determined wake sewage. Finally he was tackled by four at once, then wrestled to the floor. He put up a horrendous struggle.
“My dog,” he yelled, “my dog! He stole my fucking dog!”
But the cops were not about to listen. They were too busy playing catch-up. They hammered his already flat face with metal billy clubs, and took fungo shots at his puckered balls. They Maced him until their cans spit air. When they were done he was on the floor, doing a reasonable imitation of a beached flounder.
Beano and Victoria stopped before boarding, and opened the folding kennel case that read CANINE DRUG ENFORCEMENT, U.S. CUSTOMS. They put Roger inside and then went aboard and settled into their first-class seats to Miami.
Beano counted the forty-five hundred dollars he had just gotten from prison-bound Texaco Phillips. He put it into an envelope, licked it closed, wrote John Bates on the outside, and called a flight attendant. “Could you page this gentleman and ask him to pick this up at the ticket counter?” he said, handing it to her. “Tell him I couldn’t get the whole ten, so he’ll have to make do with forty-five.”
“Of course, sir,” she said and left. When she came back, she said that Mr. Bates had been waiting out front and had been given the envelope and the message.
“What was all that commotion out there?” Beano said pleasantly. “That man the police were chasing, what did he do?”
“He tried to break through Security. That’s a Federal crime. Apparently he had a gun; that carries a mandatory sentence of ten years. I don’t think we’ll be seeing him for a long time,” she said.
“Really?” Beano said with mock surprise.
“The Feds take that very seriously,” she answered, and moved off.
Victoria smiled. “I am very impressed, two birds with one dog,” she grinned.
Roger-the-Dodger was wagging his tail inside the case; it banged happily against the side of the carry-kennel, giving the effect of well-deserved applause.
The plane rolled down the runway ten minutes later.
They were off to Miami and then to the Bahamas. They had eliminated Texaco Phillips.
It was time to put Tommy Rina in play.
PART FOUR
PUTTING THE
MARK IN PLAY
“Some lies are more believable than truth.”
-ANONYMOUS GYPSY PROVERB
SIXTEEN
SABRE BAY
BAHAMIAN LAW INSISTED THEY GET ROGER-THE-Dodger a rabies shot and a veterinary certificate at the Freeport International Airport. Now, as they pulled out of the palm-lined airport drive, he sat on the front seat of their rented, air-conditioned English Ford, very unhappy about the shot he had just received. Roger had a new green plastic tag on his collar that said he had been inspected by the Grand Bahamian Ministry of Agriculture and Trade.
Once out of the airport, they turned right and took the Grand Bahama Highway east toward the Sabre Bay Club, which was located on the easternmost tip of the island. The road led them past Pelican Point and through a dusty village named McLean’s Town, which was dotted with remnants of fifteenth-century architecture from the time of Columbus. Brightly painted wood-frame buildings from the intervening years were shaded by huge cypress trees. There were narrow tin shacks with wood-supported awnings that seemed to lean like old men on canes in the withering tropical sunlight.
Whoever had designed the Sabre Bay Club knew a lot about tropical luxury. It was situated on the tip of the island so it could take advantage of the Atlantic winds, as well as the Channel Trades that blew down the inland Providence Cut.
Beano turned into the resort under a huge European arch guarded by statues of both Columbus and Magellan. The white ground-shell road wound past a magnificent Arnold Palmer- designed golf course and finally brought the club building into view. It was a mixture of architectural styles that somehow miraculously blended together. The brochure Victoria had bought at the airport said that the entrance and porte cochere were constructed from the remnants of a fourteenth-century Gothic monastery. The pamphlet said William Randolph Hearst had discovered the already dismantled structure at a warehouse in Lourdes, France. Still stored in crates, it had been sold to Huntington Hartford, who then shipped the remnants to Grand Bahama Island. The artifacts had somehow found their way to the drive-up entry of the Sabre Bay Club. The effect was startling. A piece of old-world feudal grandeur mixed with the windy indifference of the Bahamas. Completing the display of colorful ambiance were a flock of pink flamingos that wandered freely on the grounds. Moving in graceful awkwardness, they thrust their long