“I think the dark-haired one. Jesus.”

Roy said, “Lemme see.” Cullen turned the magazine toward him. Roy said, “None of ’em. They don’t have enough tit between ’em to make one good set.” Roy sat down with his drink. “But old Cully now, he’d fuck a chicken if one flew in the window.”

Jack glanced over his shoulder at Lucy, across the room. When he turned back Roy was staring at him.

“You nervous, Jack? She can’t hear me… You chase her upstairs yet, show her what she’s been missing?… Not saying, huh? You want her, I won’t mess you up. She’s not my type.”

Jack said, “Thanks, Roy,” got up and went over to the bar. Lucy was about twenty feet away, leaning against the wall in her jeans and a black sweater, smoking her cigarette, concentrating, saying a few words into the phone, Lucy in profile against the green banana leaves. Jack watched her move her hand through her short, dark hair.

Roy waited for him to come back with his drink. “I spoke to Homicide, told ’em I’d heard about it. They have a victim was shot through the spine and the back of the head while thirty-seven people were having their lunch and they didn’t learn a goddamn thing. Hey, but I got you something.” Roy brought a notebook out of the inside pocket of his corduroy jacket. He said, “Alvin Cromwell,” leafing through pages.

Jack took one of Lucy’s cigarettes, his first one this evening. Alvin Cromwell was the name he’d copied off the memo pad in the fundraiser’s bedroom. Phone number with a Mississippi area code.

“Here it is. Cromwell Men’s Wear and Sporting Goods. Gulfport. Tell me why a Nicaraguan would go to Gulfport to buy his clothes.”

Jack said, “Why would anybody?”

“There you are. I got you the name, you go on over and find out who the guy is.”

“Maybe Alvin sells guns.”

“That could be.”

“Or he has a lot of money and he hates communism.”

Jack half turned as Lucy appeared. He watched her pick up the sherry and take a good sip. “That was my dad. He had dinner with the colonel last night.” She took another sip and sat down on the edge of the sofa, placing the glass on the coffee table.

Jack watched her. Composed, staying inside herself, hard to reach. He said, “What happened?”

“Nothing, yet. It’s what might happen. My dad said if he could stop payment on his check he probably would. He thinks it’s quite possible the colonel’s going to run off with all the money. And then he said-this is good-‘Of course, it’s still a tax deduction.’ He said even though it’s just a feeling he has, he’s going to tell his friends who haven’t contributed yet to think twice about it. He said it’s only a hunch… But my dad got rich playing his hunches.”

Jack said, “Is that why he called you?”

“He wanted to tell me I’m probably right about the guy and he shouldn’t have given him a dime. Then covers himself by saying the colonel does have credentials, a letter from the president, and the fund’s legitimate. They have an account, he said, at Hibernia.”

“At Hibernia and Whitney,” Cullen said, “four different branches, so far.”

Roy said, “Honey, how much did your dad give this guy?”

“Sixty-five thousand.”

Roy said, “Jesus Christ, I work two years to make that.”

Or even three, Jack was thinking, as Lucy said, “The colonel starts out, he suggests at least a hundred thousand. Then, if he has to come down, he tells about the woman in Austin, Texas, who gave sixty-five thousand and they named a helicopter after her. Lady Ellen. Well, a big oilman from Louisiana should be able to match that, at least.”

Jack said, “It’s like playing blackjack against a woman dealer. We’ll have to give this some thought. But if it’s true, it might even be better. You know it? This guy Bertie, if he’s honest he could have the CIA or even the military fly the money down there. But if he’s gonna sneak off with it, that’s something else. He’s on his own. Or, as far as we know, it’s Bertie and the other two guys.” He thought about it a moment. “It would even make sense why he brought in the guy from Miami, what’s his name? Crispin Antonio Reyna, if you see what I’m getting at. The guy was into dope, has a sheet…” He looked at Roy. “What was it, kiting checks?”

“Uttering fraudulent checks,” Roy said. “Did nine months. Then was brought up on transporting narcotics from Florida to here, but that one fell through.”

“And the guy that killed Boylan,” Jack said, “Franklin de Dios, who didn’t look like any Franklin of God, I’ll tell you, coming out of that Men’s room. He was picked up on a homicide in Miami, a triple.”

“He was a major suspect, but never brought to trial,” Roy said. “So you have your doper and you have your shooter.”

“You see it?” Jack said. “Where the money could be going, associating with guys like that? Right to Miami, fly or drive, either way. You look at it like that”-turning to Lucy-“your dad’s hunch makes a lot of sense.”

Roy said, “I better check, see if Alvin Cromwell’s got a sheet.”

“Or a plane,” Jack said, “or a boat.”

Lucy was looking at him. “You know who he is?”

“Alvin has a men’s store in Gulfport. I’ll drive over,” he said to Roy, “after you check him out.”

Cullen said, “Jack, you’re gonna have to go back in the guy’s room, too.”

“For what?”

“Why’s he have the money in four different branches? I wondered about that,” Cullen said. “Well, one advantage, if it’s in smaller amounts he can get it out quicker. Along with what you’re talking about. Say he wants to leave in a hurry. What you want to find out, Jack, if he’s moving it around, has any new receipts.”

“What difference does it make, he moves it from Hibernia to Whitney?” He didn’t like the idea of going back in there.

“You’re the one brought up Miami,” Cullen said. “What if they don’t put the dough in a suitcase but have it transferred there, bank to bank?”

“Not if they’re gonna use it illegally.”

“Jack, these guys own banks-guys in the dope business. You have to go in there and take a look. Also check the guy’s list, how many names are crossed off. If Lucy’s dad tells his friends not to kick in then maybe this’s it, what the guy’s raised so far and there won’t be no more.”

“Tomorrow,” Jack said. He didn’t like the idea one bit.

“What I don’t understand,” Cullen said, “we’re sitting here working on a score… This’s the first time I’ve ever done it and nobody’s asked the big question, the most important one of all.”

“How much does he have?” Lucy said.

“There, finally.” Cullen gave her a smile. “I’ll tell you right now, the way it’s going the guy’s never gonna make his five.”

Roy said, “I never expected he would.”

“Or even come close,” Cullen said. “I’m talking about what he has right now is two million two.”

There was a silence before Roy said, “What’s wrong with that?”

Jack said, “Not a thing,” and looked at Lucy.

Lucy said nothing.

She reached under the lamp shade to turn off the light, but then paused and looked at Jack, on the sofa. “I’d better wait till they get back.”

“You want to go up, I’ll let them in.”

Roy and Cullen had left to get something to eat, Cullen with a craving for fat-boiled shrimp after twenty-seven years of catfish. They’d find a place open on Magazine, come right back and cruise the street, take a walk around the grounds. It was Roy’s idea. He said they’d better all three of them stay here. Watch out for Nicaraguans and a nigger Indin sneaking around in the night.

“You won’t know where to sleep.”

“I can stretch out right here’s fine.”

“There’re seven bedrooms upstairs,” Lucy said, “not counting servants’ quarters, in this huge house. My mother wouldn’t think of moving. She has a cleaning woman come in every day, the gardener twice a week. I asked Dolores what she does all day. She said, ‘Mostly I look after the house.’ I said, ‘What does my mother do?’ She said, ‘Your mother gets herself ready to go out.’ ”