‘It would be better to leave amicably.’
‘Of course. What about your family?’
‘I’ve a house to sell in Scarsdale. And children to move from school. No problem.’
‘New York is always thought to be the place where the power lies in our organisation,’ Terrilli reminded him. ‘Why do you want out?’
Chambine smiled, happy with the relationship which appeared to be developing between them.
‘Because I’m not convinced that the tradition will last for ever,’ he said.
Terrilli nodded at the flattery. ‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘What will you do after the robbery?’
‘Finish my vacation,’ said Chambine. ‘To leave immediately afterwards might create suspicion.’
‘Tell me something,’ said Terrilli, believing he had softened the other man sufficiently to talk of loyalty. ‘What would you say if, having joined me officially, someone from another part of the organisation invited you to do the sort of thing you’re doing for me now?’
‘Refuse,’ said Chambine, immediately aware of the assurance that the older man wanted. He hesitated, knowing Terrilli required more and assembling the words to satisfy him.
‘I didn’t set this up for the $100,000,’ he said, talking quietly and looking directly at Terrilli. ‘I did it because I knew it to be a test of my ability. I’m not interested in freelancing. I’m interested in joining you.’
‘Do you regard yourself as ambitious then?’
‘Properly so,’ said Chambine cautiously. ‘You’d never have any cause to doubt my support, Mr Terrilli.’
‘I’m glad of the guarantee,’ said the other man. ‘There had better be no contact between us after the handover; the investigation around the hotel will be intense and I don’t want any connection.’
‘I understand.’
‘I’ll be in New York in three weeks. We’ll meet then and finalise the arrangements.’
‘I’ll look forward to it. Should I wait until your visit before making any positive plans?’
‘Yes,’ said Terrilli. ‘It’s proper that I should be the person to tell your people… you could always put your house on the market, of course.’
Terrilli rose and put out his hand. Chambine stood and took it.
‘Until Thursday night,’ said Terrilli.
‘There’ll be no problems.’
‘I know.’
Terrilli, unaware that he had been under surveillance from the moment he left his castle home at Palm Beach, to the extent of his helicopter being followed by radar from Palm Beach Airport to Orlando, was careful about his departure from the hotel, pausing several times to check for anyone who might be watching. Knowing he would have been conspicuous in his normal conservative suit in a vacation resort, he had dressed in sports jacket, slacks and loafers and merged unobtrusively with the people who boarded the monorail to take him back to the Disneyworld exit. The giggling teenage girls who sat two seats away, fooling with their Mickey Mouse caps, were both Pendlebury’s watchers.
Temporarily bereft of the constant attention of his aides, Terrilli felt vaguely uncomfortable boarding the open-sided tramway that toured the car parks. He made a note of his parking place on the back of his entry voucher receipt, conscious of how easy it would be to get lost.
The driver had kept the air conditioning running, and now Terrilli climbed gratefully into the cool Rolls that had been driven up in advance to ferry him between Orlando Airport and Disneyworld. It was mid-afternoon and the traffic was moderate, so it did not take them long to drive through the landscaped parks and rejoin Interstate 4. Within an hour, Terrilli was at the private section of Orlando Airport, boarding his helicopter.
He had convened his weekly meeting with Santano and Patridge for five o’clock, and arrived back fifteen minutes early, giving him the opportunity to change from his sports clothes, in which he had become positively uncomfortable, back into a business suit.
The lieutenant and the accountant were on time, as was customary. Terrilli sat at his ocean-view desk and the other men took their usual seats. Patridge fussily fitted his glasses into place, took his accounts from his briefcase and after handing duplicate copies to Terrilli and Santano carefully began taking them through the figures. ‘Three interceptions?’ cut in Terrilli. ‘It was a bad week,’ said Santano.
‘It’s too many,’ insisted Terrilli, not accepting casual dismissal.
Santano shifted uneasily and Patridge remained gazing down at his figures.
‘The boat captains were new,’ Santano attempted to explain. ‘They bunched up, which they’d been told not to do, and didn’t allow sufficient time for the lead boat to make the chicken run.’
‘It’s too many,’ repeated Terrilli, his voice disarmingly soft and conversational. ‘If the captains are inexperienced, we don’t employ them. This puts us down…’ He paused, going back to the papers before him ‘… something like $8,000,000.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Santano.
‘So am I sorry,’ said Terrilli. ‘I’m sorry and other people are going to be sorry and everyone is going to ask why it happened. Maybe even spread the sorrow.’
‘Perhaps I should go down to Colombia, to tighten up the recruitment of ships?’ suggested Santano.
‘If the alternative is to lose $8,000,000 a week, then I think you should,’ said Terrilli.
‘Four vessels did get through,’ said Patridge, trying to smooth the awkwardness. ‘That’s $9,500,000 on what they were carrying.’
Terrilli turned to him, his voice remaining hard.
‘Are you satisfied with just 55 per cent profit?’ he demanded. ‘I’m certainly not.’
‘It’s the first time it’s happened,’ said Santano.
‘It should never have happened at all!’ shouted Terrilli unexpectedly, and both men jumped, startled by the change in the older man’s voice. ‘One ship, we budget for. Two is an occasional but still acceptable risk. Three is ridiculous. There’ll be a demand for explanations… and they’ll want better answers than the problem of employing inexperienced people…’
‘I could go down to Colombia first thing tomorrow,’ offered Santano.
Terrilli’s pause was almost unnoticeable. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I want you here for Thursday. Call the airport and have them put an aircraft on standby for you on Friday morning.’
Terrilli wondered what Santano’s reaction would be to learning that he had put a personal matter above the interests of the organisation. The man looked curiously across the desk at him but said nothing.
Terrilli nodded for Patridge to continue and the man went back to his papers. The accountant had received the estimated crop yield from Colombia’s La Guajira peninsula and from it he predicted a 30 per cent increase over the previous year’s profits. It provided the opportunity for Terrilli to remark that profitability depended upon lack of interception, but he held back from the sarcasm, knowing that Santano was curious at being delayed until Friday and unwilling to alienate the man further than he had already done.
When Patridge had finished, Terrilli turned to Santano and said, ‘Anything?’
The lieutenant shook his head.
‘Thank you both,’ said Terrilli shortly. There were times when he invited them to stay on for a drink and even occasionally for dinner, but from his demeanour it was obvious to both of them that this was not going to be such a night. They were at the door when Terrilli called out.
‘I want to talk to you alone, Tony.’
The man came back into the room and the accountant lingered uncertainly near the door.
‘It’ll take a while,’ said Terrilli.
‘I’ll say goodnight then,’ said Patridge, going out and closing the door carefully behind him.
‘I’m sorry about the interceptions,’ began Santano immediately, imagining that that was the reason for his being held back.
‘It mustn’t happen again,’ said Terrilli, not wanting to talk at once about the robbery.
‘I’ll get positive guarantees about employment in Colombia,’ promised Santano eagerly. ‘We’ve had a good run lately and obviously our people there are getting careless…’