Double Whammy

"Not yet."

"Grapefruit juice? O.J.?"

"Coffee if you got it," Garcia said. "You must be headed down to the beach."

"No," Gault said, "the sauna." After he poured Garcia's coffee, he said, "I thought that's why you called—Decker, I mean. I figured you boys would've found him by now."

"You boys.Fine, be that way, Garcia thought. "We almost had him last night, but he got away."

"Got away?" Dennis Gault asked.

"As in, eluded us," Garcia said. "Stole a boat and took off across the bay. By the time we got a chopper up, it was too late."

"Sounds like you boys fucked up."

"We prefer to think of it as a missed opportunity." Garcia smiled. "Very good coffee. Colombian?"

"Yeah," Dennis Gault said. He dumped a squirt of vodka into his grapefruit juice.

"The reason I'm here," Garcia said, "is I need you to tell me everything about what happened with Decker."

Gault sat down, tugged irritably at his cherry swimtrunks. Garcia figured they must be riding clear up the crack of his buttocks.

"Hell, I flew to New Orleans and gave a full statement," Gault said. "How many times do I have to go over it?"

Garcia said, "I've read your statement, Mr. Gault. It's fine as far as it goes. But, see, working the Miami angle, I need a few more details."

"Such as?"

"Such as how did Decker choose you?" Garcia was admiring the empty coffee cup. It looked like real china.

Gault said, "My feelings about Dickie Lockhart were no secret, Sergeant. I'm sure Decker talked to some fishermen, heard the stories. Once he took those photographs, I was the logical choice for a buyer—he knew I hated Dickie, knew I wanted to see him discredited. Plus he knew I was a man of means. He knew I could afford his price, no matter how ludicrous."

Man of means.Garcia was in hog heaven. "He told you all this, Decker did?"

"No, I don't recall that he did. You asked how he picked me and I'm telling you it wasn't too damn difficult."

Garcia said, "How did he first contact you?"

"He called."

"Your secretary just patched him right through?"

"Of course not," Gault said. "He left a message. Left about seventeen messages before finally I got fed up and picked up the phone."

"That's good," Garcia said. From the inside of his tan suit coat he produced a small notebook and wrote something down. "Seventeen messages—your secretary's bound to remember the name, don't you think? She probably wrote his number in a desk calendar somewhere. Even a scrap of paper would be a help."

"I don't know," Gault said. "That was weeks ago. She probably tossed it by now."

Al Garcia left his notebook open on his lap while Gault repeated his story that R. J. Decker had demanded one hundred thousand dollars for the photographs of Dickie Lockhart cheating.

"I told him he was nuts," Gault said. "I told him to take a flying fuck."

"But you saw the pictures."

"Yeah, and it was Dickie, all right, pulling fish cages in a lake somewhere. Illegal as hell."

Garcia said, "So why didn't you buy them?"

"For the obvious reasons, that's why." Gault pretended to be insulted.

"Too much money," Garcia said. "That's the most obvious one."

"Forget the money. It would have been wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Don't look at me like that," Gault said. "You're looking at me like I was a common criminal."

Maybe worse, Garcia thought. He had already decided that Dennis Gault was a liar. The question was, how far did it go?

"The note," the detective said. "Asking for a hundred grand—"

"I gave it to the cops in New Orleans."

"Yes, I know. But I was wondering what Decker meant—remember he used the word 'fee'. Like it was a real case. He said, 'The fee is now a hundred grand,' something like that."

Gault said, "Hell, I knew exactly what he meant."

"Sure, but I was thinking—why he didn't use the word 'price'? I mean, he was talking about the price of the photographs, wasn't he? It just seemed like a funny choice of words."

"Not to me," Gault said.

"When did he give you the note?"

"Same day he showed me the pictures. January 7, I guess it was." Gault got up and went to the bathroom. When he came back he was wearing a monogrammed terrycloth robe over the skimpy red thong. It had gotten chillier in the apartment.

"After I told Decker to get lost, he went right to Lockhart for all the marbles. It was pure blackmail: Pay me or I give the pictures to my pals at the newspaper. Naturally Dickie paid—the poor schmuck had no choice."

Garcia said, "How do you know all this?"

Gault laughed caustically and slapped his hands on his knees. "From R. J. Decker!" he said. "Decker told my sister Elaine. Turns out he was banging her—I'm sure New Orleans must've filled you in. Anyway, Decker told Elaine he squeezed thirty grand out of Dickie before Dickie cut him off. At the tournament Decker went to see him about it, and you know the rest."

"Decker doesn't sound too bright."

"Then why haven't you caught him?"

"What I meant," Garcia said evenly, "is that it wasn't too bright for him to blab all this shit to your sister."