The Consummata (20 page)

“I left her in that diner. She’s probably back in her room, by now, down the hall, if you’re to be believed. Why don’t you call her? But she might be cross, if you wake her up.”

His eyes tightened. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this?”

“No. But I did talk to her, and she did admit that you people are looking for Jaimie Halaquez, too.”

His eyes stayed tight and his chin crinkled.
Should he talk to me?
Finally he decided. “That’s right, Morgan. We are.”

I grinned at him. “You weren’t in Miami looking for me. You were already here on the Halaquez case. And I just walked into it.”

Crowley nodded. “But I think we gave you proper attention. I don’t think you need to feel neglected.”

“No, no complaints. You’ve kept me hopping. It’s tempting just to shoot you, so I can hijack that bed for a decent night’s sleep.”

He smiled a little. It bordered on a sneer. “But you’re not a killer, Morgan. You kill, but only in self-defense.”

“Well, Walter, I’d guess I’d have to agree with you. But that’s more a rule of thumb than a rule. You still don’t want to get on my bad side.”

“I would guess I already am.”

“Not really. You’re just a guy trying to do your job. You’re a working stiff who’s confused and doesn’t know it, because you’re on the wrong track. I’m not the guy you should be going after.”

That got half a smile out of him, putting a dimple in that smooth face. “Really? Who
is
the guy I should looking for?”

“Hell, I don’t know. All I know is, I didn’t take down that money truck. Kim Stacy told you what she heard on that runway in Nuevo Cadiz, didn’t she?”

“She did. But we discounted it. You have a reputation for having a certain...charm. Especially with the ladies.”

“And yet you kept her on the company payroll? Didn’t discipline her in any way?”

Crowley’s tone was gently mocking. “Why should a woman be disciplined for loyalty to her own husband? Besides, she’s a fine agent.”

“Sure, Walter. And there’s that other little thing.”

“What other little thing is that, Morgan?”

“That someday she might lead you to me.”

“And here you sit.”

“And there
you
sit. While here I sit with a gun.”

“You won’t use it.”

“Don’t push it, Walter. Look, I don’t expect you not to do your job. But since you didn’t come to Miami looking for me—since Jaimie Halaquez was the man you were after—why don’t you just postpone the Morgan manhunt until the other job is done?”

“Why should I do that?”

“Because I’m looking for Halaquez, too. I’m working on behalf of the Cuban exiles he robbed. I want to get their money back for them. And I’d be glad to turn him over to you when I’ve shaken that dough out of him.”

He laughed. A small laugh, but a laugh. “You think you’ll get him before we do? We have an operation already well underway.”

“Well, I have my charm, remember. It’s possible, going down my own paths and byways, that I might get to him before you do. My priority is that money.”

He stopped smiling. He was thinking.

Finally, cocking his head, he said, “What are you proposing?”

“Not that we throw in together, not exactly. Just call off the dogs. Let me move freely through this city. I’ll keep you informed, calling you here at the hotel. And if I find him, and don’t have to kill him...he’s yours.”

Crowley’s eyes moved with thought as he tried to find a flaw in my proposal.

Then he asked, “And what then?”

“After I turn him over...or after you catch him, if I’m not part of it...you pay me the courtesy of giving me twenty-four hours before you open the Company kennels again. It’s a fair request, Walter.”

“It’s fair, but it’s nothing my superiors would endorse.”

“Don’t ask them. Someday I’ll prove my innocence, and you’ll know you did the right thing.”

Crowley thought some more.

Then: “
Oh
-kay....but there’s nothing I can give you but my word.”

“I accept that.”

He laughed, loud enough to ring off the plaster walls. “Are you sure? You didn’t believe me on the phone when I said I’d come alone tomorrow.”

“We’re in the same room, and we’re looking at each other. And you’re looking down the barrel of my gun. I’ll take your word.”

He nodded. “What now?”

“I’ve already briefed Kim Stacy on my activities of the last few days. She can fill you in.”

And that would leave how much she told Crowley to her own discretion.

I went on: “But with one of the byways I’m going down, I could use some help.”

“You said we wouldn’t be working together.”

“This is just some information that I could use. You may not even have it.”

“All right. Go ahead, Morgan. Ask.”

“Does the name Richard Best mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“How about Richard Parvain?”

Now he frowned. “
Parvain
you say? You wouldn’t be talking about an inventor by any chance?”

“That’s right. What’s the story on him?”

His eyebrows went up, stayed there a few seconds, then came down again. “Well, he never worked for the government, not as an employee. Always on contract. I can’t tell you
what
he was working on—”

“I can tell you. He was developing a sort of Geiger counter that could make its readings from a great distance. Like in an airplane.”

His eyebrows went up and down again, more quickly this time. “All right. I won’t deny that. The device was helpful. But then Parvain had a nervous breakdown, and a drinking problem, and he became a bad risk. He had another, even more important concept that he never delivered on. Finally, ties were cut with him.”

“How long ago?”

“Oh...five years...seven years.”

“What was the ‘important concept’?”

“Morgan, that’s classified—you know I can’t...”

“Crowley, you said yourself Parvain never delivered. What was the concept?”

“Why?”

“Because he was murdered two days ago. Under the Richard Best name.”

Crowley’s eyes widened. “Christ. What were the circumstances?”

I told him.

Then I said, “What was the invention he promised but couldn’t come through on?”

Crowley’s sigh seemed to come from his toes. “It was an extension, an expansion of his original idea. This was a device that could detect the presence of atomic materials on the ground...from the air.”

“You mean—a spy plane could know if an enemy had a storehouse of nuclear materials? Could pinpoint the location of missiles in silos? Could—”

He raised his hand. “Those applications and many more. When Parvain began his work on the project, we were especially sensitive to the threat of nuclear warheads in Cuba—it was a way to make sure the Russians hadn’t secretly outfitted Cuba with missiles.”

I let out a low whistle.

With a weary shrug, the man in the bathrobe said, “The government put a lot of money into the project, but finally pulled the plug. Parvain insisted on working alone, without supervision. He was, frankly, a crank. And then a crazy crank, and finally an alcoholic one. Morgan, you don’t seriously believe he
did
finalize those plans?”

Now it was my turn to sigh from my shoes. I rose. I put the .45 away.

“Walter, if a scientist being crazy or a boozer precluded his ability to come up with innovations, you and I would be going to work every day in a horse and buggy.”

And I left him there to think that over.

That and the rest of it.

There’s an old Army dodge that anyone carrying a clipboard stacked with printed forms, a pocketful of yellow pencils, and one of those inspection team expressions was a guy to stay away from. In a hospital, just add a white lab-type coat, and watch everybody you pass get suddenly too busy to talk, finding only enough time to smile politely and scurry away on unknown business.

Watch out for the man with clipboard, people! What you don’t tell him, he can’t write down....

So there was no trouble getting to the right floor and the right room at Miami General. The police guard on the door was a sleepy-eyed kid of maybe twenty-three sitting on a folding chair. His head was down and he might have been napping when I approached and cleared my throat. His eyes popped open and his chin jutted upward.

In my most officious tone, I asked, “Has any unauthorized party tried to get in to see Miss Prosser?”

“N-no, sir,” he said, and began to get up.

I motioned for him to stay put. “Has she had
any
visitors this morning?”

“Just Sgt. Patterson of Homicide and Lt. Davis from Burglary. You’re, uh, with the hospital, sir?”

I glared at him. “You’re just getting around to asking me that?”

And I shook my head disgustedly and went into Tango’s room, shutting the door on the young cop’s sputtered apology.

Her eyes were closed. Possibly she was asleep, but in any case, breathing regularly, hooked up on an I.V., the shapely slenderness of her tall frame obvious under the sheet. Even battered and swollen and bandaged, her face held the striking exotic beauty that had allowed her to get out of her drunken father’s house—of course, she’d only traded it for a brothel, but still an improvement. Her bed was cranked up some-what, and her arms weren’t under the covers, her dark tan a stark contrast with the hospital gown and sheets.

As I approached the bed, her eyes half opened. “Doctor...?”

“No,” I said. “My name’s Morgan.”

Her eyes opened all the way, not quite startled, big dark brown pools. This was a lovely woman, all right, even after that bastard Halaquez had got through with her.

“You’re Bunny’s friend,” she said.

“Yes.” I gestured to the white lab coat, and tossed the clipboard onto her bedside table next to the water and Kleenex box. “This is just a get-up to avoid too many questions, coming to see you. How you doing, kid?”

She smiled. “I have a little button I can press when I want more morphine.”

Her mouth, even without lipstick, provided a wide, attractive frame for perfect teeth that must have come from God, because her old man surely hadn’t paid many dental bills.

“You been pushing the happy button much?”

Her laugh was just a little punch of air. “Now and then. I’m doing all right. Nothing was broken. But that Jaimie...
he, uh...really knows how to hurt a girl’s feelings, huh?”

I leaned in. Spoke softly. “You prefer Tango or Theresa?”

“I feel more like Theresa right now.”

“Okay, Theresa. Did they tell you that Halaquez got away, but that his helper didn’t? That the helper got killed in a struggle there in your motel room?”

She nodded.

“Don’t spread it around,” I said, and risked a smile, “but I’m the guy who cluttered your room up with that trash. I wish I’d gotten there sooner. And your friend Jaimie slipped through my damn fingers, I’m not proud to say.”

“Jaimie was...was never my friend. I knew him from the Mandor, a little. I heard about him from other girls. I don’t go that route.”

“What route?”

“The bondage route. That’s Jaimie’s thing, you know. He wants to be hurt. Then later...he wants to hurt
you
. That’s what I hear, anyway, from my co-workers. He, uh...really does seem to know his way around torture.”

“Then why did you have his picture? It was in one of your purses in your room at the club.”

“Dickie gave that to me.”

“Dickie. Dick Best?”

She nodded. “He gave me that picture and said that if anything ever happened to him, give it to the police. I took it and said I would, but never did, or...haven’t yet. When I heard Dickie was dead, I was sorry...I cried. But I didn’t want to get involved any more than I already was.”

“But you recognized the picture.”

“Yes, only I didn’t tell Dickie. He might have misunderstood if he thought I knew Jaimie. Might’ve thought I’d been one of Jaimie’s girls at the Mandor, even though I wasn’t. You see, Dickie...he was different. He was...special.”

“How so, Theresa?”

“He was an older man, you know...he only wanted to protect me. Wanted me to go off with him and...and we would start over somewhere. Dickie was a very smart man. He was an inventor....”

“I know. Theresa, I have to ask this. You don’t really like men, do you? I have an idea you like women better.”

Her smile was a tiny white thing in the beautiful battered face. “I don’t like sex at all, Mr. Morgan.”

“Just ‘Morgan.’ Then why would you go into the sex-formoney trade?”

“Because it’s just that. A trade. I am a good-looking woman, or anyway I am when I’m not covered in bruises and burns. My looks, Morgan...they’re really all I’ve got. I’m not stupid, but I’m not smart.” The exotic face took on a sudden hard cast. “I’m a good-looking piece of ass, and so that’s the commodity I sell.”

“Is that how Dickie Best looked at you? As a good-looking piece of ass?”

Her smile disappeared. Her eyes moistened. “No. He said I was his...his poor little lost lamb.”

“Your relationship wasn’t sexual?”

“Not...not mostly sexual. Dickie, he...oh, he
liked
sex. We had sex sometimes. Mostly I just...I just used my hand. That seemed enough. He was more a friend to me. Someone I
admired. Someone who was kind. Someone who loved me, but didn’t force me to do anything I didn’t want to.”

The decent father she never had, if you factored out the hand jobs.

“We were going to go off together,” she said. “Dickie said he already had a...his words were, ‘Decent amount of money.’ But he could get more. He said he thought he could...I don’t know exactly what this means, Morgan, but this is what he said...he said, ‘I think I can shake half a million out of them. Then we can go to Mexico and live like royalty.’ He said it was cheap to live in Mexico.”

“Do you have any idea who it was he planned to shake that money out of?”

“It must have been Jaimie Halaquez. Otherwise, why would Dickie leave me that picture? And why would Jaimie come to my motel room and...and do what he did?”

“What did Jaimie want from you?”

“He wanted to know everything that Dickie had said. I told him. I didn’t tell him about the photo because I thought that might get me killed. But I told him everything else. Only...that wasn’t enough. Jaimie was convinced that I
had
something, something
valuable
, something that Dickie had given me. But I didn’t. I don’t.”