back over to the ottoman, sat down beside her, patted her knee, told her to settle down, that we'd get through this together and that we'd get the bad guys who were putting her through all of this, though I didn't really have any concept of who the bad guys actually were or what this was. I got the Dixon Woods part, but I didn't see who else was involved. I figured Sam didn't either, but that Cricket was one of Veronica's friends and he needed to be sensitive to that.
Or, like me, the crying was starting to make him frantic.
What I'd figured out and would have happily elucidated to Cricket was that it was highly unlikely Dixon Woods was anywhere near Afghanistan. I would have also told her that she'd probably been scammed out of her money (and I didn't know yet how much money in total that equaled) and that she was better off looking into a trade of some kind, or maybe dialing up one of the famous people whose arm she'd found herself on when she had money and asking them for a small loan to get out of town with. I might have also told her that I had real doubts that Dixon Woods was actually Dixon Woods, but then Cricket blew her nose, dabbed her eyes and thanked Sam for his kindness.
And just like that, Cricket O'Connor was perfectly composed again. There was something about Cricket O'Connor that I found troubling: how a person who seemed so capable of handling life could be so incapable of seeing how much she was risking before it actually happened.
It reminded me of Natalya.
'You'll have to pardon me,' she said. 'I understand, Mr. Westen, that you think I'm a fool, but I wonder if you've ever found yourself in a situation beyond your control.'
If she only knew. 'There've been occasions.'
'I fell in love with Dixon,' she said. 'That was probably a mistake. We don't always make the right choices in whom we love, but I believed in him and I believed him when he told me he'd been in the Special Forces and I believed him when he told me he was providing private security in Afghanistan and I believed him when he told me he was in trouble and desperately needed my help. And I believed the men who came to my home and threatened to kill me if I didn't turn Dixon in. I loved him, Mr. Westen. I love him. Maybe people like you and people like Dixon can just turn real emotion on and off, but for the rest of the human race, things are a bit more trying.' She paused then and tried to smile, as if changing her facial expression could change the outcome of all that had come before. 'And I believed Sam when he said you would help me. If I go to the police, these men will find Dixon and they will kill him. And I know they will kill me. And…' She paused again. 'I don't want this to be in the paper. As soon as the police know about this, it will be all over the papers. I'll be a mockery. I have nowhere else to turn. I can't pay you much, but whatever I can give you, I will. Please, Mr. Westen.'
'These bad guys,' I said, 'they give you a way to contact them? A drop zone for the money? Anything?'
'They gave me a cell phone,' she said.
'Go get it,' I said.
A few moments later, Cricket came back with a burner, a prepaid cell you can get in any half-assed check- cashing front shop in Little Haiti or the nicest sundry shop on South Beach. Used to be only drug dealers and sixteen-year-old girls whose mothers didn't trust them not to abuse their minutes had burners. Now, half the world. They're impossible to get a wire on because once you're up on them, they're already dead.
'They call on this, make sure I'm home, then come for the cash,' she said.
'When are they due to call again?'
'Thursday. The fifteenth. It's always the fifteenth.'
'Pay day,' Sam said.
'Not anymore,' I said.
'So you're going to help me?' Cricket said.
When you're a spy, or a former one, or just one trying to figure out how your life got turned upside down by someone else's choices, someone else's agenda, someone else's ego and hubris and wanton disregard for who you are as a human, sometimes, well, a soft spot opens up for people in a similar situation.
'I'm going to get your money back,' I said, 'as much as I can. Enough for you to live. To help the other people. But you have to listen to me. You have to do as I tell you to do. And you have to understand one thing.'
'Anything,' she said.
'You're not married to Dixon Woods,' I said. 'You've probably never met him. This guy you're not married to is a criminal, and he's gaming you. When I find him, after I get your money, he's likely going to be hurt. He might be dead. He might well be going to prison. And this house? This lifestyle? It's over. It's not yours. You want to help people. To really help people? I'll get that back for you if I can.'
Cricket closed her eyes. Her head moved slightly in agreement.
'Why don't you go upstairs and pack a bag?' I said. 'Sam will come back later and take you somewhere safe.'
Sam and I watched Cricket mount the stairs toward her bedroom and then, when we heard the sobbing begin, let ourselves out of the house.
'Nice speech,' Sam said once we were outside.
'These people,' I said, 'don't know how lucky they have it.'
'Yeah,' Sam said. 'Still. Quite a bit of oration there.'
I put on my sunglasses and walked back along the side of Cricket's house. From there I could see Biscayne Bay, full this day with sail boats and yachts lazing back and forth through the shipping lanes. Sam came and stood beside me. 'Nice view,' I said.
'If you like this sort of thing,' Sam said.
'I could get on a boat from here,' I said. 'Sail all the way up the Eastern Seaboard. Park in New York. Hop on a train, be in Washington D.C. in no time. Start pounding on doors. Who'd ever know?'
'I would,' Sam said.
'Or I could just go due south. Find a sandbar and call it home. Forget this burn notice and everything else.'
'Ah, Mikey, that's not your life,' Sam said.
And the truth, the sad truth, was that he was right.
4
There's nothing easy about having a lot of actual cash money, particularly if your job description is something other than armored-car driver. If you sell drugs, extort cash from socialites or happen to be running an international cartel funded by Colombians and protected by Russians, or just happen to be a grifter with a way with women, you still need to find a place to keep your money other than the bank, because a million actual dollars weigh a ton. Literally. You get a million dollar bills, they will weigh a ton. You get your million dollars broken down into hundreds, it's only twenty pounds.
You still need to find a way to pay your bills. So you have to clean that money, get it into the system so that you can live.
Because even if you're a malicious crime lord or evil genius, you probably still have cable, water, power and HOA fees to take care of at your secret hideout, which, usually, is just a very large home in a master-planned community since underground lairs, hollowed-out volcanoes and bases on the dark side of the moon have become harder and harder to come by. But beyond that, if someone hands you a check for a million dollars, you can't just deposit it and you can't just cash it.
Fortunately, Miami is only a puddle jumper away from the Caribbean, where illegal banking is practically a spectator sport. Or, if you're really industrious, you can go on a run from the Caribbean down to Guyana, where money laundering and the drug trade make up a sum close to fifty percent of the country's economy. So if you're a drug dealer, have a few million dollars in American cash and the ability to set up a nice shelter corporation-say, a timber company, which in Guyana is the favored business of drug dealers looking to get legit return on their dollars-and have a fast boat, or a decent plane, or enough contacts, you can do just about anything to get your money back into the U.S. in a way that it comes back smelling like Tide.
