Philip Kerr - The Five Year Plan (1998)

Kate picked out Dave's well-thumbed paperback edition of Crime and Punishment. She hadn't read the novel since she'd been in Law School, when it really had seemed like one of those books that might change your life. Or, at the very least, the way you thought about criminals. Idly she was turning back the cover when something caught her eye. Something was printed there, on the inside cover, in bright blue ink.

Something was stamped on it.

She stared at it incredulously, as if she had been admiring some clever bookplate, reading the words printed inside the simple roundel with more care than if they had been a visa on the passport for which she had been searching.

But this was something much more revealing.

She whispered the words out loud, as if she needed to hear them spoken in order to absorb what was implied.

'Property of the Miami Correctional Center at Homestead?'

Could it be that Dave really was a thief? And not just a thief, but an ex-con?

Hearing his shower end, she closed the book and returned it quickly to the shelf. Then, slipping into the spare dressing gown, she left the stateroom and went up to the galley. Maybe she could rustle up a relaxed, loving and laid-back sort of face along with some breakfast.

In the galley Kate put on the kettle to boil, and started to fry some ham and eggs, all the while considering the evidence that was before her: the new clothes; the bookshelf more typical of some jailhouse auto-didact than a millionaire; and the five aces Cary Grant-style proposition he had made her. There seemed to be no other conclusion that she could form. Dave really was a thief, and a convicted one too. She realized that he had been perfectly serious, as indeed he had said he was.

Al, summoned upstairs to the galley by the smell of fresh coffee and frying sausage and ham, brought home to her this wasn't a Cary Grant movie. Al was Luca Brazzi, Tony Montana and Jimmy Conway all squeezed into the one short-barrelled pump-action shotgun. Right down to the rifle sight, the hardwood stock attitude, and the blue metal jaw.

'Time is it?' he growled.

'Just after six,' she said, perky as an airline stewardess responding to a first-class passenger. You got all sorts going first class these days.

'Six o'clock? Jesus, what are we doing, abandoning ship or something? Six o'clock.'

'You want some breakfast?'

Al sighed uncomfortably and stooped to look out of the galley window, checking on the weather. He sniffed loudly, like he was hunched over a couple of lines of coke, and said, 'I can't make up my mind if it's better to eat so that I got something to throw up or if it's better not to eat so that I don't throw up at all.'

Kate smiled sweetly, trying to overcome her nerves. Who were these guys? And what were they doing on the ship? Was it possible they had anything to do with Rocky Envigado?

'Al?' she said. 'Have you heard the expression, the cook could use a hug? This particular cook only requires a "yes please" or a "no thankyou". The ultimate destination of this food I'm cooking, be it toilet bowl or ocean, is of absolutely no account to me.'

Al grunted biliously. Uncertainly he eyed the breakfast Kate was cooking. Rubbing his bare belly, for he was only wearing shorts, he said, 'Maybe I'll just have some Wheaties.'

'Have you got a hangover or something?'

'Naw. I'm feeling sick in anticipation of feeling sick, on account of the weather.' Al poured out a bowlful of cereal, then some milk, and began to shovel the stuff into his mouth.

'The weather? What about it?'

'You don't notice it, huh?' he remarked with milk dribbling down his unshaven chin. 'Must be another good sailor. Like the boss.'

Kate glanced out the window. What with making love and her shock discovery about Dave, she had hardly noticed the swell underneath the ship. Outside the sky was gray and threatening and a stiff breeze was whipping the flag on the stern of the Jade in front of them. It looked as if the storm was catching up to them after all.

'Me, I ain't much of a sailor,' confessed Al. 'I get sick looking at a glass of salt water.'

'It does look kind of rough,' Kate admitted.

Coming into the galley, Dave said, 'Are you talking about Al, or the weather?'

Al sneered, dumped his empty bowl in the sink, and reached for the coffee jug. Kate stepped fastidiously out of his way as from a large and smelly dog.

Noticing her flinch from Al's bare torso, Dave said, 'Couldn't you put a shirt or something on, Al? It's like having a giant coconut rolling around in here.'

Al slurped some coffee and said, 'Some women like hairy men.'

Dave said, 'Dian Fossey and Fay Wray don't happen to be sailing with us.'

'Let me tell you about this gorilla thing,' said Al. 'Hairy guys have got more intelligence than smooth as shit ones like yourself, boss. Now that's a fact. It was in the Herald. Scientists have done a survey and proved it. Smart guys have hairy chests. Lotta doctors. Lotta college professors. Not many lawyers. No cops. Lotta writers. And the really smart guys have hairy backs to match.'

'Say anything about hairy brains in that survey, Al?' laughed Dave. He looked at Kate, who smiled back at him faintly. 'Well that's a new one on me. It certainly puts a different spin on the story of Samson, I suppose. It's not the guy's relationship with God she screws when she cuts his hair, but his IQ.'

'You can laugh all you like,' said Al, marching out of the galley. 'But that's a fact.'

Kate cleared her throat nervously and kept on trying to get her smile right, even when Dave smiled apologetically. Now that she saw him again, he did look like he might be a high-class jewel thief. He probably relied on Al to drive his getaway car, or to provide muscle when it was required.

When Al had gone, Dave shook his head. 'Al,' he said simply. 'Some guy, huh? I told you he was an animal.'

'I think that's the first time I've seen the two of you together,' she said.

'That's easy to explain.' Folding her up in his arms, Dave inspected the breakfast that Al had declined. 'We're like Jekyll and Hyde. Mmmm, that looks good.'

'And which one of you is Mister Hyde?'

'Well he is, of course. Didn't you notice the hair on the backs of his hands? The guy's like a goddamn doormat.'

Kate pulled away and started to serve Dave his breakfast.

'Something the matter?' he asked. 'You still cool about last night?'

'Everything's fine,' she said, and anxious to reassure him, she added, 'You know what?' she said. 'If you were Mister Hyde? I'd be Missus Seek.'

'That sounds promising.'

He wondered if there was anything at all in her show of prevarication. Was she just trying to amuse herself during an otherwise uneventful undercover surveillance? Or was there genuinely something more there? It seemed impossible to find out until the heist itself was out of the way. He sat down at the dinette table and began to eat what was put in front of him. He said, 'I'm sure I'd rather share a divided consciousness with you than with Al. Think about it. A fifty-fifty partnership. Straight down the middle.'

Kate said, 'Straight? You've hardly been that.'

His mouth full of food, Dave stretched his eyebrows back at her.

'What I mean to say,' she explained hurriedly, 'is that you've not exactly told me very much about what you do. I can't just leave Kent's employment without knowing a little more about you. About what you do. About where you live.'

'I told you,' said Dave. 'I steal rocks. Same as old John Robie in To Catch a Thief. The Cat. Actually, I don't bother with a handle. Or a white monogrammed glove. There's no point in making it easy for the police to nail me for a lot of other scores in the unlikely eventuality that I get caught. Naturally I only steal from those who can afford it. Matter of fact I thought there might be some nice stones on this ship. Until I discovered the owners seldom travel with their boats. That was before the air traffic controllers heard about my predicament and decided to try and help out.'