Dave had missed the ocean, even one as busy with people and boats as the one off Miami Beach. Sandwiched between the pale blue sky, and the pink rock dust that passed for sand, the gray snakeskin-colored sea rolled toward him in white scribbles of water. In Homestead he had often imagined having this view again. But it was not his regained sight of the ocean that served to underscore his freedom, but its accompanying salty smell and visceral, breathy sound. He had forgotten that part. Back inside the four walls of his hotel suite, luxurious though it was, it had been all too easy to conjure the nightmare of being in his cell again, in the same way that an amputee could still feel the severed limb. He had only to close his eyes and listen to the air-conditioned silence. But here on the beach, with its sounds and the smells thrusting in upon his consciousness, the feel of the wind in his neatly cut hair, and the late afternoon sun warming his smoothly shaven face like the hot plate of a giant stove, it was impossible to mistake his surroundings for anything but the outside world. Dave lay on his beach towel and breathed deep from the sky above him. He didn't even read. His other neglected senses wouldn't allow him to concentrate on anything but where he was and what that meant. A few days' relaxation in Bal Harbor would help him to begin dismantling the walls inside his head. After that he could go to work.
Willy 'Four Breakfasts' Barizon got his nickname from the time when he ate four whole cooked breakfasts -- two eggs sunny side up, two strips of bacon, a sausage and hash browns each -- in a Denny's on Lincoln Avenue. A little over six foot three, he weighed around 230 pounds in his shorts and 250 when he was dressed, the extra twenty being mostly referable to the two handguns he wore underneath his loose, Hawaiian style shirt. His tongue was a couple of sizes too large for his face, which meant he spoke out of the side of his wet-looking mouth as if he still had one of the breakfasts pouched in the other cheek, like a chaw. His black hair was naturally curly although the cut made it look as if he'd just had a permanent, with small dreadlocks that hung loosely over the tops of his elephantine ears, like a Hasidic Jew's. With a passing resemblance to a budget-sized giant, Willy Barizon was a hard man to miss. Besides, it was a while since he had done this kind of work, and he had forgotten how to be subtle. The ice-trucking business had been all front. Looking tough when you turned up to collect was nearly all you needed to know. It was rare that you actually had to smack someone.
Dave made Willy the minute he saw him. Or rather, he made the look the big man received from the bell-boy when Dave came out of the hotel restaurant and asked the front desk to send the fax he had written out in neat Cyrillic capitals while having his dinner. Five years of watching his ass in Homestead had given Dave eyes in the back of his head. The bell-boy might as well have shot a neon arrow into the big man's chest. 'There's your mark. Go get him.'
Dave stepped into an elevator car alongside a woman with hair as tall as a chefs hat. What was it with Miami women and big hair? With one eye on this confection of hair and the wizened doll beneath it, he pressed his floor button and stood back in the car as the woman selected her own floor. Then she moved to one side as Willy joined them. It was a second or two before he thought to press a button himself, which more or less confirmed Dave's suspicion that the big guy had been waiting to follow Dave up to his room. But the question of motive still eluded him. Not a cop, that much was certain. A cop would have pinched him in the lobby. And for what? Suspicion Grand Theft Auto? As the doors slid shut, Dave turned toward Willy Barizon and held out his left wrist to display the watch he had bought in the Bal Harbor Mall that same
afternoon.
'You see this watch, man?'
'What?'
'Not what. Watch. This watch is a Breitling Chronometer. Best watch in the world.'
Baby Doll was pretending that he didn't exist.
'Forget Rolex. I mean, that's just for the movies. And National Geographic. This. This is a goddamn quality timepiece. Cost me $5,000.'
'So fuckin' what?' snarled Willy.
'Wait, I haven't finished. You wanna see my wallet?' Dave took out his wallet and flipped it open. 'See that? Coach leather. Isn't that beautiful? And there's $1,000 in cash too.'
'You're nuts.'
The elevator chimed as it reached Baby Doll's floor.
'Really,' she said, stepping smartly out on her high heels. 'Some people just don't know how to handle it, do they?'
'You're so right, lady,' agreed Willy.
Dave returned the wallet to the coat pocket of his linen suit and took out his new fountain pen as the doors closed again.
'Then there's this fountain pen.'
'Fuck you pal, and fuck your fountain pen,' said Willy, and instinctively patted one of the two pieces he was carrying under his waistband.
