Virgil glanced around the place, pulled a sheaf of bills from his pocket, made a big deal of hiding it and secretly counting it out, folded the cash in tight thirds and passed it across the table. Richard said, “Skinx.” He reached out to shake hands and left the eights-balls in Virgil’s palm.
Virgil said, “Party time,” and Rae said to Virgil, “Give him a couple more bills. Birthday gift for Roy.”
Roy said, “Thanks again.” And to Richard, “I’ll take it in weed.”
They sat and talked through two more beers; between the first and second, the flannel shirt guy finished his beer and left. When Virgil and Rae left, Rae stepped close to Virgil as they went through the door and asked, “You think he was smart enough to know a drug deal when he saw one?”
Virgil looked up the street: the red Jeep was gone.
“I believe he was. We’ve sold ourselves solid. At least for a while.”
* * *
The next morning, with a fat envelope of cash, they headed south to the Bal Harbour Shops. An FBI countersurveillance team tracked them and saw no one watching. Once inside the shopping mall, Rae hit a series of stores selling Italian shoes, pulling chunks of cash from her purse, collecting shopping bags from high-priced brands.
Virgil bought expensive shorts and boating shoes, and loose long-sleeved shirts with sleeves that could be rolled up; he found a men’s room, stepped into a toilet booth and changed. He threw his old shorts and T-shirt into the trash and when he emerged from the men’s room, Rae said, “My, my. You look like you own a banana plantation. Except for the sunglasses. The sunglasses look like they came from a Dollar Store sales bin.”
“I need some blades,” Virgil said, and they found some, with opaque gold lenses that wrapped nearly around to his ears.
Virgil shopped and enjoyed watching Rae shop, and watched for watchers, spotting no one. Lucas called and said, “You’re clean. We’re right across Collins Avenue at the St. Regis.”
“See you in ten minutes. Maybe . . . twenty. Rae’s found a La Perla lingerie shop.”
“Ah, Jesus, we’ve got everybody here waiting . . .”
“Hell hath no fury like a woman yanked out of La Perla . . .”
* * *
Virgil finally extracted Rae from La Perla and they crossed Collins Avenue to the hotel, took the elevator up to an ocean-view room, and found it populated with Weaver and three more FBI agents, plus Lucas and Andres Devlin. Devlin gave Rae a hug and said, “I’ve been told about La Perla, if you’re modeling . . .”
“In your dreams,” Rae said, but she liked the hug.
Lucas to Virgil: “You’ve finally perfected your dirtbag look. The earrings are amazing; the sunglasses are even better.”
“Happy you approve,” Virgil said, taking off the glasses. “Where are we on this thing and why are we all in this room?”
Weaver, with a cell phone in his hand: “They’re moving the heroin off the boat. They’ve got one of those aluminum pull carts, they put all eleven heroin cans in the cart and covered it with a tarp and garbage bags. They’re pulling it up to the parking lot right now. We’re all over them.”
“What’s the plan for that?” Rae asked.
“We believe they’ll transport it up to New Jersey in a hearse . . . We’re not sure about the details, but we’re sure about the hearse. We think they paid some guy to have his mother taken to a funeral home and embalmed and then taken up to New Jersey for burial.”
Rae: “They bought a body?”
“Exactly. The old woman was at the medical examiner’s, she was going to be cremated and, you know, disposed of, however they do it here. Cattaneo gave her son a couple hundred bucks to transfer her to the funeral home.”
“Sounds like an upright guy, the son does,” Virgil said. “But a hearse?”
“It’s a big vehicle with a lot of good hiding places and it’s got a coffin with a body in it,” Weaver said. “Not even cops are going to mess with a body, if there’s a fender-bender or something.”
“You know when they’re leaving?” Virgil asked.
“No. We’re watching, we assume it’ll be soon, but it’ll probably take two days to get it up to New Jersey,” Weaver said. “We won’t let them keep the dope, but we want to get it as close to Sansone as we can. We want him looking at it, if that’s possible.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Virgil shook his head. “Man, that’s a problem. That’s not the way it’s supposed to go . . .”
“Virgil’s right,” Lucas said. “I’ll tell you what. I never was a narc, but I knew all the narcs in Minnesota, and if you think Sansone’s going to drive over to some motel to look at that heroin, you’re dreaming. He knows what heroin looks like. When that heroin comes in, he’ll be skiing in New Hampshire. There’s only one thing about the dope that Sansone is going to be connected to, and that’s the money that comes from it.”
“That’s not the plan . . .” the agent began.
“Then we need a new plan,” Lucas snapped.
“Yeah, you do,” Virgil said. “I thought this was settled. You’re all worried I’m going to drown, but I’ve got all kinds of bailouts for that—I could swim to shore if I needed to. You fuck up in New York, and Rae and I are in trouble. They’ll kill us, or try to.”
Rae: “You really can’t hit them first down here, either, because that word will instantly get back north and Sansone’s people will dump the dope and scatter.”
Lucas said to Virgil, “We’ll get a new plan. If I have to, I’ll drag Louis Mallard’s ass down here to explain it to these boys.”
Weaver put up his hands: “Okay, okay. No need to do that. New plan, then. We don’t have much time, but we’ll work something out.”
“I’ll tell you what we work out—we follow the money,” Virgil said. “Sansone won’t look at the heroin, but he sure as shit will look at the money coming back.”
“I gotta talk to the Manhattan AIC,” Weaver said. “We’re getting pressure to keep the dope off the street.”
“I’ll give you some help with that, talking with the AIC,” Lucas said to Weaver.
“Lucas, goddamnit . . .”
* * *
Virgil said to Lucas, momentarily cutting out the feds, but loud enough for them to hear, “I’m counting on you, man. You got to get us out. Don’t let these fools go after the dope and leave me in the water.”