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“You ready to talk about it?” she asked, eyeing him closely.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what? Ru
“No, I mean, why’d you come and get me, Freddy, the kid? You could’ve had your pick of just about anyone for this action.”
“I didn’t want just anyone. We go way back, Leo. And I thought you’d want to take another run at Jerry. Was I wrong?”
Leo threw another seashell into the water and watched it disappear. “Story of my life, A
“Don’t get all philosophical on me.”
He gave her a sideways glance. “Is this because of your old man?”
“And I don’t need you playing my shrink either.” She moved slightly away from him, crossed her arms over her chest and looked out to sea where at the edge of the horizon a ship slowly made its way somewhere.
“With thirteen million dollars I could buy a boat big enough to take across the ocean, couldn’t I?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Don’t know. I guess. I’ve never had a reason to price one.” He looked down at his bare feet, crinkled the sand between his toes. “A
“Who ever has enough money?” she said, still watching the boat drift by.
He picked up another shell and hurled it. “You really want to do this, don’t you?”
“Part of me doesn’t. The part of me I listen to knows I have to.”
“The kid says nothing?”
“The kid says nothing.”
“If this goes bad, I don’t even want to think about what’ll happen to us.”
“Then don’t let it go bad.”
“Do you have a single nerve in your body?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.” She picked up a shell and chucked it into the face of a crashing wall of water, then let the ocean race across her feet and ankles. “Are we good?”
He slowly nodded. “Yeah, we’re good.”
“No more going ballistic on me?”
He cracked a smile. “That I can promise to no woman.”
As they walked back to the hotel, he said, “I haven’t heard anything about your mom in a long time. How’s Tammy doing?”
“Not great.”
“Is your old man even alive?”
“I wouldn’t be the one to know that, would I?” A
Chapter 17
It took a full week to make the preparations. As part of that work A
“Four U.S. passports?”
Tony looked up from his computer. “Passports? What for?”
Leo stared at him contemptuously. “What? You think you cross nutcase Jerry Bagger and stay in the country? Give me a break. Yours truly is going to Mongolia and becoming a monk for a few years. I’d rather wear a robe and ride a yak around than let Bagger cut little pieces of my body off while he’s screaming about wanting his dough back.” He returned to working on his disguise.
A
“Out of the country?” Tony exclaimed, half rising out of his chair.
“Jerry’s not infallible, but there’s no sense in being stupid. You can see the world, Tony. Learn Italian,” she advised.
“What about my parents?” Tony said.
“Send ‘em postcards,” Leo growled over his shoulder as he struggled to fit a toupee to his head. “Talk about your freaking amateur hour.”
“U.S. passports are difficult to make, A
A
The man swallowed nervously. “I see your point. You’ll have them.” Freddy went off with the list.
“I’ve never even been out of the country,” Tony said.
“Best time to go is when you’re young,” A
“Have you ever been out of the country?” he asked her.
Leo piped in. “Are you kidding? You think the States are the only place to run a con? Ha!”
“I’ve been around,” A
Tony looked at her nervously. “Well, maybe we could travel together. You could show me around. You and Leo,” he added quickly. “And I bet Freddy would want to come too.”
A
“Right, okay, sure,” Tony said.
“You’ll have plenty of money to live on,” she added.
Tony brightened. “A villa somewhere in Europe, with my own staff.”
“Don’t start throwing the cash around. That’s a red flag. Start small and keep your head down. I’ll get you out of the country, and then you take it from there.” She sat forward. “And now here’s exactly what I need from you.” A
“No problem,” he said immediately. She eyed him questioningly. “Look, I dropped out of MIT after two years because I was bored!”
“I know. That was the other reason I picked you.”
Tony looked down at his laptop and started typing. “I’ve actually done it before and fooled the place with the best security in the world.”
“Who’s that, the Pentagon?” Leo asked.
“No. Wal–Mart.”
Leo shot him a glance. “You’re kidding me? Wal–Mart?”
“Hey, Wal–Mart doesn’t mess around.”
“How quickly can you do it?” A
“Give me a couple days.”
“No more than two. I want to test it.”
“I’ve got no problem with that,” he said confidently.
Leo rolled his eyes, said a silent prayer, made the sign of the cross and went back to his toupee.
• • •
While Freddy and Tony were working on their assignments, Leo and A
“Leave it to Bagger to get morons to line up for that crap and then drop their paychecks in his casinos while they’re getting fat and drunk,” Leo snarled.
“Jerry collects chumps; that’s the lifeblood of the casino business.”
“I remember when the first casino opened here in ‘78,” Leo said.
A
“Well, your old man never should have come back with you and me!” Leo lit a cigarette and pointed down the line of casinos. “I started out here. The casino crews back then were mostly locals. You had nurses, garbage truck drivers and gas jockeys all of a sudden dealing cards and ru
She looked at him. “You never talked to me about your family before.”
“Yeah, like you’re a real blabbermouth when it comes to that stuff.”
“You knew my parents. What could I add to that?”