Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [97]
“This is fine.”
“What?”
“You can drop me here,” Roberto said.
Nelson eased the car to the curb under the orange and white Avianca Airlines sign. Roberto got out and struggled with the sticky back door until it squeaked open. He carefully lifted his suit bag and smoothed out the wrinkles. He closed the door and leaned over through the passenger window so abruptly that his sunglasses nearly slipped off.
“Thanks for the ride,” Roberto said.
“Sure,” said Octavio Nelson.
“I’ll call you when I get back.”
“Call a cab instead,” growled the detective. “A cab with air-conditioning.”
The two men parted, Roberto for the ticket counter and his brother for home.
The time was exactly 11:28 A.M.
This was meticulously recorded in a blue notebook by Detective Wilbur Pincus, sitting in his own car near the Eastern Airlines baggage stand, his mouth as dry as plywood as he watched the send-off.
Chapter 24
“I’LL TRY him again,” Terry said. She slipped on a pair of clogs and snowshoed through the hot sand to where the public phone stood in the lee of the old brick lighthouse. A tender breeze off the sea rustled the coconut palms. The tide was high; the water, sparkling and fresh. It was an idyllic scene. Terry was not feeling idyllic.
“Con el Capitán Nelson, por favor.”
“Es el que habla.”
Terry switched to English.
“You are a hard man to locate, Captain. This is Señora Lara.”
“Ah, yes. I got your messages, señora, but I have been very busy, in and out, and you didn’t leave a number. How can I help you?”
“I have some information for you.”
“Oh.”
“About someone you’re looking for.”
“Yes.” Nelson’s response was flat, emotionless.
“In the barrio, people call him el Jefe.”
“Oh, a businessman, perhaps?”
“Don’t play games, Captain. We both know what kind of business.”
“Bueno. Tell me more.”
“Not on the phone.”
“How?”
Terry allowed a hint of impatience to creep into her voice. “If I give you this information, it must be in complete confidence.”
“Of course.”
“We must meet.”
“All right.”
“At Southland. Tonight at eight o’clock, in the main mall. Come alone.”
“Very well. How will I know you?”
“You won’t know me. I will know you.”
“Bueno.”
“One more thing, Captain.”
“Yes?”
“El Jefe killed my brother. I want you to get him for me.”
CHRIS MEADOWS LAY on his back, chin high, toasting in the afternoon sun. Terry slipped off the light shirt that covered the top of her white bikini and gazed at him with affection. The longer hair made a difference, and the resolved set of the face. Meadows had changed. The gentle, intellectual architect was there still, perhaps, but it was sunken into something leaner, tougher, something that tasted of recklessness and danger. With a delicious shiver Terry lay down beside him.
“He took the bait,” she announced.
“Good.” Meadows did not open his eyes. He might have been drowsing, but Terry knew better. Meadows was weighing angles, checking distances, building, demolishing and rebuilding a tower of deceit.
“I rehearsed so hard that I might have been a trifle theatric at the end,” Terry ventured, “but I think it went well.”
“Um.”
“I am sure he’ll come, and alone.”
“Fine.”
“He sounded very exotic, your Captain Nelson, very exciting; like someone I could really fall for.”
“Yeah, right.”
Terry sat up in exasperation. “Chris!” she rebuked. “I am not a rock or a grain of sand.”
Meadows opened one baleful eye.
“Terry,” he said in a way that made plain that was all he was going to say.
“You have never been ignored until you have been ignored by a lion.” Terry snorted more in jealousy than petulance. “I am going for a swim.”
THE PIECES WERE FALLING together nicely. It would not be the most beautiful structure he had ever designed, but it might be his most inspired, Meadows decided. Nothing of soaring beauty, but not a house of cards either. It did