“Where’s the fuckin’ bride?” Rudy said, and Andrew laughed as they got into the car.
“You brought some good weather with you,” the driver said.
“Been raining or what?” Rudy asked.
“No, just a little chilly. Lots of wind, too.”
“It’s freezing cold up north,” Andrew said.
“That’s why I moved down here,” the driver said.
“How chilly?” Rudy asked.
“Fifties during the day. Upper thirties, low forties at night.”
So why the fuck’d you move here? Rudy wondered, but said nothing.
It took them some fifteen minutes to get to the Hyatt, where they registered respectively as Andrew and Rudy Farrell, and another ten minutes to get settled in their rooms. Andrew was already on the phone when Rudy came in through the connecting door.
“... where we can talk privately,” Andrew was saying. “Without any interruptions.” He listened, said, “Um-huh,” listened again, looked at his watch, said, “Fine, three o’clock, we’ll be there,” and hung up.
“Where?” Rudy said.
“They’re sending a boat to the dock out back.”
“What is it with these fuckin’ spies and their boats?” Rudy said, shaking his head. “I don’t like boats. A boat, they can throw you to the fuckin’ sharks,” nobody’ll ever know it.”
“I think we’ll be okay,” Andrew said. “They were going to pull anything, they wouldn’t have asked for the sitdown to begin with.”
“I don’t trust spies as far as I can throw them,” Rudy said. “They know we done Moreno, now they want to meet us on a fuckin’ boat. What for? So they can do us?”
“These are different guys, Uncle Rudy. They’re as happy as we are that Moreno’s dead.”
“Still,” Rudy said. “Years ago, you got on a plane, you carried a piece in your luggage. Nowadays, these fuckin’ terrorists, you got to go places naked.”
Andrew looked at his watch again.
“Five minutes from now, you won’t be so naked,” he said.
At two thirty sharp, the telephone rang. Andrew picked up.
“Mr. Farrell?” the voice asked.
“Yeah?”
“Got a package for you. Okay to come up?”
“What’s your name?”
“Wilson.”
“Come on up, Wilson,” Andrew said, and hung up. “The guns,” he said to his uncle.
“About fuckin’ time,” Rudy said.
Wilson was a black man in his late thirties, carrying an attaché case with two Smith & Wesson .38-caliber pistols in it. He did not touch the guns, allowing Rudy and Andrew to remove them from the case themselves. Andrew figured he didn’t want his prints on the pieces, just in case these dudes here were in Sarasota to dust somebody. When Andrew asked him how much they owed him, he said it had been taken care of already. Andrew wondered whether he expected a tip, but the man seemed to bear himself with such dignity and authority that he decided against it.
“Happy hunting,” Wilson said, and walked out.
As promised, the tender from the boat came in at three o’clock sharp. The name of the boat was lettered in gold on the tender’s transom: KATIENA. The same gold lettering marched across the big boat’s transom, KATIENA, and beneath that her home port, FT. LAUDERDALE, FL. Rudy had told Andrew that nobody met on the east coast of Florida anymore. Too much dope shit in Miami, too much local, state, and federal heat all up and down the coast. Sarasota, Fort Meyers, even Naples were quiet little communities convenient to the Colombians and the New Yorkers as well. A person could sit down for a quiet chat in any one of those towns without anybody breaking down the door. Nonetheless, Rudy and Andrew had the thirty-eights tucked into their waistbands.
The man who greeted them as they climbed the ladder aboard was the ugliest person Andrew had ever seen in his life, his face a convoluted tangle of scars and welts that looked as if it might have been scarred by fire. He shook hands with both of them, and said in accented English, “I am Luis Hidalgo, I’m happy to see you.” Apparently he’d already scoped them as they’d climbed the ladder. “You have no need for the weapons,” he said. “Unless they make you feel more comfortable.”
“They make us feel more comfortable,” Rudy said.
“As suits you,” Hidalgo said, and smiled thinly. “Something to drink?”
“Not for me,” Rudy said.
“Thank you, no,” Andrew said.
“Then come above, and we’ll talk.”
The boat was a huge fishing boat. They climbed up to the flying bridge and sat in the sunshine. Hidalgo was wearing chinos, black low-topped sneakers, and a black T-shirt. A gold chain with a thick crucifix on it hung from his neck and lay against the black shirt. Andrew and Rudy were both wearing lightweight gray slacks and navy-blue blazers, white shirts open at the throat.
“There’s lemonade in the pitcher,” Hidalgo said. “If you get thirsty.”
“Thanks,” Rudy said, and poured himself a glass.
“So,” Hidalgo said, “it’s interesting what happened to Moreno, no?”
“A terrible fuckin’ shame,” Rudy said, and took a swallow of the lemonade.
“May he rest in peace,” Hidalgo said, and smiled. When he smiled he looked even uglier. “But he leaves a tremendous vacuum, eh? Because he trained no one to take his place, do you see? For all intents and purposes, the organization is now finished, eh? Se acabo.”
“Which is why we’re here,” Andrew said.
“Sí, desde luego,” Hidalgo said. “But are you speaking to anyone else?”
“Just you,” Rudy said.
“Good. Because the others may try to achieve supremacy, you see, may even claim supremacy, but there is really no one else who can fill the vacuum just now. I’m the one you must deal with. If you wish Colombian cocaine, that is.”
Andrew said nothing.
Rudy sipped at his lemonade.
“You came to the right person, señores,” Hidalgo said, and smiled again.
Rudy was thinking he had a face could stop a fuckin’ clock.
“You understand the plan we have in mind, huh?” he said.
“It was explained to me, yes,” Hidalgo said.
Willie Isetti had flown from the Caribbean to Bogotá to discuss the preliminaries with one of Hidalgo’s people. He had reported back to New York, that the climate appeared, favorable for a deal, his exact words. They were here to deal now. Hidalgo knew they had taken out Moreno in his own bed. His own fucking bed! They hoped this was impressive to him. They were certainly impressed by it.
Cutting to the chase, Rudy said, “We offered Moreno forty percent of the gross. Instead of a third all, the way around. This reduced us and the Chinks by something like three and a third points each, which by the way we were both willing to go along with.
“Still are,” Andrew said.
“... because we recognize the existing market,” Rudy said, nodding. “What’s right is right.”
Hidalgo nodded, too.
“Moreno wanted sixty,” Andrew said. “Which may be why someone in his own organization had him eliminated.”
“Mm, his own organization,” Hidalgo said drily.
“Because they knew he was being fuckin’ ridiculous,” Rudy said.
“Ridiculo, sí,” Hidalgo agreed, nodding. “But still, forty, you know,” opening his hands wide, lifting his shoulders in a shrug, “seems low, when one considers the existing market. As opposed to a market we merely hope to establish.”