Филип Керр - A Five Year Plan

‘Outside of Europe, you might be right.’ Dave grinned. ‘You really like it round here, don’t you, Jimmy?’

‘Wouldn’t anyone?’ nodded Figaro. ‘I mean, wouldn’t you just love to live here.’

They pulled up in front of a two-storey open bay villa with full dock and davits. Dave noted the 100-foot motor yacht that was moored there and then turned his attention to the house. With its pantiled roof, keystone columns and arches, and courtyard with fountain, the place looked as if it had been transplanted from a hill in Tuscany.

Dave said, ‘I’d sure like to be able to afford to live here. If I could then I’d use the money to live somewhere nice, like London, or Paris. Miami sucks.’

‘One man’s meat, I guess,’ said Figaro.

‘And Miami is a cheeseburger.’

They got out of the car, walked up to the front door and were admitted to an atrium foyer with a marble floor and a curving stone staircase. One of Nudelli’s bodyguards frisked Dave and then a butler walked them upstairs to an opulent mahogany-panelled library where Nudelli and Al Cornaro were seated inside a stockade of green leather chesterfields. The two men got up and crossed the aquamarine Bokhara rug, and Dave allowed himself to be embraced by the man who’d ordered his fingers broken.

Nudelli said, ‘Hey Al, will you take a look at this guy? Five years in the joint and he looks like he spent the summer in Palm Springs. Jesus, Dave, you look great. You look like a fuckin’ movie star.’

‘You’re not looking so bad yourself, Tony,’ Dave said patiently.

Nudelli slapped his own belly hard.

‘Keepin’ fit, y’know? Swim every day. Watch what I eat. You want something to eat? Drink maybe? We got everything. Silver fuckin’ service. We’re like the frigging Admirals’ Club out here.’

‘No, I’m OK, thanks Tony.’

‘Jimmy?’

‘Just a coffee.’

‘Miggy?’ Nudelli was speaking to the butler. ‘Couple of coffees.’

They sat down inside the stockade.

Nudelli said, ‘Five years.’

Dave said, ‘Five years, yeah.’

‘You did good.’

‘At the time, it seemed the thing to do, Tony.’

‘Dave. About that little misunderstanding with Willy Barizon.’

‘Hey, forget about it. These things happen.’

‘It’s good of you to see it that way, Dave.’

‘You know after Willy’s cold call I got to thinking about things from your POV, Tony. And I said to myself, I said: Dave, while you were on the inside, Tony knew where you were and what you were doing. It’s a variant on what Machiavelli says about composite principalities, Tony. Being on the spot you can detect trouble at the start and deal with it pronto; but if you’re absent the trouble’s discerned only when it’s too fuckin’ late.’

Tony said, ‘I heard you got yourself educated. Is that so? Machiavelli, huh? Sounds Italian.’

‘From Florence.’

‘That night you was with Benny Cecchino—’

‘You mean in the restaurant where you shot him?’

‘Yeah. What were you and he talking about?’

Dave shrugged and said, ‘A business proposition. Why else would anyone talk to Benny?’

‘Did you owe him money?’

‘No.’ Dave grinned. ‘I didn’t get a chance to. Your sudden arrival on the scene put paid to that.’

‘You know, Benny had a mouth like a V8.’

Dave said, ‘He was nothing to me. But from what I heard he had it coming.’

‘Nice of you to say so.’ Nudelli looked rueful. ‘I had more of a temper then. Well, this was five years ago. Five years is a long time. I’m sure you of all people don’t need reminding of that.’

Dave waited for Tony Nudelli to say something else and when he didn’t Dave decided to segue along to the purpose of his requested meeting.

‘Talking of business propositions, Tony, I’ve got one I think you might be interested in.’ Dave unfolded his laptop computer. ‘The sweetest idea you ever heard.’

‘I’m always interested in sweet ideas. Isn’t that so, Al?’

‘Always.’

Nudelli said, ‘Before you say another word, Dave.’ Nudelli glanced over at Jimmy, now drinking his coffee. ‘For someone like Jimmy, information is pressure. Sometimes the less he has, the more freedom and space there is for him. He likes to work in a vacuum. To know only what he needs to know. Especially if there are any inherent illegalities. So let me ask you, does Jimmy need to hear this? Or does he need to take a walk?’

‘I think maybe he should take a walk,’ agreed Dave.

Dave watched Figaro leave the library and when he looked back he thought that maybe Tony had false teeth and that they must have slipped off his jaw until he realized that it was some kind of little contraption made of steel and plastic and that Tony was using it to exercise the muscles in his face. Noting Dave’s expression Nudelli tongued the thing onto the palm of his hand. It looked like a tiny crutch.

Nudelli said, ‘My facial workout. Helps restore lost muscle tone and reshapes bags and sags. Those I got enough of already. A 250 percent increase in facial muscle strength in just eight weeks. They say all you need is two minutes a day, but I’m doin’ a little more than that on account of all the fuckin’ worries I’ve got. My wife. She wanted a facelift. Estimated cost? Ten thousand dollars. Instead I bought her one of these little gizmos for seventy-five bucks.’ He chuckled meanly and popped the device back inside his cheeks. ‘O ahead,’ he said, opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish. ‘Make your pitch.’

Dave glanced at the color screen of his laptop and found the file he was searching for.

He said, ‘Chasing drug money is the new law-enforcement specialty. Banking regulations have been tightened all over the world. Banking secrecy relaxed, even in Switzerland. Used to be that you could fly into Zurich with a suitcase full of money and make a deposit, no questions asked. Not any more. It’s gotten so that the Swiss have to ask questions these days. For a while back there, South America and the Caribbean were also good places to hide drug dollars.’

Al said, ‘Still are.’

‘If you know the right people. Not everyone does. New crime isn’t connected in the same way as someone like you, Tony. Nowadays the best thing you can do is to buy a bank. And the gold medal place to buy one of those is in the former Soviet Union. Under the aegis of Gosbank, which is owned by the State, and Vnesheconombank, which is the Bank of Foreign Affairs, hundreds of banks have been formed in the last few years to take advantage of new Russian enterprise. To lend it money. To take care of other hard currency deposits. There are even tax breaks and building loans to encourage new banks.’

‘It might be nice to own my own bank,’ said Nudelli.

Dave said, ‘Wait. There’s more to this scam. OK, to do it, to capitalize your new bank, you have to get your cash into Russia. That can be difficult too, especially when the cash is the result of illegal enterprise. What’s more, when it’s in the quantities required to capitalize a new bank it’s bulky. Let me illustrate that with a comparison. D’you like basketball, Tony?’

‘Sure.’

‘Then you’ll know that UCF’s leading scorer at seventeen points a game is Harry Kennedy. Now think of a tower of ten-dollar bills twenty-five inches wide and seventeen inches deep that’s as tall as Harry Kennedy. Harry’s about six-five, I believe. That’s only $5 million. A tower would have to be fourteen feet high and weigh more than 2,000 pounds just to reach ten million bucks. Makes it harder to shift than any drug, with one advantage being that the dog hasn’t yet been born that can sniff out money.’

‘They got women for that,’ chuckled Al. ‘My wife can lock onto a new C-note at fifty paces.’