in the yard, he walks."
Nobles said, "Wait a second. What one are we talking about?"
"Take your pick. Murder first degree or the threat of it, for money. Either one'll put you away." LaBrava paused, looking down at him. Big dumb blond-haired clown. He did look mean. But deep down where it counted, all he could claim to be was a snitch. "Go make your deal and let the state attorney get you a lawyer. You'll come out all right."
He was so quiet now, staring up, moonlight catching his eyes.
"First thing in the morning," LaBrava said. "You don't want to spend the night locked up." Keeping his tone mild, almost soothing. What a nice guy. "You want, I'll tell the lady never mind about getting the money, and the trash bag. Say you changed your mind."
Those eyes staring up at him.