Part 3 (1/2)
Jerry Shea watched the black Cadillac pull up in front. At first he thought Moran had called for an airport limo. But then realized this car wasn't any ride to the Miami airport. This was the real thing, a personal limousine with no-glare windows that were almost as black as the car and a driver who wore a b.u.t.toned-up dark suit that could pa.s.s for a uniform.
Jerry Shea said, ”Oh, my G.o.d,” out loud.
The driver was the Latino guy who was here last night, the one the other guy had called Corky. Now he was a chauffeur. He stood holding the handle of the rear door, ready to open it.
Now the other one, Jiggs Scully, who had given Moran his card, came out of the pa.s.senger side of the front seat. He wore a dark suit and stood pulling up his pants and sticking his s.h.i.+rt in, adjusting himself.
Jerry picked up the phone but didn't dial.
The driver, Corky, was opening the rear door.
A man about sixty got out. A man with a broad, tight expanse of double-breasted gray suit that he adjusted smartly, pulling the jacket down to appear even tighter. The man was Hispanic but very light and had a certain bearing, immovable, built like the stump of an oak tree cut off at about five nine. He reminded Jerry for some reason of a labor leader, a guy high up in the Teamsters, a Latin Jimmy Hoffa. Though this guy was more polished. That word was in Jerry's mind because the guy looked like he darkened his hair with black shoe-polish, the way it was s.h.i.+ning in the sun, like patent leather.
The man was taking a pair of sungla.s.ses from his inside pocket as he looked up at the Coconut Palms. He didn't seem too impressed.
Moran was half-dressed, packing his canvas carryon bag. Two pair of pants, five s.h.i.+rts, a couple of light cotton sweaters . . . he wasn't sure how long he'd be down there. Four or five days maybe. When the phone rang Nolen looked up. He'd been sitting with his beer, grateful, not making a sound. He heard Moran say, ”They're back?” Then heard him say, ”Jesus Christ, yeah, that sounds like him . . . It's okay, Jerry, I'll see what he wants.” Moran was looking toward the side window as he hung up.
Nolen said, ”What's going on?” Watching Moran pull on a dark blue sport s.h.i.+rt and move toward the door.
”Stay where you are,” Moran told him. He swung the door open and stopped.
The Irish-ex-cop-looking guy, Jiggs Scully, was standing outside the door, pus.h.i.+ng his gla.s.ses up on his nose. He said, ”George, how we doing? Your team won last night, uh?”
Moran stepped out, pulling the door closed behind him. He started past Scully and stopped.
”Which one was my team?”
Scully gave him a wise grin. ”The Lions. You're from the Motor City, aren't you?”
”What'd I do?” Moran said.
”I don't know, George, you tell me. Or tell Mr. de Boya there. He wants to ask you something.”
Moran moved past Scully, b.u.t.toning his s.h.i.+rt, approaching Andres de Boya now who stood near the far end of the cement walk, looking out at the beach with his hands locked together behind his back. He turned to watch Moran coming, then squared around again to face the beach as Moran reached him.
”How much frontage you have?”
It stopped Moran for a moment. He opened his beltless khaki pants and tucked in his s.h.i.+rttails, zipped as he said, ”The same I had the last time. Was it a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty feet? I forgot.”
”You're talking about a difference of two hundred thousand dollars,” de Boya said to the ocean. His voice was soft, but with a heavy accent.
”Numbers aren't my game anymore,” Moran said. ”How's your golf?”
De Boya didn't answer or move a muscle.
Moran wondered what would happen if he kicked the guy a.s.s-over the cement wall into the sand, and walked away. He attempted again to nudge him with, ”If you're looking for your sister, she isn't here...You already know that, huh?”
Hard-headed guy, he refused to come to life.
”Am I getting warm?” Moran said. ”I'll tell you something. If you think I had anything to do with her coming here, you're wrong. I never met your sister before the piano player and I've only talked to her once, if you could call it that.”
”How much you want?” de Boya said, out of nowhere.
”For what? My place?”
”I give you . . .” de Boya paused. ”Million six hundred thousand.”
”You serious?”
”How much you want?”
”The real-estate guys that call about every week now are up over two million.”
”I give you two million and two hundred thousand.”
De Boya's gaze came past him and Moran smiled. Was he serious? The man's gaze continued on, sungla.s.ses like a hooded beacon sweeping the beach; black hair parted in a hard line, showing his scalp.
Moran said, ”You want me to go away, Andres? Come on, what's your game?” He wanted to keep it light and not let the guy get to him. ”Whatever it is, the Coconuts isn't for sale.” And looked out at his beach, at the surf pounding in. ”I like it.”
”Why?”
Moran waited; he wanted to be sure.
”I ask you why.”
The man had turned and was almost facing him now. He had asked a question that had nothing to do with real-estate value or numbers and seemed interested in getting an answer.
”I live here,” Moran said. ”It's my home.”
De Boya looked past him, toward the stucco bungalow. ”You live in that?”
”I live in that,” Moran said.
”How much you make here?”
”A lot,” Moran said.
”How much? A few thousand?”
Moran said, ”I don't know your sister and I haven't seen your wife in over a year. I want you to understand that. I never made any moves on your wife. Never.”
De Boya seemed to be staring at him, though might have been sightless behind the sungla.s.ses, the wax figure of a former general.
He said, ”Get three offers on real-estate letter paper. I give you a hundred thousand more than the best one.”
Moran looked at him closely. Maybe you had to hit him on the head with a hammer to get a reaction. Moran imagined taking a ball peen and the man's plastic hair that covered his one-track mind flying in pieces.
He said, ”You serious, Andres? You want to build?”