you fly light aircraft.’ I says, ‘I fly all kinds of aircraft; if it’s flyable, I can fly it.’”
“No bragging, Dix.”
“You want a blow-by-blow here?”
“All right, go on.”
“He says, ‘How’d you like some regular work?’
“I says, ‘How regular?’
“He says, ‘Two, maybe three times a week.’
“I says, ‘Do you speak money?’
“He says, ‘Five hundred a day.’
“I says, ‘I get two hundred an hour.’
“He says, ‘A thousand a day, and that’s it. All cash, though. No taxes to pay.’
“I says, ‘Where do I fly and with who?’
“He says, ‘A round-trip with two landings.’
“I says, ‘Landings where?’
“He says, ‘On water, then back to land.’
“I says, ‘In what?’
“He says, ‘In a nice, fairly new Cessna.’”
“What was his name?” Max asked.
“Chico.”
“Chico what?”
“Chico Who Cares. He gave me a grand in cash.”
“How did you contact him?”
“Cell. Throwaway, buy ’em at Publix. He gave me one with his number in it.”
“What else?”
“That’s it. I made twelve, fourteen flights, then I damaged a pontoon and dumped it into the water. I think that’s where you came in, right?”
“Then what?”
“A few days later, I’ve got a new Cessna, nicer than the one before. We continue.”
“Tell me about the boats you met at sea.”
“First stop was an old cabin cruiser, but fixed up, you know? Cubans are good at fixing up old cars and boats.”
“The crew was Cuban?”
“Oh, yeah; choppy English. Maybe twenty-five miles off Havana.”
“And at the other end?”
“A shrimper, Lucy Ann, always the same one. American.”
“Names?”
“The skipper was Carl. I heard the crew call him that. The owner was aboard once.”
“His name?”
“Mister, ah, mister something.”
“‘Something’ doesn’t cut it, Dixie.”
“Williams—no, McWilliam.”
“Why was he aboard?”
“I think he just wanted to see how it all worked.”
“Tell me more names.”
“I heard him mention two: Hedger and . . .”
“C’mon, Dixie.”
“I’m thinking. No, it’s gone. It was a famous name, like an artist’s.”
“Am I supposed to guess?”
“It’ll come to me.”
“Make it come to you faster.”
“Who makes them little floating things?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know, them little floating things that folks hang over kids’ cradles to keep ’em quiet, you know?”
“Mobiles?”
“That’s right!”
“The name was Mobile?”
“Naw. I saw one in an art gallery once, with the artist’s name on a card in the window. It was fucking expensive, too.”
“Alexander Calder?”
“That’s it! Not the first one, the second one.”
“Just ‘Calder’?”
“That was the name Mr. McWilliam used.”
54
Stone, Dino, and Viv were sitting on the fantail, sipping gimlets, when Max trudged up the boarding steps and flopped down amongst them. Dino came to her immediate rescue with a gimlet from the bottle in the ice machine.
“You look a little frazzled,” Stone said.
“If you had spent most of your day locked in a little room with Al Dix, you’d be frazzled, too.” She raised her glass and took a gulp.
“We’ve been waiting all day to hear from the FBI guy in Naples,” Dino said.
“Nothing?” Max asked.
“Nada, zip.”
“The feds are slow to respond when they’re on the giving end of the conversation. They’re very quick when they’re asking.”
“Don’t I know it,” Dino said.
“Looks like we’re going to have to wing our way back to New York tomorrow,” Stone said. “Dino’s pretending he has to get back to work.”
“Dino is working here,” Max said. “I’ll vouch for him.”
“They work who also sit and wait for answers,” Dino said.
“I’m sure someone will point out that you can wait for answers in New York,” Viv said.
“What are we doing for dinner?” Max asked.
“We have a table at Louie’s Backyard in an hour,” Stone replied.
Max drained her glass and set it down. “Well then, I’d better go leap into a shower to get Al Dix’s breath washed off. See you shortly.” She went below.
“So,” Dino said to Stone, “why do you want to rush back to New York? More time with Robbie?”
“I’m steering clear of Robbie from now on,” Stone replied.
“How come?”
“Well, she tends to pounce, sometimes at inopportune moments.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Also, she’s still a murder suspect,” Stone said. “I’m not comfortable with that.”
“That’s Herbie’s problem,” Dino pointed out.
“Yeah, and Herbie’s not comfortable with it, either.”
“She’s going to be a richer lady, what with her newfound cash supply,” Dino said.
“Well, I don’t know if Herbie has mustered the courage yet to tell her that she is going to have to pay income tax on all of Randy’s estate, unless his accountant can show that he’s already submitted a tax return and a check to cover it. And from what we know of Randy, I don’t think he would have taken that step, otherwise the cash would be in his bank account instead