"My dog," he yelled, "my dog! He stole my fucking dog!"
But the cops were not about to listen. They were too busy playing catch-up. They hammered his already flat face with metal billy clubs, and took fungo shots at his puckered balls. They Maced him until their cans spit air. When they were done he was on the floor, doing a reasonable imitation of a beached flounder.
Beano and Victoria stopped before boarding, and opened the folding kennel case that read CANINE DRUG ENFORCEMENT, U.S. CUSTOMS. They put Roger inside and then went aboard and settled into their first-class seats to Miami.
Beano counted the forty-five hundred dollars he had just gotten from prison-bound Texaco Phillips. He put it into an envelope, licked it closed, wrote John Bates on the outside, and called a flight attendant. "Could you page this gentleman and ask him to pick this up at the ticket counter?" he said, handing it to her. "Tell him I couldn't get the whole ten, so he'll have to make do with forty-five."
"Of course, sir," she said and left. When she came back, she said that Mr. Bates had been waiting out front and had been given the envelope and the message.
"What was all that commotion out there?" Beano said pleasantly. "That man the police were chasing, what did he do?"
"He tried to break through Security. That's a Federal crime. Apparently he had a gun; that carries a mandatory sentence of ten years. I don't think we'll be seeing him for a long time," she said.
"Really?" Beano said with mock surprise.
"The Feds take that very seriously," she answered, and moved off.
Victoria smiled. "I am very impressed, two birds with one dog," she grinned.
Roger-the-Dodger was wagging his tail inside the case; it banged happily against the side of the carry-kennel, giving the effect of well-deserved applause.
The plane rolled down the runway ten minutes later.
They were off to Miami and then to the Bahamas. They had eliminated Texaco Phillips.
It was time to put Tommy Rina in play.
*
PART FOUR
"Some lies are more believable than truth."
– ANONYMOUS GYPSY PROVERB
Chapter Sixteen.
BAHAMIAN LAW INSISTED THEY GET ROGER-THE-Dodger a rabies shot and a veterinary certificate at the Freeport International Airport. Now, as they pulled out of the palm-lined airport drive, he sat on the front seat of their rented, air-conditioned English Ford, very unhappy about the shot he had just received. Roger had a new green plastic tag on his collar that said he had been inspected by the Grand Bahamian Ministry of Agriculture and Trade.
Once out of the airport, they turned right and took the Grand Bahama Highway east toward the Sabre Bay Club, which was located on the easternmost tip of the island. The road led them past Pelican Point and through a dusty village named McLean's Town, which was dotted with remnants of fifteenth-century architecture from the time of Columbus. Brightly painted wood-frame buildings from the intervening years were shaded by huge cypress trees. There were narrow tin shacks with wood-supported awnings that seemed to lean like old men on canes in the withering tropical sunlight.
Whoever had designed the Sabre Bay Club knew a lot about tropical luxury. It was situated on the tip of the island so it could take advantage of the Atlantic winds, as well as the Channel Trades that blew down the inland Providence Cut.
Beano turned into the resort under a huge European arch guarded by statues of both Columbus and Magellan. The white ground-shell road wound past a magnificent Arnold Palmer- designed golf course and finally brought the club building into view. It was a mixture of architectural styles that somehow miraculously blended together. The brochure Victoria had bought at the airport said that the entrance and porte cochere were constructed from the remnants of a fourteenth-century Gothic monastery. The pamphlet said William Randolph Hearst had discovered the already dismantled structure at a warehouse in Lourdes, France. Still stored in crates, it had been sold to Huntington Hartford, who then shipped the remnants to Grand Bahama Island. The artifacts had somehow found their way to the drive-up entry of the Sabre Bay Club. The effect was startling. A piece of old-world feudal grandeur mixed with the windy indifference of the Bahamas. Completing the display of colorful ambiance were a flock of pink flamingos that wandered freely on the grounds. Moving in graceful awkwardness, they thrust their long necks forward as they walked on stilted legs.
The porte cochere was open, and from the drive-up, they could see all the way through the lobby to the emerald-green Atlantic beyond.
"They sure didn't spare any expense, did they?" Victoria said, breaking the silence.
"Drug money. This whole thing came out of the end of a needle," he said.
She looked over at him. There was a bubbling anger in his voice she'd never heard before.
There was a sign near the entrance that said that the Hemingway Bar was at the east end of the hotel and that the Billfishing Club was down by the dock. The golf clubhouse was standing elegantly under a crop of wind-bent palm trees that swayed constantly in the sea breeze. From somewhere nearby they could hear the whomp of tennis balls.
"Let's get outta here before I decide to drive this little Ford through the lobby and park it in the pool," he said.
Victoria looked over and, without asking, she knew he was thinking of Carol.
Beano drove out past the flamingos, past the two famous stone explorers, and back out onto the highway.
They had booked rooms in the Xanadu Beach Hotel and Marina in Freeport. It was on a wide ocean strand of beach that was backed up by a small inland harbor. One side of the hotel faced the white sandy beach and rolling Atlantic; the other looked back at the quaint marina. Once they had registered, Beano helped get their bags in their rooms, then said he would hunt up Dakota and Duffy and they'd all meet in the Wicker bar in an hour. He took Roger with him as he headed off to look for his "cousins."
Victoria went to her room and unpacked. Then she stepped out on her narrow balcony and took in the beautiful aqua-green sea. The brisk ocean wind snapped her short hair. She closed her eyes and felt a little dizzy… She knew she was desperately out of her depth in a game that had at worst no rules, or at best ones she didn't understand. She wondered how it would end, or if she would even survive to witness its conclusion. She found it both troubling and exhilarating that she was embarking on an adventure with people that, just two weeks ago, she would have had an urge to indict and prosecute. She changed her clothes and an hour later went downstairs to the appropriately named Wicker Room.
The bar was small but faced the ocean. A cooling, tropical wind blew across the rattan furniture and slow-turning ceiling fans. When Victoria entered, she looked toward the window and saw Beano and Dakota sitting at a table with an old man who looked like he had recently died, then had abruptly decided to get out of his coffin and come back for one last drink. His wiry white hair hung off his head in Einstein unruliness, and his blue veins shone through white, papery skin, like winding highways on a road map. Like Beano, he had that charming Bates smile, and the old man flashed it as she sat down.
"Hi," she said, looking over at Dakota, who had gotten some sun since Victoria last saw her. It only served to make her more radiantly beautiful.