He walked away.

Jiggs Scully was in the road next to his two-tone red and white Cadillac, the car standing within a few yards of the driveway. So that when Moran swung out onto Arvida he had to brake to a stop or run into the Cadillac’s rear end. Jiggs came over to him.

He said, “George, how we doing? If you don’t have a pair of the biggest ones in town, come right to the man’s house there, I don’t know who does. You getting reckless or you just had enough of this sneaking around shit, going the Holiday Inn?”

Moran didn’t say anything. He wondered if Jiggs had slept in his seersucker coat. He wondered where Jiggs lived and wondered what he thought about when he was alone.

“I’m gonna buy you a drink, George. How about the Mutiny up on Bayshore? You know where it is there? Cross from the yacht basin.”

“Okay,” Moran said.

The room was still nearly full in the early afternoon, the tables occupied by men in disco sport shirts with dark hair and mustaches, a few in business suits, some of them wearing their sunglasses, some talking on phones brought to the tables. The waitresses, moving among them in skintight leotards, were experienced and familiar with the patrons, calling them by first names or the names they were using.

“You think it looks like a jungle, all the plants and shit,” Jiggs said, “it is a jungle. This’s where all the monkeys hang out. Jack a phone in there and make a deal, talk about the product; it’s always the product now, and how many coolers it’ll cost you. Use clean new hunner-dollar bills, George, a hunner K’s maybe twelve inches high, little less. Put a million bucks in a Igloo cooler you look like you’re going the beach. These guys kill me, all the hot-shit dealers.” He was looking over the room, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “About every fifth one you see is making believe he’s in the business and about every tenth one’s a narc. The mean-looking ones are the narcs, with the hair and the bell-bottoms. Fucking bell-bottoms’re out of style, they don’t know it. Little guy there looks like he repairs shoes, he’s the biggest man in the room. Looks like the Pan-American games, doesn’t it? Spic-and-span. They’re the spics, George, and me and you, we’re the span.” Jiggs raised a stubby, freckled hand from the table, fingers spread, and looked at it. “Distance between the tip of your thumb to the tip of your little finger, that’s your span.” He looked at the back of his hand, then turned it over and looked at the palm. “But I don’t see nothing in it, do you, George? No, it’s empty. The spics, they got the product, they got all these coolers we hear about. But we’re sitting here with our fucking mitts empty. Why is that? They don’t work any harder’n we do. Is it we let ’em have it cause we’re kindhearted or what?”

A waitress with a blond ponytail brought their beer and asked Moran what his sign was. He told her Libra and she said, “I was right,” not telling him if she thought it was good or bad. She gave him a look though and he smiled.

“You got a nice way with the ladies,” Jiggs said. “I admire that. You’re quiet, you mind your own business, don’t you? Till somebody pushes you. I notice that the night I came by your place, run the piano player off. You stood right in there.”

“I’m going,” Moran said, “soon as I finish this beer.”

Jiggs grinned; his teeth were a mess. “I get talking to my own kind I run off. You talk to these monkeys they stare at you. Subtle-you try and say anything subtle to ’em you get a blank stare. You get what I’m saying but you don’t make a big deal out of it. I don’t think anything I might say to you would even shock you; I think you been around a couple times. Tell me what you think I got in mind. I’d like to know.”

“If it’s a payoff so you don’t tell de Boya,” Moran said, “you’re out of luck.”

“Come on, George, give me some credit. That’s pussy, that kind of deal; I never stooped to that in my life. Jesus, I’m surprised at you, George.”

“Forgive me,” Moran said.

“What I do when somebody’s paying me, I don’t even think about it,” Jiggs said. “But when it’s my deal I try to be a little selective, stay away from the shlock. You have to understand there’s all kinds of opportunity out there, George.”

“I’m not looking for work,” Moran said. “I’ve got all I want.”

“All right, let me tell you a quick story.” Scully hunched in, planting his arms on the table. “Not too long ago I’m out at Calder with Mr. de Boya and a gentleman by the name of Jimmy Capotorto, you may’ve heard of. He runs Dorado, very influential guy, does a little business with de Boya. Jimmy Cap’ll send some cash over there, get it cleaned and pressed in some condo deal, but nothing big. We’re at Calder. We’re watching the races up in the lounge. I’m placing bets for ’em, getting drinks when the waitress disappears. I’m the gofer, you might say, I’m not sitting there in the party too much. De Boya wins a couple grand, it’s on the table there, and Jimmy Cap asks him what he does with his winnings, his loose cash. They start talking about the trouble with money like a couple of broads discussing unruly hair’r split ends, Jimmy Cap saying in Buffalo he used to have a vault in the floor of his basement, but there aren’t any basements here. De Boya says you don’t need a vault, there a lot of places to hide money it’ll be safe. Oh, Jimmy Cap says, like where? De Boya says oh, there lot of places. Jimmy Cap asks him what he needs to stash money for, he’s a legitimate businessman, he doesn’t deal in cash, what’s he trying to do, fuck the IRS? De Boya says no, he always pays his taxes. Then he says, quote, ‘But you don’t know when you have to leave very quickly.’ Jimmy Cap says use a credit card. I miss some of the next part, I’m shagging drinks. I come back, de Boya’s saying, ‘If I tell you, then you know.’ Jimmy Cap says, ‘You have my word.’ The guinea giving the spic his word. But it’s good. That’s one thing I have to hand ’em, George. They give their word you don’t need it written out and signed. De Boya says then, ‘Put away what takes you a year to make and have it close by, so you can take it with you.’ Jimmy Cap says, ‘That the rule of thumb?’ Like getting back to our span, George.” Jiggs looked at his hand again. “How much does it hold? How much does a guy like de Boya put away in case he has to slip off in the night and show up in Mexico as Mr. Morales? You follow me?”

“I don’t know,” Moran said, “how much does he?”

“Later on I’m talking to Jimmy Cap,” Jiggs said, “I ask him out of curiosity how much does he think de Boya makes a year-all the condos, all the land deals. Jimmy Cap says, ‘Net? Couple mil, easy.’ “

Jiggs waited.

“What do you want me to say?” Moran said.

“Tell me where he keeps it.”

“How would I know?”

“You could find out. Ask his missus.”

“Why would she tell me?”

“ ‘Cause she thinks you’re cute, George. ‘Cause she thinks her husband’s a bag of shit. ‘Cause she’d like to dump him and play house with you. ‘Cause if I knew exactly where it was I could be in and out of there in two minutes and your troubles’d be over.”

“Why would they?”

“Because Andres de Boya would be dead, George, and you and the missus could sail off in the sunset.”

Moran actually saw a picture of a red sunset, sky-red night… but put it out of his mind as he said, “What about Nolen? Is he in it?”

“I tell you the deal, Nolen dresses it up, adds a little inspiration. He’s like my p.r. man, George, get you interested. It’s the only reason I talked to him.”

Moran said, “You’ve been thinking about this for some time, uh?”

“Walking around it,” Jiggs said, “scratching my head. Then you come along and I think, here’s a chance to do something for the happy couple. If they’ll do a little something for me.”

“I think you’re crazy.”

“I know you do, George, at the moment. But what you got to do is examine your conscience. You Cath’lic?”