A Five Year Plan

Chapter Seven

Everyone agreed that Al Cornaro’s wife, Madonna, was an extraordinary woman. It wasn’t that she was beautiful, just that everyone thought it extraordinary that Al should have married her at all. Most of the guys who worked for Tony Nudelli were married to beauty-parlor blondes with brassiere-sized IQs and Condé Nast educations. Not so much trophy wives as tin cup ones, these were the kind of women who could manipulate an eyebrow pencil with more skill than they could use a pen, and for whom oral skills meant giving a good blow-job. What made Madonna different was her intelligence, her sharp tongue, her total disregard for self-image, and the size of her tits. The tits were genuine, you just had to look at the rest of Madonna to work that out. They hung around her waist like something that had been sculpted there as a dry run for Washington and Jefferson on Mount Rushmore — a monumental effect that was enhanced by Madonna’s dislike of brassieres — or for that matter any underwear at all — and the recent birth of her fourth son, Al junior. Al senior loved his wife, but it didn’t stop him making jokes about her for Tony Nudelli’s amusement. Keeping Tony amused was an important part of Al’s job as Tony’s business manager. Keeping him amused and taking care of business. Colonel Tom Parker with guns and jokes. Today the business included Dave Delano, but first Al wanted to make sure Tony was in a more forgiving mood than the day before when Al had had to tell him that Willy Four Breakfasts had fucked up and was now laid up in the Miami Beach Community Hospital with a serious eye injury, courtesy of his planned victim.

It was not quite ten o’clock when Al arrived at Nudelli’s luxurious villa in the heart of Key Biscayne. He recognized the red Porsche convertible that was parked in the driveway and instinctively made his way to the 6,000 square foot pool-house. He knew his boss, a keen swimmer, would be in the sixty-foot pool under the personal supervision of his coach, Sindy, a former lifeguard from Wet’n’Wild in Orlando. Al liked to see Sindy, not least because she was usually naked and there was always a lot to see. He was a non-swimmer himself, but it might have been worth getting into the water just to have Sindy encourage him to learn in her own special way. From time to time she would dive gracefully off the granite deck, chase the naked Tony underwater like some fabulous dark dolphin, and then get underneath him to lick and nibble his penis. Most people thought Nudelli was called Naked Tony because of his surname, but Al knew different. Al knew that it was mostly because of what Tony and Sindy got up to in the pool. Sindy told Al that she got the idea from reading a book about the Roman Emperors, and in particular the life of Tiberius. Al wasn’t much of a reader, but that was one book he just had to take a look at, and they were every bit as depraved as she had said. Sindy was tall, black and beautiful and merely looking at her gave Al a hard-on. Tony called her his Angel-fish.

Al walked into the pool-house.

‘Morning Al,’ smiled Sindy.

‘Morning Sindy.’

Just about the first thing Al looked for after he had looked at Sindy’s pubic hair and then her tits was Sindy’s orange juice. Tony didn’t swim a prescribed number of lengths, or even a set period, but only for as long as it took Sindy to finish him off in her mouth. If Sindy was drinking orange juice it meant that she and Tony were done.

‘Party over?’

Sindy toasted Al silently with half a glass of juice and then sipped at it teasingly. Al’s eyes stayed on her lips and the juice.

‘Want some?’ she said, offering him the glass.

‘Ah no, thanks, ah, Sindy.’

There was no way Al was going to put his lips anywhere near that glass after what her mouth had been doing.

‘Sure? It’s um... freshly squeezed. Y’know what I’m sayin’?’

‘Sure. I ah... just had breakfast.’

‘Hmm. So did I.’ Sindy swallowed thoughtfully. ‘Rather a lot as it happens. Tony must be taking extra zinc or something.’ Giggling at Al’s very obvious discomfort, Sindy tapped him on the nose with one of her long, scarlet fingernails and called out to the weary looking man crawling slowly towards the poolside: ‘OK, hon, I’m outta here. You OK? Want me to help you out?’

‘I’m OK. And you helped me out enough already. Thanks, baby. I’ll call you.’

‘Later.’

Al watched Sindy’s bare ass all the way back to the changing rooms and shook his head in quiet desperation.

‘I should learn to fuckin’ swim,’ he said.

‘You said it, Mary Joe.’

‘Mary Joe’ was what Tony always called Al whenever the subject of Al not swimming came up, after Mary Joe Kopechne, the girl who drowned at Chappaquiddick when Ted Kennedy didn’t. ‘Mary Joe’, or sometimes ‘Pussy’.

Nudelli sank beneath the surface of the water and kicked his way toward the pool steps. Al had to admit, Tony looked good for a man of his age. His shoulders and chest were broad and he still had all his hair which was a Cary Grant shade of silver gray. Nudelli enjoyed the comparison.

‘Hand me that robe, will ya Al?’ Nudelli said, surfacing again and coming up the steps.

Hung too, thought Al. Like a horse. It looked like Sindy had her work cut out. For an older guy Tony sure had a whole lot going for him. Al collected a towel robe off the back of a white rattan chair and handed it over. Nudelli slipped it on. As he sat down he jerked his head toward the wet bar.

‘Fix yourself some breakfast if you want,’ said Nudelli, putting on his glasses and selecting a large Cohibas from the rosewood humidor on the etched glass table. ‘There’s fruit and coffee, all kinds of shit.’

‘Thanks, I already had some.’ Al started to laugh as he remembered the story he had prepared for Tony’s amusement.

‘No coffee?’

‘Yeah, coffee, thanks. Here let me get it.’ Al walked over to the wet bar, picked the Cona jug off the hot-plate and poured two mugfuls. ‘Well, I say breakfast,’ he said, bringing over the coffee. ‘Weirdest fucking breakfast I ever ate. And that includes the ones in Holland.’

Nudelli puffed the cigar into service and flicked the match onto the surface of the pool confident that the pool man would scoop it out later on.

‘How’s that?’

‘Ever since I was a kid I have to have a bowlful of Wheaties for breakfast.’

‘I remember,’ said Nudelli. ‘When we were in Vegas last year you were a real pain in the ass about it.’

‘The breakfast of champions.’

‘Don’t start on that bullshit. If there’s one thing I hate in the morning it’s an advertising slogan. It’s like finding a turd in an unflushed toilet bowl.’

‘So this morning I come down to the kitchen and Madonna’s in there with the kids and it’s like, y’know. Fuckin’ chaos is what it is, right? And all I want to do is have my bowl of Wheaties and then get the fuck out of there before I have a cerebral hemorrhage with all the fuckin’ noise there is. Anyway, I get the bowl of Wheaties and sit down at the table and look around for the cream and there isn’t any left in the jug. No problem. I can see that she’s got her hands full what with the new baby n’all. I’m not above fetching my own fuckin’ cream from the icebox. Trouble is that there isn’t any in the icebox either and so I start to cuss. What’s the problem? she says. The problem, I tell her, is that there is no fuckin’ cream to put on my Wheaties. I’m sorry honey, she says, I guess we must have run out. The kids drink it like they’d never heard of Coca-Cola, which is good because they need the calcium. I can see we’ve run out, I say, but what am I going to do? You know it screws up my whole day if I don’t leave the house with a bowlful of Wheaties inside of me. You know what she did?’

‘Surprise me.’

‘She’s walking around breast-feeding the baby, right?’

‘Jesus, ya can go to the zoo if you wanna see that shit.’

‘The next minute she plucks the tit from the kid’s gums, leans over my fuckin’ shoulder and squirts a couple of ounces of breast milk all over the Wheaties.’ Al quickly mimed the action he was describing.

Tony started to laugh.

‘What the fuck is this? I ask her and she says, What the fuck do you think it is, asshole? It’s milk. I can see it’s fuckin’ milk, I tell her. I just wonder what you think you’re doin’ with your fuckin’ tits in my breakfast. It’s good enough for your kids, but not you, is that what you’re saying? she says.

Tony was laughing hard now, and coughing too as his air got mixed with cigar smoke, so that he sounded like a small motorcycle engine ticking over. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.

‘She says, How many of the other guys have wives who could do this? You should be glad. It’s fresh and it doesn’t cost you a fuckin’ cent. The money you give me to keep this house? You’re lucky you don’t get this every morning, ya cheap bum.’

Tony said, ‘Jesus Christ, that Madonna. I love her. She’s a piece of work. She looks like Tugboat Annie, but I love that fuckin’ wife of yours, Al.’ He wiped his streaming eyes on the collar of his bathrobe. ‘So what happened next?’

Al said, ‘What happened next? I ate the fuckin’ Wheaties. That’s what happened.’

Both men exploded with laughter, with Al coming down first.

‘I mean, it was that or no Wheaties, right?’

‘Oh Jesus,’ sighed Tony, finally replacing his glasses. ‘How could you do that?’

Al shrugged, uncharacteristically at a loss for something to say.

‘Well come on, Al. Whaddit fuckin’ taste like?’

Al’s face wrinkled with thought as he tried to recall.

He said, ‘Warm, of course. Kind of like the skimmed you get in those little creamer cartons when you’re in McDonald’s. I prefer the milk that comes out of a cow, but Al junior seems to like it. Can’t get enough of the stuff.’

‘That Madonna. She’s something.’ Just the thought of the big redhead made him squirm. God only knew what she looked like when she was around the house. She looked bad enough when she was dressed to come out to dinner. Al on the other hand, Al made an effort about the way he dressed. It wasn’t the effort Nudelli would have made, but still. Just now he was wearing an expensive-looking yellow Gianni Versace shirt that looked like a silk cushion cover, some black leather jeans that were made to be worn by someone a lot thinner than Al, a white snakeskin belt, and red cowboy boots — not to mention a lot of gold this n’that. Nudelli thought Al Cornaro looked like a nigger’s Christmas tree, although by Miami standards he could pass for well-dressed. People in Florida knew shit from Shinola when it came to clothes and Al was no exception. They went anywhere outside the Sunshine State and Tony usually made Al wear a Brooks Brothers suit with a proper shirt and tie. A suit was business. Nudelli was an Anglophile. English shoes. English suits. He always bought English.

Al said, ‘I spoke to Jimmy Figaro.’

‘That putz.’

‘We arranged for him to bring Dave Delano here at eleven o’clock this morning.’

There was a clock on the wall behind Tony but he didn’t feel like looking around. He was a little tired after his swimming lesson. ‘Time’s it now?’

Al glanced up at the clock.

‘Ten-thirty.’

‘Whaddya think?’

‘You and he are still friends. That’s what Delano said, according to Willy. Wants to reassure you. Reassurance sounds good to me.’

Nudelli nodded thoughtfully.

‘Sensible guy.’

‘Comin’ here with Jimmy, it’s the smart move. It shows he doesn’t bear you any malice on account of what happened. The guy’s got balls, you have to give him credit for that.’

‘He proved that when he became Willy’s fuckin’ ophthalmologist.’

‘Willy must be losing his touch.’

‘Either he lost it or Delano learned some when he was in jail.’

‘Could be.’

Nudelli said, ‘This business proposition of his.’

‘A big score, Willy said.’

‘He goes in the joint a numbers man, and figures to come out a major-league thief, is that it?’

‘Hear him out. Maybe he learned something when he was doing time. Worked out a play. Five years is long enough for anyone to get some constructive thinking done.’

‘Suppose I don’t like his set-up? Is he holding a gun to my head about this, or what? Suppose I don’t help set this thing up? Is he then going to go to the Feds and tell them it was me who popped Benny Cecchino? Suppose on that for a while, will ya?’

‘Jesus, Tony, you got more suppose in there than Stephen fuckin’ King. He kept his mouth shut all these years, didn’t he? Done his time, like he was told. If you’d wanted him popped you could have done it five years ago and saved yourself the two hundred grand. What’s changed? I don’t understand.’

‘You wanna know?’

‘I wanna know.’

‘Okay I’ll tell you. Five years ago, I didn’t know that Delano was not the guy’s real name. I thought he was Italian-American, like you and me. Turns out his daddy was Russian. Well you know what my fucking low opinion is of those backward barbarians. But worse than that, he’s a fucking kike to boot.’

‘What, we never done business with the Jews before? This is Miami, Tony. An open city. It was the Jews who helped to develop this place for business. Meyer Lansky. People like that. Besides, as I understand it, he’s only half-Jewish. His mother’s Irish.’

‘Never underestimate a Jew, Al. Even one that’s not the whole candlestick. Take my advice, and you’ll stay alive a lot longer. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not anti-Semitic. Let me tell you, almost fifty years ago, when I was back in Jersey City? I met this little Jewish broad and fell in love with her. Best lay of my life, and you’ve seen Sindy. I’d have done anything for that little broad. Including marry her. Wanted to. Asked her often enough. Gave her a ring, the whole Tiffany deal. But it was always the same story. She couldn’t do it to her parents, she said. I’m not asking you to do it to your parents, I told her, I’m askin’ that you do it to me. But no, she couldn’t marry out, she said. What? I said. You think my parents’ll be blowing up balloons when I tell them I don’t wanna marry a Catholic? You think a Christ-killer is some kind of honor for them? No way. But still she wouldn’t have me. She was in love with me all right, but she wouldn’t get married. To hell with Shakespeare. To hell with Romeo and Juliet and that stuff. It was like I meant nuthin’ to her. Now I ask you Al: what kind of people can do that? I’ll tell you what kind. The Jewish kind. There is nothing they won’t put ahead of being Jewish. I know what I’m talking about. Shakespeare made Romeo and Juliet Italians because he understood what love means to an Italian. There ain’t anythin’ more important than how your heart feels. But it would have challenged him as a writer a lot more if Juliet had been a Jewish princess, let me tell you. Now that would have been a fuckin’ play. That’s a play I’d like to have seen.’

Al said, ‘I dunno Tony. Delano doesn’t want to fuck you. He wants to do business with you.’

‘For a Jew, they’re the same thing. And don’t forget the Ivans. Delano shared a cell with one of them redfellas for four years. Learned to speak pretty good Russkie from what I hear. You see what I’m sayin’, Al? It wasn’t Italian he learned to speak, it was fucking Russkie. Which means I gotta wonder where he’s comin’ from. If he’s in bed with these meathead slobs or what? I got enough trouble with bums like Rocky Envigado and those Colombian bastards without takin’ on the Ivans as well. That’s the trouble with this country. Too many damned immigrants.’

‘Willy Four Breakfasts seemed to think that Delano was more inclined to believe Willy was carrying out a contract for the Ivans than he was to think you wanted him to take a beating.’ Al shrugged. ‘Doesn’t sound like someone who’s in bed with the Ivans.’

Nudelli puffed his cigar thoughtfully.

‘There is that,’ he allowed.

Al said, ‘Hear the guy out. After all, business is business and personal shouldn’t ever get in the way of that, right?’

‘You’re right, of course.’ Nudelli leaned forward and took hold of Al by the cheek and then slapped him gently.

‘Just taking care of business, Tony.’

Nudelli regarded his cigar’s wet end and nodded thoughtfully.

Al said, ‘I didn’t know you were from Jersey City.’

‘It was me or some other poor bastard.’

‘What happened to the Jewish broad? The one you were in love with.’

‘How the fuck should I know?’

Jimmy Figaro drove the big BMW across the Rickenbacker Causeway, just south of where his offices were located. The road soared high over Biscayne Bay and provided Figaro’s uninterested passenger with an unparalleled view of the Brickell Avenue skyline. The first island was Virginia Key, once set aside for Miami’s black community and a large sewage plant. The next island was Key Biscayne. Steering the car with one finger now, because everything was more laid back on Key Biscayne, Figaro came down Crandon Boulevard, heading south toward Cape Florida before turning west onto Harbor Drive.

Figaro glanced over at Dave and said, ‘Tony’s place is just down the road from where Richard Nixon used to live.’

‘Tricky Dicky. Yeah, that figures.’

‘You a Democrat?’

‘What’s the difference to a bad guy like me?’

‘Haven’t you ever voted for someone?’

‘Sure. I voted for the prisoners’ representative in Homestead. Choice was between a murderer and a rapist. I chose the murderer.’

‘Who won?’

‘The murderer.’

‘What about on the outside?’

‘On the outside it doesn’t matter who represents you. The murderer or the rapist.’

‘That’s not much of a political philosophy.’

‘After you’ve been in prison there’s only one political philosophy that matters a damn and that’s keeping your ass out of prison.’

The car was now gliding smoothly through an immaculately manicured community fringed with Australian pines and coconut palms and one white palace after another, like so many wedding cakes.

Figaro changed the subject and said, ‘Harbor Bayfront Villas is one of Miami’s most exclusive addresses. Tony’s villa is right on the bay.’

‘No kidding.’

Figaro slowed and turned down a private road, pulling up at a gatehouse where he gave both their names to the guard. The guard checked them on a clipboard list and then waved them on through the elevating barrier.

‘Round here is the last word in European splendor,’ Figaro enthused.

‘Outside of Europe, you might be right.’ Dave grinned. ‘You really like it round here, don’t you, Jimmy?’

‘Wouldn’t anyone?’ nodded Figaro. ‘I mean, wouldn’t you just love to live here.’

They pulled up in front of a two-storey open bay villa with full dock and davits. Dave noted the 100-foot motor yacht that was moored there and then turned his attention to the house. With its pantiled roof, keystone columns and arches, and courtyard with fountain, the place looked as if it had been transplanted from a hill in Tuscany.

Dave said, ‘I’d sure like to be able to afford to live here. If I could then I’d use the money to live somewhere nice, like London, or Paris. Miami sucks.’

‘One man’s meat, I guess,’ said Figaro.

‘And Miami is a cheeseburger.’

They got out of the car, walked up to the front door and were admitted to an atrium foyer with a marble floor and a curving stone staircase. One of Nudelli’s bodyguards frisked Dave and then a butler walked them upstairs to an opulent mahogany-panelled library where Nudelli and Al Cornaro were seated inside a stockade of green leather chesterfields. The two men got up and crossed the aquamarine Bokhara rug, and Dave allowed himself to be embraced by the man who’d ordered his fingers broken.

Nudelli said, ‘Hey Al, will you take a look at this guy? Five years in the joint and he looks like he spent the summer in Palm Springs. Jesus, Dave, you look great. You look like a fuckin’ movie star.’

‘You’re not looking so bad yourself, Tony,’ Dave said patiently.

Nudelli slapped his own belly hard.

‘Keepin’ fit, y’know? Swim every day. Watch what I eat. You want something to eat? Drink maybe? We got everything. Silver fuckin’ service. We’re like the frigging Admirals’ Club out here.’

‘No, I’m OK, thanks Tony.’

‘Jimmy?’

‘Just a coffee.’

‘Miggy?’ Nudelli was speaking to the butler. ‘Couple of coffees.’

They sat down inside the stockade.

Nudelli said, ‘Five years.’

Dave said, ‘Five years, yeah.’

‘You did good.’

‘At the time, it seemed the thing to do, Tony.’

‘Dave. About that little misunderstanding with Willy Barizon.’

‘Hey, forget about it. These things happen.’

‘It’s good of you to see it that way, Dave.’

‘You know after Willy’s cold call I got to thinking about things from your POV, Tony. And I said to myself, I said: Dave, while you were on the inside, Tony knew where you were and what you were doing. It’s a variant on what Machiavelli says about composite principalities, Tony. Being on the spot you can detect trouble at the start and deal with it pronto; but if you’re absent the trouble’s discerned only when it’s too fuckin’ late.’

Tony said, ‘I heard you got yourself educated. Is that so? Machiavelli, huh? Sounds Italian.’

‘From Florence.’

‘That night you was with Benny Cecchino—’

‘You mean in the restaurant where you shot him?’

‘Yeah. What were you and he talking about?’

Dave shrugged and said, ‘A business proposition. Why else would anyone talk to Benny?’

‘Did you owe him money?’

‘No.’ Dave grinned. ‘I didn’t get a chance to. Your sudden arrival on the scene put paid to that.’

‘You know, Benny had a mouth like a V8.’

Dave said, ‘He was nothing to me. But from what I heard he had it coming.’

‘Nice of you to say so.’ Nudelli looked rueful. ‘I had more of a temper then. Well, this was five years ago. Five years is a long time. I’m sure you of all people don’t need reminding of that.’

Dave waited for Tony Nudelli to say something else and when he didn’t Dave decided to segue along to the purpose of his requested meeting.

‘Talking of business propositions, Tony, I’ve got one I think you might be interested in.’ Dave unfolded his laptop computer. ‘The sweetest idea you ever heard.’

‘I’m always interested in sweet ideas. Isn’t that so, Al?’

‘Always.’

Nudelli said, ‘Before you say another word, Dave.’ Nudelli glanced over at Jimmy, now drinking his coffee. ‘For someone like Jimmy, information is pressure. Sometimes the less he has, the more freedom and space there is for him. He likes to work in a vacuum. To know only what he needs to know. Especially if there are any inherent illegalities. So let me ask you, does Jimmy need to hear this? Or does he need to take a walk?’

‘I think maybe he should take a walk,’ agreed Dave.

Dave watched Figaro leave the library and when he looked back he thought that maybe Tony had false teeth and that they must have slipped off his jaw until he realized that it was some kind of little contraption made of steel and plastic and that Tony was using it to exercise the muscles in his face. Noting Dave’s expression Nudelli tongued the thing onto the palm of his hand. It looked like a tiny crutch.

Nudelli said, ‘My facial workout. Helps restore lost muscle tone and reshapes bags and sags. Those I got enough of already. A 250 percent increase in facial muscle strength in just eight weeks. They say all you need is two minutes a day, but I’m doin’ a little more than that on account of all the fuckin’ worries I’ve got. My wife. She wanted a facelift. Estimated cost? Ten thousand dollars. Instead I bought her one of these little gizmos for seventy-five bucks.’ He chuckled meanly and popped the device back inside his cheeks. ‘O ahead,’ he said, opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish. ‘Make your pitch.’

Dave glanced at the color screen of his laptop and found the file he was searching for.

He said, ‘Chasing drug money is the new law-enforcement specialty. Banking regulations have been tightened all over the world. Banking secrecy relaxed, even in Switzerland. Used to be that you could fly into Zurich with a suitcase full of money and make a deposit, no questions asked. Not any more. It’s gotten so that the Swiss have to ask questions these days. For a while back there, South America and the Caribbean were also good places to hide drug dollars.’

Al said, ‘Still are.’

‘If you know the right people. Not everyone does. New crime isn’t connected in the same way as someone like you, Tony. Nowadays the best thing you can do is to buy a bank. And the gold medal place to buy one of those is in the former Soviet Union. Under the aegis of Gosbank, which is owned by the State, and Vnesheconombank, which is the Bank of Foreign Affairs, hundreds of banks have been formed in the last few years to take advantage of new Russian enterprise. To lend it money. To take care of other hard currency deposits. There are even tax breaks and building loans to encourage new banks.’

‘It might be nice to own my own bank,’ said Nudelli.

Dave said, ‘Wait. There’s more to this scam. OK, to do it, to capitalize your new bank, you have to get your cash into Russia. That can be difficult too, especially when the cash is the result of illegal enterprise. What’s more, when it’s in the quantities required to capitalize a new bank it’s bulky. Let me illustrate that with a comparison. D’you like basketball, Tony?’

‘Sure.’

‘Then you’ll know that UCF’s leading scorer at seventeen points a game is Harry Kennedy. Now think of a tower of ten-dollar bills twenty-five inches wide and seventeen inches deep that’s as tall as Harry Kennedy. Harry’s about six-five, I believe. That’s only $5 million. A tower would have to be fourteen feet high and weigh more than 2,000 pounds just to reach ten million bucks. Makes it harder to shift than any drug, with one advantage being that the dog hasn’t yet been born that can sniff out money.’

‘They got women for that,’ chuckled Al. ‘My wife can lock onto a new C-note at fifty paces.’

Tony Nudelli liked that one.

‘But the Moscow gangs have fixed the transport of the cash too. Transport your money and help you set up your own bank. All for twenty-five cents on the dollar, same as if you had to launder it somewhere else. They get the cash across the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean and up into the Black Sea. Less than eight weeks after the money leaves Florida you own your own bank in the Russian city of your choice. Once there you can loan it to business, make money on it and then put it through the regular banking system.’

Al asked, ‘So what’s the angle? Owning a bank would be nice but we don’t need no help laundering money.’

‘I’m not selling any. My angle is this. I want to rip off one of these hard currency exports. The Moscow mob with some help from old KGB guys, and some new ones too, they operate an undercover dockage out of Fort Lauderdale. Just five minutes from the airport. The place is 50,000 square feet with state-of-the-art facilities, and accommodating motor yachts up to 150 feet long. They’ve got guys working there who really know the inside of boats. Put a new interior in your boat in no time. Except that it’s not your yacht, it’s theirs. One of half a dozen they own and charter. And the new interior? A new double bed in each stateroom that’s literally made of money. Each one looks and feels like any other bed. Maybe a little firm but that’s hardly surprising given that there’s maybe two million bucks tucked away inside the base.’

Nudelli flicked the facial flex out of his mouth, wiped the saliva from his lips, and brandished the flex as if it was a cocktail stick.

‘Wait a minute,’ he growled. ‘You look outta that window there, you can see the Bitch. Named after my first wife. A hundred foot long, she’s got a top speed of twenty-four knots and a range of 2,000 miles. A fully equipped cruising resort, she’s sleek, seaworthy and whisper fuckin’ quiet, perfect for island hopping, but I wouldn’t try to cross the Atlantic in her. The QE2 she ain’t.’

Dave shook his head and said, ‘You wouldn’t have to, Tony. For around $80,000 you could book the Bitch a passage on a custom-built transatlantic ferry. In particular, one of the cat-tugs operated by Stranahan Yacht Transport out of Port Everglades.’

‘The hell’s a cat-tug when it’s afloat?’ asked Al.

Dave rolled the trackball on his computer, selected a picture file from the floppy disk he had made up the day before, and turned the machine to face his two-man audience. They shifted forward on the chesterfield to take a closer look at the picture on the color screen. In front of them was a shot of a 600-foot vessel that contained as many as eighteen luxury motor yachts.

Dave said, ‘It has the basic hull form of a ship, combined with the wide beam and shallower draft of a barge. But it still equals the center of gravity and the buoyancy of both units.’

‘Jesus,’ said Al. ‘That’s incredible. I never seen nuthin’ like that before. They really do sail this thing across the Atlantic? With all these other boats?’

Dave nodded.

Nudelli said, ‘Looks kind of risky to me. I’m speaking as a yacht owner, you understand. There’s the risk of lifting the boat out of the water. Then there’s the risk of having your boat on an unprotected deck during the crossing.’

‘Uh-uh. The cat-tug is a semi-submersible. Kind of like an oceangoing dock. You float your boat in at Port Everglades, and then float it out again when you get to sunny Mallorca, in the western Mediterranean. During the voyage each vessel is secured to the dock floor, tied down with special lines, and protected from the worst of the Atlantic by those dock walls you see. They’re around twenty feet high. There are only minimal acceleration forces when the cat-tug’s underway. Oh, and the er, insurance premiums for crossing the Atlantic are about a quarter less than if you went under your own steam. Always supposing that you could. SYT will carry any vessel up to one with a twenty-foot draft and there are no height restrictions.’

Nudelli said, ‘I guess that’s right. Looks like a schooner in amongst those other boats. Main mast should be around sixty feet high.’ He leaned back on the chesterfield, the leather creaking underneath him like he was already on board a ship at sea. ‘I gotta admit, it looks impressive. But this company, Stranahan Yacht Transport. They have anything to do with the Russkies?’ He returned the facial flex to his mouth and began to stretch his face again.

‘Nope. It’s a legit company. Russkies book a passage like any other citizen. Being alongside the boats of law-abiding citizens they figure on having a certain safety in numbers. And of course the Coast Guard is looking for dope, not cash. When the cat-tug gets to Palma, Mallorca, they float out and sail on to their final destination under their own steam. It’s a place on the Black Sea, where the money’s finally taken out and then transported by road. Another quick refit and the yacht’s ready to come home again.’

‘That’s a lot of trust in a bunch of Russkies,’ observed Nudelli. ‘You say you want to rip one of these transports off. What’s to stop them ripping off their clients?’

Dave said, ‘Because the first time would also be the last time. And because some of these clients don’t have much choice in the matter. These days there are only a few ways to launder drug money, which is what this mostly is. Being caught with dollars is almost worse than being pinched with cocaine. Some of the South American cartels are making so much money they’ve got nowhere to put it. Sometimes they end up just burying it in the ground and letting it rot. Guy in Homestead? He lost two million that way. Used to be that you could buy yourself a nice bank in Panama or Venezuela. But then the authorities wised up. The Group of Seven Industrial Countries set up the Financial Action Task Force back in 1989. And that’s when the bad guy money started going to the former Soviet Union.

‘From what I’ve heard, Moscow’s just like Chicago was back in the twenties. If you’ve got the money you can buy just about anything you want. Bombs, missiles, armies, whole fuckin’ towns. Country’s one gigantic garage sale. All it takes is dollars. You can’t buy shit with their own currency. Beats me how Uncle Sam manages to get a handle on the US economy with so much American money around. I mean what’s a government for, if not to control the supply of money? It’s no surprise to me our economy’s a piece of shit. The dollar’s carrying half the world on its green back. Anyway, coming back to your original question, Tony. These guys want to do business with Americans. With South Americans. People with dollars. Help set them up with a bank so that they can start to do business together. Contra deals, that kind of thing. Co-operation is at the heart of good business.’

Nudelli nodded and said, ‘So what’s your play?’

‘I need a yacht to book onto the transatlantic tug. I need another crewman to help me pull the job. Halfway across the Atlantic — that’s as far away from European and American navies as you can get — we overpower the crews of the tug and the other yachts. At night, so they’re not expecting trouble. We take the money from the Russian yachts and transfer it to the boat nearest the stern. Then we float out and cruise towards a prearranged rendezvous with a tanker we’ll have sailing in the opposite direction, on a legitimate voyage. Something that’s coming back here maybe. We put the money on the tanker and then scuttle the motor yacht, just to throw people off the scent.’

Al said, ‘What’s the haul?’

‘The Russians have started making as many as two or three bookings per transport. Three yachts, six or seven staterooms per yacht, at two mill each.’

‘Jesus,’ said Al. ‘That’s over forty million.’

‘Could be,’ agreed Dave. ‘But I figure a minimum twenty-five.’

‘There’s gonna be a lot of firepower on board to protect a piece of change like that,’ said Al.

Once again, Dave shook his head, his eyes narrowing as they caught the sun. Nudelli turned around, then waved at the large expanse of window that framed their view of Biscayne Bay. South Miami and Coconut Grove lay hidden on the other side of the horizon some five miles away to the west. It was the best view Dave had ever seen of his hometown.

‘Fix the blind, will ya, Al? The sun’s in Dave’s eyes.’

‘It’s OK, I like the sun.’

But Al was already unfolding louvered shutters across the window.

‘Tony hates the fuckin’ sun,’ he explained. ‘Only guy in Key Biscayne with an indoor swimming pool.’

‘After five years in Homestead I could use some vitamin D.’

Nudelli tongued the flex from his mouth and grimaced. He said, ‘After five years, you wanna be careful of that skin of yours. Sun ain’t like it used to be. Niggers, even the fuckin’ oranges go careful these days, ’cos of this hole those idiots made in the ozone layer. Even the goddamn fish are getting skin cancer. I read that somewhere. Didn’t I? Al?’

Al said, ‘It was me who read it to you, from the paper. And they was Australian fish. Not Americans.’

‘As if it matters what nationality they are. Lots of ways Florida is like Australia. They don’t call us the Sunshine State for nuthin’. Take my advice, Dave. Get yourself a hat. Everyone in our line of business used to wear a hat. Even the lousy cops wore hats. You could tell a lot about a guy from the way he wore his hat too. And with the sun we got now? Believe me, hats are makin’ a comeback, and I don’t mean the little peaks you see the niggers and the spies wearing. I mean a proper hat. English style.’

‘Sounds like good advice.’

Al said, ‘Before the sunshine interrupted us, you were about to tell us what kind of security they got to protect all this dirty money.’

‘SYT allows just a couple of crew per boat. Any more than that and they’d be drawing attention to themselves. Three boats means six crew. It’s reasonable to assume they’ll be armed of course. But with the element of surprise I figure me and another guy could take care of them.’

‘Suppose someone radios for help,’ objected Al.

Nudelli grimaced irritably and said, ‘Suppose he fixes all the fuckin’ radios at the same time as he fixes all the crews.’

Dave said, ‘That’s about the size of it.’

‘How’d you find out about this?’

‘You share a cell with a man for four years, a man tells you pretty much everything. Gergiev, that was his name. Clever guy. He’s out of St Petersburg, right? And they’re big rivals of the Moscow mob. Anyway, he knew about these transports and planned this whole thing. We were going to do the job together, only the Feds had him deported the minute he came out of the joint. One big score, that was the idea. Matter of fact I got a letter from him the day of my release. He told me that he’s trying to get back here, and that if I try this without him he’ll kill me. But he’s not much help back in Russia and I don’t figure this job can wait. And I think he overrates his chances of ever getting another visa. Only now I’ve got nobody to help me set it up.’

‘And you figured it was this guy who sent Willy Barizon to see you, right?’

‘Gergiev was going to find the right boat, and the stake money to get it. I was going to captain it. Supply the maritime know-how. You could say that’s what I bring to the deal. All my life I’ve been into boats. My father used to work on yachts. From time to time, I’ve even owned a couple of smaller ones myself. Learned to sail, learned navigation. Even got my ticket. Gergiev might figure I’m double-crossing him. But that’s not true. I’ll take care of him out of my end on this deal.’

‘Which is?’

‘If I get the right backing: someone to stake me for the boat, I figure fifty-fifty. Maybe twelve to fifteen mill each.’

Nudelli asked, ‘What kind of boat do you need?’

‘Not too big, not too small. Maybe sixty or seventy feet. Room enough for all that cash and with a good top speed supposing we can be nearest the stern. The main thing is it has to look the part. Like it’s worth the trouble of mailing it across the ocean, y’know? I should say a value around 1.5 mill.’

Nudelli said nothing.

‘Out of my final share of course,’ Dave added, hoping to sweeten the deal. ‘Say 60,000 bucks for the passage which I’ll also cover myself—’

Al said, ‘A 81.5 million boat you propose to abandon or flush down the toilet. Am I right?’

‘Yes, that’s right. My guess is that the authorities will spend the first few days looking for this yacht or the one we have to steal. That is if they come looking at all. Remember this is illegal cash. If anyone does come looking I figure they’ll try the Azores first working on the principle that this is the nearest land to where we take down the score.’

‘You seem to have thought it all out,’ said Nudelli.

Dave shrugged and said, ‘Had five years to think it through, Tony.’

‘It’s a sweet scheme, I have to admit. I got just one major problem with it.’

‘What’s that?’

Nudelli nodded and said, ‘You. It’s you, Dave. I just don’t picture you for no hijacker. You ever pop anyone?’

‘No, I can’t say that I have.’

Nudelli said, ‘There’s no shame in that. But it’s a fact of life that the first time is always the hardest. Ain’t that so, Al?’

‘The hardest. On a job like you described you wouldn’t want to find yourself in a situation where you might hesitate to trigger a guy.’

Dave thought for a moment, trying to offer some guarantee for his own future ruthlessness. Pointedly, he said, ‘By the way, how’s Willy’s eye?’

‘That stupid fuck,’ grunted Al. ‘Maybe he’ll see straight now you halved his viewing options.’

Nudelli said, ‘I mean, how you handled Willy, that was impressive. Willy’s no pushover. But these guys on the Russian yachts. Maybe they won’t put their hands up so easy. Maybe they won’t be as dumb as Willy. Maybe you’ll have to take one or two of them down.’

Dave said, ‘Could be.’

Al said, ‘So. That’s our problem. As the political analysts might say of a candidate, it’s the character question.’

It was a fair question. Dave hoped that he would never have to kill anyone and felt more or less certain that he could pull off the job with the minimum of violence. But that was hardly what a character like Tony Nudelli wanted to hear. He wanted to see a convincing show of cold-bloodedness and all Dave could think of was Harry Lime. What would Harry have told this guy?

‘Am I ready to take the life of another human being if I have to? I think that’s a fair question,’ he said with what he hoped was an amused insouciance, like Harry’s. Dave stood up and walked round to the shutters and, staring out of the louvers, played a scene. He hoped that Tony and Al were not keen movie fans.

‘What can I say? Except that nobody thinks in terms of human beings these days, Tony. Governments don’t, so why should we? They talk of the people and the proletariat and I talk of the mugs. It’s the same thing. They have their five year plans and so have I.’ He turned to face them again and smiled laconically. ‘The dead are happier dead. They don’t miss much here, poor bastards.’

He thought he’d played it nicely. Light, amusing, ruthless, with a superficial excuse for his own behavior. If he’d started talking about how tough he was and how much of a killer he could be Nudelli just wouldn’t have bought it. He was too old a hand at killing to buy anything too definite. Of course Dave was no Orson Welles. But then Tony Nudelli wasn’t exactly Joseph Cotten either. Tony was right about one thing though. Dave would have done the speech better if he’d been wearing a hat. To get properly into character. A black homburg, just like Harry’s.

‘I’d like to cut you in, you know,’ he said, for added effect. ‘I’ve no one left in Miami I can really trust.’