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“Because I figured out what the dealer was doing.”

“You did?”

“He was keeping a slug of high cards out of play. My old man told me about it. It isn’t very hard, once you understand the basics. I should have done what my father said.”

“Which is?”

“If you think you’re getting cheated, leave.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I’m a dope,” he said.

His beautiful bride kissed him on the cheek. “No, you’re not.”

There was a knock on the door. Yolanda ushered in a waiter with the meal she’d ordered from room service. She was loving every minute of their honeymoon, and Gerry struggled with how to tell her that he no could longer pay for their room, or her treatments at the spa, or the lavish meals, or all the other bills they’d rung up. The phone rang and she answered it.

“Hi, Dad,” she said cheerfully.

Gerry groaned. She spoke to her own father in Spanish. Which meant it was his father, the last person on earth he wanted to talk to. He made a move for the bathroom.

“He’s right here,” Yolanda said.

“No, I’m not,” Gerry whispered. “Tell him I’m in the crapper.”

Talk to your father,” she whispered back, handing him the phone.

Gerry held the receiver in his outstretched hand. He could already hear his old man yelling at him, and he hadn’t even told him what he’d done. He stared at his wife’s protruding belly. Was he really ready to be a parent?

“Hi,” he said.

There was a time in every man’s life when he had to admit his mistakes, and Gerry realized now was that time, even if it meant his father might explode and Yolanda might kill him. But before the words could come out of his mouth, his father stopped him dead in his tracks.

“I don’t know how to ask you this,” his father said.

“What’s that?”

There was a brief silence. Then his old man let him have it.

“I need your help,” he said.

15

Rico knew something was wrong the moment he laid eyes on Candy Hart.

It was lunchtime, and they were sitting in the Delano’s patio restaurant. The tables were filled with pasty-skinned young women and their coke-sniffing boyfriends, the waiters balancing monster trays as they darted between tables. Candy had called him an hour ago. Nigel had gone to play eighteen holes on the Blue Monster, and she wanted to talk.

It was the clothes, Rico realized. She was wearing a yellow sundress that made her look like a Sunday school teacher. That was okay—she couldn’t be a hooker twenty-four/seven—but her hair was different, and she wore less makeup. No more bedroom eyes, he thought.

“I want out,” she said.

“Out?”

“Out.”

“Now?”

“Uh-huh.”

Rico tapped his fingertips on the table. Too many people were around for him to raise his voice. So he just frowned, working it out in his head. Candy’s leaving he could handle; he could always find another pretty hooker. But Candy wasn’t leaving, she was staying right here at the Delano, shacked up in Nigel’s bungalow. Removing his wallet, he dropped two thousand dollars on the table and slid it her way. Her eyes locked on the money, then met his face.

“What’s that for?”

“Your last payment. I don’t want anyone ever saying Rico Blanco stiffed them.”

“You sure?”

“It’s yours.”

She started to pick up the money. Rico brought his hand down forcefully on the bills. In a harsh whisper he said, “Do you really think it’s gonna last with this guy? He’s slept with more women than I’ve had bowel movements. You’ll wake up one morning and he’ll be gone. For good.” He saw her eyes well up and went for the kill. “You know why I’m scamming him? Because he’s got it coming. Nigel Moon is a fake.”

The waiter brought their drinks, and Rico drew his hand away. Candy picked up the money and stared at him. Rico looked at his beer. It was an Amstel Light. He hated light beer. The waiter had brought the wrong drink.

“What do you mean, he’s a fake?”

“You want the gory details?”

Candy’s cute mouth twisted into something harsh and unfriendly. “No.”

“Well, for starters—”

“I said no. Shut up.”

“I’ll pay you five grand to stay in.”

“Is that what I’m worth to you, Rico? Five grand?”

“That’s on top of what I’ve already paid you,” Rico said.

Candy picked up the money and threw it into Rico’s face. In a loud voice she said, “Stick it up your ass, you crummy piece of shit,” and stormed down the path toward the hotel’s bungalows. Rico sipped his beer, trying to act nonchalant. People were staring at him, and his money was scattered all over the floor.

He glanced at the glass door that led from the patio into the hotel. His driver was standing behind it, his face pressed to the glass. Rico motioned to him with one finger. Splinters came out and picked up his money.

Five minutes later, driving north on Collins Avenue, Splinters lowered the window that separated him from his boss. “I can’t believe she did that to you.”

Rico opened a real beer from his private stash and chugged it. “Me neither.”

“She cursed you in front of all those people.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“And threw your money on the floor.”

“Shut up, will you?” It was strange, but the worst part had been the taste the Amstel Light had left in his mouth. It tasted exactly like beer wasn’t supposed to taste. The Eden Roc came into view. Splinters put his indicator on and parked by the front entrance.

A uniformed doorman opened Rico’s door, and he got out. He was halfway to the elevators when he had an idea. He retraced his steps.

Splinters was still in the limo, playing with the radio. He’d told Rico that in Cuba there was nothing good on the radio. Rico went around to the driver’s side and tapped on the window. It lowered automatically.

“I need you to do a job for me,” Rico told him.

“Sure,” Splinters said, his fingers clicking to the music blaring out of the speakers.

“Kill her,” Rico said.

Gerry didn’t know what to make of the way his father was acting.

First his old man had wired him money to pay for his hotel and for Yolanda to stay a few more days and for Gerry to fly to Miami that afternoon. Then his old man had met him at the airport, all smiles and hugs, and helped him rent a car, which he’d put on his credit card. And not just any car, but a BMW 540 from Hertz, a hundred bucks a day.

Driving over the Causeway to Miami Beach, Gerry had found himself whistling to a song on the radio. It all seemed too good to be true. Then he’d spotted the flashing lights of the police cruiser in his rearview mirror.

“I’ll take care of it,” his father said when Gerry showed him the speeding ticket at the Fontainebleau. They were drinking sodas by the pool with scores of pretty girls all around them. Gerry felt his father’s eyes burning his face.

“Cut it out,” his father said.

“What?”

“You’re a married man.”

“Just because I’m on a diet doesn’t mean I can’t read the menu.”

His old man leaned across the table, grabbed Gerry’s ear, and gave it a twist. “Listen to me. First your eyes wander, then your dick wanders. And because your dick has only one eye, it sees only half the picture. So cut it out, okay?”

Gerry grunted in the affirmative, and his father let him go. This felt a lot more like his old man. A bikini-clad girl strolled by their table and gave him a wink.