“Gotta make a car insurance call...”
Lucas jogged out to the van, got his pack, retrieved the burner phone, and punched in the number for Rae’s phone, feeling the sweat start on the back of his neck.
But Rae answered on the third ring.
Lucas put a big smile on his face, because a big fake smile turns your voice into a salesman’s, and said, “We’re calling to alert you to an opportunity to insure your car against...”
At the wordinsure, Rae said, “Fuck you,” and hung up.
Lucas sat back. She was on the boat, she was with Cattaneo and the other hoods, and couldn’t talk.
And she was alive.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Virgil and Raehelped carry the scuba gear down to the boat. The water was dead quiet, dark and smooth as oil; a man in a sleeveless white shirt went by in a rowing shell, the only one they’d seen on the Intracoastal.
When the last of the gear was stowed, Virgil and Rae went to the bow of the boat while Cattaneo was doing an engine check, and Rae slipped an arm around Virgil’s waist and muttered, “Are you okay with this? We could be pushing our luck.”
They’d talked earlier with Lucas and knew that an arrest had been made but without a deal and another one was imminent. Sooner or later, the word would get out.
“I don’t think we have anything to worry about until I get back on the boat,” Virgil said. “They want the shit too bad. The danger point will be when I’m in the water and they’ve got a hold on the lift bag. If they want to get rid of me, that’s the time.”
“I’ll be ready for that,” Rae said.
Cattaneo called, “We’re set. Marc, you want to cast us off?”
The night wascloudy but windless, and warm enough, in the sixties. There were lights already showing in the marina, and Virgil could hear somebody playing Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s “Downey to Lubbock.” A woman laughed off in that direction, like a woman might do when she has a martini in her hand and a friendly hand on her ass.
As the boat edged out into the Intracoastal, Virgil and Rae made their way back to the cockpit. “Should be a good night for diving,” Cattaneo said. “About as flat as it ever gets out there.”
“Looks fine,” Virgil said. “I think we got this figured out.”
“You oughta look into investments,” Cattaneo said. “Fidelity, Vanguard. Get some mutual funds so you’ll have some money coming in, when you get to your old age.”
Virgil cocked his head. “What the fuck are you talking about, Jack? You think I’m gonna get to old age?”
Cattaneo thought about it, then said, “Okay, forget it. But. Let’s try to stay alive for a while, okay? Don’t take any chances down there, we’re doing too good to lose you. And maybe you don’t make it to actual old age, but with the cash we’re gonna give you, you could have a hell of a good time before then.”
“Weed, women, and song,” Lange said.
Virgil: “I try to stay away from song. When I try to sing, I sound like a frog.”
They pushed outof Port Everglades into the Atlantic and made the turn north. Nice night, their forward motion creating a softsalt breeze in their faces. Regio and Lange were sitting on the deck, knees up, watching the shore lights; farther out, a freighter was headed west in toward the cut. Virgil, Rae, and Cattaneo were in the cockpit, and Cattaneo asked, “How’d you two get together, anyway? You’re not what I’d think of as an obvious match-up.”
Rae said, “I was hurtin’ in Vegas. I had a hotel job there, cleaning rooms. Temporary thing. They said I stole some stuff from a room, which was a lie, and I got fired. Once you get fired from a Vegas hotel for room theft, you’re shit out of luck. They put your name around and nobody will touch you: they’re like running you out of town.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I was walking around looking in store windows, hoping I might see a ‘Help Wanted’ sign—this was just before Christmas, four years ago—and I’m walking around, and there’s Willy outside a Dollar Store, ringing a bell, with a red pot, raising money for the Salvation Army.”
Cattaneo laughed, looked at Virgil: “You were working for the Salvation Army? Bullshit.”
“That’s what I said, soon as I saw him,” Rae said. “He had this sneaky look around his eyes. I backed off and watched him and when the traffic died off, he took the pot and the pot stand and his bell and he went around the building and got in the Subaru. I knocked on the window and when he lowered it, I said, ‘Can I have some of that money?’ That’s how it started.”
“Where you get the bell and pot?” Cattaneo asked.
“Found them,” Virgil said.
