“I hope this piece of junk makes it that far,” Rae said. “We’re at 240,000 miles.”
“I’ve been told that everything mechanical was rehabbed,” Virgil said. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Speaking of problems, did you bring your nine-millimeter problem solver?”
“I don’t much believe in pistols,” Virgil said.
“Lucas told me that,” Rae said. “Besides, it’s only Mafia killers we’re dealing with.”
The back of the Outback was stuffed with the scuba gear and a plastic suitcase with a change of clothing for both of them, in case they wound up staying overnight. As they went through Florida City, Rae slowed, searching roadside signs, and then pointed out the motel where Bob was killed.
“Best friend I ever had, or ever will have,” Rae said.
“Sounds like a hell of a guy,” Virgil said. “Lucas has lost a couple of friends, but he was really shook up by Bob. His wife was worried that he was falling into a clinical depression. He’s had that trouble in the past.”
“Not good,” Rae said.
“Figuring out what we’d do about Bob, that pulled him out of it, I guess,” Virgil said. “The last time I talked to his wife, she said he was back on solid ground.”
“I’m not there yet,” Rae said.
* * *
South of Florida City, they ran through scrubland, then onto causeways through mangrove swamps and eventually off the two-lane highway and onto four lanes into the town of Key Largo. They passed the entrance to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, went on a few more minutes, and turned left at a sign that led down a coral road to Sunrise Scuba.
“One o’clock, right on time,” Rae said. “Wonder if Matt and Marc are here . . .”
Regio and Lange pulled in two minutes later, as Virgil was looking around the scuba center’s layout. The Sunrise consisted of a compact red-tile-roofed, white-painted concrete block building, a small parking lot surrounded by five-foot palms, an oversized swimming pool with a diving board at one end. Two tiger-striped cats, one gray, one red, lazed on the sidewalk outside the building’s front door.
“Talked to anyone yet?” Regio asked.
“Just got here,” Virgil said.
Lange: “The instructor’s name is Julie Andrews. Not the Julie Andrews.”
“Right.”
* * *
Inside the building they were met by a balding man with a hat line across his forehead—stark white on top, burned below—and heavy chest and shoulders. He checked the four of them and decided to talk to Lange: “You’re the Willy Carter party?”
Lange poked a finger at Virgil: “He’s Willy.”
The man turned and shouted, “Julie, they’re here.”
A woman walked out of a back room, fiftyish, short, stocky, with cropped blond hair. She was wearing knee-length shorts and a coral-colored knit shirt with a Sunrise Scuba logo. She scanned the four of them and asked, “Carter?”
“That’s me,” Virgil said, half-raising a hand.
She looked him over—T-shirt, cargo shorts, worn tennis shoes, hair on his shoulders—and asked, “What’s with . . .” She waved a hand at Lange, Regio, and Rae.
Virgil looked at Lange and said, “I thought you explained all of this?”
“The basics,” Lange said. “Told them that we wanted to check your qualifications.”
Virgil turned back to Andrews. “Here’s the thing. I’m supposed to train this rich guy in the Bahamas. He wants to be sure I can do it, because he doesn’t want to drown.”
“Why didn’t he hire us?” the bald man asked. “We can go to the Bahamas.”
“’Cause he’s my uncle,” Virgil said. “My mom suggested that I could train him. He’s skeptical. These two guys . . .” he tipped his head at Lange and Regio, “. . . are supposed to check out you, before you’re checking out me.”
“Seems a weird way to go about it,” Andrews said.
“Well, it is,” Virgil agreed. “I had a little legal trouble in Montana and my mom wants to get me away from my friends up there. She got Jerry to hire me.”
“Jerry?”
“Uncle Jerry.”
“What do Matt and Marc do . . .”
“They’re, uh, Uncle Jerry’s . . . uh . . .”
“Security team,” Rae said. “Part of it, anyway.”
Andrews looked at Regio and Lange and said, “Okay. I’ll buy that. Still seems strange.”
“You don’t have to jump through your ass trying to figure out who we work for and why, you just gotta take Willy down to the bottom of the ocean and come back up and tell us if he’s a bullshitter,” Regio said, in a voice that approximated a snarl. “That’s all. That’s why we’re renting your whole boat and your whole day and night.”
The bald man said, “We don’t take American Express.”
Regio said, “We’re paying cash. Up front.”
The bald man, quickly: “Let me welcome you to Sunrise Scuba.”
* * *
Regio put a thin stack of fifty-dollar bills on the counter and said to Virgil, “We’ve got rooms across the highway. Got one for you and Ally, since you’ll be out after dark. No point in going back tonight.”
Neither Regio nor Lange wanted to go on a boat ride. Rae inquired about things to do on Key Largo. After a few suggestions from Andrews, she decided that if the local Publix market was a high point, she might as well get some sun.
Sunrise Scuba ran a 36-foot dive boat good for twelve divers; they powered out of the marina at two o’clock, headed to the reefs that paralleled the Key Largo coastline. The water was smooth and warm, crossed by a dozen other boats leaving long, streaming white wakes behind.
“Picked the perfect day for this,” Andrews said. The bald man, who was driving the boat, and whose name was Rolf, said, “We got a cold front coming, two days out. Looks like a rough one. That would have made things interesting.”
“I’m happy with smooth,” Rae said. “Catch a few rays . . . You guys brought some beer and sandwiches, right?”
“Do I look like a teetotaler?” Rolf asked.
* * *
Virgil would dive his twinset all day, while Andrews dove smaller aluminum eighties.