his suitcase. The publisher had sent out a letter disavowing the mistake, but the nonexistent law firm was still in the book, long after everyone had thrown the letter away.
Victoria closed the M-H directory and pondered what to do with stuffy Cedric O’Neal. She had one or two yellow “Caution” lights flashing on the big emergency panel in her head, but she was still seething with anger about the death of her friend and that energy helped to make up her mind. “Okay, Mr. O’Neal, how ‘bout ten o’clock tomorrow morning? My office.”
“Ahh, could we perhaps make it someplace where the possibility of recording or eavesdropping is a mite less intense?”
“How ‘bout Sam’s Deli, down by the river? Nine o’clock?” she said.
“It’s a date. I’ll be the tall, balding gentleman in the tan suit and the striped school tie.”
She hung up the phone and wondered what the hell was going on.
Beano hung up the phone, grabbed Roger, and headed to the door. He needed to go dig up the pickle jar he had buried under a rock off Highway 10. The jar contained fifty thousand dollars in cash. The fifty large was his start-up money and all he had left in the world. Then he had to catch the red-eye flight to Jersey, so he could make his nine o’clock meeting with a beautiful prosecutor named “Tricky Vicky” Hart.
SIX
TELLING THE TALE
SAM’S DELI WAS ON THE CORNER OF MANCHESTER AND O Street. It had large, plate-glass windows and a takeout counter along the east wall. Beano arrived at eight, an hour before the meeting. He was dressed in a blue blazer, tan slacks, and striped tie. His dyed blond hair was falling over his tanned forehead. One of the problems with being on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List was that Beano’s picture had been circulated to police departments all over the country. He picked a table in the rear of the deli. With his back against the wall, he sat scanning the half-full restaurant. Laughter and frying bacon mixed in with the occasional scream of a Waring blender. An aerial circus of black flies competed for a hanging light fixture in the center of the room.
From what he’d been able to find out about Victoria Hart, she was no fool. She might even bring a police investigator to witness the negotiation concerning Anthony Hey wood’s nonexistent crimes. Beano had selected his old cellmate, Amp, for the co-starring role in this hustle because Beano knew Amp had a sizable record and would be in the N.C.I.C. computer. Beano had also heard from an old ex-con friend that a month after he got out, Amp had stopped a bullet in a street action and had been given the Miami “burial at sea,” which consisted of being lugged out to the Everglades and stuffed down a gator hole … an event that made him technically still alive, but forever unavailable for protest. Beano’s careful eyes zigzagged the deli and he determined there weren’t any cops in the place.
He ordered a tall glass of orange juice from an already tired waitress whose name tag said she was ANGEL. Beano sat watching the door, examining the customers as they arrived, checking them out one at a time as they entered. At exactly nine o’clock, through the door came the woman whose picture he had seen in the Trenton Herald. Victoria Hart announced her fastidious personality with her wardrobe and prompt arrival. In person, Beano didn’t think she looked very tricky. She looked determined; everything about her suggested intelligence and organization. She was in a tailored, dark green suit with matching shoes and scarf. She was even more strikingly beautiful than the picture in the paper, but she seemed unconcerned with her looks. No makeup or hair-styling. She had a large briefcase and no purse. She seemed impatient as she scanned the restaurant. As her eyes panned across him, he pulled the menu up to cover his face. She was searching for a tall, balding man in a tan suit and school tie, the description he had given her. But nobody in the restaurant matched that description. She glanced at her watch, then moved briskly across the deli and took a table by the window.
He let some more time run off the clock. At nine-ten, Victoria Hart started glancing at her watch. Then she pulled her case files out of her briefcase and started going through them again. Angel poured the New Jersey Prosecutor a second