Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [80]
“Listen, I don’t want no trouble. A lady died here last year.…”
“In this apartment?”
“No, no. In the building. We didn’t find her body for a week.”
“Terrific. Sorta hangs in the drapes, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, well, I just don’t want any commotion, OK?” said the super. “I mean, if there’s something in there, can you just call the ambulance and take care of it without a commotion?”
“Gimme the key,” Nelson said.
Inside, there was no trace of Christopher Meadows, no evidence that the architect had lived there recently or ever. Meadows had been meticulous in his flight, Nelson thought as he rummaged fruitlessly through the trash cans. The dishes were all in place in Terry’s linoleum kitchen; the beds were made; the counters were absent of crumbs, stains and other loose clues. Nelson even searched through the laundry hamper only to uncover a bra, three small T-shirts and two pairs of bikini panties. There was no sign a man had been in the apartment.
The super, a pale, bald little fellow with shoulders like a turkey vulture, was hanging nervously in the hallway while Nelson searched.
“Is everything OK?” he called finally.
“Yeah. You can go back downstairs. I’ll be down with the key in a few minutes.”
“I think I ought to stay just—”
“Get lost!” Nelson commanded. “I’m not gonna rip off the TV, for Chrissakes.”
By the time he worked his way to Terry’s sweet-smelling bedroom Nelson was sure the place was dry. He opened the top drawer of the bedstand and, without touching, took a brief visual inventory: a round, unopened packet of birth control pills, a bottle of Bayer aspirin, some Vaseline, the instruction manual and warranty card for a clock radio and a dark green cloth that looked like brushed felt. The drawer smelled familiar. Gun oil.
Octavio Nelson picked up the green cloth and laid it on the bedspread. He leaned back and put his head down to get a side-angle view. The grease marks were promising, but the imprint was even better. With a forefinger Nelson traced the shape of a gun, from grip to barrel, on the soft thick cloth. He folded it and slipped it into the inside pocket of his sport coat.
Meadows’s girlfriend obviously kept a pistol by the bed, but it was missing now. As Nelson rode the elevator down to the parking garage, he wondered somberly if T. Christopher Meadows was teaching himself how to shoot.
WINNIE LAINE, a travel agent at Tropic Suncoast Tours on Biscayne Boulevard, met the stranger for the first time on a Monday. He mentioned South America, and she gave him some brochures. Winnie was curious. The man was tall and blond, very polite, and she would have bet a week’s pay he didn’t speak a word of Spanish.
He came back on Wednesday and asked about Barranquilla, and she could hardly suppress herself. Well, Bogotá is very nice this time of year, she said; what she meant was: Barranquilla is a snake pit, and you must be out of your mind to go there. And the man took some more brochures, asked about airline fares and said he couldn’t really make up his mind. As he left, Winnie wondered to herself what the young man would look like dressed in brown instead of gray.
She was surprised, pleasantly, when he returned on Friday. He apologized shyly for his indecision and then not-so-shyly asked her out for a drink after work. Winnie said no, but the man didn’t seem to hear it. He smiled and was about to walk out when she changed her mind.
They went to a dockside bar at the city marina. Winnie spent the better part of two hours answering the man’s quiet questions and not minding at all. When she finally asked a few of her own, the man told her he was an office supply salesman trying to unload a hundred used IBM typewriters in Colombia. The demand down there, he said brightly, was inexhaustible. He anticipated numerous trips, and he was merely shopping for the most economical way to get in and out from Miami. A good friend of his, Bobby Nelson, was a frequent traveler to South and Central America.
“Yes, he’s one of our clients,” Winnie exclaimed.
“No kidding?”
“Twice a month, like clockwork,