“I am. The biggest problem would be if they decide to take what I find and kill me,” Virgil said. “When I surface, I’ll be more or less helpless. Rae will be on the boat, she made that clear, and she’ll have that little nine stuck inside the bottom of her leggings. If anything funny starts, we’ll have that.”
“If you want to back away, nobody would blame you,” Lucas said. “The people who know about it figure you for balls like watermelons. I know better, but I’m a little worried.”
“Hey. I’m good. Watch for a tail when we split up tomorrow.”
“We are. Haven’t seen anyone watching you other than Regio and Lange. We’ve seen Cattaneo on a sailboat in Hollywood, we think that might be where you’re going.”
“That sounds right. Sailboat will be moving slow, which is normal. In the dark, nobody would see me going over the side, or coming back on. So...”
“Easy does it,” Lucas said.
“Are you still in Hollywood? You personally? Right now?”
“No. We’re across the highway from you,” Lucas said. “Your two guys walked out three or four minutes before you. It looks like they’re headed for the same place you are. There’s not much else up there.”
“They might have been listening to us; they rented the room, there could be a bug, so... don’t call.”
Virgil handed thephone back to Rae, who turned it off and dropped it in her jacket pocket. Virgil took a joint from her and said, “Sweet authenticity.”
Virgil took a drag, blew the smoke into Rae’s hair and passed it. She took a drag, blew the smoke into Virgil’s hair. They did that one more time each, then dropped the joint and Virgil smashed it into the gravel.
Regio and Lange were sitting in a two-person booth when they arrived at the shrimp place. Virgil lifted a hand when he saw them, and drifted over. “Place is a little sketchy.”
Regio laughed and said, “So you fit right in.”
Lange sniffed: “You gotta go easy with the weed, man. You gotta be straight tomorrow.”
“I don’t touch it before a dive,” Virgil said. Rae had taken another booth. Virgil ambled away from the two men, sat down. They ate a couple of pounds of shrimp and drank four margaritas between them, and wandered out the door while Regio and Lange were still eating.
“If they didn’t buy that,” Virgil said, “we’re cooked. Because we shoulda gotten an Academy Award.”
Back at themotel room, Virgil looked at the king-sized bed and whispered, “I can take the floor if that would make you happier.”
“You’re going to need your sleep for tomorrow night,” Rae whispered back. “I don’t figure you’ll be coming on to me at this point and rape doesn’t seem to be your style.”
“You’re right and you’re right. Not that you don’t have a nice... mmm...”
Rae rolled her eyes. “We won’t be spooning, either.”
“Of course not,” Virgil said.
Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t wake up a few times with spontaneous erections; he’d been away from Frankie for two weeks and he could feel the heat coming off Rae’s body. The second time, he heard Rae quietly laugh, but then they both went back to sleep. They woke together in the morning and Rae stretched and said, “See? No harm, no foul.”
She was wearing black dancer’s leggings and a half top, which revealed much of her personal terrain.
Virgil grumbled, “Fuckin’ Bob must’ve been a fuckin’ saint, to be traveling around with you and nothing’s going on.”
“No, he wasn’t. We were like brother and sister, sorta.”
“Well, I’m not your brother. I’m committed. Got new twins. Got an old lady I’m in love with. But Jesus, Rae, you...”
“Hush up.”
They met Regioand Lange in the parking lot and Lange said, “We’ll come by your place this afternoon and pick you up. What time?”
“Depends on how far we have to drive to get to the boat, and how far the boat is from the drop spot. I’ll let you figure that out,” Virgil said. “We don’t want to go out too late—we need to get out there after dark, but not way dark, just dark enough that nobody will see me going over the side. It’d be good if there were still some boats on the water. Their screws will confuse Coast Guard sonar, if there is any sonar watching the dive zone.”
“Gets dark around six...”
