‘OK, you gotta deal. Half your share and no more human tragedies.’
‘We stick to shooting only in self-defense.’
‘Right,’ sighed Al. ‘But don’t go soft on me, Dave. Remember, I’m supposed to be the one with the conscience. Not you. I’m the Catholic round here. You. You’re an atheist. You don’t believe in shit.’
Al tripped and fell upon the explanation for the lack of any resistance they met on the Baby Doc almost as soon as they had set foot inside the smelly lounge. The boat’s shabby interior was littered with empty vodka bottles and on top of the dining table was what looked to have been a serious game of Monopoly — not least because it had been played with real money. There were loose piles of dollars all over the place and in Dave’s eyes it was easy to see what must have happened.
First a hell of a lot of drinking; although few, if any, of the three crews were actually Russian, it was as if the idea of Russianness had exercised such a powerful effect on the crewmen that they had felt an obligation to live up to the hard-drinking reputation enjoyed by their employers; second, the idea of playing the ultimate game of Monopoly, with some of the real cash that was being smuggled to Russia; and third, a lot more hard drinking. One of the crewmen lay insensible on the lounge sofa, and another had passed out on the floor of one of the heads. A third they found dead drunk in the wheelhouse, curled up like a baby in the cockpit chair. The rest of the three crews were sleeping it off in the Baby Doc’s staterooms. Most of them so drunk that even after Dave and Al had tied them up with plastic ties, they stayed asleep, or unconscious.
‘Will you look at these drunken bastards?’ laughed Al, when he had tied up the last man in his stateroom. ‘Be a while before they even know we’ve been and gone. Jesus, that’s some fuckin’ Monopoly game they got upstairs. Must be a couple of hundred thousand dollars on that game board.’ He stood up, checked the knot, then kicked the man in the small of the back. The man grunted and rolled quietly away. ‘How many’s that?’
Dave was checking the three crews off against the ship’s own list of supernumeraries. He nodded and said, ‘That’s all of them.’
‘Bet you wish you hadn’t made that deal now,’ Al said harshly. ‘This was a piece of sponge cake.’ He picked up a half-empty bottle of vodka, unscrewed the top and took a short pull from the neck. ‘Wasn’t it?’
Dave said nothing, and it was then Al noticed the clasp knife in the younger man’s hand. Al’s gun lay on the coffee table, several feet away. He swallowed nervously, because of the deal he had made and the ease with which their objective had apparently been achieved. Maybe he had pushed him too far. He held out the bottle for Dave to drink.
‘Want some?’
Dave thought he probably needed a drink. Since killing the two in bed his stomach had felt like he’d eaten something disagreeable. Maybe some vodka would fix it. He took the bottle, gulped a mouthful, and handed the bottle back. Then, rolling the man he had tied roughly off the bed, he turned the mattress on top of him and plunged the knife deep into the seam of the divan underneath. He tore away the cover to reveal a six-foot square of something faintly green under a thick polythene sheet. The knife flashed again and the two men stared down at an enormous pallet of cash wrapped in smaller, pillow-sized bundles.
‘Didn’t I tell you?’ grinned Dave.
‘You were right.’
‘Didn’t I fucking tell you?’
‘How much do you reckon is there?’
Dave picked up one of the bundles, slit the edge of the polythene with his knife and thumbed through a corner of used notes.
‘Hard to say exactly. It’s mixed bills. Hundreds, fifties and twenties. Nothing smaller. I don’t know. Maybe a couple of million?’
‘There’re five staterooms on this boat,’ breathed Al. ‘Do you know how much that is?’
‘Five times two? I’m sure you can work it out if you try, Al.’
But the sight of so much cash had made Al impervious to Dave’s sarcasm, and instead of cursing him he said, ‘That deal we made? Forget it.’ The last thing Al wanted now was to have Dave mad at him. Being mad at him might make Dave a little harder to kill when the time came. ‘You keep your share. You’ve earned it.’
‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Dave repeated. Now there was a note of triumph in his voice.
Al said, ‘I’ll get the bags. You find the rest of the money.’
A few minutes later, Al came back carrying a flat-packed bulk-purchase of Nike sports bags bent across each shoulder. Dave had already ripped apart the four other divans as well as the three-piece leather suite in the Baby Doc’s lounge.
Laughing like a crazy man, Al stuffed one of the heavy-duty nylon bags with parcels of cash. Then another. ‘Will you look at all this dough?’
Dave zipped up two bags full, hooked a strap over each shoulder and stood up. Being rich couldn’t have looked or felt more unwieldy. He was glad of the gloves and the flak-jacket, for the bags weighed close to fifty pounds apiece.
Al was already staggering upstairs, puffing under the weight of the two bags he was carrying. He said, ‘Jesus, this is like going to the airport with Madonna and the kids.’
‘Now you know what people mean when they talk about the burden of wealth.’
‘I sure hope I live to spend it. All this exertion, my heart’s beating like Thumper’s foot.’
‘Make up your mind to be an unfit rich motherfucker, instead of one of those healthy-looking kids always asking for change.’
‘I can deal with that.’
Breathing hard, both men came up on deck and dumped the bags gratefully.
Al said, ‘Oh man, this is hard work.’
‘Got a problem with that?’
‘Shit, yeah. I got my modus vivendi down man. I didn’t ever figure to be no fuckin’ hotel porter.’
‘Kinda tired myself,’ admitted Dave.
‘Time is it?’
‘There’s two more boatloads of money to think about. You’ve got a lot more bags to carry upstairs before your ass can sit down in the front lobby.’
‘I know that. I was just askin’ the time. I thought you might be pleased to help me out, you being the proud owner of the Rolls fucking Royce of watches.’
‘Be dawn soon.’
‘Do I look like a fuckin’ vampire? If I want that kind of shit I’ll wait for a cock to crow. Numbers. That’s what I like to hear. Tick fucking tock. On account of my citified ass and urbane fucking ways.’
‘What are you, Stephen Hawking or something? It’s nearly 3 a.m. What difference does it make? I’ll tell you if we’re behind schedule. First thing I do when I get back to Miami, I’m going to buy you a watch, Al. That way you’ll know when it’s time to shut your mouth. Now let’s move before some of these supernumos on their boats start to get curious about what’s happening. I’ve killed enough people for one evening.’
‘That shit still bothering you?’
‘Oddly enough, yes, it is.’
‘Chill out. Like I said before, it was you or them. An accident.’
‘That doesn’t sound like an accident.’
‘Sure it does. An unforeseen contingency. That’s all that happened. You want to find your cloudy ass a silver lining damn quick, pal. I don’t want you goin’ Leonard Cohen on me. Lift your eyes to the good news with which your situation is replete. First, that you are now one rich motherfucker. And second, it could have been them Feds you greased. The real ones. Think how lower than snake-shit you’d be feeling now if it was that Fed bitch you’d terminated instead of the other one.’
Chapter Twenty-two