gone.'
I had to smile. The one thing Frank de Sabatino was good at was hiding money.
'C'mon, Nicky Two, let's do it!' He had his arms wide open and was looking at me like a child who'd done wrong.
I gave him the time he needed with the laptop and wrote down the account number for him to transfer my share to.
Fuck it, Kelly was going to need money for school and stuff, and I wanted a payback for working against these people for so many years. It felt good and anyway it was just business.
He finished. There was a serious, down-to-work look on his face.
'Where are you going now?' he asked.
'I'm not going to tell you; you know the score. People I've been in contact with are now dead, and I don't want that to happen to you.' 'Bullshit!' He looked at Kelly and shrugged his shoulders.
'You just don't want me to know in case I go blurting off to somebody.'
'That's not the case,' I said, though in fact it was.
'If you did that, or didn't send the money, you know what I'd do.'
He raised an eyebrow.
I looked at him and smiled.
'I'd make sure the right people know where you are.'
The color drained from his face for a while, then back came the watermelon. He shook his head.
'I may have been out of the loop for a while, but I see nothing has changed.'
The telephone rang. A blue Nissan was waiting outside the lobby. Big Al signed for it and gave me a copy of the agreement for when I dropped it off. Kelly and I got in; Big Al stayed on the sidewalk with his briefcase. I pressed the switch to open the windows.
'Listen, Frankie, I'll e-mail you to let you know where the car's been dropped off, OK?'
He nodded. It was sinking in that he was about to lose us.
'Do you want a lift anywhere?'
'No, I've got work to do. By the morning we could be seriously rich.'
We shook hands through the open window. Al smiled at Kelly and said, 'Make sure you come and visit Uncle Al in about ten years' time, little lady. I'll buy the ice cream!'
We set off slowly down the strip. It was still packed. There was so much neon the street lighting was superfluous.
Kelly was in the back, staring out the window, then gazing into space, lost in her own little world. I didn't tell her that ahead of us lay a seven-hundred-mile drive.
Soon Daytona Beach was behind us and we were back on the long, open road. As I drove, I mulled over Kev's words again: You won't believe the stuff I've got here. Your friends over the water are busy! And he'd also said: I've just got the ball rolling on something, but I'd be interested to know what you think. Did that mean he'd spoken to his boss? Had his boss then got him zapped? But there was no way Kev would have been talking to anyone in the DEA if he suspected corruption. So who the fuck did he call?
I now had some valuable material from the PIRA office, a lot of which I didn't understand, but maybe Kev had had more. The more information I got hold of, the better it was going to be for me when I got it to Simmonds, and that was why we were going back to Washington, D.C.
Once on the interstate I put the car into cruise control and my mind into neutral.
We drove through the night, stopping only to refuel. I bought cans of Coke to keep the caffeine levels up as we drove and in case Kelly woke up.
At first light I could begin to make out changes in the terrain, proof that we were moving north into a more temperate climate. Then the sun came up, a big burning ball to my right, and my eyes started to sting.
We stopped at another gas station. This time Kelly stirred.
'Where are we?' she yawned.
'I don't know.'
'Well, where are we going?'
'It's a surprise.'
'Were you really married?' she asked.
'It seems so long ago I can hardly remember.'
I looked in the mirror. She'd slumped back down, too tired to pursue it.
I wanted to have one last look at Kev's place to see what he had, and I wanted to do it at last light tonight. I knew there'd be a secure area somewhere in the house--exactly where, we'd have to find out. Then I wanted to be out of the D.C. area again before first light. Big Al didn't know it yet, but he was going to get his ass into gear and help us get out of the US. If he didn't do it voluntarily, I'd be giving him a jump-start.
By midmorning Kelly was wide awake, reading a comic book I'd gotten her at the last stop. She was lying in the back, shoes off, totally absorbed. We hadn't talked. We were in a world of empty candy wrappers, Styrofoam coffee cups, potato chip bags, and cans of Coke with bits of chip floating in them.
'Kelly?'
'Mm?'
'You know in your house, Daddy had the hidey-holes for you and Aida?'
'Uh-huh.'
'Well, do you know if Daddy had any hidey-holes for important things like money, or where Mommy would keep her rings? Did he have a special place where they'd put stuff?'
'Sure.'
Busying myself with the cruise control, I said, 'Oh, and where is that then?'
'In his study.'
Which made sense. But that was the room that had been torn apart already.
'Where is it exactly?'
'In the wall.'
'Whereabouts?'
'In the wall! I just saw Daddy doing it once. We're not allowed in there, but the door was open and we'd just come in from school and we saw Daddy putting something in there.
We were standing right by the door and he didn't know.'
'Is it behind the picture?' I asked, though there was no way he'd be that obvious.
'No, it's behind the wood.'
'The wood?'
'Yeah.'
'Would you be able to show me?'
'Is that where we're going?' She suddenly sat bolt upright.
'I want Jenny and Ricky!'
'We can't see them when we get there because they'll be busy.'
She looked at me as if I was nuts.
'They're my teddies, I told you! They're in my bedroom. Can I get them? They need me.'
I felt like a right dickhead.
'Of course you can. As long as you're quiet.' I knew there was more to come.
'Can I tell Melissa I'm sorry I missed the sleepover?'
'We won't have time' She sat back in her seat, brooding.
'But you're going to phone her mother?'
I nodded.
I started to see signs for Washington, D.C. We'd been on the road for nearly eighteen hours. My eyes were smarting worse than ever, despite the air conditioner being on full blast. We'd get there in two hours, but we'd still have most of the afternoon to kill before last light. I pulled in at a rest area and tried to sleep. It could be a busy night.
It was about six in the evening as we approached the Lorton exit. For once it wasn't raining, just overcast. Only about forty-five minutes to go.
