Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [54]
Meadows signaled the sandwich maker. “Cafecito por favor, y agua,” he said slowly in gringo Spanish.
The killer walked slowly toward Meadows’s table. Meadows watched anxiously through fingers of a hand thrust quickly to his forehead, as though to massage it. Cauliflower Ear passed without a glance and went to sit at the table nearest the door. Meadows was committed now; there was no other way out.
When the waiter brought the coffee, Meadows swiveled slightly for a better view and was rewarded. Mono’s second assistant was sliding into the spindly chair across from Cauliflower Ear.
“El viene,” the second man said.
A thrill ran through Meadows. “El viene.” He is coming. Who is coming? Who would drink coffee with two killers at a funeral parlor on this particular night? El Jefe. Nelson had been right.
Swiftly Meadows registered the second killer. By the time the man had lit a filtered cigarette with a gold Dunhill, Meadows could have drawn him in his sleep: older than the other one, about thirty-five, and bigger. Massive shoulders, about twenty pounds overweight, black hair thinning, round cheeks, pronounced brows, bad teeth, sallow complexion, peasant’s hands, obsidian eyes that showed little intelligence. His nose had been broken and badly set. Funny, Meadows thought, the boxer’s nose is not broken, but the peasant’s is.
A dapper, well-dressed man of about fifty entered the lounge. His gaze swept over Cauliflower Ear and the Peasant. Meadows tensed. This was it. Here was el Jefe. He began filing the man’s features away in his memory. Then the dapper man moved on without speaking and ordered a sandwich. Not him after all.
A woman entered; then another man. Neither paid the slightest attention to the two killers at their table near the door.
Meadows felt himself becoming angry. Come on, come on, dammit. I want out of here. How long can I nurse a two-ounce cup of coffee? To relieve his tension, Meadows rose from the table and took a soft drink from the glass-front display case.
When he turned to walk back to his chair, el Jefe had arrived.
Could it be? Meadows sat down, stunned. The man standing over the table, lecturing the killers in soft, rapid-fire Spanish, was the matinee idol with the rose in his lapel that Meadows had seen in the hall.
Fragments of the monologue drifted to Meadows’s table. His disused Spanish strained to translate. He hunched forward, trying to hear. He caught a word here, a phrase there. But there was no mistaking the tone. El Jefe’s anger was written on the Peasant’s furrowed brow and in the right foot that Cauliflower Ear tapped nervously on the linoleum. Neither uttered a word.
It happened very fast. To a casual observer, the three men might have been exchanging the time of day. Without knowing what to listen for, a passer-by would have understood nothing. There was no greeting. Meadows didn’t get it all, but he heard enough. There could be no mistake.
“Mono was a fool…Not the Colombians, I promise you…The Colombians will soon work with us…”
After what could have been no more than ten or fifteen seconds, a rising commotion drowned the diatribe. Everyone in the lounge heard a thud from the hallway. A woman screamed. Men’s voices rose in alarm and confusion. Then came the staccato tat-tat-tat of a woman running on high heels. Meadows overheard only one more chilling phrase: “That business down in the Grove was stupid.”
In that instant a well-dressed woman burst into the cafeteria, cast frantically about with wide eyes, caught sight of el Jefe’s back and screamed, “¡Venga! Rápido. Es Doña Ines.”
In those terse moments with the thugs the man with the rose had seemed wild, atavistic. Then, as Meadows watched in amazement, his features rearranged suddenly into a mask of suave concern. It was an extraordinary performance. That face in place, el Jefe turned to meet the distraught woman and quickly left the room.
At their table, the Peasant ground his cigarette into the floor and stood up sharply.
“Fue el gringo. Vamos a visitarlo.”
As the killers left without paying, Meadows felt the aluminum