“No, it needed saying, and I said it.”

“Whatcha got, Vinnie?”

“I got a series 1966 C-note, the one with the red seal, that’s what I got.”

“Well, I’m real happy for you, Vinnie. Let me know when you find the other eight million, and we’ll talk.”

“You don’t seem to entirely get what I’m saying to you, Bats.”

“You got a C-note, right?”

“There’s more where this one came from.”

“Which is where?”

“I’m working on that. My theory is that we took it in payment for vigorish or a lost bet.”

“From who did you take it?”

“I’m working on that, too.”

“Did you hear that Johnny Fratelli is out there somewhere?”

“No shit? Did he bust out?”

“Nah, he served his sentence. Him and Uncle Eddie were tight, you know, for all that time in the joint.”

“You said he’s out there ‘somewhere.’ Can you tighten that up for me?”

“Well, if you were just out of the joint, and you had got your hands on big money, and people were shooting at you in New York, where would you go?”

“Vegas?”

“People in Vegas got a different set of bookies, Vinnie. How about Miami?”

“That makes sense.”

“Then get something going down there, will you? Fratelli knows a lot of people from the old days.”

“I’ll look into it,” Vinnie said.

“Call me.” Bats hung up.

Vinnie dialed a cell phone number.

“Yeah?”

“Where are you, Manny?”

“At Hialeah, where I’m supposed to be.”

“I got a call.”

“I get calls all the time, Vinnie, so do you.”

“This one was from New York, concerning one Johnny Fratelli. Know him?”

“I knew him in the joint fifteen years ago. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“That’s not what my caller said. He’s likely down here somewhere, and I want to talk to him.”

“What about?”

“Business.”

“Oh.”

“Put the word out with your people—I want Fratelli in my office, and there’s ten grand for anybody who can bring him here, unbruised.”

“Sure, Vinnie, I’ll spread the word.” Manny hung up. This was interesting, he thought. Nobody alive could remember the last time Vinnie paid anybody ten grand for doing anything, including murder. He called his own office.

“Consolidated Digital,” a voice said.

“It’s me. You know that weekly fifty grand we’re paying out?”

“Yeah.”

“When’s the next delivery?”

“Next Tuesday, but we’re not delivering, we’re wiring from offshore to offshore.”

“Where was the last delivery made?”

“At a Burger King up on I-95, around Delray, last Tuesday.”

“What’s this about wiring?”

“The guy handed the delivery boy an envelope with wiring instructions. It had to be from one of our offshore accounts.”

“Where’s the receiving account?”

“Hard to say. The nearest would be the Caymans.”

“So we’ve lost touch with the guy?”

“Looks that way. We don’t have any more appointments to keep, just wires to send.”

“Don’t send the next one,” Manny said. “Not until you get the go-ahead from me, personally.”

“Whatever you say, Manny.”

Both men hung up.

• • •

Not twenty miles from Hialeah, an FBI agent took off his headphones and made a phone call to his boss in the Miami field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Bob Alberts.”

“Sir, I picked up something interesting on the Vinnie Caputo wire. I thought you might like to hear it.”

“How long is it?”

“Five minutes, tops—two calls, both outgoing, one to a Brooklyn number, the other to a South Florida cell phone.”

“Okay, play it.”

The agent backed up the digital recorder and pressed the PLAY button. The recording played. “Get all that?”

“Yeah, I got it all. Send the recording to my in-box.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bob Alberts hung up the phone and spent a couple of minutes tapping his nails on his desk while he thought. Then he got a stack of his old notebooks from a desk drawer and started flipping through them. It took ten minutes to find the number, then he dialed.

“Harry Moss,” an elderly voice said.

“Hello, Harry, it’s Bob Alberts. How are you doing?”

“Well, Bobbie. Long time.”

“How’s the world treating you?”

“I’m eating a corned beef sandwich out by the pool, that’s how it’s treating me.”

“Life is sweet, huh?”

“You bet your ass, Bob. Why the hell are you wasting your time calling me when you should be out solving crimes?”

“Something came up about an old case of yours.”

“How cold?”

“Twenty-five years, give or take. The JFK robbery?”

“What the hell came up about that?”

“How much was stolen?”

“Fifteen million. We got about half of it back, but the brains behind it, a guy named Eddie Buono, died in prison recently, and we never saw a dime of it. What have you heard?”

“We picked up something on a wiretap about a series 1966 hundred-dollar bill, and the guy we’re tapping connected it to that robbery. He called somebody in Brooklyn about it. Was there a guy named Fratelli involved?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. I mean, I remember something about a guy named Fratelli, but he was never connected to the robbery.”

“I don’t know about that, but on our wiretap it was said that a John Fratelli was in Sing Sing with Buono for a long time, and that he recently got out. The Italian gentlemen in New York are looking for him. What do you remember about Fratelli?”

“Let’s see: six-four, two-fifty, a real ox. Had a fearsome rep as an enforcer. People were so scared of him they nearly always did what he said or answered what he asked. He hardly ever had to use force.”

“How old would he be?”

“Jeez, fifty, fifty-five, maybe.”

“Can you think of anything about him that would help us find him?”

“Come on, Bob, what’s going on?”

“I think he might have the money, or some of it, that you never recovered.”

“Where do you think he might be?”

“Maybe South Florida. Where might he hang out?”

“Jeez, I don’t know. Where those guys always hang out: the track, some bar somewhere.”

“That’s it, huh? Nothing else?”

“I been retired ten years, Bob. You must have somebody fresher than me to ask.”

“Okay, Harry, go back to your corned beef sandwich.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“Bye, Harry.”

“Bye, Bob.”

• • •

Harry Moss hung up the phone in a sweat. He had seen Johnny Fratelli in a Burger King less than a week ago, wearing shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, a straw hat, and dark glasses, but he had recognized him. He hadn’t put a name to the guy until now.

22

Jack Coulter, née John Fratelli, checked his image in the mirror before leaving his apartment. He had lost twenty pounds since leaving prison, ten of them since buying his Brooks Brothers suits. He was going to need a tailor. His hair was growing out nicely, now merely short, not skin on the sides, and he had started a mustache, which was not a problem for a man who had to shave twice a day to avoid a five o’clock shadow. A few days before, he had noticed a difficulty with reading the newspaper, so he had visited an optometrist and had been prescribed glasses. They gave him a whole new look, he thought, and the advantage of clear vision.

Fratelli met his dinner hosts at the entrance to the Breakers, where he was introduced to Hillary Foote, who was much more attractive than he had envisioned. She was tall, slim, and shapely in the right places, mid-forties. The Carnagys’ antique Rolls-Royce from the fifties collected them and drove them to the Brazilian Court Hotel and its restaurant, Boulud.

Hillary turned out to be smart and funny. She had been divorced a year before and also lived at the Breakers.

“I assume you’re retired, Jack,” she said. “What did you do when you had to work for a living?”