didn’t force it off the road.”
Carr shakes his head, steps away from the window. “Am I supposed to make something of that? He said they shot up the van. Maybe it blew a tire. Maybe the gas tank was leaking and there was a spark. So Bertolli’s men weren’t around to see it go up-so what?”
Tina perches on an arm of the sofa and draws a knee up under her chin. She examines her toenails, which are perfectly manicured and glazed white. When she looks back at Carr, her gray eyes are as steady as ever. Her voice is vaguely amused. “A girl can’t win with you. You bitch when we don’t turn up anything, and you bitch when we do. You make what you want out of it, I’m just telling you what I’ve found.
“We’re looking at this only because you said you wouldn’t go on with the Prager gig otherwise-and it’s the only reason Boyce agreed to split the costs with you. You don’t like how we’re going about things, you don’t want to hear what we learn-that’s cool. He’s got other ways to spend his money, and I’ve got other ways to spend my time.”
Carr looks at her for a long minute, and then smiles. “And here we were getting along so well.”
She shrugs. “Honeymoons never last.”
Carr sits at the other end of the sofa and puts his beer on the floor. “Two million euro. If it didn’t burn in the van, and Bertolli’s boys didn’t pocket it themselves-”
“I seriously doubt that. Bertolli’s got them terrified.”
“Then where did it go?”
“I figured you’d have a theory.”
“Your guy didn’t see anyone else out there? No cars, no trucks?”
“I asked a few different ways; he said no. But it’s remote as hell up there, with lots of twists and turns, and fucking dark. Somebody running without lights… who knows?”
Carr reaches for his beer, and looks through the brown glass at the dregs that remain. “Two million euro-it’s not pocket change.”
“Nope,” Tina says. “Maybe you want to ask your boys if they’ve seen it lying around.”
Carr drains the bottle. The beer is warm and mostly froth, and he nearly gags getting it down. He shakes his head at Tina. “I don’t want to,” Carr says, “but I will.”
13
Bobby calls in the morning, to say that Bessemer has broken his routine.
“He’s playing tennis with Stearn today-just the two of them, no Brunt. And they’re having lunch afterward. That’s new and different for a Thursday.”
Carr’s head is like bad fruit, but he drags himself to a sitting position and tells Bobby he’ll meet him in an hour. He raises the shades and squints into the milky sky. Then he stumbles to the shower, where the blast of water hurts, and then helps.
Carr finds street parking and meets Bobby in the alley behind the Barton Golf and Racquet Club. Bobby has traded the painter’s van for a gray sedan. He has the AC on and the cold air is like a second shower. Bobby is drinking a blue slushie from a plastic cup the size of a sap bucket.
“Howie’s jumpy today. He got that way when Brunt called, and told him it was just going to be Howie and Stearn on the tennis court. Got more that way when Stearn called to invite him for lunch after.”
“Stearn makes him nervous?”
“Haven’t seen them alone together much, but I think so. He lets him win at tennis. Double-faults if he’s about to beat the guy.”
“He does the same with Brunt, and he lets those other guys beat him at golf. That’s Howie’s thing. We know what Stearn does for a living?”
“Rich and retired, like most of Howie’s friends. Denny tells me he was over in London for twenty-plus years, with an American bank-a portfolio manager or something. Got fired in a merger, and came here after that. On a couple of boards around town-the hospital, the art museum. On the board of a prep school, up north.”
“He married?”
“Wife spends the summer in Maine. Kids are grown.”
“Nothing obvious that would make Howie nervous.”
“Come on, the guy looks like some kind of zombie scarecrow. He makes me a little tense.”
Stearn wins the second set when Bessemer double-faults, and the men sling their racquet bags and walk to the clubhouse. Bobby pulls the car around and they follow Bessemer’s BMW as it follows Stearn’s Mercedes from the Barton.
Lunch isn’t far. They travel south from the Barton, then east, then south again, on South Ocean Boulevard. Carr and Bobby are a hundred yards back when the Mercedes and then the BMW pull through the black iron gates of Willis Stearn’s estate. Driving past the entrance, Carr catches a glimpse of lawns like carpet and, in the distance, a mustard-colored villa. He swears softly.
“We’ve got a mic in Howie’s racquet bag,” Bobby says, as they round the corner, “but I’m betting he leaves it in the car.”
“Which means we’re deaf and blind.”
The properties here are large, and private, and the security patrols are not lazy. The closest parking spot Bobby finds is nearly half a mile away, a dirt patch at a construction site. It’s beyond the range of the mic in Bessemer’s bag, and just at the limit of the one in his car, but in any event there’s nothing to hear besides distant traffic and the occasional growl of thunder. Bobby switches off the engine.
“The GPS will tell us when he moves,” Bobby says. He reaches for a laptop on the backseat and balances it on the console between them. Then he settles himself lower behind the wheel and runs his straw around the bottom of his empty cup.
Carr takes a deep breath. “Dennis come up with anything else on Bessemer’s friends?”
“He’s looking. Mike’s on it too, or will be when he gets back from Boca.”
Carr turns in his seat. “What the hell’s he doing down there?”
“Val needed a replacement for one of the cameras she’s gonna use in Chun’s house. Mike brought it down.”
“Why the hell didn’t she call me?”
Bobby puts up a hand and arranges his meaty face into as close as it comes to a conciliatory look. “She calls me direct sometimes. She’s done it before. It’s not a problem.”
“It’s a problem for me, Bobby. I want to know who’s doing what, and where. And if she called you, how come you didn’t go down there?”
Bobby clears his throat and suppresses a smile. “ ’Cause I’m here with you, looking at Howie.”
Carr sighs and peels his shirt from the upholstery. “Run the AC.”
Bobby does, and the two of them sit without speaking, watching some stonemasons build a long wall. They are shaping and fitting the rocks, and their hammers sound like gunshots to Carr. The air conditioner dries the sweat on his skin but does nothing for the throbbing in his temples. Tina’s words reverberate there: Bertolli was short almost two million euro. Two million euro-Declan thought there’d be more.
They were in Port of Spain, in the bar at the Hyatt Regency. Wind was shaking the windows, and the city lights were lost behind low clouds. The place was empty, and they were all a little drunk. Declan was like a red- faced witch over a cauldron.
“The bastard doesn’t trust banks or bankers,” he said. “Oh, he uses them-he’s got to with the feckin’ money he makes on all that crap he smuggles in-but he likes to keep some cash on hand. Nothing big, mind you, we’re talking three to five mil in euros-he prefers them to dollars. Keeps enough around for incidentals and traveling funds, in case he has to move in a hurry, which he’s done a few times-out of Sao Paulo, out of Ciudad del Este, out of Argentina and back again. He’s quite the jackrabbit, Senor Bertolli is.
“I had this job lined up years ago-had it all worked out-but the fat fuck skipped on me. Hightailed it out of Argentina when a new government came in, with his wife, mistresses, and various bastards in tow. Got away about a minute before the PFA knocked down his door. Took all his cash with him too. But that party’s gone now, and so
