¹⁷

THE QUESTION IN MAGUIRE’S MIND, coming up more frequently now: What was he getting out of this?

He would recall and hear again the sound of Karen’s voice on the phone. Almost impersonal. Nothing about being glad he’d called. Then asking if he missed her. Not saying she missed him. He had said, “You bet I miss you, a lot.” He should have said, “Well, I think I do, but I’m not sure.”

Friday, the day she was coming home-his day off-he drove to the DiCilia house again, left the Mercedes over by the garage doors, next to Marta’s car, and rang the bell at the kitchen entrance.

Marta seemed surprised. “She isn’t home yet.”

“I came to see you,” Maguire said. “You got any coffee on?”

In the kitchen that was like a restaurant kitchen, pans hanging from a rack above the table, he had to ask Marta to sit down. He could see she was aware of being alone with him in the house. “You know I’m her friend,” he said. “You know I want to help her.”

“Yes,” Marta said.

“And you want to help her, too.”

“Yes, but she said not to give anyone the number where she was.”

“No, that was fine. I talked to her, and she’s glad you did. She just forgot to mention it was okay to tell me.” Forgot to mention-Christ. “She’s got a lot on her mind”-looking for a way to get to the point-“but you know she’s very grateful you told her about the tape recorder and all.”

“I had to,” Marta said. “It bothered me so much.”

“Has Roland been back since she’s gone?”

“Two days ago he came. He asked me where did she go. I told him I didn’t know.”

“Yeah? What’d he say to that?”

“He walked all over the house like he owned it, looking around in places he shouldn’t.”

“He take anything?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“But you’re not sure,” Maguire said.

“He might have, yes. But I don’t know.”

“You told him you didn’t know where Mrs. DiCilia was. Then what’d he say?”

“He threatened to do something to me.” Marta hesitated. “So I told him, California.”

“That was okay,” Maguire said. “He’s been listening to phone calls, he could’ve figured it out that’s where she’d go. That’s okay.” He sipped his coffee and sat back, showing Marta he was at ease, not worried about it. “What I’d like to do, if I could, is talk to your brother.”

“My brother?”

“From what I understand- See, she told me everything you told her. How he’s quit, doesn’t work for them anymore, all that. But I was wondering, maybe he could tell me a few things about Roland, the people he works for. Like Vivian Arzola. You know Vivian?”

Marta shook her head. “No, only the name.”

“Or maybe your brother could tell me something about Roland that might help us. You never know.”

“I could talk to him,” Marta said.

“Could you call him? See if he’ll meet me somewhere?”

“I think he may have gone to Cuba. Or he’s going, I don’t know.”

“So maybe we don’t have much time. You want to call him now? No, you can’t do that, call from here.” Maguire waited, letting Marta come up with the idea.

“I could go somewhere and call him. The drugstore by the causeway.”

“Hey, would you do that?”

“Only the man’s coming to fix the bed. He was suppose to come yesterday.”

“Nuts.” Maguire waited, thoughtful. When he’d given it enough thought, he said, “Why don’t I stay in case the guy comes?” He paused, beginning to grin. “I know where the bed is.”

Karen had walked from the patio into the house that night, was gone only a few minutes, and returned with a gun wrapped in tissue paper and forty-five new one hundred dollar bills.

He assumed she had put the gun back, somewhere in the bedroom- (He had thought of it lying with her in the broken-down bed. In one of the nightstands? In the dresser? Or behind the wall of mirrors in the closet?)

And assuming there were more new one hundred dollar bills hidden somewhere- (Lying in the bed he had thought of the money, too; first beginning to wonder what he was getting out of this.)

Maguire stood in the bedroom, alone in the house, Marta gone to phone her brother.

He had not told himself he was going to take the money; because at this point he could say, What money? You don’t even know it’s here. No decision to steal had been made. What he was doing-he told himself-was taking advantage of an opportunity. Seeing where he stood. Surveying the situation. So that if, in the end, he did have to grab something and run as an act of survival, for traveling expenses, it would be something portable and not the Louis XVI berg`ere or the Peach-blow vases he’d have to wrap in newspapers and pack in a crate.

Where would she keep a lot of money?

In a safe.

But there was no safe in the bedroom or in the closet. In the top dresser drawer he found a box of jewelry, unlocked, with some fine-looking pieces he assumed were real; though he’d never made a study of jewelry.

Next to the jewel box was the Beretta, still wrapped in tissue paper, loaded, a cartridge in the chamber. He rewrapped the gun, put it back in the drawer and told himself, okay, he knew where it was if he needed it, if he ever had to come running upstairs looking for a weapon.

But he was thinking mostly of 45 one hundred dollar bills, Series 1975, with consecutive serial numbers. Clean money, he assumed: thirty of the bills accepted at the post office without question when he’d bought the money orders. New but almost five years old, dating back to… Frank DiCilia. And thought of stories of how the wise guys always kept a lot of cash hidden away but handy, a stake, in case they ever had to run, their idea of traveling money. Sure, there had been a guy in Detroit, the feds had gone in with a search warrant, looking for something else, and found a couple hundred grand in the basement, hidden under the guy’s workbench. Andre Patterson had said, Hey, ‘magine hitting a man’s house finding something like that? Pick out one of those old Eyetalian guys supposed to be retired. Andre couldn’t even talk Cochise into it.

But the man dead, and happening to come across his stake, that was something else.

Except it could be anywhere in the house. Assuming it was here.

Maguire tried the door leading into the next room. Locked. He went into the hall and tried the outside door to the room. Locked. And thought, What’s going on? Jewelry in an unlocked bedroom; the next room, the mystery room, locked. He remembered something, went back into the bedroom to the dresser, poked around in the top drawer again and found a half dozen keys, most of them to suitcases, one for a door lock.

He tried it, felt it slide in and turn, and stepped into what had been Frank DiCilia’s office at home. He saw the desk, the typewriter, the file cabinet-

He saw the photographs on the wall.

Photos of Karen. Enlarged photos or photostats, blowups of snapshots taped to the wall, blowups of newspaper photos in bold black and white.

He wasn’t sure if they were all of Karen and then saw, that yes, there were shots of Karen alone, when she was much younger and not as good-looking as she was now, but with the same serious, secretive look. Karen in hats, Karen in dark glasses. Karen in summer dresses, bathing suits, wide-brimmed hats and dark glasses. Like a much younger Karen playing dress-up. There was one of a heavier Karen, which he realized, after a moment, wasn’t Karen. It was someone else. A woman in a black wide-brimmed hat and dark glasses, black dress, and a fur stole. Dark glasses, though the picture had been taken inside, he was sure. There were several other shots of the woman he had not noticed before, mixed in with Karen’s photos, blownup grainy photos like the one of Karen in the sunhat and bikini taken on the seawall. Karen’s photos and those of the other woman were mixed together on the wall so that when he looked at the entire display he could believe they were all of the same person. Karen.

What was going on?

Maguire turned to the file cabinet. The key was lying on top. Then he looked at the wall of photos again.

If you did something like that, he thought, put up about a dozen pictures of yourself and a few of somebody who didn’t look like you but did in a way, the expression, the dark glasses-trying for a certain look maybe? Going back to earlier pictures and finding the look there? An attitude? Why would you do it?

He opened the file cabinet-it was unlocked-began fingering through folders, papers. He came to a manila envelope, a big one, tightly packed, opened the fasteners, looked in and said, out loud, “My oh my.” He took the envelope to the desk that was covered with newspaper pages, clippings, negative photostats-Karen in reverse; but didn’t stop to look at them. Six packets of new one-hundred-dollar bills slid from the envelope. Five thousand dollars in each of five packets, five hundred in the sixth one. Twenty-five thousand five hundred dollars, 1975 Series bills, the same as the ones Karen had given him-right out of the sixth packet.

He thought of something. That the room had been locked because of the photos, not the money. He was sure of it.

He thought of something else. It was decision time. There it was, twenty-five grand, the most money he had ever seen at one time. Take it and run.

Or leave it.

Or lock it in the trunk of the Mercedes, which wouldn’t be taking it because it was her car. The rationale: protecting it from Roland. But having it ready to grab.

Shit, if he was going to take it, take it.

He heard a sound, somewhere downstairs, a door slamming.

Marta came out from the kitchen to see Maguire in the front hall, at the foot of the stairs.

“I found him. My brother says okay. He’ll meet you at Centro Vasco on Southwest Eighth Street. You know where it is? Maybe about Twenty-second Avenue, in Miami.”

“I’ll find it.”

“But he doesn’t see how he can help you.”

“I’ve been trying to remember where I saw you before.”

“At the fish place.”

“No, I mean before that. Ten years ago,” Maguire said.

He thought about it, looking past Jesus Diaz to the tables of people talking, having lunch at Centro Vasco, almost all of them Cuban.

“I know. The Convention Center, over on the Beach.”

“Sure, I was there plenty times. I used to work out at the Fifth Street gym.”

“You fought a guy by the name of Tommy Laglesia. He was doing something, I forgot what; everybody could see it but the ref.”

“Butting me, the son of a bitch kept butting me in the face, the fucking ref don’t say a word.” Jesus straightened and leaned on his arms over the table. “You saw that, uh?”

“Yeah, it’s funny-I used to go to fights, but not so much anymore.”

“No, well, who’s there to see?” Jesus said. “You saw that, uh?” He drank some of his beer, settling back again. “You know the other day-I didn’t want to do nothing to you.”

“No, I know you didn’t,” Maguire said. “But the other guy-I had to try and hit first, you know, try and get an advantage.”

“Man, you hit him all right. He had to get stitches.”

“I wish it’d been what’s his name, Roland.”

“Yeah, I wish it, too.”

“Had enough of him, uh?”

“Man, forever.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Last week. Then I see him on TV, but that’s all. I don’t work for him no more.”

“Who else does?”

“Nobody. He’s by himself.”

“I was wondering,” Maguire said, “with Grossi dead, what do you think might happen?”

“What do you mean, what might happen? To who?”

“Mrs. DiCilia if Roland, you know, is gonna still bother her.”

“I don’t know. He don’t work for Mr. Grossi no more. Why would he?”

“Well, he sees a rich lady, all alone-”

“She got friends of her husband there. Mr. Grossi wasn’t the only one.”

“Yeah, maybe Vivian Arzola. You know where she is?”

“No, I don’t know. She got a place in town; another place, I hear about in Keystone, but I don’t know where.”

“You know her phone number?”

“No, I don’t know it.”

“Mrs. DiCilia’s anxious to talk to her.” Maguire paused. “She have family in Miami?”

“No. Wait, let me think,” Jesus said. “Yeah, I took something to her mother once for Vivian. She lives in Homestead. Vivian gives her, you know, the support.”

“What kind of car does she drive?”

“Vivian? A white one with like a flower or something on the antenna. Some foreign car.”

“You want to help Mrs. DiCilia find her?”

“I think I’m going to Cuba.”

“If you don’t go, I mean. She’ll pay you whatever you think it’s worth.”

“Maybe I could do it,” Jesus said.

“Sure, Cuba’ll be there. You know where Roland lives?”

“Miami Shores. A place on Ninety-first Street called the Bayview.”

“He live there alone?”

“Man, you think anybody would stay with him?”

“You want to go see him with me?”

“I don’t think so. Not even stoned.”

“How about with a gun?”

Jesus’ hand was on his glass of beer. Looking at Maguire he seemed to forget about it.

“You ever do things like that?”

“If I have to.”

“Yeah? Is that right?” Jesus continued to study Maguire. “Mrs. DiCilia, she want it?”

“She wants it, but she doesn’t know she wants it, if you understand what I mean.”

“She don’t want to think about it.”

“Something like that. But she’ll pay you to be on her side, whatever you think it’s worth,” Maguire said. “Like five thousand, around in there? It’s up to you.”

“Around in there, uh? Let me think about it,” Jesus Diaz said.