'Jade Films? The porno people?'
Kate made a performance out of looking surprised. She said, 'You've heard of them?'
Bowen shook his head casually. 'There was something in Newsweek about them, I think. To do with the guys who work in the sex industry.'
'I read that article,' she said. 'It was a good piece. But I don't think I remember anything about Jade Films in there.'
'Oh come on, Kate,' said Bowen, uncomfortably. 'I'm not that kind of guy.'
She thought, none of them were. Not until you got a look at the cable company account, and then it was just a bit of harmless fun.
Bowen said, 'What takes them across the Atlantic, anyway?'
'The Cannes Film Festival.'
'Cannes?'
'It's in Spain,' she said, knowing full well that Cannes was actually in the South of France.
'I know where it is. Cannes. That's kind of like the Oscars, isn't it?'
'Only classier.'
Bowen sniggered. 'With Jade Films in attendance? I hardly think so.'
'In attendance, but not in competition for the Palme d'Or. Cannes is a marketplace for just about anyone who's involved in the movie industry. And that includes people like Jade Films. Anyway, the point I'm making here is that this is a 160-foot twin screw diesel yacht captained and crewed entirely by women.'
'Twin screw, huh?' smirked Bowen.
Kate smiled patiently, waiting for the ribald punch line she felt certain was coming.
He said, 'Would they be identical twins, or just sisters?'
Kate kept on smiling as Bowen laughed his Beavis and Butthead laugh, trying her damnedest to look amused. Crushing out her cigarette like she was pinching him hard, Kate let her eyes drift sideways as if they were slipping off Bowen's oleaginous personality. But only he could OK putting her plan in front of Presley Willard, the Miami Bureau's Special Agent in Charge. Be nice, she told herself. Don't piss him off. Maybe he is an asshole but you don't have to stick the toe of your shoe in there. Be accommodating. This is the dork who could green-light a free trip across to Europe. To some real adventure.
'How'd you find out about that anyway?' he asked. 'Jade Films going on the transport.'
'Same way we found out about Rocky's boat. We've been intercepting all SYT's calls. I thought we ought to know about some of the other people who are going. Look, sir, you yourself said we have to move fast. March is just around the corner and there's only so much space left aboard the transport. If we leave this too long it will be nothing other than a great idea that might or might not have worked out for us.'
Bowen stood up and went over to the sitting-room window. To the south of the bridge was Port Everglades, the deepest port in Florida. Formerly known as Mabel Lakes it had been a shallow marsh in the wide section of the Florida East Coast Canal until President Calvin Coolidge threw a switch that was supposed to detonate an explosion to open the inlet. Except that the long-distance switch from Washington didn't work and someone had to set off the explosion locally. Another great idea that didn't work. Ordinarily Bowen was suspicious of good ideas. But he had to admit, Kate's idea about getting their own boat aboard the SYT transport was a good one.
Out in the harbor, Bowen could see as many kinds of boat as there were varieties of fish. Military ships, Coast Guard and police boats, island freighters from the Caribbean, tugs and tankers, cruise ships full of holidaymakers wondering if they were going to get mugged in Miami, sailboats, schooners, barges and motor yachts. Everything but a guy floating in a barrel.
The scent of perfume made him turn around. Kate was standing a foot or so behind his shoulder and handing him a pair of binoculars. He lifted them to his eyes and let her describe the port facilities.
'Going anticlockwise, you've got passenger and cargo terminals. That's where our SYT ship departs from. Then the US Customs building. Gasoline storage tanks. This is the biggest gas station in the south. Did you know that?'
Kate was letting him know that she knew the port. It was her way of reminding him that she knew boats and that she was ideally qualified for the operation she had outlined. 'Those four red and white chimneys? You can see them for miles out to sea. Yachtsmen use them as navigation aids. They belong to the Florida Power and Light Company. Coming left of there you've got Port Administration, the World Trade Center, and more cargo terminals. Coming further back round to us again, and that's the Naval Surface Warfare Center.'
Bowen was thinking: she smells as good as she looks. It might be fun to go undercover with Kate. Best- looking girl in the Miami Bureau. The two of them aboard a luxury yacht together? He might even get lucky with her. Hadn't he always suspected that she had a soft spot for him? That was why she gave him such a hard time. Because she was trying to disguise the fact that, in reality, she was powerfully attracted to him. Why else would anyone speak to their boss the way she spoke to him? And it wouldn't be like they'd actually have to do very much on the boat. As she herself had said, it was just a question of keeping a close eye on Rocky's boat and maintaining radio contact with a navy submarine. There was even a sub in port. What could go wrong?
Kate said, 'I'm not exactly sure what the sub is called, but the aircraft carrier is the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Oh yes, and up on the point there? That's a restaurant owned by Burt Reynolds.'
'Burt Reynolds? Really?'
Kate grimaced as Bowen eagerly tried to get a better focus on the mission-style building that housed the restaurant. He was such a putz, such a tourist that it might have been only yesterday he'd left Kansas.
'Burt Reynolds,' he repeated dumbly.
'Actually,' she admitted, 'I'm not sure if it's still owned by him. Not since he filed for bankruptcy anyway.'
'You know, back in the seventies, he was just about my favorite movie actor.'
Kate's grimace became even more pronounced. Jesus, that clinched it. She was with the one guy in the whole world who enjoyed Smokey and the Bandit.
Bowen said, 'You know, I think I can probably persuade Presley that this is a good idea.' He handed back the binoculars.
'Great.'
'You said two crew?'
'Just two.'
'Any undercover mission is not without its dangers,' he said pompously. 'But it's just possible that we might also have some fun along the way.'
Kate swallowed. 'We?'
Bowen glanced at his cheap sports watch.
'Why don't we go to Burt's place and discuss it over lunch?' he said.
'Burt's place?' She wondered if Bowen hadn't heard what she had said about the bankruptcy.
'It's still open, isn't it?'
'Yeah. OK. If you really want to,' said Kate, wondering if there was some kind of opposite for the saying 'Every cloud has a silver lining.'
In Bowen's Jimmy, driving toward 'A' dock and the restaurant, she managed to buoy herself up with the thought that she might be able to deflect him -- put him off the whole idea of coming along. Perhaps she could paint a picture of a transatlantic crossing that was a wave or two higher than Gericault's great masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa. A few well-chosen images over lunch that might scare the landlubbing shit out of him. By the time they reached Burt & Jack's, Kate was on an even keel again and paid little or no attention to a news report on the radio about an air traffic controllers' strike. Even if she had listened more carefully she would have had no reason to think the strike would last more than a couple of days; nor to suppose that it would have implications for the March voyage of SYT's semi-submersible vessel, the Grand Duke. There was only one thing on her mind now and it was that she somehow had to put Kent Bowen off a transatlantic voyage without jeopardizing his backing for the whole operation. Entering the restaurant she got ready to tell her boss a story that would make the storm in The Caine Mutiny look like another Pleasant Valley Sunday.
Chapter TWELVE
Inspired by Jimmy Figaro's purchase of a sculpture for his office, Tony Nudelli bought a bronze for his pool-
