Maybe the situation still held possibilities.

Alex was beginning to feel awkward. He was naked, vulnerable, and dripping wet. Who knew what they had hidden in those pockets? Any one of these three brutes would happily slit his throat and casually watch his blood spill down the drain. He reached over and shut off the spigot. "Mind if I get a towel and dry off?" he asked.

"Why not?" Miguel grunted and winked. "Who's stopping you?"

Alex began edging around him, carefully, in the direction of the towel room. "What do you want with money, anyway?" he asked over his shoulder. "You're in prison, what good does it do?"

The Cubans followed about a step behind. "Don't you know anything?" Miguel answered, wondering exactly how much this Russian, dead, might be worth. "Money's everything. Inside the joint, outside-makes no differences. Good lawyers, cigarettes, dope, smuggled-in girls, even guards."

Alex seemed to consider that a moment, then, rapidly changing the subject, asked, "Have you ever heard of AOL? America Online?"

Manny and the third, unnamed man exchanged puzzled looks. Totally clueless. Miguel thought he might've heard of it, a hazy recollection at best. But in an effort not to appear dumb, he produced a knowing nod. "Sure. What about it?" he asked, as if he could write a textbook on the subject.

"It's the new thing, an Internet company that's making money hand over foot. The stock could easily quadruple in the next few years, maybe more."

Miguel turned to his colleagues. "Advice from a hustler who ripped off millions back in Russia. Does this guy think we're stupid, or what?"

"You're forgetting something. I also made hundreds of millions."

This got a slight nod. He'd read that on the Internet.

"Point is," Alex plowed ahead, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his waist, "you're losing out. The stock market's on a tear. You're trying to squeeze a few dollars from losers on the inside. The easy money's outside, the big money. It's perfectly legal and above board."

"Cons in the joint ain't allowed to buy stock," Manny chimed in angrily, as if that ended the discussion. From everything Miguel had told him about this Russian, he had been expecting the once-in-a-lifetime payday all convicts live for. Manny had lain awake on his bunk the night before, sweating in the intense heat, dreaming of the money and what he could do with it.

Like the rest of the Mariel Boys, Manny had an appeal for release grinding its way through the courts. They had collectively pooled their resources to hire a lawyer, a distant third cousin of one of the gang. The cousin offered an impressive discount, bragged about his many legal victories, and made lots of rowdy promises. He turned out to be a total loser. Between booze and gambling, Mr. Loser lost track of their paperwork with disturbing regularity; the only thing he turned out to be good at was consistently missing the deadlines for filings.

Mr. Loser had to go.

Miguel had asked around until he found the perfect mouthpiece. Mr. Perfect was a cutthroat from Miami who billed four hundred an hour and produced miracles. He was owned by the Colombians, a gaudy loudmouth who had earned quite the reputation for keeping their killers, mules, and pushers out of jail. Legal mastery was part of it; knowing which judges and prosecutors to help with their home mortgages and kids' college bills, the larger part. In his spare time, he was allowed to freelance as much as he wanted.

It was an outside shot, at best. Mr. Perfect was quite expensive. The billable hours would pile up. The case could drag on for years. And for such a large group, a band of thugs who definitely had not distinguished themselves as model prisoners, the bribes would be mountainous.

Mr. Perfect, though, was their only hope. The Cubans talked endlessly of walking out the gate and retiring in a small, lazy southern Florida town. Life would be so good. They would muscle their way into a few strip clubs and pawnshops, drink cerveza from dusk to dawn, cavort with the strippers, and put the ugly old days behind them.

Alex kept a close eye on Manny, who looked angry and frustrated that their mark turned out to have shallow pockets. He grabbed another towel and began briskly rubbing his hair. "You mean you can't invest under your own name," he corrected Manny in an even tone. "Have a lawyer handle your money. They represent you, they can't blow the whistle. It's in their oath."

Miguel shot Manny a look that said: This sounds interesting, so cool it, for now. "And how would this work?" he asked.

"It's simple. Surely you already have money and maybe you already have a lawyer in mind."

"Maybe we do," Miguel replied, exchanging looks with his pals.

"I have a friend on the outside who will set up a trading account. I'm assuming you have a way to communicate with the outside. It needs to be instantaneous. We'll be buying and selling every day. Throw in whatever cash you have. I can name ten stocks right now that are set to explode, and the spreads in commodities have never been better."

"How do we know you won't lose our money?"

"You know what a stop-loss order is?"

Miguel was through pretending he knew things he had never heard of. A slow shake of the head.

"With each purchase, you designate a trigger price that he programs into his computer. If the stock falls to that level, the broker is required to sell." Alex jabbed the air with a finger. "One push of a button and he dumps everything."

"That's all we have to do?"

"I told you it's easy, Miguel," Alex assured him, leaving Miguel to ponder the interesting question of how Alex knew his name. They had not been introduced. Nobody had mentioned his name. How much did Konevitch know about the Mariel Boys? The suspicion struck him that the Russian had been expecting this shakedown, maybe even prepared for it.

No, nobody was that cunning.

Alex walked over to the clothing locker, picked up his underwear and dirty coveralls, and began dressing. "But don't worry," he continued. "The stocks I pick will never trigger a sell order. Tell your lawyer to watch the action for a month. If he likes what he sees, he can join the fun. Better yet, cut a deal. In return for handling his investments, he'll handle your case."

"And you," Manny asked. "What do you get?"

"Protection," Alex told him, tying his shoes. "Also use your influence to arrange a new cellmate. Ernie gets on my nerves. I'm tired of tearing down pictures of little children."

"Easy," Miguel answered for all of them. "One more question."

"Shoot."

A nice smile, followed by a quick shift of mood and demeanor. "You know what happens if you lose our money, Mr. Smart Guy?"

"I have a fair idea. Do I look worried?"

He really didn't. Not in the least. The end of Elena's first month in the South Arlington rental apartment and she was beginning to feel at home.

The D.C. housing market was hot as a pistol and her real estate agent had pleaded with her not to drop a hundred thousand off the asking price. It was the Watergate, after all; why throw away money? Her neighbors would never forgive her; not to mention the Realtor's own bitter feelings about the seven grand shucked off her own fee. Elena dug in her heels and stood fast. Lured by the great discount, inside two days, ten couples lined up for a shot. A brief, vicious bidding war erupted. The escalation quickly shot through the roof. The dust settled $120K later, at least $20K more than average Watergate prices for a cramped two-bedroom.

The winners were a young Bolivian couple with no children but plenty of money and an open desire to tell everyone back home they were part of the la-di-da Watergate crowd. Elena drove a hard bargain. A hundred thousand down, in cash, she insisted, before the titles were checked and the closing moved along at its usual constipated pace. The young couple hesitated only briefly before Elena mentioned how much she liked the terms offered by the runner-up bidder. A hundred thousand in cash landed on the table.