Peter Spiegelman - Thick as Thieves

Walking down the beach, he stepped on something slippery and colder than the sand. A jellyfish. He braced for the sting, but felt nothing and kept walking.

The bottom line is, he needs Prager’s money, needs what it can buy. A few months back he’d calculated that he had enough put away to do what he wanted for as long as he wanted, but that calculation is out of date. His father’s situation and Mrs. Calvin’s impending departure have thrown his cash flow assumptions to the wind. He needs the money.

Bessemer clears his throat once… twice. “I’m thinking that maybe you’re not into this today, Greg-that your mind is elsewhere. Greg?”

So, finish the job. Easy enough to say, but it begs the question of who he can trust while he’s doing it. He’s been asking himself that since Declan’s death, or maybe even before, but now it’s acquired a particular urgency.

Working the paranoid calculus-that’s what his instructor at the Farm had called it, an atypically neat turn of phrase from an otherwise lumpish fellow. Tracing the lattice of connections, mapping the shifting landscape of who-owes-who and who-owns-who, of loyalty, grudge, and pressure. Who’s in bed with whom? Who’s working what angle? Who benefits? Nando and Valerie. Valerie and Mike. If Mike, then Bobby as well? They were both in Mendoza, after all. And what about Dennis?

The answer-the short answer-is to trust none of them, not for a second, not as far as he can throw them, not even half that far. But nothing is ever so straightforward. The practical truth is, if he’s going to finish the Prager job, then he needs them-all of them. And they need him. They have to trust one another to carry out their assigned work-to watch one another’s backs. Like birds of a feather and bugs in a rug, arms linked in a chorus of “Kumbaya.” Thick as fucking thieves-right up until the moment they transfer the money out of Isla Privada’s accounts. Then the question becomes how to survive their success.

Dawn found him standing frozen at the shoreline, surrounded-as if in a minefield-by acres of clumped seaweed and the glistening bodies of jellyfish. His ankles ached with cold, and his head was filled with shuffling images of burned and broken metal, Declan’s skewed grin and blackened limbs, and Valerie in the dark. He could almost summon her smell and the feel of her skin, but the rising light and the ocean breeze swept his conjuring away. Surprise? Sadness? Anger? Relief? Like the seaweed, they’re tangled too thoroughly for Carr to pick apart.

Bessemer is standing now, a look of alarm replacing the curiosity on his face. “Are we calling or not?”

Carr looks at him. “Pour me another cup of coffee,” he says, “and get the telephone.”

They’re followed from the airport on Grand Cayman-two men in a muddy blue Nissan, as inconspicuous as it’s possible for a single-car tail to be. Carr spots them as he turns the Toyota onto Dorcy Drive.

“They were at the rental counter,” he says, “but that’s not a rental car.” Bessemer starts to turn in his seat, but Carr puts a hand on his arm. “Use the mirrors,” he says. Bessemer does, and his brows crease in confusion.

“The driver was outside passport control,” Carr says, “but he wasn’t on our flight.”

“You think they’re following us?”

“I know they are. You ever see them before?”

“I don’t think so,” Bessemer says, and there’s worry in his voice.

“This a usual thing for Prager?”

Bessemer shakes his head. “If it is, I never noticed.”

They’re quiet after that. Bessemer watches the Nissan in the rearview. Carr watches traffic and looks at the landscape of the northern edge of George Town, which is flat, cluttered, and homely under a pale sky. Carr lowers his window and the smell of ocean rushes in, mixed with odors of asphalt and exhaust and brackish salt marsh. He glances at Bessemer, who is still looking in the mirrors, and whose face has tightened with fear.

“Strip malls and SUVs,” Carr says. “Just like Florida.”

Bessemer nods stiffly. “The north side’s nicer. This your first time down here?” Carr smiles but doesn’t answer, and Bessemer’s eyes dart back to the mirror.

“They’re just watching, Howie. They’re not going to do anything.”

Bessemer’s nerves have been fraying since the call to Curtis Prager, which, when it finally happened three days before, had gone as well as Carr could’ve hoped. Bessemer had stayed on script and had managed to sound convincing about it. And, because Prager doesn’t like phones, he hadn’t had to talk for long. Bessemer told Prager that a good friend, Greg Frye, was in town, looking for a money manager. And when I heard about the business opportunity Greg’s got, I thought of you right away, Curt.

Prager asked how good a friend this was and how Bessemer knew him. When Bessemer explained that he was an Otisville friend, Prager went silent for a long while-so long that Carr wondered if they’d been cut off. When Prager finally responded, he was brief.

“You know I’m always happy to meet prospective investors, Bess. So if you’ve got the time, you and your friend should come down here. We’ll hit some balls, we’ll put some lines in the water, and we’ll see what bites.”

Bessemer started fretting as soon as he hung up. “I thought all you wanted was an introduction, Greg. I think I’ve held up my part of the bargain.”

“So far, so good,” Carr said.

“You never talked about a trip.”

“It’s a short trip, Howie.”

“But you never said-”

“Prager invited both of us down. It would be a little awkward if I showed up by myself.”

Bessemer paced and worried his lower lip. “It’ll be awkward for me if Curtis thinks I’ve lied to him. Awkward as in dead.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“ Dramatic? I’m not the one holding somebody hostage in his own house, or blackmailing him into being part of some kind of scam. I’m not the dramatic one.”

Carr had almost smiled. “Don’t be so negative, Howie. This doesn’t have to be complicated: we go down there, we hang out, and then we’re done. Stay focused on what you get out of this: your money, your life back, a fresh start.”

“I don’t know,” Bessemer said, shaking his head and walking to his liquor cabinet.

“The upside, Howie-focus on the upside.”

They’re on Tibbetts Highway now, the Nissan still with them, a quarter-mile back. They come up a gentle rise and on his left, beyond the big hotels, Carr sees the beaches, the ocean, and the cruise ships at anchor, each one as graceless as a Soviet apartment block. Away to his right, North Sound is like a pale blue plate, and the feathered wake of a powerboat like a fracture line across it. Closer on the right is the broad dome of a landfill, with a thousand white gulls wheeling above. Carr glances at Bessemer, who is drumming his fingers on the armrest and still staring at the mirrors. Carr understands nerves-his own are like confetti.

He saw Valerie the day before he left Palm Beach. She drove up while Amy was at work, and he took a room at the Marriott. She said not a word about Miami or Nando or Mike, and Carr managed not to ask. Managed not to speak much at all that afternoon, unless spoken to-and there wasn’t much of that at first. Later, when the sheets and pillows were on the floor and they were sideways on the bed, Valerie had questions of her own.

“They’re set up down there?” she asked.

“Dennis went yesterday. Bobby and Mike go tonight.”

“They must be happy to get out of that dump.”

“They were getting stir-crazy. Forward motion calms everybody down.”

“Everybody, including you?”

“I want to get it done as much as anyone.”