48
The others sleepwalked into custody, bleakly stoic at the demise of Lucca, unsurprised in the face of getting caught.
When they'd been patted down and handcuffed and herded into a small tight group against the ruined building with its grasping vines, Keith McCullough took Ziggy aside into a shadowy knot of mangrove and said, "So where the hell's Amaro?"
Ziggy said, "Who?"
"Don't be cute with me. I don't find it cute."
Ziggy stared at the agent's blackened face, his eyes that seemed yellow and bulging in the moonlight. "I don't find your makeup cute."
McCullough swatted at bugs, said, "Where the hell is he, Ziggy? We have a deal, remember?"
"Fuck you, G.I. Joe. You got Tommy Lucca dead. Be content with that."
Air whistled through Keith McCullough's teeth, he kicked at a coral rock with the toe of a boot that fine, gray mud was drying on. He said, "Don't be an asshole, Ziggy. With you or without you, I'm pulling Paul Amaro into this."
"Lotsa luck."
"Salazar'll turn."
"Wrong."
"We'll trace the guns."
"Fat chance you'll trace the guns."
"We have the truck."
"The truck's from Hialeah. Face it, Jolson, you got nothing on Amaro. Nothing."
McCullough turned away, watched moonlight gobbled up by foliage, nibbled leaf by leaf till there was nothing left but shadow. Hands on hips, he wheeled slowly back around, said, "Ziggy, don't overplay your hand. You were carrying the guns. You were handing them aboard. Lucca's dead. Who else you got to trade away?"
Ziggy listened to frogs and bugs, thought that over. Then he said, "Jeez, you caught me touching guns? Now you got me very scared. Paul Amaro, okay, you might try his hotel room."
"Hotel room?" said McCullough. "But he's supposed to be—"
"You thought he was supposed to be. You were mistaken."
"If you're jerking me around—"
McCullough broke off because the dark sedans were coming down the road, headlights crazily rocked and panned across the clearing. The cars stopped. An agent sprang out of one. He ran over to where Keith McCullough stood and said in a breathless whisper, "We got 'im."
"Got who?" McCullough said.
"Amaro," said the agent. "He's in the other car.
McCullough looked at Ziggy. "Hotel room, huh?"
The agent said, "We found him walking, running really, up the road."
McCullough said, "You weren't gonna cooperate, Ziggy, you shouldn't have handled the merch. That was a mistake."
"He was really winded," said the agent. "Really pushing. A man late for an appointment."
McCullough said, "Bring him over here." He smirked at Ziggy. Ziggy tried to smirk back but he couldn't. He was scared. Scared for Angelina. He'd given her a gun. The gun was supposed to keep Paul Amaro away. Bad things sometimes happened when guns were brandished by people who weren't prepared to use them.
A moment passed. Doves mumbled, mosquitos darted in and out of moonlight.
A handcuffed man was led through the shadow of the mangroves. It was Uncle Louie.
Keith McCullough said, "That's not Paul Amaro."
The agent looked confused. "We I.D.'d 'im, everything. Amaro."
McCullough looked disgusted. He said to Louie, "Fuck you doing here?"
Uncle Louie didn't answer right away. His thin hair was plastered down with sweat. He was a little bitten up and nervous but also sort of proud. He'd never been handcuffed before. He'd never been interrogated. He glanced at Ziggy. Then he said, "Just out for a walk."
Ziggy smirked.
McCullough grimaced. He said, "Where's your brother?"
Louie thought a moment, then said, "My brother Joe? Or my brother Al?"
McCullough pawed the ground, pulled in a deep, damp breath of air that smelled of rot and sulfur.
Ziggy said, "If you mean Paul, I told you, Buckwheat, he's in his room."
"I'm gonna bring him in," McCullough said.
"Bring him in for what?" said Louie. "Staying in his room?"
"For questioning. Suspicion."
"Questioning," said Ziggy. "Suspicion. That's just perfect."
"Perfect?" said McCullough.
"You'll keep 'im just long enough for me to propose to his daughter."
* * *
When they had a moment alone, Ziggy whispered to Louie, "What the hell were you doing walking down that road?"
"The cabbie," Uncle Louie said, "he wouldn't bring me off the highway. God knows what he thought I had in mind."
"Yeah, yeah," said Ziggy. "But why were you out there in the first place?"
Louie didn't answer, he chewed his lower lip.
"Didn't trust me, did you?" Ziggy said.