Stick (20 page)

When Stick hesitated Barry said, “What're you doing, thinking it over?”

Stick said, “Mr. Stam, it sounds easy enough,” and stared at him, straight faced. “But there's a mile of wire in a screen door.”

He watched Barry nod with a thoughtful expression. It was good dope.

Eddie Moke picked up the black Cadillac, BS-2, coming out of Bal Harbour, identified Stickley driving—his window down as he went out the gate—but not the people in the backseat. Moke followed the limo all the way crosstown to Miami International . . .  goddamnit, where he had to be wide awake in all that airport traffic, not get faked out. It was coming on dusk, which was good, but made keeping the limo in sight harder.

Moke was operating on his own this trip, needing no orders or plan other than his will to get Mr. Stickley in a fix and shoot holes in him. He hoped then to find 105 dollars in Stickley's wallet. Forty for the Bullrider straw Stickley had run over and 65 for what he'd had to pay to get the van out of the Miami city pound. Chucky had asked him one time, “They ever let you out of the chute?”

Fat turd. There'd come a time he'd settle with Chucky. Most likely be told to and he'd take pleasure in it.

But this one now had become personal.

Wait till Stickley was alone going back. Run him off the road . . .  Or cut past him and open up,
yeah,
with the nickel-plate Mag and blow the sucker right out of his Cadillac saddle. If the chance didn't come he could always slip into that garage where he lived. Do it late at night.

Go on over to Nestor's after and tell him about it. Say, what else you need done? Nestor would be lost somewhere in his head or not believe it and him and Avilanosa would start laughing and speeling in Cuban and that's when he'd take the fellas ears out, wrapped in a hanky, and drop them on the table like a couple of dried apricots.

“You believe me now, señor?” Moke said out loud, looking through the windshield at the Cadillac parked with its trunk open, five cars ahead and two rows over in the traffic, by the Eastern sign. Then squinted and said, “The hell's going on?”

The man was walking away with his suitcase, shaking his head at a skycap. But now the skinny girl in the red undershirt was getting back in the car . . .

JANE SAT IN FRONT WITH
Stick on the way back to Miami Beach. He drove in silence, letting her come back down after the yelling match with Firestone all the way to the airport. The guy accusing her of not preparing him for the meeting, the spics. The girl actually telling him if he hadn't opened his mouth so ridiculously wide he wouldn't have been able to put his foot in it. Stick had kept his eyes on the mirror most of the way there.

He would still look at the mirror from time to time. They were on 112 heading east when Stick told her he'd kept waiting for the guy to fire her.

“He can't afford to,” the girl said.

Whatever that meant. Did she have something on him?

She seemed relaxed now. She said, “You told me you were a chauffeur—remember, this afternoon? I thought you were trying to be funny.”

“I don't think it's funny,” Stick said, “at all.”

“Well, some people are what they say they are,” Jane said, “but not many. Especially in the industry.
What they do, they talk on the phone, they take meetings and go to screenings and put down everything they see. They make wry, supposedly clever comments, but too loud and dumb to be clever. Because—you know why? They don't like pictures. If they didn't happen to be in the industry they wouldn't even go see them, ever. Bunch of fucking lawyers and business types . . .  You know any lawyers that see pictures, actually go to a theater and buy a ticket?”

Stick said, “I've only known two and they didn't do me much good.”

“The lawyers and the business types answer to the egomaniacs running the conglomerates that own the majors and none of them knows dick about film or has any kind of feeling for it,” Jane said. “You want a development deal now you have to bring them a story that takes place on a giant pinball machine with a lot of flashing lights. Special effects, that's the name of the game. You don't have ten million bucks worth of special effects in the script you're fucked. You see
E.T.?”

“Not yet.”

“Mary Poppins goes electronic. Flying bicycles and Valley kids talking cute-dirty. I'd rate it right up there with that Velveeta cheese commercial, everybody's trying to promote a slice of cheese off this little boy and he won't give them any.”

“I'll wait'll it's on TV,” Stick said. He looked over at her sitting close to the door, tan bare shoulders slumped. She looked worn out. “Firestone a lawyer?”

“It's grossing three million a
day.
No, he's not a lawyer. Leo's problem, he doesn't have any talent. He makes rotten pictures. Did you see
The Cowboy and the Alien?”

“I missed it . . .  How come you work for him?”

“Because at least he makes pictures and I felt I could learn
some
thing, just being around. You ever read John O'Hara?”

“I might've.”

“There's a character in one of his stories, an actor by the name of Doris Arlington. She works hard, she makes it, the studio finally gives her a contract that reflects her ability. Doris signs it, puts the pen down and says, ‘There. I'll never suck another Jewish cock.' She isn't showing prejudice. She's saying she'll never again submit to people who have no understanding or feeling for her art. Well, I'm still submitting. I'll work on a picture I know is a piece of shit, because at least I'll be working.”

“You like movies.”

“I love them. I want to produce my own.”

“Not
Shuck and Jive?”

“Jesus . . .”

“How about—call it
Scam.
The two guys're dopers now. They walk into customs in the middle of the
day and con them out of a hundred and forty-seven million dollars' worth of top-grade cocaine.”

“Starring Elliott Gould and George Segal,” Jane said. “I saw it. Make it twenty-million dollars' worth. Even with inflation it's a lot.” She paused and said, “Considering some of the investors I think even Leo would've had a better chance of selling it.”

“You think so?”

“He really blew it.”

“How do you know some of those guys're into dope?”

“Nestor Soto? He practically wears a sign. And the pudgy one, Chucky. Barry hinted around he's a dealer.”

“You like Barry?”

“I know a hundred and ninety-nine Barrys. They come with interchangeable one-liners.”

“You think he deals?”

She turned enough to face Stick. “Is that what you're trying to find out? You're not really a chauffeur, are you?”

“Not in real life,” Stick said, his gaze on Miami Beach in the distance, pale structures against the darkening sky. “Firestone said the Eden Roc, right? We natives call it just the Roc.”

“What were you in real life?”

“That's a hard one. I'm still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.”

“How about a cop?” She seemed to have hold of something and wasn't going to let go.

“Why do you say that?”

“You ask questions like a cop. Slip them in, no hurry, very patient. What're you, a narc?
 . . . 
Well, it doesn't matter. You're not going to tell me if you are.”

“Nobody's ever accused me of that before,” Stick said. “Jesus, a narc . . .”

“I worked for a casting company when I first started. I'd make you any day as an undercover cop.”

Stick thought for a minute, getting a glimpse of Biscayne Bay now, the little ocean before the big one. He said, “If I look institutionalized it's 'cause I just finished doing seven years for armed robbery. You want references, call the Detroit Police or the Oakland County Sheriff's Department. I'm not proud of it, but there it is.”

She said, “Wow. Really? What was it like?”

“It wasn't like the movies, I'll tell you that.”

“Did you get raped?”

“No, I had friends in the yard.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I have a feeling,” Stick said, “if I was a narc you wouldn't be as interested.”

“Probably not,” Jane said. “What's the narc's motivation? It's a job. But an ex-con armed robber driving a limo for a millionaire who thinks he's a
stand-up comic is something else. I mean if you do it straight though, not as a comedy.”

“You think it'd sell?”

“I like it so far.”

“Would you like it more if I told you we were being tailed?”

She turned half-around to look back over the seat.

“The van, blue Chevy. He's been on us since we left Bal Harbour.”

“Who is it? Do you know him?”

“I have a good idea.”

“But why is he following you?”

“I think he wants to kill me.”

“Come on . . .  Why?”

“I wrecked his cowboy hat. Two of 'em, in fact.”

She sat back again to look straight ahead. They were on the Julia Tuttle Causeway now.

“I thought you were serious.”

Stick said, “I've found that real life is weirder than the movies. But I like movies better, they're safer. You ever meet Warren Oates?”

“Yeah, once, at Dan Tana's. I was with a friend of his and he joined us for dinner. Why?”

“I just wondered. Was he a nice guy?”

“Yeah, I liked him. He was all right.”

“How long you going to be at the Roc?”

“I guess a few days. I'm supposed to wait till Leo gets back from New York, but I'm going to make a
few calls to L.A. and if I can find anything at all,
any
thing, I'm gone. If I have to hitchhike. Leo, the son of a bitch, hasn't paid me in over a month.”

“Why you supposed to wait here?”

“Leo took a suite to use as a production office—he was so confident we'd be in business. It's cheaper to leave me here than take me to New York. While he makes another pitch and gets all the names wrong.” She bit at her thumbnail, not so much anxious as impatient. “My problem, I've got plenty of self-esteem but no credits. I meet somebody like Kyle—very pro, a super lady—and it makes me want to
move,
get going . . .  I loved the way she handled Leo, led him along with the questions—the asshole, with that condescending ‘I think she's got it'—and then zapped him. It was a beautiful set piece, just beautiful.”

“She knows what she's doing,” Stick said.

Jane stared at him. “You've got something going with her, haven't you?”

Stick took his eyes from the causeway, the pavement rising gradually ahead of them. “I tell you I'm just the chauffeur . . .”

“Yeah, well, I caught a few looks passing back and forth between you,” Jane said. “That's why I was sure you weren't
just
the chauffeur. Then I thought, Jesus, maybe
she's
a narc, too. Listen, the relationships around here are so weird I'd be willing to
believe anything . . .starting with the butler, what's his name, Cornell, and the lady of the house. Is she in a nod all the time or what?”

“Yeah? You saw something there?”

“I could be wrong, but I'd bet even money they're fucking.”

“Real life,” Stick said.

“Yeah, you're right.”

She looked around again as they came off the causeway and turned left onto Collins Avenue.

“Jesus, I think you're right. He
is
following us.”

Stick cranked the wheel, pointing the Cadillac up and around the circular drive that rose to the Eden Roc's main entrance. He popped the trunk release as the girl opened her door. Then dug into his pants pocket before getting out and walking to the rear end of the Cadillac. A bellman came out, lifted the bag and tote from the trunk. Stick closed it, turned to see Jane looking down the ramp toward the street.

“He's parked back there. What're you going to do?”

“Maybe I can win his respect,” Stick said. “Don't worry about it.”

Her hand was extended now. “Well, it was fun. And I wish you luck.”

Stick took her hand in both of his and saw her expression change, the lines through her jaw harden.

“What's this?”

“One-way fare to L.A. Or close to it.”

She looked at the folded one-hundred-dollar bills in her hand, three of them. “For what?” With that hard edge, suspicious.

“You remember Chucky . . .”

“What about him?”

“The one told you to do breast exercises?”

“I know who you mean. Fatty.”

“Suppose he calls you—”

“Bullshit—what're you
doing
? I thought you were a nice guy.”

“Listen to me a minute, will you?” Standing here in his black suit arguing with a girl in a tank top, the liveried help watching. “What's the number of your suite?”

She hesitated. “Why?”

“Come on, just tell me.”

“Fifteen-oh-three.”

“When somebody calls, they want the production office, how do you answer the phone?”

“I say hello. What do you think?”

“What if you—just for the next couple of days when you answer, what if you said . . .Norman Enterprises? And sounded, well, happy and optimistic about it.”

She said, “Norman Enterprises? . . .”

“Yeah. You like it? Good morning, Norman Enterprises. No, I'm sorry, Mr. Norman isn't in right now. You want to leave a message?”

She began to smile and looked like a little girl. She said, “Oh, wow,” and sounded like a little girl.

“I'd really appreciate it,” Stick said.

A cabdriver came along the street toward the van, stocky old guy about sixty, pointing to the sign that said TAXIS ONLY, shaking his head. “You can't park here. Move it out.” He didn't look Cuban to Moke, probably Italian. Wise-ass guy come down here from the Big City.

Moke had tied a lavender bandana around his head like a sweatband. He had on his old comfortable leather jacket that fit the bends and creases of his body, nothing under it but sweat and his big Smith & Wesson 44 Mag. It hurt, the better-than eight-inch barrel digging into his groin and thigh but felt good, too. Moke rolled his window down, felt the rush of warm, humid air, rested his elbow on the sill.

He said, “Papa, you want to bleed out your ears? Keep talking to me.”

The old guy stood his ground in the street but kept his mouth shut now, Moke getting a kick out of the geezer trying to give him an evil look. The next thing, Moke was sitting up straight, slipping the Hurst shifter into gear, ready to pop the clutch—and that old man better get out of the way.

Then got a surprise. The Cadillac had eased down the ramp and stopped, waiting for traffic to pass on
Collins. Moke was sure it would turn right and head up to Bal Harbour. But the Cadillac turned
left,
came past him going south and Moke had to U-turn away from the cab stand to get on its tail.

Stickley had not looked at him going by. At least he hadn't seemed to, though it was hard to tell with those no-glare windows. Moke tailed the Cadillac back toward the causeway, then got another surprise when it turned left on Alton Road, staying on the island, crossed the narrow bridge over the inlet and now drove along Bay Shore Golf Course, darker in here with all the foliage, though the sky was still showing some daylight. When the Cadillac turned in at the club entrance Moke braked and held back. What was Stickley going in there for? It was a public course, they'd allow him, but it was sure too late to play any golf.

Moke drove past the entrance, scouting, saw rows of cars in the parking lot still. Two hundred feet down the road he turned around, came back and nosed the van into the lot past high shrubs and trees. The parked cars were scattered around. There was the Cadillac in the second row from the front, facing toward the clubhouse. There wasn't a soul around. Moke kept to the back of the lot before coming up slow behind the Cadillac, letting the van coast in neutral. He braked gently to stop a row behind.