Lifeguard

Chapter 1

“DON’T MOVE,” I said to Tess, sweaty and out of breath. “Don’t even blink. If you so much as breathe, I know I’m gonna wake up, and I’ll be back lugging chaise longues at poolside, staring at this gorgeous girl that I know something incredible could happen with. This will all have been a dream.”

Tess McAuliffe smiled, and in those deep blue eyes I saw what I found so irresistible about her. It wasn’t just that she was the proverbial ten and a half. She was more than beautiful. She was lean and athletic with thick auburn hair plaited into a long French braid, and a laugh that made you want to laugh, too. We liked the same movies, Memento, The Royal Tenenbaums, Casablanca . We pretty much laughed at the same jokes. Since I’d met her I’d been unable to think about anything else.

Sympathy appeared in Tess’s eyes. “Sorry about the fantasy, Ned, but we’ll have to take that chance. You’re crushing my arm.”

She pushed me, and I rolled onto my back. The sleek cotton sheets in her fancy hotel suite were tousled and wet. My jeans, her leopard-print sarong, and a black bikini bottom were somewhere on the floor. Only half an hour earlier, we had been sitting across from each other at Palm Beach ’s tony Café Boulud, picking at DB burgers – $30 apiece – ground sirloin stuffed with foie gras and truffles.

At some point her leg brushed against mine. We just made it to the bed.

“Aahhh,” Tess sighed, rolling up onto her elbow, “that feels better.” Three gold Cartier bracelets jangled loosely on her wrist. “And look who’s still here.”

I took a breath. I patted the sheets around me. I slapped at my chest and legs, as if to make sure. “Yeah,” I said, grinning.

The afternoon sun slanted across the Bogart Suite at the Brazilian Court hotel, a place I could barely have afforded a drink at, forget about the two lavishly appointed rooms overlooking the courtyard that Tess had rented for the past two months.

“I hope you know, Ned, this sort of thing doesn’t happen very often,” Tess said, a little embarrassed, her chin resting on my chest.

“What sort of thing is that?” I stared into those blue eyes of hers.

“Oh, whatever could I mean? Agreeing to meet someone I’d seen just twice on the beach, for lunch. Coming here with him in the middle of the day.”

“Oh, that…” I shrugged. “Seems to happen to me at least once a week.”

“It does, huh?”” She dug her chin sharply into my ribs.

We kissed, and I felt something between us begin to rise again. The sweat was warm on Tess’s breasts, and delicious, and my palm traveled up her long, smooth legs and over her bottom. Something magical was happening here. I couldn’t stop touching Tess. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to feel this way.

Split aces, they call it, back where I’m from. South of Boston, Brockton actually. Taking a doubleheader from the Yankees. Finding a forgotten hundred-dollar bill in an old pair of jeans. Hitting the lottery.

The perfect score.

“You’re smiling.” Tess looked at me, propped up on an elbow. “Want to let me in on it?”

“It’s nothing. Just being here with you. You know what they say: for a while now, the only luck I’ve had has been bad luck.”

Tess rocked her hips ever so slightly, and as if we had done this countless times, I found myself smoothly inside her again. I just stared into those baby blues for a second, in this posh suite, in the middle of the day, with this incredible woman who only a few days before hadn’t been conceivable in my life.

“Well, congratulations, Ned Kelly.” Tess put a finger to my lips. “I think your luck’s beginning to change.”

Chapter 2

I HAD MET TESS four days before, on a beautiful white sand beach along Palm Beach ’s North Ocean Boulevard.

“Ned Kelly” is how I always introduced myself. Like the outlaw. Sounds good at a bar, with a rowdy bunch crowded around. Except no one but a couple of beer-drinking Aussies and a few Brits really knew whom I was talking about.

That Tuesday I was sitting on the beach wall after cleaning up the cabana and pool at the estate house where I worked. I was the part-time pool guy, part-time errand runner for Mr. Sol Roth – Sollie, to his friends. He had one of those sprawling, Florida-style homes you can see from the beach north of the Breakers and maybe wonder, Whoa, who owns that?

I cleaned the pool, polished up his collection of vintage cars from Ragtops, picked up mysteries specially selected for him by his buddies Cheryl and Julie at the Classic Bookshop, even sometimes played a few games of gin with him around the pool at the end of the day. He rented me a room in the carriage house above the garage. Sollie and I met at Ta-boó, where I waited tables on weekend nights. At the time I was also a part-time lifeguard at Midtown Beach. Sollie, as he joked, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Once upon a time, I went to college. Tried “real life.” Even taught school for a while back up North, until that fell apart. It would probably shock my pals here that I was once halfway to a master’s. In social education at BU. “A master’s in what?” they’d probably go. “Beach management?”

So I was sitting on the beach wall that beautiful day. I shot a wave to Miriam, who lived in the large Mediterranean next door, who was walking her Yorkies, Nicholas and Alexandra, on the beach. A couple of kids were surfing about a hundred yards offshore. I was thinking I’d do a run-swim-run. Jog about a mile up the beach, swim back, then run hard up and back. All the while watching the ocean.

Then like some dream – there she was.

In a great blue bikini, ankle-deep in surf. Her long reddish brown hair knotted up in a twist with a flutter of tendrils.

Right away, it was as if there was something sad about her, though. She was staring vacantly at the horizon. I thought she was dabbing her eyes.

I had this flash: the beach, the waves, the pretty, lovelorn girl – like she was going to do something crazy!

On my beach.

So I jogged down to her in the surf. “Hey…”

I shielded my eyes and squinted into that gorgeous face. “If you’re thinking what I think you are, I wouldn’t advise it.”

“Thinking what?” She looked up at me, surprised.

“I don’t know. I see a beautiful girl on a beach, dabbing her eyes, staring forlornly out to sea. Wasn’t there some kind of movie like that?”

She smiled. That’s when I could see for sure she’d been crying. “You mean, where the girl on a hot afternoon goes in for an afternoon swim?”

“Yeah,” I said with a shrug, suddenly a little embarrassed, “that’s the one.”

She had a thin gold chain around her neck, and a perfect tan. An accent, maybe English. God, she was a knockout.

“Guess I was just being cautious. Didn’t want any accidents on my beach.”

“Your beach?” she said, glancing up at Sollie’s. “Your house, too, I guess?” She smiled, clearly toying with me.

“Sure. You see the window above the garage? Here, you can see it.” I shifted her. “Through the palms. If you lean this way…”

Like an answer to my prayers, I got her to laugh.

“Ned Kelly.” I stuck out my hand.

“Ned Kelly? Like the outlaw?”

I did a double take. No one had ever said that to me. I just stood there with a dumb-ass, starstruck grin. Don’t think I even let go of her hand.

“ Sydney. New South Wales,” she said, displaying her Aussie “Strine,” her accent.

“ Boston.” I grinned back.

And that was how it started. We chatted a little more, about how she’d been living there for a couple of months and how she’d take long walks on the beach. She said she might come back this way the next day. And I said there was a chance I might be there, too. As I watched her walk away, I figured she was probably laughing at me behind those $400 Chanel sunglasses.

“By the way,” she said, suddenly turning, “there was a movie. Humoresque. With Joan Crawford. You should check it out.”

I rented Humoresque that night, and it ended with the beautiful heroine drowning herself by walking into the sea.

And on Wednesday Tess came back. Looking even hotter, in this black one-piece suit and a straw hat. She didn’t seem sad. We took a swim and I told her I would teach her how to bodysurf and for a while she went along. Then as I let her go she hopped the right wave and crested in like a pro. She laughed at me from the shore. “I’m from Australia, silly. We have our Palm Beach, too. Just past Whale Beach, north of Sydney.”

We made a “date” for lunch at the Brazilian Court in two days. That’s where she was staying, one of the most fashionable places in town, a few blocks off Worth Avenue. Those two days were like an eternity for me. Every ring of my cell phone I figured was her canceling. But she didn’t. We met in Café Boulud, where you have to make a reservation a month in advance unless you’re Rod Stewart or someone. I was as nervous as a kid going out on his first date. She was already sitting at the table in a sexy off-the-shoulder dress. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. We never even made it to dessert.

Chapter 3

“SO, I’M THINKING this was one of the top ten afternoons of my life.” I folded my arms behind my head and tickled Tess playfully with my toes. Both of us were spread-eagle on the king-size bed in her hotel suite.

“So, you were a lifeguard on Midtown Beach,” she was saying. “Before you became a kept man. What does a lifeguard do – in Palm Beach?”

I grinned, because Tess was so obviously tossing me a softball. “A good lifeguard is a true waterman,” I said with a twinkle in my eye. “We watch the water. Is it glassy, choppy? Are there riffs? Smooth flashes warning of riptides? We warn the sleepy snowbird to roll over and fry the other side. Douse the occasional jellyfish encounter with a splash of vinegar. Stuff like that.”

“But now you’re a kept man?” She grinned.

“Maybe I could be,” I said.

She turned. There was glimmer in her eye that was totally earnest. “You know what I said about your luck changing, Ned. Well, maybe I’m starting to feel the same way, too.”

I couldn’t believe that someone like Tess McAuliffe was actually saying this to me. Everything about her was first-class and refined. I mean, I wasn’t exactly Average Joe; I knew if I was on the show, I’d be one of the hunks. But holding her, I couldn’t help wondering what in her life had made her so sad. What she was hiding in her eyes that first day on the beach.

My eyes slowly drifted to the antique clock on the foldout writing desk across from the bed. “Oh, Jesus, Tess!”

It was almost five. The whole afternoon had melted. “I know I’m going to regret these words… but I’ve got to go.”

I saw that sad look from the other day come over her face. Then she sighed, “Me, too.”

“Look, Tess,” I said, putting a leg into my jeans, “I didn’t know this was going to happen today, but there’s something I have to do. I may not see you for a couple of days. But when I do, things are going to be different.”

“Different? How different?”

“With me. For starters, I won’t have to keep people out of trouble on the beach.”

“I like you keeping people out of trouble on the beach.” Tess smiled.

“What I mean is, I’ll be free. To do anything you want.” I started buttoning my shirt and searching around for my shoes. “We could go somewhere. The islands. That sound good?”

“Sure, it sounds good.” Tess smiled, a little hesitantly.

I gave her a long kiss. One that said, Thank you for an amazing afternoon. Then it took everything I had to get out of there, but people were counting on me.

“Remember what I said. Don’t move. Don’t even blink. That’s exactly how I want to remember you.”

“What’re you planning to do, Ned Kelly, rob a bank?”

I stood at the door. I took a long look at her. It was actually turning me on that she would even ask something like that. “I dunno,” I said, grinning, “but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

Chapter 4

NOT A BANK, I was thinking as I hopped into my old Bonneville convertible and headed onto the bridge to West Palm, floating on cloud nine. But Tess was close. A one-shot, can’tmiss deal that was going to change my life.

Like I said, I’m from Brockton. Home of Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Rocky Marciano. Ward Four, Perkins Avenue, across the tracks. There are neighborhoods, anyone from Brockton will agree, and then there’s the Bush.

Growing up, people said Brockton ’s a quarter black, a quarter Italian, a quarter Irish, a quarter Swedish and Polish, and another “quarter” no one wanted to mess with. Hardscrabble neighborhoods of run-down row houses, churches, the ruins of closed-up factories.

And the Bush was the toughest. We had gangs. We got into fights every day. You didn’t even call it a fight unless someone broke a bone. Half the kids I knew ended up in reform schools or juvie detention programs. The good ones took a few courses at the junior college or commuted to Northeastern for a year before they went into their father’s restaurant or went to work for the city. Cops and firefighters, that’s what Brockton seems to breed. Along with fighters.

Oh yeah, and crooks.

It wasn’t like they were bad people. They paid for their homes. They got married and took the family out for birthdays and Communions like everyone else. They owned bars and joined the Rotary. They had barbecues on Sundays and screamed bloody hell for the Sox and the Pats. They just ran some bets at the same time. Or fenced a few stolen cars. Or cracked open some poor sucker’s head now and then.

My father was that kind of guy. Spent more time up in the Souz in Shirley than he did around our dinner table. Every Sunday we’d throw on a tie and pile into the Dodge and make the trip up to see him in his orange prison suit. I’ve known a hundred guys like that. Still do.

Which brings me to Mickey, Bobby, Barney, and Dee.

I’d known them as long as I can remember. We lived within about four blocks of one another. Between Leyden and Edson and Snell. We knew everything about one another. Mickey was my cousin, my uncle Charlie’s son. He was built like a wire hanger with curly red hair, but as tough a sonuvabitch as ever came out of Brockton. He was older than me by six weeks but made it seem as if it were six years. Got me into trouble more times than I can count – and got me out of it a whole lot more. Bobby was Mickey’s cousin, but not mine. He’d been like a big brother to me, ever since my own big brother died – in a shoot-out. Dee was Bobby’s wife, and they’d been together since before anybody could remember. Barney was about the funniest human being I had ever met; he’d also been my protector all through high school.

Every year we’d spend the summer working the Vineyard: tending bar, waiting tables, doing a “job” now and then to pay the bills. Winters, we came down here. We parked cars at the clubs, crewed tourist boats, bellhopped, joined catering teams.

Maybe someone who lived a conventional life would say we were a bad lot. But he’d be wrong. You can’t choose your family, people always say, but you can choose the people you love. And they were more of a family to me than my own. Proved it a hundred times.

There are two types of people who come from Brockton. The ones who try to make it by putting away pennies every week. What the government doesn’t take, the church will.

And the ones who keep on waiting, watching, keeping their eyes peeled for that one big score.

Once in a while they actually came around. The one you couldn’t pass up. The one that could get you out of the life.

And that’s where I was headed when I left Tess’s suite at the Brazilian Court.

My cousin Mickey had found it.

The perfect score.

Chapter 5

AS SOON AS Ned left, Tess threw herself back on the bed with an exhalation of joy and disbelief. “You must be crazy, Tess! You are crazy, Tess.”

Crazy, to be opening herself to someone like Ned, especially with everything else going on in her life.

But something about Ned wouldn’t let her stop. Maybe his eyes, his charm, his boyish good looks. His innocence. The way he had just come up to her on the beach like that, like she was a damsel in distress. It had been a long time since anyone had treated her that way. Wanted. And she liked it. What woman didn’t? If only he knew.

She was still cozied up on the sheets, reliving every detail of the delicious afternoon, when she heard the voice.

“Next.” He stood there – leaning, smirking – against the bedroom door.

Tess almost jumped out of her skin. She never even heard the key open the door to the suite.

“You scared me,” she said, then covered herself up.

“Poor Tess.” He shook his head and tossed the room key in an ashtray on the desk. “I can see the lunches at Boulud and Ta-boó have started to bore you. You’ve taken to going around to the high schools, picking up guys after SAT practice.”

“You were watching?” Tess shot up. That would be just like the bastard. Thinking he could do that. “It just happened,” she said, backing off, a little ashamed. And a lot ashamed that she had to justify herself. “He thinks I’m something. Not like you…”

“Just happened.” He stepped into the bedroom and took off his Brioni sport jacket. “Just happened, like, you met on the beach. And then you went back a second time. And you both just happened to meet at lunch at Boulud. A lifeguard. How very romantic, Tess.”

She sat up, angry. “You were following me? Go fuck yourself.”

“I thought you knew,” he said, ignoring her response. “I’m the jealous type.” He started to remove his polo shirt. Tess’s skin broke out in goose bumps. She was sure he could sense her alarm as he began to unbuckle his pants.

“And about fucking myself ” – he stepped out of his slacks, smiling – “sorry, Tess, not a chance. Why do you think I buy you all that expensive jewelry?”

“Look,” Tess said, wrapping herself into the sheet. “Let’s not today. Let’s just talk…”

“We can talk,” he said with a shrug, folding his shirt neatly on the edge of the bed, slipping off his shorts. “That’s okay with me. Let’s talk about how I treat you like some kind of society princess, how I bought the rings on your fingers, bracelets on your wrist, that diamond lariat around your neck. Hell, I know the girls at Tiffany’s by their first names – Carla, Janet, Katy.”

“Look…” Tess stared at him, nervously. “It just happened. He’s a good guy.”

“I’m sure he is.” He smiled. “It’s you I can’t figure out. The jewelry and the Mercedes. Then you’re like some horny little cotillion bitch, doing it in the parking lot with the guy who parks the cars.”

She was starting to get scared. She knew what he was like when he got this way. He moved over to the edge of the bed and sat down. His erection almost made her sick. She pulled away, but he grabbed and squeezed her arm. Then he sort of cradled her diamond lariat. For a second she thought he was going to rip it off her neck. “My turn, cupcake…”

He yanked away the sheet and threw her down on the bed. Then he grabbed her by the ankles and spread her wide. He rolled her back and thrust himself inside. She didn’t fight him. She couldn’t. Feeling him inside her made her gag. He thought he owned her, and maybe he did. He moved hard against her, the way he always did, something crude and foreign inside her. All she felt was shame. “I’m sorry, Ned,” she whispered to herself. She watched him grunt and sweat like some disgusting animal.

He made her do everything he liked – all the things she hated. When he was finished, Tess lay there, feeling so dirty, shivering, as if the room had grown cold. She wanted to cry. She had to end this. Now.

“I need to talk to you,” Tess said. He was up and looping his belt through his fancy Italian golf pants.

“Sorry, darling, no time for cuddle talk now. I have to get back.”

“Then I’ll see you later? At the benefit?”

“Well, that depends.” He smoothed his hair in the mirror.

“On what?” She didn’t understand.

He smiled, almost pathetically. “Things have gotten very cozy, haven’t they, Tess? It must feel just like home, right, since you seem to make a habit of shitting where you sleep. You’re very pretty, my love, but you know what I think? The jewelry and the fancy car… I’m beginning to think they’ve made you feel like you really belong.” He smiled one more time. “Hope that was as good for you as it was for me.”

He turned, tossing the room key in the palm of his hand. “And by the way, you know you really ought to lock the door. You can never tell who might pop in for a quickie.”

Chapter 6

IT’S OVER! she screamed to herself.

Tess kicked at the covers in rage. She felt ashamed, angry, weak. This wasn’t going to happen anymore.

Some stuff that must’ve fallen out of his pocket jangled on the sheets. Loose change, a golf tee. Tess hurled them with all her might against the wall. It wasn’t worth it anymore. Not for anything.

She threw on a robe and ran herself a bath, anything to remove the touch of him. That was the last time she would ever feel his hands on her. It would mean giving this up, but he was more than she could take. Like Ned said, they could go anywhere. Go walkabout. He didn’t know just how prophetic he was. A fresh start. Yeah, she’d earned that.

Tess went into the bedroom closet and laid out a long backless Dolce & Gabbana evening gown. She picked a pair of brown Manolo Blahniks. She would look gorgeous tonight. Give him something to miss for the rest of his life.

Tess knotted up her hair and sank naked into the large tub. The scent of the lavender bath oil made her feel good, clean. She lay back and rested her head on the smooth porcelain rim. The water lapped up over her shoulders. She shut her eyes.

Ned’s face and his laugh crept into her mind. Whatever shame she felt, it wasn’t enough to erase what had been a very good day. Ned Kelly. Like the outlaw. She smiled again. More like the pussycat. It was about time she had a go with someone who treated her well – make that great. He actually looked up to her.

She heard the bathroom fan go on. For a second Tess just lay back with her eyes closed. Then she heard humming.

Her eyes bolted open. Someone huge was standing over her. Tess’s heart leaped into her throat. “What’re you doing here?”

He had a sullen, cold look in his eye, dark hair tied in a ponytail. She thought she’d seen him somewhere before.

“A shame,” he said with a shrug.

Suddenly he had Tess by the throat with his thick hands. He forced her head underwater. What’re you doing?

Tess held her breath as long as possible, but as she opened her mouth, water rushed into her lungs, making her cough and gag, letting more water in. She was thrashing and kicking against the porcelain tub. She tried to force herself up, but Ponytail had her by the shoulders and head. He was incredibly strong, probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds.

Panic took hold, more water pouring into her lungs. She was clawing for the man’s face, trying to scratch him, anything. Through the soapy water she could see his thick arms holding her down. Too much time going by. She stopped kicking. Stopped flailing. She wasn’t coughing anymore. This can’t be happening, a voice said inside her.

Then another voice, afraid – far more accepting than Tess ever imagined. Yes, yes, it can. This is what it’s like to die.

Chapter 7

“HEY, OUTLAW!” Bobby exclaimed as I stepped into the kitchen of the run-down, canary yellow house in a seedy area just off 95 in Lake Worth.

“Neddie.” Dee got up and came over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. A dream in jeans and long honey blond hair, every time Dee wrapped her arms around me, I flashed to how I’d had a crush on her since I was fifteen. Everyone in the neighborhood did. But she fell for Bobby and his Bon Jovi looks in the ninth grade.

“Where you been?” My cousin Mickey looked up. He was wearing a black T-shirt that read, YOU AIN’T REALLY BAD, TILL YOU BEEN BROCKTON BAD.

“Where do you think he’s been?” Barney rolled back in his chair and grinned under the kind of black-framed glasses Elvis Costello wears. “Look at the kid’s face. Biggest day of his life, and he’s out romancing the ladies.”

“Please,” Dee scowled at him reprovingly. Then she shrugged with an inquisitive glint. “So?”

“So…” I looked around the table. “She showed.”

A little cheer went up. “Thank God,” said Bobby. “I was wondering how we were going to pull this off with Neddieboy having a panic attack every five minutes. Here, you deserve this…” He slid me a beer.

“Judging by the time, and that shit-eating grin on your face,” Mickey said, looking at his watch, “I’d say it was the best lunch of your life.”

“You wouldn’t even believe me.” I shook my head.

“Hey, we’ve got all the time in the world,” Mickey said, the sarcasm running thick. “What the hell else we have going on here today? Oh, yeah, just that little matter of the five million dollars.”

“Relax,” Barney said, winking at me, “he’s just pissed ’cause the only thing that’ll lay down with him just got euthanized by the ASPCA.”

Some laughter trickled around the table. Mickey picked up a black canvas bag. He removed five legal-type manila envelopes. “So, what’s her name?”

“Tess,” I said.

“Tess.” Mickey pursed his lips, then curled them into a little smile. “You think this Tess will still love you if you come back with a million bucks?”

Everyone pulled up to the table. Tonight, things were going to change for us. For all of us. It was exhilarating. But it was business, too.

Mickey handed out the envelopes.

Chapter 8

IT WAS MICKEY’S PLAN, down to the last detail. Only he knew it. And how it all fit together.

There was this fabulous house on South Ocean Boulevard. On Billionaire’s Row in Palm Beach. It even had a name. Casa Del Océano.

Ocean House.

And in it, 50 to 60 million dollars’ worth of world-class art. A Picasso. A Cézanne. A Jackson Pollock. Probably other valuable stuff, too. But Mickey was clear: only these three were to be taken.

There was a mastermind behind the job. Went by the name of Dr. Gachet. Mickey wouldn’t tell us who it was. The whipped cream and cherry on top was we didn’t even have to fence the stuff. Just a textbook B and E. Our cut was 10 percent in cash. Five million. The next day. Just like the old days, split five ways. I was risking everything on this. A clean record. The life I’d been leading, whatever that was.

“Bobby, Barney, and me, we’ll be the ones going in,” Mickey explained. “ Dee ’s outside on the walkie-talkie. Ned, I’ve saved the really cushy job for you.”

All I had to do was zip around Palm Beach and trigger the alarms in several expensive homes. All the owners would be at some posh charity ball at the Breakers. There were pictures of the houses and a sheet with the addresses. The local police force was small, and with alarms going off all over town, they’d be like the Keystone Kops going in fifteen different directions. Mickey knew how to get into the target house and disable the alarm. There might be a housekeeper or two to worry about, but that was it. The hardest part would be not dropping the paintings when we took them off the walls.

“You’re sure?” I flipped through the house photos and turned to Mickey. “You know I’ll go in with you.”

“You don’t have anything to prove,” he replied, shaking his head. “You’ve never been arrested since you were a kid. Besides, for the rest of us, what’s a little conviction for grand robbery and interstate traffic of stolen goods gonna matter? If you’re caught, whadda they get you for – petty vandalism?”

“If you’re caught, don’t even come back here.” Barney laughed, then downed a swig of beer. “We’ll hold back half your stake.”

“We all voted,” Dee said. “It’s not up for discussion. We want to keep you safe and sound. For your little Tess,” she giggled.

I looked at the addresses. El Bravo, Clarke, Wells Road.

Some of the nicest streets in Palm Beach. The “core people” lived there – the Old Guard.

“We meet back here at half past nine,” Mickey said. “We should have the money in our accounts tomorrow. Any questions?”

Mickey looked around the table. The people I’d known all my life, my best friends. He tilted his beer. “This one’s it. After this, we’re done. Dee, you and Bobby can buy that restaurant you’re always talking about. Barney’s got a car dealership in Natick with his name on it. Neddie, you can go write the Great American Novel or buy a hockey team, whatever. I always told you I’d get you this one chance, and here it is. Five million. I’m happy we’re all here to share it. So… hands on the table… This is what we’ve been working for since we were thirteen years old.” He looked from face to face. “Last chance to bow out now. Guys…Neddie, are we in?”

My stomach was churning. This was bigger than anything I’d ever done before. Truth was, I was actually happy living a regular life down there. But would something like this ever come my way again? Life had taken a few things from me up North. It seemed this was my way of grabbing back a piece.

“In,” said Bobby, Barney, Dee.

I took a breath. Five million. I knew I was crossing the line. But I wanted this. Like Tess said, maybe my luck was changing. I was starting to dream again, and a million dollars buys a lot of dreams.

I put my hand on top of the pile.

“In,” I said.

Chapter 9

IT DOESN’T RAIN in Palm Beach, it Perriers. Some asshole told me that line once, but there was an element of truth to it. This was definitely the place for the perfect score.

An hour and a half after the meeting in Lake Worth, I parked the Bonneville down the block from an impressive stucco-and-glass contemporary behind a tall hedge on Wells Road. I was dressed in a baseball cap and jeans, and a dark T-shirt that blended into the dusky light.

Reidenouer, the mailbox read. I was wondering if this was the same Reidenouer who’d been all over the news for running a Florida health-care company into the ground. If so, it hurt a little less.

A Mercedes SUV was parked in the circular tiled driveway. I crept around the driveway and lifted the latch on a metal gate that led to the back. I was praying that no one was in the house and that the alarm would be set. The interior was dark, except for a single dim light that seemed to be coming from deep inside. Kitchen, maybe. The Reidenouers were supposed to be at the Breakers. Everything seemed perfect. Except maybe the ten thousand butterflies fluttering in my stomach.

There was a gorgeous lap pool in back, and a pool house in the style of the main building under a canopy of leaning palms. I glanced at my watch: 7:40. The crew would be getting in position, Dee scanning the police frequencies.

Take a deep breath, Neddie… Everything was rolling on this – years of a clean record, the possibility of jail, whatever was going to happen with Tess. I told myself that this one time, it was worth the chance. And that I wasn’t doing something I hadn’t done a few times before.

I snuck around the side of the pool to the sliding rear doors. A typical latch lock. I could see art on the walls inside. I was sure there was an alarm contact on the door.

I took a metal jimmy from my back pocket and jammed it between the doorframe and the glass slider. I pried at the space. There was a little movement, but the lock would not budge. I wasn’t surprised. I wedged it in there again. Suddenly there was the slightest slip. C’mon, Neddie, hard!

I felt the glass frame give way. Suddenly, several loud, penetrating beeps resonated around the house. Lights flashed on, and my heart stood still. I looked through the glass and didn’t see anyone.

I’d done what I came to do. I was outta there!

I hurried out the same way I entered, hugging the hedges until I reached the street. I jumped back in the Bonneville. No one came to the street. I didn’t see any lights going on. You could barely hear the alarm sounding behind me. But I knew the police were on their way.

I felt a shot of adrenaline.

One down!

I drove back onto County, reassuring myself that the cops weren’t waiting for me at every turn. Keep cool… So far, everything was according to plan.

I drove south over to Cocoanut Row, past the Royal Poinciana Plaza. I made a right toward the lake. A street protected by hedges, called Seabreeze. This time, it was an old plantation-style ranch, like from the thirties. I parked half a block away and tried to mosey up to the house as inconspicuously as I could, though I had a timetable to keep.

I saw an ADT security sticker on the front door. That’ll scare off the robbers. I hung for a second in the hedgerow, took a look around. Down the block a woman was walking her dog, and I gave her a moment to go back inside. 7:58. Clear. I found a rock on the ground. I hurled it as hard as I could at the front window. A shrill alarm sounded and suddenly an automatic light bathed the driveway in unexpected illumination. I heard the high-pitched sound of a dog barking.

I took off, hugging the shadows, my heart beating a mile a minute. That’s two!

The last one was one of those stately Mizner mansions on El Bravo off South County below Worth Avenue. It was 8:05. I was right on schedule.

There was a huge boxwood hedge in the shape of an arch, and a heavy iron gate. I figured there must be an army of servants inside. I parked the car a block or so from the house and went around back. I wedged myself through the tall sculptured hedges. This was a house for the ages. Had to belong to some Old Guard family, Lauder or Tisch, or maybe some hotshot Internet billionaire. The glass French doors overlooking the sea were double-sided. I’d never break them.

I hugged the side of the house and came across a regular framed door I assumed led to the kitchen. I looked inside, no light.

I wrapped my hand in a cloth I was carrying and punched through a glass panel in the door. Shit… No sound.

I glanced at my watch. Mickey and the guys were ready to go in.

I reached inside the door and twisted the knob and let myself in. Jeez, Louise. I was in some kind of pantry, leading toward the rear of the house. I saw a sunroom overlooking the lawn. Next to it was a dining room. High ceilings, tapestries on the walls. A couple of candelabra that looked as if they might have belonged to the Romanovs.

God, am I crazy doing this? I knew the place was wired. Clearly the owners or the staff hadn’t put on the alarm. I was thinking I could search along the windows for the contact points. 8:10. The crew would be going in at any moment. I had to get this done. My heart was racing.

Suddenly I heard footsteps and I froze. A black woman in a white robe shuffled toward the kitchen. Must be the maid.

She looked up and saw me, and I could see by the little gag in her throat, she was more scared than I was.

She didn’t scream, her jaw just dropped. My face was hidden under the cap. There was nothing she could identify about me. I just stood there for a second and muttered, “Sorry, ma’am.” Then I bolted for the door.

I figured that in two seconds she would be on the phone to the police. That was as good as an alarm.

I ran back through the hedges and hugged the shadows to Ocean Boulevard. I jumped in the Bonneville, slammed it into in gear, and drove away at a reasonable speed. I looked back. Everything was dark. No one had come out to get a look at my plates. It was 8:15. Cops were probably crisscrossing all over town, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“You’re goddamn crazy, Ned Kelly!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

Three house alarms in record time!

I hit the accelerator and felt the night sea breeze whip my hair. I was alongside the ocean and the moon was lighting it up and I felt an incredible thrill buzzing through my veins. I thought about Tess. How it could be with her. How I’d been marking time down there for a long time, and now I’d made the perfect score.

Chapter 10

SOMETHING DIDN’T FEEL RIGHT. Mickey sensed it as soon as they stepped through the front gates.

He had an inner feeling about these things.

The house was there in front of them. Spectacular, vast. Lit up like this great Italian palace. Pointed Venetian arches and windows with stone balconies. An arched loggia, ringed with bougainvillea, leading around to the sea. The driveway was probably a hundred yards long, every bush and tree perfectly lit. He heard the crunch of pebbles under their heels. They were in stolen police uniforms. Even if someone was around, no one would suspect a thing. Everything was just the way he was told it’d be.

And still he had this bad feeling in his gut.

He looked at Bobby and Barney. He could see they were nervous, too. He knew them well enough to know what they were thinking.

Never been so close to anything this grand.

Casa Del Océano. Ocean House.

Mickey knew everything about the place. He had studied it. Knew it was built by someone named Addison Mizner in 1923. He knew the interior layout, the alarms. How to get in, where the paintings were.

So why did he feel nervous? C’mon, he thought, to calm himself, there’s five million bucks inside.

“So what the hell is that?” Barney nudged him with the black satchel containing his tools. At the end of the long pebbled driveway, there was this huge, lit-up marble… bowl.

“Birdbath,” Mickey answered, and grinned.

“Birdbath?” Barney shrugged and adjusted the brim of his police cap. “More like a fucking pterodactyl!”

Mickey’s watch read 8:15. Dee had called in; Ned, as expected, had done his job. Cop cars were probably bouncing all over town right now. He knew there were cameras hidden in the trees, so they kept their faces hidden under their caps. In front of the oak doors, he took a last glance at Bobby and Barney. They were ready. They had waited a long time for this.

Mickey rang the bell, and a minute later a Latino housekeeper answered. Mickey knew there was no one else in the house. He explained how there were disturbances all over town, and an alarm had gone off there, and they were sent to check it out. Maybe she noticed Barney’s bag. Maybe she wondered where their car was. But a second later, Bobby whacked her with his Maglite and dragged her into a closet. She never got a decent look. He came back wearing a smirk as wide as the Charles River. A million-dollar smile.

They were in!

Chapter 11

THE FIRST THING WAS to disable the interior alarm. The paintings and sculptures were wired to contact points that would go off if they were lifted. Motion detectors, too. Mickey unfolded a piece of paper he had stuffed in his uniform pocket.

He punched in the numbers on a digital plate: 10-02-85.

This better work. Everything depended on the… next… couple…of… seconds.

A green light flashed on. Systems clear! For the first time, Mickey’s stomach actually relaxed. A grin came over his face. This was going to happen! He winked at Bobby and Barney. “Okay, fellas, the place is ours.”

In front of them, a carved mahogany archway led into the large vaulted living room. Spectacular stuff was just about everywhere. Art all over the walls. There was a large stone fireplace and some scene from Venice over the mantel. A Canaletto, but he’d been told to leave it. Blue and white Chinese urns, bronze Brancusis. A chandelier that looked as if it came from a czar. Six French doors led out to a patio overlooking the sea.

“I don’t know if this is what that guy meant when he said the rich were different from us,” Barney said, gawking, “but, uh… holy shit.”

“Forget it.” Mickey grinned excitedly. “This is cab fare compared with what we’ve come for!”

He knew where to go. The Cézanne was in the dining room. That was to the right. Barney took out a hammer and a file from his black case to pry the canvases out of their heavy antique frames.

The dining room had flocked red wallpaper and a long polished table with giant candelabra. It looked as though it could seat half the free world.

Mickey’s heart was pounding. Look for the Cézanne, he was saying to himself – apples and pears. On the right-hand wall.

But instead of the $5 million thrill he was expecting to feel, his insides turned to ice. Cold, right at the center of his chest.

The wall was empty. There was no still life. No Cézanne.

The painting wasn’t there!

Mickey felt a sharp stab through his heart. For a second, the three of them stood there, staring at the empty space. Then he took off, running to the other side of the house.

The library.

The Picasso was over the fireplace on the wall. Mickey’s blood was rushing and hot. Everything had been mapped out. He ran into the book-lined room.

Another chill. No, this was more like a freezer blast.

No Picasso! This wall space was empty, too! Suddenly he felt like vomiting. “What the fuck -?”

Mickey ran like a madman back to the front of the house. He bounded up the large staircase to the second floor. This was their last chance. The bedroom. There was supposed to be a Jackson Pollock on the bedroom wall. They weren’t going to lose this. He’d worked too hard. This was their ticket out. He had no idea what the hell was going on.

Mickey got there first, Bobby and Barney right behind him. They stopped and stared at the wall, the same nauseated look on all their faces.

“Sonuvabitch!” Mickey shouted. He smashed his fist through a framed print on the wall, leaving his knuckles bloody.

The Pollock was gone. Just like the Picasso and the Cézanne. He wanted to kill whoever did this – whoever had stolen his dreams.

Someone had set them up!

Chapter 12

SEEMS SILLY NOW…an orange martini…a sailboat drifting on a blue Caribbean sea…

That’s what I was thinking when I first got word something had gone wrong.

I was parked on South County Road, across from the Palm Beach firehouse, tracking the cop cars racing by me, lights and sirens blaring. I had done my job really, really well.

I was letting myself think about Tess lying next to me on the deck. In a tight little suit, all gorgeous and tanned. And we were sipping those martinis. Don’t know who was making them. Let’s throw in a skipper and a crew. But we were somewhere in the Caribbean. And they tasted soooo good.

That’s when Dee ’s voice crackled on the walkie-talkie. “Ned, where are you? Neddie!”

Just hearing her voice made me nervous all over again. I wasn’t supposed to hear from her until we met back at the house in Lake Worth at 9:30. She sounded scared. I think I knew right then that the scene on the sailboat was never going to happen.

“Ned, something’s gone wrong!” Dee shouted. “Get back here, right now!”

I picked up the receiver and pressed the TALK button. “ Dee, what do you mean, ‘gone wrong’?”

“The job’s busted,” she said. “It’s goddamn over, Ned.”

I had known Dee since we were kids. She was always cool. But disappointment and anger were exploding through her voice.

“What do you mean ‘busted’?” I said. “Bobby and Mickey, are they all right?”

“Just get back here,” she said. “Mickey’s contact… Gachet. The bastard set us up!”

Chapter 13

My heart almost came to a full stop at that moment. What did Dee mean, ‘set us up’?

My head dropped to rest on the steering wheel. All I knew was a name – Gachet. Mickey never told us any more. But it was clear, the job was gone. My million dollars, too. Then I realized it could get worse. Much worse. Mickey, Bobby, and Barney could get nabbed.

I put the car in gear but I wasn’t sure where I should go. Back to the safe house? Or to my room at Sollie’s, and just stay clear? I suddenly realized that everything was in jeopardy. My job, my place at Sollie’s. My whole life. I flashed to Tess… Everything!

I started to drive. I made a right onto Royal Palm Way, heading toward the middle bridge over to West Palm.

Suddenly sirens blared all around me. I froze. I looked behind and there were cops cars gaining on me. My heart got a jolt as if I had touched a live wire. I was caught! I slowed, waiting for them to pull me over.

But, incredibly, they raced right by. Two black-andwhites. They weren’t looking for me, or even headed in the direction of Ocean House, or of any of the places I’d set off alarms. Weird.

Suddenly they turned down Cocoanut Row, the last major street before the bridge. They made a sharp left into traffic, sirens blaring, lights flashing. Didn’t make sense at all.

Where could they be headed with all the shit going on all over town? I followed, at least for a couple of blocks. The black-and-whites turned onto Australian Avenue. I saw them come to a stop halfway down the block.

More cops cars. A morgue van, too.

They were pulled up in front of the Brazilian Court. I started to get nervous. That was where Tess lived. What was going on?

I parked the Bonneville at the end of the block and wandered up closer to the hotel. There was a crowd across the street from the entrance. I’d never seen so many cop cars in Palm Beach. This was crazy. We were the ones they ought to be after. I knew I’d better get back to Lake Worth. But Dee ’s words echoed in my head. The bastard set us up. Set up, how?

A ring of onlookers had crowded around front of the hotel entrance. I eased my way in. I went up to a woman in a white sweater over her sundress holding the hand of a young boy. “What’s going on?”

“There’s been a murder,” she answered anxiously. “That’s what all those sirens were about.”

“Oh,” I mumbled.

Now I was really starting to get scared. Tess lives here. I pushed out of the crowd, not even thinking about myself. Hotel staff in black uniforms were being ushered outside. I latched onto a desk clerk, a blond woman I recognized from earlier in the day. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“Someone’s been killed.” She shook her head, dazed. “A woman. In the hotel.”

“A woman.” I held her eyes. Now I was starting to freak. “You mean a guest?”

“Yes.” Then she looked at me funny. I couldn’t tell if she remembered me or not. “Room 121,” she said.

My world started to spin. I stood there, numb, feeling my lips quiver. I tried to say something, but nothing came out.

Room 121 was the Bogart Suite.

Tess is dead, isn’t she?

Chapter 14

I WATCHED just long enough to see the stretcher loaded into the flashing morgue van. That’s when I saw Tess’s hand, dangling through the body tarp, those three gold bracelets hanging from her wrist.

I backed away from the crowd, feeling as if my chest were going to explode. All I could think was that I had just left her, a few hours before…

I had to get out of there. The Palm Beach police were all around. I was afraid they’d be looking for me, too.

I made it back to my car just as the shakes took over my body. Then this awful knot hurtled up in my throat. I threw up on somebody’s manicured lawn.

Tess was dead.

How could that be? I had just left her. I had just spent the most wonderful afternoon of my life with her. The hotel maid said murdered. How? Why? Who would kill Tess?

In a daze, I started to fast-forward through the days since we met. How we agreed to see each other again; how the Ocean House job had been set up.

Everything was separate. It was just a coincidence. A horrible one. I felt myself fighting back tears.

Then, unable to hold it back any longer, the dam burst.

I hung my head and just stayed there, my face smeared with tears. At some point I realized I had to leave. Someone could have recognized me from that afternoon. That blond desk clerk! I couldn’t exactly go to the police and clear myself, not with what had happened tonight. I pulled out from the curb. I didn’t know where the hell I was going. Just away.

Chapter 15

I MADE A LEFT, then another, found myself back on Royal Palm. My mind was a mess. My clothes were soaked in sweat. I drove the whole way down to Lake Worth in a daze. Everything had just changed. Everything in my life. It had happened once before – in Boston. But this time I wasn’t going to be able to put it back together.

I turned off 95 onto Sixth Avenue, the awful image of Tess’s dangling wrist and the sound of Dee’s freaked-out warning alternating in my head.

Mickey’s place wasn’t far from the highway. No Breakers on this street. No Bices or Mar-a-Lagos. Just shabby streets of boxy homes and trailers where people drank beer on lawn chairs, with flatbeds and Harleys in their open garages.

A cop car streaked past me, and again I tensed. Then another cruiser. I wondered if somebody knew my car. Maybe I’d been spotted in Palm Beach?

I wound the Bonneville down onto West Road, a couple of blocks from the yellow house Mickey and Bobby had rented.

My stomach almost came up into my throat.

Flashing cop lights everywhere. Just like before. I couldn’t believe my eyes. People were crowded all over the front lawns – in tank tops and muscle shirts, looking down the street. What the hell was going on?

Mickey’s block was barricaded off. Cops everywhere. Lights flashing like it was a war zone.

A stab of dread. The cops had found us. At first it was just fear. This whole mess was going to be exposed. I deserved it. To have gotten involved in something so stupid.

Then it wasn’t just fear. It was more like revulsion. Some of the flashing lights were EMS vans.

And they were right in front of Mickey’s house.

Chapter 16

I JUMPED OUT of the Bonneville and pushed my way to the front of the crowd. No way this could be happening again. No way, no way.

I edged up to some old black guy in a janitor’s uniform. Never even had to get the words out of my mouth.

“Some kind of mass-a-cree in that house over there.” He was shaking his head. “Bunch a white folk. Woman, too.”

Everybody was staring at Mickey’s house.

Now it was as if I were having a full-out heart attack. Everything in my chest was so tight that I couldn’t breathe. I stood in the semidarkness with my lips quivering and tears sliding down my cheeks. They had been alive. Dee had told me to come back. Mickey and Barney and Bobby and Dee. How could they be dead now? It was like some terrifying dream that you wake up from, and it isn’t real.

But this was real. I was staring at the yellow house and all those police and EMS people. Tell me this isn’t real!

I pushed forward, just in time to see the front door open. Medical techs appeared. The crowd started to murmur. They were wheeling out the gurneys.

One of the body covers was open. “White boy,” somebody said.

I saw the curly red hair. Mickey.

Watching him being wheeled toward the morgue van, I flashed back twenty years. Mickey always used to punch me in the back at school. His twisted way of saying hello. I never saw it coming. I’d just be walking in the hall, between class, and wham! And he hit like a sonuvabitch! Then he started making me pay him a quarter not to get punched. He’d just raise his fist with his eyes wide. “Scared?” One day, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t care what happened. I charged him and slammed him back against a radiator. Left a welt on his back that I think stayed with him through high school. He got up, picked up his books, and put out a hand to me. In it was about four dollars. In quarters. Everything I had given him. He just grinned at me. “Been waiting for you to do that, Neddie-boy.”

That’s what flashed through my mind, the whole crazy scene in an instant. Then there were more gurneys. I counted four. My best friends in the world.

I backed away in the crowd. Felt boxed in, trapped. My chest was cramping. I pushed against the tide of people pressing closer for a better look.

And I was blasted with the thought: What good is a lifeguard who can’t save lives?

Chapter 17

I DON’T REMEMBER MUCH about what happened next. All I know is that I staggered back to my car – fast – and drove – much faster.

I went through my options. What choices did I have? Turn myself in? C’mon, Ned, you participated in a robbery. Your friends are dead. Someone’s bound to connect you with Tess. They’ll pin a murder charge on you. I wasn’t thinking straight, but one thing became shining clear: My life here is over now.

I flipped on the radio to a local news channel. Reporters were already at the scenes of the murders. A young beauty at Palm Beach ’s posh Brazilian Court. Four unidentified people murdered execution-style in Lake Worth … And other news. A daring art heist on the beach. Sixty million in art reported stolen! So there was a theft. But no mention if the police thought any of this was connected. And, thank God, nothing about me!

It was after eleven when I finally crossed the Flagler Bridge back into Palm Beach. Two police cars were parked in the middle of Poinciana, lights flashing, blocking the road. I was sure they were looking for a Bonneville.

“Game’s over, Ned!” I said, almost resigned. But I passed right by without a hitch.

The town was quiet up there, considering everything going on. The Palm Beach Grill was still busy. And Cucina. Some tunes coming out of Cucina. But the streets were generally quiet. It reminded me of a joke: there are more lights in downtown Baghdad during an air raid than in Palm Beach after ten o’clock. I hung a right on County and drove down to Seaspray, then hung a left to the beach. I cautiously pulled into number 150, automatically opening the gates. I was praying for no cops. Please, God, not now. Sollie’s house was dark, the courtyard empty. My prayers were answered. For a little while.

Sollie was either watching TV or asleep. Winnie, the housekeeper, too. I parked in the courtyard and headed up the stairs to my room above the garage. Like I said, my life there was over now.

Here’s what I’d learned in Palm Beach. There’re thousand-dollar millionaires, the guys who pretend they’re rich but really aren’t. There are the old rich, and then there are the new rich. Old rich tend to have much better manners, are more attuned to having help around. New rich, which Sollie was, could be trouble – demanding, insulting, their insecurities about their windfall money coming out in abusive ways toward the help. But Sollie was a prince. Turned out he needed me to keep his pool clean, drive his big yellow Lab to the vet, chauffeur him around when he had an occasional date, and keep his cars polished. That turned out to be a joy. Sollie traded in collectible cars at Ragtops in West Palm as frequently as I switched out DVDs at Blockbuster. Right now he had a 1970 six-door Mercedes Pullman limo that used to belong to Prince Rainier; a ’65 Mustang convertible; a Porsche Carrera for a runaround; and a chocolate Bentley for big events… your typical Palm Beach garage stable.

I pulled out two canvas duffels from under the bed and started to throw clothes in them. T-shirts, jeans, a few sweatshirts. The hockey stick signed by Ray Bourque that I’d had since the tenth grade. A couple of paperbacks I always liked. Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises. Great Expectations. (I guess I always had a thing for the outsider bucking the ruling class.)

I scribbled out a quick note to Sollie. An explanation that I had to leave suddenly, and why. I hated to go like this. Sol was like an uncle to me. A really great uncle. He let me live in this great house and all I had to do was keep the pool in order, clean a few of his cars, and do a couple of errands. I felt like a real heel, sneaking away in the dark. But what choice did I have?

I grabbed everything and headed downstairs. I popped the trunk on the Bonneville and tossed in the duffels. I was just taking a last look and saying good-bye to where I’d lived these past three years when the lights went on.

I spun around, my heart in my throat. Sollie was standing in his bathrobe and slippers, holding a glass of milk. “Jesus, you scared me, Sol.”

He glanced at the open trunk and the bags. He had a look of disappointment on his face, putting it together. “So I guess you don’t have time for a good-bye game of rummy.”

“I left a note,” I said a little ashamedly. To have him find me sneaking away like this, and more, for what he was bound to find out in the morning. “Look, Sol, some terrible things have happened. You may hear some stuff…I just want you to know, they’re not true. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do any of it.”

He bunched his lips. “It must be bad. C’mon in, kid. Maybe I can help. A man doesn’t run off in the middle of the night.”

“You can’t” – I dropped my head – “help. No one can now.” I wanted to run up and give him a hug, but I was so nervous and all mixed up. I had to get out of there. “I want to thank you,” I said. I hopped in the Bonneville and turned the ignition. ”For trusting me, Sol. For everything…”

“Neddie,” I heard him call. “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. No problem is too big to solve. When a man needs friends, that’s not the time to run off…”

But I was at the gates before I could hear the rest. I saw him in the rearview mirror as I swung out of the driveway, driving off.

I was almost crying as I hit the Flagler Bridge. Leaving everything behind. Mickey, my friends, Tess…

Poor Tess. It was killing me, just remembering how we’d been together only hours before, when I thought things were finally working out for me. A million dollars and the girl of my dreams.

Your luck’s returned, Neddie-boy. I couldn’t help but laugh. The bad luck.

As I headed toward the Flagler Bridge, I could make out the shining towers of the Breakers lighting up the sky. I figured I had a day at most before my name surfaced. I didn’t even know exactly where I was going to go.

Someone had killed my best friends. Dr. Gachet, I don’t know what the hell kind of doctor you are, but you can be sure I’m gonna make you pay.

“ Split aces,” I muttered again grimly as I crossed the bridge, the bright lights of Palm Beach receding away. The perfect score. Yeah, right.