"Absolutely," Eddie said.
Absolutely, Sam thought. The thing about most criminals is that they aren't wicked-they're stupid. They're opportunists. "I'm going to try to get this Dixon problem away from you in a way that doesn't, you know, end up in your death."
"Thanks, buddy," Eddie said. He sounded like he really meant it, which he probably did.
"But you're going to have to man up some," Sam said. Man up. Who talked liked that? "Take a broken arm. Maybe another broken jaw. Or maybe just a bullet somewhere fatty." Sam gave him a poke in the shoulder, which, Sam was disturbed to find, was about as fatty as his own shoulder. He really needed to start cutting out starches.
"I've had worse," Eddie said. He was actually getting jubilant.
"Okay," Sam said. "But you need to cooperate with me. No scene in the hotel at check-in. No shitting yourself or anything nasty."
"Done," Eddie said.
"We get to the room, you cooperate, and you have my word, you will see tomorrow."
"Maybe you'll take me to see Cricket? I mean, of course, if everything ends up kosher?" Sam saw that Eddie had tears in his eyes again. Incredible. The guy was either in line for an Oscar, or he was really starting to feel the weight of his deceptions.
Sam put his money on the Oscar. "Sure, Eddie, sure."
Eddie pursed his lips in thought again. "You think, maybe, I could get some room service, too? Maybe a steak?"
Oh, yeah, Sam thought, the Oscar is his. But that was okay. If it was enough to get him into the hotel and maybe get him to trust Sam a bit, he was willing to get the man a steak for his troubles. "We'll get two," Sam said, and then he pulled Eddie out of the car, put a coat over Eddie's cuffed wrists, grabbed a duffel bag out of the trunk-a duffel bag filled with solar Malibu lights and some light soldering equipment-and made his way into the hotel.
True to his word, and much to Sam's surprise, Eddie was the perfect prisoner at check-in, so much so that Sam went ahead and placed his room service order right there at the front desk. Even threw on an extra 50 percent tip ahead of time. It was Eddie's bill, after all.
And after they finished their steaks-Sam had the T-bone; Eddie opted for the filet; both had the hot butter-Sam had to admit that Nate had been right. The guy could talk. He didn't mention to Sam wrestling a polar bear, but he did have a story about a bison. They got to having such a great time, Eddie didn't even mind when Sam asked him to hold on to the devices he was building, his greasy fingerprints leaving smudges of himself on everything-the inside parts, the outside parts, the triggers, the soldered pieces, everything.
Sam couldn't figure out if Eddie knew what he was doing or not. Maybe he had just decided prison would be better than Dixon Woods in a locked room.
The sap.
Either way, it didn't matter to Sam. He'd be long gone by the time Eddie Champagne figured out that decision definitively.
Sam stepped out onto the secluded balcony overlooking the Hotel Oro's pool and set up his homework project. When he was through, he made two calls: one to the IRS and one to the FBI.
Just before six, Fiona and I pulled up at the Hotel Victor, the hotel directly next to the Hotel Oro, and parked in one of the spots directly out front reserved for people checking in. The sign said thirty minutes only, which was about ten minutes longer than I thought it would take us to do our job.
Outside it was one of those nights when Miami feels laced with magic: A mist of fog was in the air, so the glittering lights of South Beach cast a glow into the world, giving the impression you were already remembering what you were experiencing, a soft focus with, at different angles, a sharp glare of truth, of reality, that you were alive in a moment.
I wore a light tan-colored suit, a collared shirt open at the neck, a red pocket square that I removed when I saw that Fiona was wearing a short red dress that would have made Audrey Hepburn give up cocktail numbers for good. We didn't want to match, look too much like tourists after all, particularly since if we weren't careful, our pictures would be in the paper.
Or Palm Life, since an hour earlier Jay Gatz had given James Dimon a call. "James, sport," I said, "I thought you'd be interested in an ad hoc event taking place this evening at the Hotel Oro. Daisy thought you might appreciate the visual experience."
"Mos def," he said.
I almost hung up, thought it wasn't worth the two minutes of my life I'd lose to hear James Dimon speak one more word, but marched on nonetheless. The greater good and all that. "Come at six fifteen," I said. "There's a fantastic new Russian model named Natalya Choplyn we'll be entertaining poolside. She's very underground overseas but is about to"-I paused for just a moment, in case I couldn't control the bile in my throat-"jump off here. This would be a real get for you."
"Hot," he said.
"Very," I said. "Let me spell that last name for you. C-H-O-P-L-Y-N Make sure you get that down."
Now, sitting with Fiona in the Charger, I couldn't help but wonder what would become of Natalya after this evening. I had a sense that she'd find herself intimately acquainted with the laws governing economic espionage, particularly economic espionage committed by a foreign national on American soil. Fifteen years would be a good starting point if Natalya wasn't ex-KGB, but since she was, there was a good chance the government-ours or hers-might just disappear her after they-the IRS, the FBI, Putin himself-became aware of the transfer of millions of dollars into her account, particularly millions of dollars derived from bogus mortgages.
And if I could time it just right, she'd be sitting with Dixon Woods when it happened.
"You ready?" I said to Fiona.
"Remind me again why I don't get to shoot Natalya?"
"Public place, bigger fish to filet," I said. "We can get in and out and not even wrinkle our clothes."
We stepped out of the car and made our way across the street, sidestepping spillover lines of people from clubs on either side of the street. The people outside had their own unique blush this evening, but then everything felt different to me the moment before action.
Everything slows.
Colors become brighter.
It's as if I can see all the moves before they even happen.
A few steps before the Oro's front door, I stopped Fiona, who was walking with a rather purposeful gait. "You ready?"
"Let me check my purse," she said. She was holding a red Kate Spade bag under one arm. "Five vials of tear gas, a Sig, a BlackBerry, some lipstick. I'm set for the evening. No condoms, though, so let me know if we need to stop off."
I looked up at the length of the Hotel Oro. Sam was in room 511, overlooking the pool. He and Eddie Champagne were just another couple having a good time, for all the staff of the hotel knew. At six, just to let us know he was in his room, he would flash the room lights five times, followed by another eleven times, so I'd know for certain the game was afoot.
At this point, at this hotel, with whoever was watching, things had to be as low-tech as possible. In a confined space like a hotel, picking up cell signals, if you're looking for a specific one, is freshman-year-at-Quantico sort of stuff.
A moment later, the flashing started. Sam was in.
We were about to be.
We had thirty minutes to make it happen.
We strode past the valet station and I gave a cursory glance for my favorite bookie/valet but didn't see him, though it was hard to be sure who I was seeing, since they were all wearing that same black suit.
"Black Armani is out," Fiona said.
"You get that?"
Once into the lobby, it was Miami bass and Miami style-the bronzed bodies happy to laze in the cabanas on my previous visit were now thumping across the two bars, filling the dance floor, the cabanas moving right along with them. Lining the walls, looking appropriate surly, were Longstreet men, sweating through their black T-shirts and suits, their entire paramilitary careers boiled into watching other people have a good time. From backing up strike forces to backing that ass up.