Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [70]
He noticed that Roberto Nelson now had company on the bench. Pincus braced his elbows on the steering wheel to steady the binoculars. The other man was a skinny Latin with long, wavy hair and sunglasses; he waved his arms wildly at Roberto Nelson, as if agitated. Nelson appeared to respond coolly, touching his friend gently on the arm as if to calm him.
The two men rose and walked toward a parking lot where Pincus earlier had watched Nelson park the beige Mercedes-Benz. Halfway there, Skinny Friend stopped walking while Nelson continued to the car.
“Not too rough, Johnny. Easy! I’m getting blisters on these fuckin’ roots.”
Pincus winced at the noise behind him as Johnny’s friend started grunting. He could no longer see the two writhing lovers in the mirror and supposed their passion had carried them under his wheels.
Roberto Nelson and his friend were walking together again. Pincus saw that Skinny was carrying a denim beach bag now and that Roberto was toting a thin brown briefcase. They stopped in front of the bench, where Roberto grinned, slapped his customer amiably on the shoulder and walked way. Pincus lowered the binoculars. He had seen all he needed.
As soon as both men were gone, Pincus shoved the key into the ignition and stomped on the gas pedal. The Mustang growled and belched a faceful of blue fumes from the exhaust.
“Hey! Christ, watch out! Don’t back up, man,” the man named Johnny yelled from the ground.
Pincus slipped the transmission into reverse and eased off the clutch.
“I said no, fuckhead!”
Suddenly Johnny was on his feet, glaring through Seconal eyes into Pincus’s face. His friend, leaf-covered and sheepishly disheveled, scrambled behind the trunk of the big tree to zip up.
“What the fuck is the matter with you?” Johnny screamed. “You coulda killed us.”
Pincus put the car in neutral and took his foot off the accelerator. He reached up to the sun visor and pulled out a laminated police identification card. Johnny leaned forward tentatively to read the name.
“You boys shouldn’t fuck in the park,” Wilber Pincus said.
“Officer, we didn’t know there was anybody here, I swear.”
“What if this was a car full of Girl Scouts?” Pincus asked sternly. “What if I was your mother? Come to the park to feed the pigeons only to find my son boffing a wino under the ficus tree.”
“Jesus,” Johnny muttered.
Pincus replaced his ID in the visor. “Do you know what it sounds like? All the moaning and groaning and howling, I mean, how the hell am I supposed to enjoy my lunch with that kind of shit going on? I don’t ever want to see you here again.”
“Right,” Johnny said, backing away. “Yes, Officer. I’ve got to go now.”
“Good idea,” Pincus said sharply. “And find another place to fall in love. I’ll be back here tomorrow, me and the Girl Scouts.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 18
MONEY WAS a big problem.
Christopher Meadows reasoned that Octavio Nelson or the Cuban goons were watching the bank and monitoring his checking account. He took no chances. On the day he decided to go underground Meadows visited four small shopping centers and, using his plastic bank card, collected a hundred dollars from each of the mindless automatic banking machines in the parking lot. It would take Nelson weeks to trace the withdrawals, and success would bring him no closer than a mall that was fifteen miles from Terry’s apartment. Meadows never visited the same machine twice.
He estimated his resources at approximately nineteen thousand dollars in two savings accounts and the checking account; he believed he could make all of it last a year if he had to, but that was only if he didn’t spend anything on cocaine. And Meadows was determined to pay whatever was necessary for as much as he could lay his hands on.
In Fort Lauderdale, Meadows opened a new checking account under the name Christopher Warren Carson and began depositing funds. For identification he obtained a Florida driver’s license under the same name; it took him only five minutes and a discreet twenty dollars to convince