Ocean Prey (A Prey Novel #31) - John Sandford Page 0,66
hopeless. So no luck there, not for the home team. Of course, he thought, she lucked out.
He went for the cheesecake and another bottle of Peroni. Five minutes later, he’d tipped the bottle up for a final mouthful, when a man walked in, looked slowly around the place, caught Cattaneo’s eyes, held them, then moved on to Lou, the sandwich maker.
The man was wearing a cotton sport coat, seriously wrinkled in the back, golf slacks over a small potbelly, and brown shoes a few shades too yellow. His face was pitted with some kind of disease scars that Cattaneo didn’t want to know about. He and Lou talked for a moment, and then they both looked at Cattaneo.
Cattaneo thought: Cop.
The cop walked over toward him and Cattaneo told himself to relax; no reason a cop should be talking to him.
The cop said, “Barry Cohen, Miami Beach police. You were talking to a blond guy and a tall black woman?”
“Yeah, they left ten minutes ago. I didn’t know them, they were just sitting at that table”—he nodded at the table—“and we had a couple of words. What’d they do?”
“You see which way they went?”
“Yeah, they went out on the sidewalk and turned that way.” He pointed south. “That’s the last I saw of them. What’d they do?”
The cop ignored the question again and asked, “What did they have to say for themselves?”
“They said they were looking for work. I think they might have come on a bus. They might have been walking, something one of them said . . . mmm, the blond guy said his feet hurt.”
“You didn’t know them?” Cohen asked.
“No. I did see them here a couple of days ago, though. What’d they do?”
“They’re thieves, we think. Working around here. We’re trying to catch up with them. You didn’t give them access to a car or . . .”
“Man, I talked to them for five minutes, max. I come here every day for lunch—I live three blocks from here,” Cattaneo said. “If they’re thieves, I want them caught. This neighborhood is going to shit. Never saw them before two days ago . . . Lou probably knows them better than I do. I didn’t give them access to anyone.”
The cop nodded and said, “Okay. If you see them again, call 911. My name again is Barry Cohen, Miami Beach. Tell the 911 operator to call me.”
“I’ll do that,” Cattaneo said. “I hate fuckin’ thieves.”
The cop said, “Headed south?”
“Yeah. Ten minutes ago.”
* * *
The cop left, headed south, and Cattaneo got up and stepped over to Lou. “You know what those guys did? The blond and the black chick?”
“Yeah. Somebody must’ve told Cohen that they were in here. Cohen says they were over at the Rue Rouge yesterday. The black girl got talking to the valet and pulled him away from his board and they think the guy lifted some car keys. Somebody did, anyway. They took the car, a Porsche Cayenne, one of those remote-entry things, and the car had the owner’s registration. They drove over to the owner’s house, used the keys to get in and ripped off a few thousand bucks worth of electronics and some other shit. Silverware, a statue, some suits and shoes, some tools from the garage. Chain saw. They would have got more but there was a security system on a one-minute delay so they only got about two minutes’ worth of stuff. When the security company called the guy at the Rue Rouge, halfway through his lunch, he went running out to get his car and it was gone. They found it under I-95 with the wheels gone.”
“So they got some used electronics and some wheels?”
“I guess. Expensive wheels, though.”
Cattaneo briefly thought about climbing on Lou about pointing him out to the cop, for talking to the dude and dudette. After a moment’s consideration, he didn’t, because (a) Lou thought he was an upright citizen so why wouldn’t he point him out, and (b) he liked the corned beef sandwiches and didn’t want Lou hockin’ a loogy in there.
“Hate thieves,” Cattaneo said to Lou. “They make it so hard for the rest of us.”
* * *
By the time Cattaneo left the deli, the blond and the chick were looking out the rear window of their ten-year-old Subaru Outback. They saw the cop leave, and then, a couple of minutes later, Cattaneo. The blond took a burner phone from his pocket and punched in a number.