Part 7 (1/2)
”Browder, the man behind you is not very familiar with firearms. The revolver is c.o.c.ked. There is a sh.e.l.l in the chamber. His finger is on the trigger. If you do anything quick and funny, it might twitch.”
”Nothing quick. Nothing funny. Believe me.” After I had tied him to a stanchion with a length of braided nylon line, Meyer was able to take a deep breath again. I emptied his pockets and put everything on the table. He had a silver money clip in the shape of a dollar sign, worn from long use, with four hundred and twenty dollars in it. He had some crumpled ones and some change in the same pocket as a Swiss Army knife with a cracked red handle. I patted him down and found an ankle holster with a little two-shot derringer in it, two rounds of.22 Magnum hollowpoints. He stood as patiently as a horse being groomed.
”Going to do it with the derringer?” I asked him.
”It wouldn't look like an accident, would it?”
”Why does it have to be an accident anyway?”
”I'll give you a number and you dial it and let me say something into it. They will get a voiceprint, okay? Then they'll clear me.”
I had to retie him where the phone would reach. He said the phone was manned twenty-four hours a day. I wasn't familiar with the area code. It was answered on the second ring by a male voice repeating the last four digits of the number I'd dialed. I held the phone to Browder's face and he said, ”Okay Browder for clearance. Give them a description.”
”Hold,” the voice said.
We all waited for a long ninety seconds and then the voice said, ”Browder, Scott Ellis. Five foot seven, one hundred and seventy-five pounds, age thirty-eight, brown eyes, ruddy complexion, S-shaped scar inside of left forearm, first joint of little finger of left hand missing, hairy mole right shoulder, faded blue tattoo right forearm of anchor and five stars in a circle around it. Browder is on detached duty with the Drug Enforcement Administration.”
I said thank you to a dead line and untied him. ”You don't want to check the hairy mole?” he asked.
”No, thanks.”
”It isn't all that hairy anyway.”
”Just for luck, I'll hang on to the derringer, though.”
”Don't let me leave without it.”
”Mr. Scott Browder, this is Meyer.”
They nodded at each other. He ma.s.saged his wrists and said, ”I could guess you'd be careful. What I hoped was no whop on the skull first. Hits on the head make me throw up. After the bomb thing they really wondered if they should go after somebody with all that amount of luck.”
”Sit down. Drink.”
”Thanks. Scotch, no ice, little bit of water. You can guess why I wouldn't carry an official ID.”
”Infiltration?” I asked.
”After Operation Southern Comfort a lot of our guys were made, so I'm one of the new batch.”
”Operation what?”
He looked disappointed. ”It was big, like five tons of c.o.ke by plane, with a relay strip in the Bahamas. Anyway I'm involved with the peopl who never see it or touch it or have a direct contact with anybody who does see it and touch it. I'm after the arrangers. Not like Jornalero. He just does money for them. Long ago he used to hire the mules for the Colombianos. He worked his way up and, because he's smart, mostly out of it. They could get him for currency violations if they thought they could make it stick. But he covers his tracks good.”
”Can you tell me who wants me killed?” I asked, giving him his drink.
He sipped it, nodded approval and said, ”What would you do if I gave you names?”
”Pay visits.”
He looked at me with disapproval. ”McGee I am not going to tell you how much I know about you. You are big and you are lucky and you have some good moves. If I wanted to get you killed quick, I'd give you some names. How can I impress you? We are talking about very big money and very smart people. Listen and believe. It would be like sending a twelve-year-old girl on a naked reverse against the Raiders. It is a cla.s.s you will never be in.”
”Who is Cappy?”
”Short for the Capataz. That isn't his name. It means the Foreman. He's way down the list. He's enforcement. You scrambled three of his people. Rick Sullivan is having his knees rebuilt. Louis LaLieu will spend a year with his dental surgeon. Dean Matan has four broken bones and some ripped tendons in his left hand. And Cappy is annoyed.”
”Who did it to Billy?”
”I don't know and I don't think Cappy knows, and I would guess that the man in Ma.r.s.eille Cappy contacted for a favor wouldn't know either exactly who did it. Just like n.o.body really knows who put your bomb together or who mailed it. Incidentally, word went back to Ma.r.s.eille that the wire job was sloppy. They wanted it done so that it wouldn't be picked up in an autopsy. They should have used a big injection of insulin.”
”A bomb isn't exactly accidental-looking.”
”After that missed, they decided on accidents. Too many killings and you have a lot of official attention, and that is bad for business. The people in Peru would understand the accidents were arranged.”
”What was my accident going to be?”
”I couldn't say exactly, but I think you were supposed to walk out into heavy traffic. Those three were standby talent, strictly second-cla.s.s, McGee.”
Meyer asked his first question. ”Mr. Browder, if Mr. McGee stays here, what are his chances of staying alive?”
Browder looked at Meyer with more interest. ”Slim to none.”
”And why is that so important to somebody?”
”Friend Meyer, you ask the hard ones, don't you? Something is stirring. What you've got in the Miami-Atlanta area is a loose amalgamation of two groups. They work very cozy together. It's in their interest. Let's call one the Old-timers. Some syndicate families, gambling interests, vice, narcotics. But not down on the nitty-gritty level. Making policy, suggesting arrangements, selecting the right people. Let's call the other group the New Boys. Rednecks, Cubans, Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Peruvians, Bolivians. Smuggling narcotics, peddling weapons, murder and arson for hire. And again you have a top layer of policy people, negotiators. For a while the Old-timers and the New Boys were killing each other off. Wiser heads prevailed. They have the same problems of product and cash flow. So they have been working together. Now there is trouble in paradise. It has something to do with you, McGee, and with Ingraham and his wife and Jornalero and that stolen boat and Gigi Reyes. I've discussed matters with my a.s.sociates and my superiors, and the general feeling is that if we can find the right b.u.t.tons and push them, there is going to be a full-scale war again. Crazy Marielenos running around in panel trucks full of automatic weapons and grenades. And some fruit may drop off the tree. We may get enough to build some tight cases.
”Lately, it's getting a little better. When we can't build a solid criminal prosecution, we can bring a civil action and tell the clown to either show up on the stand and explain his income taxes for the past fifteen years, and how come he could buy a two-million-dollar home on the beach, or we take the house off his hands. It stings them pretty good. But I like the tight cases better.”
”Which side wants me dead?”
”The Old-timers, mostly.”
”What can I do?”
”I don't know yet, McGee. First I want to know every detail about the boat. How you looked, where you located it. What you did aboard. The whole thing.”
He made me go over the part about the boat coming over from Yucatan twice. And he wanted every detail about the interior of the Sundowner, known then as the Lazidays. The exact position and condition of each body. The placement of the roll of fifties, and the spare fifties around the head of Howard Cannon. The shape and placement of the bruises on the thighs of the Peruvian girl. The clothing on the others. I closed my eyes and rebuilt the scene. It came back so vividly I could hear the lazy buzzing of the carrion flies, feel the sodden weight of my sweat-soaked clothes.
”I got to think,” Browder said.
He was a pacer. He frowned and paced and, with fresh drink in hand, made little grunts, mumbles and hand gestures.
He stopped in front of me and pointed down at me. ”You! Have you got any cowboy clothes? Hat, s.h.i.+rts, boots?”
”Nothing.”
”Buy them tomorrow morning. Get high heels on the boots and a big high crown on the hat. I want you seven and a half feet tall. I want you looked at. I'll bring the eye patch. He's dead, but they won't know that in the Yucatan, will they?”