middleman, a wholesaler. Some Colombian cowboys would get the shit to the Bahamas, he’d buy it there, arrange to get it here by boat, plane… who knows… pussies.”
“You think Lee Hu was a mule?”
“Maybe. Though I doubt if she’d stuff it up her chute after what happened to her roomie.”
“I doubt much would fit,” Lassiter said.
“Really?”
“From outward appearances.”
“Careful, Counselor, you could be a suspect if you’re bird-dogging his chippy.”
“That’s great. One cop accuses me of stealing a million bucks from my favorite client, now you think I killed an old friend. You want to talk about anything else?”
“No. I just wanna know what this slimeball friend of yours was doin’ in your office.”
“Get a court order.”
“You protecting somebody? ‘Cause if you are — “
“Don’t threaten me. Don’t even talk to me.”
Lassiter turned and splashed back through the swamp. When he got back to the road, he saw Biscayne Bay on the other side of the clumps of palms. A small wading beach emerged from the dark of the swamp into the bright sunlight that ricocheted off the wide expanse of flat bay. A dozen white egrets flew low overhead, scouting the shallow water, on the lookout for dinner. The breeze that couldn’t find its way into the mangroves formed small whitecaps on the clean, open bay.
To the east he could see Key Biscayne and to the north, where the shoreline curved, his high-rise office building dominated the horizon. He walked into the water, leather shoes sinking into the sand, scattering crabs no larger than a toenail. He dropped to his knees, his gray suit pants soaking up the bay. Then he dunked his head and held his breath, held it as long as he could, letting the water cleanse him. When he came up, Jake Lassiter ran his hands through his sandy hair, wringing it out, and he rubbed his eyes, the saltwater from the bay mixing with his tears.
CHAPTER 17
Harry Marlin thought he’d feel like a millionaire by now, but he didn’t. He was just a guy with a problem, a guy trying to cash his chips and he couldn’t find the window and here was Violet yammering at him.
“We gotta get them kew-pons to the Bahamas,” Violet Belfrey was saying. She had said it so many times Harry Marlin was getting a migraine. Christ, this dame gets something in her head, she don’t let go.
“I heard Jake Lassiter talking on the beach the other day,” she said. “There’s a big bank there, Great Bahama Bank.”
“I heard of it,” Harry allowed.
“That’s where they’re paying off the whatchacallits, the water surfers.”
“Makes sense,” Harry agreed.
“And that first day in the theater with the cops and the old, man, I was listening real good, and Lassiter says he’s worried about the coupons ending up at banks in the Bahamas. It’s what the dopers do with their cash. They wash it.”
“Launder it,” Harry corrected her.
“Launder, dry-clean, whatever. So I put two ‘n two together, we gotta get ‘em to the Bahamas, to the Great Bahama Bank.”
The Bahamas, the Bahamas, the Bahamas — she was still going. “Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll take ‘em to the friggin’ Bahamas.”
Violet Belfrey dropped Harry Marlin off at the airport, praying he wouldn’t fuck it up. It had to be Harry, what other choice did she have? She couldn’t leave town with the cops poking around, so she watched Harry disappear into the crowd, whistling off-key as he carried a heavy canvas tote bag to the Bahamasair gate.
“Stay away from the damn casino,” Violet had warned him, remembering how quickly an eagle had flown the coop in Nassau.
“Not to worry, Vi. The slots are for housewives, and roulette’s for suckers. Shooting craps, though, I can get hot.”
“Har-ry Marlin!”
“Okay, okay.” They’d hit a classy casino someday just for the hell of it, Harry thought, maybe Vegas, catch Wayne Newton or, hey, Monte Carlo, wear a tux like James Bond, play one of those fancy card games. Harry couldn’t wrap his brain around the names chemin de fer or trente-et-quarante, so he imagined himself rolling the dice, placing thousand-dollar bets, wondering if they played chuck-a-luck in Monte Carlo or Biarritz. He was mentally raking in a pot, when he saw a commotion just ahead of him on the international concourse. It was the Bahamasair gate, and a dozen guys in blue nylon jackets came running by, one so close Harry felt the breeze. The jackets had foot-high yellow letters, police, what they wear when knocking down a door in a Liberty City crack house and they don’t want a jittery rookie blasting the shit out of his fellow lawmen. Behind the nylon jackets, three or four plainclothes guys jogged down the concourse, little walkie-talkies in their hands, sports coats flapping over their asses. No guns drawn, not yet, but something was coming down.
“What’s happening?” Harry asked a uniformed security guard who apparently had ceded his authority to the real cops.
The guard, a skinny black man with runny eyes, said, “Drug bust, what else? Bahamasair three-fourteen from Freeport. They got a tip, holding it at the gate, gonna search every passenger.”
Harry turned around just in time to have a German shepherd stick its nose in his crotch. A woman cop restrained the dog by a leather collar big enough to saddle a thoroughbred. “Whoa, Rex! Sit, boy,” she commanded.
The security guard started laughing, a hacking cough of a laugh, and spittle dribbled from the corner of his mouth. “Whatcha got in there, boy? That dog trained to sniff for co-cay-un but he wanna do a short-arm inspection on you. You creamin’ in your jeans?”
Harry’s eyes darted from the guard to the woman cop to Rin Tin Tin, who was one horny canine. “Jock itch,” Harry said. “Had to talcum my privates.”
The woman cop regarded him suspiciously, but then two more dogs and their handlers were running down the concourse, and she followed them, dragging off Harry’s admirer by a leather leash. Harry decided to get the hell out of there. Who knows, they might seal off the concourse, search everybody.
The airport’s not safe for your honest business travelers, Harry Marlin thought as he retreated to the entrance. Welcome to friggin’ Miami.
At about the same time that Harry Marlin was bemoaning the lawlessness that closed down Bahamasair, Jake Lassiter sat at his desk, mourning his friend Berto. He’d had twenty-four hours to play it back, Berto at the beach with Keaka and Lee Hu, Franklin behind the dune with the binoculars.
Again, phone messages piling up, only one in verse:
Angry skies,
A foul wind,
The banker calls.
No mistaking that one. Thad Whitney. Half a dozen pink telephone slips. Lassiter buzzed Cindy to tell her he was going over to the bank. Ordinarily she would have hustled him out of there. Not today.
“You’re not in the right frame of mind to see that twit,” she told him. But Lassiter went anyway, a black tempest of storm clouds brewing in his mind.
