i was no answer, (tied his phone. Got a leave-a-message recording, frowned. Maybe he was taking a nap, had the and his phone turned off? Wasn’t supposed to , but everybody did. ^called Security. , ma’am?”
Santos in his cabin?” ma’am.”
waited a couple of heartbeats. “All right. Do you bwhere he is?”
, ma’am.”
5 waited a few seconds, shook her head at the literal- ess of the security officer. “Would you mind tell- t where? And if you say, ‘No, ma’am,’ I guarantee i be looking for a new job in about thirty seconds.” , ma’am. He took a chopper to the Mainland about 1 ago. He’s probably in Florida by now.” she really frowned. What? She hadn’t told him he (leave the ship! What the hell was he doing? by the hell was his com turned off? nything else, ma’am?”
s. Get me the pilot of the helicopter-call me when “ve him.”
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She shut off the intercom. This was unacceptable. Unacceptable! Who did he think he was?
She threw the towel on die floor and headed for her cabin. She would find out exactly where Santos had gone, and he had better, by God, have a very good goddamned reason for going there!
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Santos drove his rental car to the area called Sunrise, to the Saw Grass Mills Mall. It was a huge place, full of outlet stores, acres of parking, most of it occupied. There was a very ugly construction near an entrance, some kind of modern art perhaps, that looked like a giant unfinished house frame, colored the same shade as a pink flamingo.
These North Americans were nothing if not gaudy, especially in Florida.
He glanced at his watch. He was forty-five minutes early, and that was good. He wanted to be here in plenty of time to set things up.
He wore tan linen slacks, alligator leather shoes with rubber soles, and a pale blue sport shirt, and while it was winter, it was certainly warm enough so that he did not need a jacket. He did, however, wear a long and loose tan suede leather vest, under which he had concealed a .45 Colt Commander in a waistband holster over his right hip. The weapon was small enough to hide under a vest, but fairly potent. A hit from just one of the bullets would make any attacker pause and think seriously about stopping what he’d had in mind before he was shot. And while guns were not his joy, he knew well enough how to use one. And hi this case, he would be a fool not to have a gun, for there was enough money involved to be tempting to many people.
He found a spot more or less in the shade of a building and pulled into the slot. When he came back, it would be
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and roundabout method, to assure that he was
ng was going to be in the middle of the mall, moving past left and right, in plain view, so the , of either side trying to steal from the other were Not completely impossible, a robbery, but he it unlikely.
was a fair amount of cash. Hardly a fortune, to buy outright, say, a new and fairly well- bile. The cash he had in a cheap black nylon on the seat next to him, in nonsequential twenty- y-dollar bills. Amazing how much room it took. ; he was supposed to buy with those thousands of was a hundred coins, Maple Leafs, almost pure |And the reason he was meeting the seller in a mall the price of those coins was three-quarters : value.
i meant, of course, that the deal was in some way Probably the coins were stolen, but there were i they could not be sold to a legitimate dealer: perhaps-one spouse trying to avoid splitting Or maybe someone’s grandfather passed f and they were avoiding the inheritance penalty. Or dy who did not wish to pay income tax on
ever. The reason did not matter to him, only the , If the coins were good, where they came from was it. They would join his others in the bank ; and eventually wind up back home. There were no
i on coins.
too good a deal to pass up, but because of that, was cautious. Thus he had brought the gun. He be alert before, during, and especially after the “. The gun was cocked and locked, and it would >:work of half, maybe three-quarters of a second to f the pistol out and firing.
‘. deal was some kind of sting, the seller would find too, had a stinger.
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The place was huge. He saw signs for a Banana Republic, a Hard Rock Cafe, cinemas, Disney, Neiman Marcus, Calvin Klein, dozens and dozens of others. Such choices they had in the States.
The mall was too cool, and the air itself smelled stale. These norte americanos did not know how to live with warmth. They hid from it, kept it at bay with air conditioners that cranked up when die temperature wasn’t even hot enough to melt an ice cube on the sidewalk.
He found the arranged spot in the mall, a place with skylights, benches, and potted tropical trees: thirty-foot- tall palms, small banana trees, like that. The floor looked to be wood, or some clever fake. He passed the place, strolled down the mall, looking for somebody who might be paying too much attention to that area.
A loop in both directions came up clear. There were a lot of people milling about, in and out of the stores, and it was noisy. Parents put children on little choochoo trains, couples strolled along hand in hand, old people exercised in pairs, moving quickly in their thick-soled walking shoes. He saw nobody who seemed to be watching the appointed rendezvous. He did see a couple of uniformed security guards on patrol, and that was good.
He found a small shop selling sporting gear from where he could watch the meeting place, and he stood there and pretended to look at fishing reels.
A few minutes later, his coin seller arrived.
The man was fifty, overweight, red-faced, wearing a Hawaiian shirt with blue blossoms against a black background, yellow Bermuda shorts, and leather sandals. He had a cell phone clipped to his belt He carried a briefcase. A hundred ounces of gold-that was only 2.8 kilograms, 6.25 pounds, not very heavy. The man looked around nervously, wiped his face with a handkerchief, then sat on one of the benches. He put the briefcase on his lap, both hands gripping it tightly, and looked from side to side, searching for Santos.
Santos hoped the security guards didn’t come back. The
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i entirely too nervous. He looked guilty just sitting
could be deceiving, of course, but this f yellow shorts did not look dangerous. He looked .and exhibited none of the coolness Santos would a professional thief. Amateurs were bad- deal with pros-but this Yellow Shorts here be no more than he appeared, scanned for backup. It took all of ten seconds I spotted a woman about the man’s age, fifty feet to be window-shopping as she held a to one ear, but obviously watching Yellow wore a sundress and straw hat, and carried a handbag.
maybe? But-no. On reflection, they had a ;> sameness about them.
he decided.
lid bet that Yellow Shorts had his cell phone so that the woman could listen to the convers Amateurs, to be sure.
could have a gun in that bag, just as Yellow l could have one in the briefcase, but Santos did not .The coins, he decided, might be theirs, but they the money, and for some reason could not get it dealer. A dead relative, or one gone senile, pos-
not intend to let his guard down, but he was
than before.
[waited until a couple of minutes before they were then strolled out into the mallway and toward Shorts. Mayberry?”
Shorts looked at him as if Santos were a wild i escaped from the zoo. He thought for a minute the
t jump up and run away. Mr. uh, uh, Ouro?” i your service.” a’re … black.”
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“I am? Oh, dear.”
Mayberry gave him a tepid smile.
“Let me sit next to you,” Santos said. “I will show you mine, and you show me yours.” ‘
He sat, opened the top of the backpack, pretended to be searching for something within, and held it so that the man could see the bills. ;
In response, Mayberry opened the lid of the briefcase and showed him the coins.
No gun.
The Maple Leafs were in pockets of clear plastic sheets, ten to a sheet in two rows of five, stacked ten deep. Santos could tell at a glance they were real. Faking such things was possible, but these were not fakes. To be sure, he said, “May I?”