Cat Chaser

Well fuck it, he’d gone into houses on the east bank of the Ozama with cotton in his mouth and automatic weapon fire popping away and one place had found beer inside, not cold, but beer all the same and he hadn’t gotten even a scratch in anger during that war and was subject to serious gunfire nearly every day and you know why?, because his life was being spared for something big if not fame that would come to him with more money than he could count on a rainy afternoon in Florida. You’re goddamn right. He got out of the car and walked up to that house… saw the door open a crack… hesitated the moment he needed to clear the .45 and kicked the door in with a cowboy boot.

Jiggs sat in an easy chair that faced away from the front windows and the door, so that Nolen came in almost behind him. He saw Jiggs look him up and down, Jiggs just sitting there. Nolen looked past him at the two suitcases lying closed on a round card table. He turned and looked toward the hallway.

“Where’s the general?”

“In the bathroom.”

“Still?” Nolen looked at the suitcases again. “How come you haven’t opened ’em?”

“They’re open.”

“Well, why don’t you say something, for Christ sake?”

“I want to hear you,” Jiggs said.

Nolen went over to the card table. He reached up to switch on the hanging fixture that was like an oil lamp with a glass chimney. He saw the suitcases were unfastened, unzipped, and looked at Jiggs again.

“Go ahead,” Jiggs said.

Nolen lifted the flap of a suitcase and let it fall open. He saw newspapers. He saw the front page of the Miami Herald telling him Haitians had drowned in the surf at Hillsboro. He felt down under the papers. He threw back the flap of the other suitcase and saw more newspapers and felt through them all the way to the bottom. He looked at Jiggs, squinting at him.

“The general see us coming?”

“Nah, it wasn’t the general.”

“Well, did you have a talk with him? Christ!” Nolen whipped around, cocked his weapon as he stomped toward the hallway.

“I said it wasn’t him,” Jiggs said.

He waited, a clear picture of a rainy afternoon in his mind: Moran throwing the same kind of luggage into the back seat of a beat-up Mercedes, girlfriend who was way ahead of everybody behind the wheel of the getaway car. He heard Nolen scream:

“Jesus Christ!”

And waited for him to appear: barely moving in his shroud raincoat, gunhand hanging limp, like he’d been hit over the head and was now about to fall.

“It was your buddy,” Jiggs said. “Son of a gun beat us to it.”

“My settlement,” Mary said, on the floor next to the open suitcase. “Now do you love me?” She had taken off her wet clothes, chilled, and held a cotton bedspread around her like an Indian blanket; a young girl at a pajama party eager to have fun. She said, “What’s the matter, can’t you say anything? You’re looking at it, but you still can’t believe it, huh?”

“I believe it,” Moran said without emotion.

He sat in his shirt and Jockeys on the edge of the sofa, hunched over in lamplight to look at the stacks of currency, packets of brand-new hundred-dollar bills, rows of them filling the suitcase, remembering Scully telling him about the Igloo coolers and a hundred thousand stacking up to less than a foot high. He felt vulnerable and wished he had run across to his house to change first. He’d brought Mary here because of the three suitcases, because he thought she’d need more room for clothes than his house could offer.

He said, “All three are full of money?”

“No, two,” Mary said. “I brought a few things, but I didn’t want to load myself down.”

“How much’s in there?”

“I don’t know exactly. It looks like a million one hundred thousand in each bag. But anything over two million Andres gets back. I only want what I have coming.”

“You didn’t count it?”

“George, this’s the first time I’ve even seen it. I made the switch while Andres was downstairs in his den.”

“The switch-you sound like a pro.”

“No, it’s my first job. I was go

He was looking at the scene on Arvida, flashing lights reflecting in the rain. “Andres and Corky came out with two suitcases, just like these.”

“He has at least a dozen Louis Vuitton,” Mary said. “I think he must have stock in the company. He kept two bags packed with his traveling money, always ready.”

“Where’d he hide them?”

“You guessed it the other day and thought you were kidding. Under the bed.”

“Come on-just sitting there? Not locked up?”

“Under two hundred and fifty gallons of water and inside a marble safe that looks like the pedestal of his bed. There’s a tiny hole at the foot you can barely see. You slide in a magnetic key that’s like a long needle and part of the marble slides open.”

Moran said, “He trusted you?” and sounded surprised, thinking of her with Andres now rather than in the begi

“Why not?” Mary said, thinking of herself with Andres in that time before. “Something to impress the bride, a fortune under the marriage bed. Vanity, George. And if he hasn’t trusted me lately, well, a cheater isn’t necessarily a thief. He tends to sell women short.”

“But what’s in the bags Andres took? They weren’t empty, were they?”

“No, I pulled out the suitcases with the money and then I thought, What if he gets suspicious when he sees me leave and runs upstairs to check? So I packed two other suitcases with old newspapers and shoved them under the bed. The worst part was carrying an armload of papers upstairs. I thought sure he’d see me and I couldn’t think of a good story.”

“You pla

“I didn’t plan it, I just did it.”

Moran finally smiled; he couldn’t help it. And for a few moments felt better about the whole thing.

“I was mad. My mouth hurt.” Mary raised a hand to touch her face and the bedspread slipped from one shoulder. “Now, I can’t believe I did it… Do you see a problem?”

Moran said, “Do I see a problem?” He reached over as if reminded and turned off the lamp. He could still see the neat stacks of currency. “Mary, I don’t think problem’s the word.”

He was up now, moving to the window next to the door, parting the draperies to look out at the courtyard in a pale glow, a solemn stillness after the storm. It would be dark soon, dull light to dark without the color of sunset this evening.

She stared at his bare legs, shirttails hanging to cover the Jockey briefs. She thought about making a grab at him, get his attention.

“George, if Andres wants to fight about it, okay, we’ll go to court. I’ll bring the original prenuptial agreement-I hate that word-and the amendment he forced me to sign. It doesn’t even look like my signature.”

Moran didn’t seem to be listening.

He said, “We’ve got to get out of here. I’m go

She said, “George, if Andres comes it’s because he knows the money’s here. We won’t let him have it, that’s all. I’ll tell him to see me in court.”

Moran turned from the window now. “And if Jiggs Scully comes, what do you tell him?” He picked up his jeans from a chair, wet and stiff, and pulled them on as Mary watched, eyes staring wide now, holding the bedspread around her. He said, “I’ll be right back,” and went out the door.

It gave her time to think, to relive the act, the awful anxiety of carrying an armload of newspapers up that open stairway, finding the key in the medicine cabinet of Andres’s bathroom, down on the floor with her heart pounding pulling the suitcases out then retracing, replacing the key, taking the suitcases to her room, trying to compose herself, finally walking out past Andres… going through all that so she could give two million two hundred thousand dollars to Jiggs Scully? She thought, I’ve never even spoken to him.