Филип Керр - A Five Year Plan

‘Jesus,’ said Al. ‘That’s over forty million.’

‘Could be,’ agreed Dave. ‘But I figure a minimum twenty-five.’

‘There’s gonna be a lot of firepower on board to protect a piece of change like that,’ said Al.

Once again, Dave shook his head, his eyes narrowing as they caught the sun. Nudelli turned around, then waved at the large expanse of window that framed their view of Biscayne Bay. South Miami and Coconut Grove lay hidden on the other side of the horizon some five miles away to the west. It was the best view Dave had ever seen of his hometown.

‘Fix the blind, will ya, Al? The sun’s in Dave’s eyes.’

‘It’s OK, I like the sun.’

But Al was already unfolding louvered shutters across the window.

‘Tony hates the fuckin’ sun,’ he explained. ‘Only guy in Key Biscayne with an indoor swimming pool.’

‘After five years in Homestead I could use some vitamin D.’

Nudelli tongued the flex from his mouth and grimaced. He said, ‘After five years, you wanna be careful of that skin of yours. Sun ain’t like it used to be. Niggers, even the fuckin’ oranges go careful these days, ’cos of this hole those idiots made in the ozone layer. Even the goddamn fish are getting skin cancer. I read that somewhere. Didn’t I? Al?’

Al said, ‘It was me who read it to you, from the paper. And they was Australian fish. Not Americans.’

‘As if it matters what nationality they are. Lots of ways Florida is like Australia. They don’t call us the Sunshine State for nuthin’. Take my advice, Dave. Get yourself a hat. Everyone in our line of business used to wear a hat. Even the lousy cops wore hats. You could tell a lot about a guy from the way he wore his hat too. And with the sun we got now? Believe me, hats are makin’ a comeback, and I don’t mean the little peaks you see the niggers and the spies wearing. I mean a proper hat. English style.’

‘Sounds like good advice.’

Al said, ‘Before the sunshine interrupted us, you were about to tell us what kind of security they got to protect all this dirty money.’

‘SYT allows just a couple of crew per boat. Any more than that and they’d be drawing attention to themselves. Three boats means six crew. It’s reasonable to assume they’ll be armed of course. But with the element of surprise I figure me and another guy could take care of them.’

‘Suppose someone radios for help,’ objected Al.

Nudelli grimaced irritably and said, ‘Suppose he fixes all the fuckin’ radios at the same time as he fixes all the crews.’

Dave said, ‘That’s about the size of it.’

‘How’d you find out about this?’

‘You share a cell with a man for four years, a man tells you pretty much everything. Gergiev, that was his name. Clever guy. He’s out of St Petersburg, right? And they’re big rivals of the Moscow mob. Anyway, he knew about these transports and planned this whole thing. We were going to do the job together, only the Feds had him deported the minute he came out of the joint. One big score, that was the idea. Matter of fact I got a letter from him the day of my release. He told me that he’s trying to get back here, and that if I try this without him he’ll kill me. But he’s not much help back in Russia and I don’t figure this job can wait. And I think he overrates his chances of ever getting another visa. Only now I’ve got nobody to help me set it up.’

‘And you figured it was this guy who sent Willy Barizon to see you, right?’

‘Gergiev was going to find the right boat, and the stake money to get it. I was going to captain it. Supply the maritime know-how. You could say that’s what I bring to the deal. All my life I’ve been into boats. My father used to work on yachts. From time to time, I’ve even owned a couple of smaller ones myself. Learned to sail, learned navigation. Even got my ticket. Gergiev might figure I’m double-crossing him. But that’s not true. I’ll take care of him out of my end on this deal.’

‘Which is?’

‘If I get the right backing: someone to stake me for the boat, I figure fifty-fifty. Maybe twelve to fifteen mill each.’

Nudelli asked, ‘What kind of boat do you need?’

‘Not too big, not too small. Maybe sixty or seventy feet. Room enough for all that cash and with a good top speed supposing we can be nearest the stern. The main thing is it has to look the part. Like it’s worth the trouble of mailing it across the ocean, y’know? I should say a value around 1.5 mill.’

Nudelli said nothing.

‘Out of my final share of course,’ Dave added, hoping to sweeten the deal. ‘Say 60,000 bucks for the passage which I’ll also cover myself—’

Al said, ‘A 81.5 million boat you propose to abandon or flush down the toilet. Am I right?’

‘Yes, that’s right. My guess is that the authorities will spend the first few days looking for this yacht or the one we have to steal. That is if they come looking at all. Remember this is illegal cash. If anyone does come looking I figure they’ll try the Azores first working on the principle that this is the nearest land to where we take down the score.’

‘You seem to have thought it all out,’ said Nudelli.

Dave shrugged and said, ‘Had five years to think it through, Tony.’

‘It’s a sweet scheme, I have to admit. I got just one major problem with it.’

‘What’s that?’

Nudelli nodded and said, ‘You. It’s you, Dave. I just don’t picture you for no hijacker. You ever pop anyone?’

‘No, I can’t say that I have.’

Nudelli said, ‘There’s no shame in that. But it’s a fact of life that the first time is always the hardest. Ain’t that so, Al?’

‘The hardest. On a job like you described you wouldn’t want to find yourself in a situation where you might hesitate to trigger a guy.’

Dave thought for a moment, trying to offer some guarantee for his own future ruthlessness. Pointedly, he said, ‘By the way, how’s Willy’s eye?’

‘That stupid fuck,’ grunted Al. ‘Maybe he’ll see straight now you halved his viewing options.’

Nudelli said, ‘I mean, how you handled Willy, that was impressive. Willy’s no pushover. But these guys on the Russian yachts. Maybe they won’t put their hands up so easy. Maybe they won’t be as dumb as Willy. Maybe you’ll have to take one or two of them down.’

Dave said, ‘Could be.’

Al said, ‘So. That’s our problem. As the political analysts might say of a candidate, it’s the character question.’

It was a fair question. Dave hoped that he would never have to kill anyone and felt more or less certain that he could pull off the job with the minimum of violence. But that was hardly what a character like Tony Nudelli wanted to hear. He wanted to see a convincing show of cold-bloodedness and all Dave could think of was Harry Lime. What would Harry have told this guy?

‘Am I ready to take the life of another human being if I have to? I think that’s a fair question,’ he said with what he hoped was an amused insouciance, like Harry’s. Dave stood up and walked round to the shutters and, staring out of the louvers, played a scene. He hoped that Tony and Al were not keen movie fans.

‘What can I say? Except that nobody thinks in terms of human beings these days, Tony. Governments don’t, so why should we? They talk of the people and the proletariat and I talk of the mugs. It’s the same thing. They have their five year plans and so have I.’ He turned to face them again and smiled laconically. ‘The dead are happier dead. They don’t miss much here, poor bastards.’

He thought he’d played it nicely. Light, amusing, ruthless, with a superficial excuse for his own behavior. If he’d started talking about how tough he was and how much of a killer he could be Nudelli just wouldn’t have bought it. He was too old a hand at killing to buy anything too definite. Of course Dave was no Orson Welles. But then Tony Nudelli wasn’t exactly Joseph Cotten either. Tony was right about one thing though. Dave would have done the speech better if he’d been wearing a hat. To get properly into character. A black homburg, just like Harry’s.