The truth, I now believed, was that I didn’t want to die in an alley, as Hymie Gore had, or to be blown away on a dusty backwoods road, like Dick Fleming, without leaving this account of what had happened to me and how it happened. Project X was really my last will and testament.
I finished my typing for the day. Straightened up the pages, locked the ms. away in one of the suitcases. Then I poured myself a vodka over ice and settled to wait for Jack Donohue.
By 6:00 P.M., I had started to think coldly of what I would do if he didn’t return. I would consolidate my personal belongings, trying to jam clothes, the Brandenberg stones, Project X, and the guns into two suitcases and maybe into one shoulder bag. Then I’d call a cab. I’d go to Ft. Lauderdale airport and get a seat on a plane going anywhere. It didn’t really matter. I’d just go as far as I could. When the money ran out, I’d cut up more of the jewelry and peddle the stones. I’d change my name and try to change my appearance again. I’d start a new-
There was a key in the lock. Jack Donohue walked in, looking drained. I burst into tears and flew to him. I almost knocked him over.
‘Jesus Christ, baby,’ he said, ‘take it easy. I’m still in one piece.’
He wouldn’t tell me what had happened in Miami until we had eaten, saying he hadn’t had a bite all day and was famished. So we went to a seafood joint on the Intracoastal and ordered red snapper amandine. I picked at my food, but Donohue gobbled and went to the salad bar three times. The place was too crowded and too noisy for a private conversation.
Then we returned to Rip’s and mixed tall brandies with soda. We took our drinks out onto the beach. We went barefoot, Jack rolling up his cuffs. There were a few other beach strollers, but it seemed to me the sand and sea belonged to us alone.
There wasn’t a full moon — that would have been too much — but we watched a silver scythe come out of the ocean, and that was as pretty as Donohue had promised. The surf was pounding. Black waves rolled in and then crashed into white foam. We could feel the spray on our skin, driven by a moaning wind. There were scudding clouds, hard stars, a sky that went on forever.
There was a chill in the air, even in Florida, but the brandy helped, and the sand was still warm beneath our toes. It was such a natural scene: beach, ocean, sky, clouds, stars, moon, wind. It could have been perfect. But there were people.
‘There’s good news and bad news,’ Jack Donohue said. ‘I’ll give you the bad first.’
‘Thanks.’
‘The guys I thought 1 could depend on, I can’t. The few I called hung up on me. The few I saw turned around and walked the other way. A few who would talk told me I’m poison. The word’s got around. The Corporation was very heavy on this: You help’Jack Donohue and you spend the rest of your life with busted kneecaps, pushing yourself along on a little platform on wheels. If you’re lucky. Listen, I don’t blame the guys; they’ve mostly got wives and kids. Or girlfriends anyway.’
‘Sure,’ I said.
‘Also the charter planes,’ he went on. ‘The outfits that will fly anyone anywhere for a price. The Corporation had tipped them, too. Jack Donohue goes nowhere. Ditto the fences. They won’t touch me. That Rossi had been one busy little boy. As far as Miami goes, I got leprosy.’
‘If we give back the Brandenberg jewels?’ I asked.
‘No go. The Corporation wants the Donohue jewels. My family jewels.’
‘How about the good news now? I think I could stand some.’
He halted and I stopped beside him. We took a few sips of our drinks, looking up at that sparkling night.
‘The good news is this: I unloaded about half those loose stones in jewelry shops. More than twenty grand.’
‘That’s fine,’ I said faintly.
‘So we’re not hurting for cash. But you know where I peddled most of the rocks? In the Cuban section. Miami is full of Spies. And not only Cubans, but from all over South America. A lot of loose money there. I figure the smart guys are getting out of those banana republics before they get stood up against a wall and shot. And, there’s a lot of cash around from the dope trade. They’re running gage and coke in every hour on the hour. All cash deals, of course.
But money like that is hard to spend or get to Switzerland, say. That’s why I was able to get top dollar for the loose rocks. You can go anywhere in the world with a diamond up your ass.’
I remembered what Antonio Rossi had told me when he was Noel Jarvis: how easy it was to take precious gemstones across a border.
‘But the best thing is this,’ Jack said. ‘The Spies have their own organization. They’re not under the thumb of the Corporation. Oh sure, I guess they make deals now and then, but the South Americans are running the drugs on their own. And they got their own lotteries, cathouses, loansharks, betting parlors, and so forth. They don’t need the Corporation.’
‘You think maybe we can make a deal with the Cubans?’ I asked.
‘I think maybe we can,’ he said slowly. ‘I got onto a guy named Manuel Garcia. That’s like John Smith, in American. I flashed that big necklace I was carrying and I saw his eyes light up. I told him what we needed: a plane out of the country, passports, and visas, complete new IDs, no hassle in the country we’re going to. He said maybe it could be arranged. He said he’d talk to his people.’
‘How much would they want? The big necklace?’
‘Oh hell no. More than that. He mentioned a hundred G’s, casual-like, before I told him it would be for the two of us. Then he said a quarter of a mil, knowing my woman was involved. I figure I can get it for less than that. Maybe two-hundred thou.’
‘You trust him? This Manuel Garcia?’
‘That’s the trouble with this business,’ he said fretfully. ‘You’ve got to trust someone to get what you want. No, I don’t trust that greaser. Jesus Christ, he wears perfume! But right now he’s the only game in town.’
‘How did you leave it? What happens next?’
‘This Garcia is going to talk to his people, to see if they can deliver. I’ve got a Miami number to call. Every day at noon. I ask for Paco. If they’ve got no word for me yet, Paco will be out. When they’re ready to talk money and how the whole thing will be set up, Paco will tell me when to come back to Miami and where to meet.’ ‘Two hundred thousand is a lot of money,’ I said slowly.
‘Sure it is,’ Donohue agreed. ‘Until you remember we’ve got a couple of mil in those suitcases. At least. Also, it’s not all profit for them. They’ve got to pay the paper guys, the clerks in the consulate, the pilot of the plane, the guys on the other end. Everyone’s got to be oiled. So the two hundred G’s isn’t all that much. Not if it gets us out from under the Feds, Rossi, and the Corporation.’
Til drink to that,’ I said, draining my brandy.
Donohue finished his drink. Then he took the empty glass from my hand. With a wild, whirling motion, he threw both glasses as far out to sea as he could. I saw the glint in the moonlight. Then the faint splashes as the empty glasses hit the water and disappeared. Then there was only the dark, rolling ocean.
‘You think it’ll work?’ I said.
it’s got to work,’ he said fiercely. ‘Got to!’
We went back to our daily routine — breakfast, beach, drinks, dinner, sex, sleep — except that each day at noon Donohue called the Miami phone number he had been given and asked for Paco. For five days Paco was out and hadn’t left any message. On the sixth day there was a different reply, and Jack motioned to me for a pad and pen, saying into the phone: ‘Yes. I’ve got it. Repeat that address. Okay. Yeah. Sure. Uh-huh, I understand. Fine.’
He hung up and looked down at the scrawled notes he had made.
‘I go to Miami tomorrow. They claim they can deliver what we need.’
‘You want me to come with you?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘this is just to negotiate the deal. What they want, what we’ll pay, the timing, and so on.’