Ocean Prey (A Prey Novel #31) - John Sandford Page 0,78

weight,” Virgil said. “The gear weighs close to a hundred pounds by itself, and that’s before the lift bags, and there’ll be drag from the boat.”

“We’ll have three guys on board to do the lifting.”

“Plus me,” Rae said.

“Plus Ally,” Lange said.

Virgil said, “Okay. That should work.”

Regio handed Virgil a thick gray watch and a thin white booklet: “This is your GPS watch. Good to three hundred feet, already been tested. You need to figure it out with the instruction book. We’ll give you the exact GPS coordinates for the pickup spot.”

Rae: “And you’ve got all these numbers, this GPS shit, figured out?”

“Down to a couple of yards,” Regio said. “The last thing we need is to have Willy pick up a million bucks’ worth of dope and then not be able to find him.”

Rae to Virgil: “You know how to read all this shit?”

“Sure. Can’t drive a boat without it,” Virgil said.

She shook her head. “I dunno. You can’t make change for a one.”

Virgil asked Regio, “Once I’m in the zone, how do I find the shit? If the Coast Guard couldn’t find it in six months . . .”

“We’ll explain that to you when we’re on the boat. You just figure out the watch.”

When Virgil and Rae were alone in the motel room, Rae put a finger to her lips and moved close to Virgil’s ear. “They rented the room. Might be listening.”

Virgil nodded and said, aloud, “Let’s get showers and change clothes and see if we can sneak away from those motherfuckers and get something to eat. I’ll break some goodies out of the car.”

“There’s that shrimp place . . . we could walk there in five minutes.”

“Let’s go.”

* * *

They put on cotton jackets and were out the door in twenty minutes, walking slow. Halfway to the shrimp restaurant, with no sign of either Regio or Lange, Virgil pulled Rae into the parking lot next to a plumber’s shop and fired up a joint and handed it to her. “This is our excuse for stopping, if anyone’s watching,” he whispered. He got on his phone and called Lucas. “We’re doing it tomorrow. Are you set?”

Lucas: “We’ve been ready for a week. I’m not getting cold feet, exactly, but they’re getting cool. Are you sure you’re up for this?”

“I am. The biggest problem would be if they decide to take what I find and kill me,” Virgil said. “When I surface, I’ll be more or less helpless. Rae will be on the boat, she made that clear, and she’ll have that little nine stuck inside the bottom of her leggings. If anything funny starts, we’ll have that.”

“If you want to back away, nobody would blame you,” Lucas said. “The people who know about it figure you for balls like watermelons. I know better, but I’m a little worried.”

“Hey. I’m good. Watch for a tail when we split up tomorrow.”

“We are. Haven’t seen anyone watching you other than Regio and Lange. We’ve seen Cattaneo on a sailboat in Hollywood, we think that might be where you’re going.”

“That sounds right. Sailboat will be moving slow, which is normal. In the dark, nobody would see me going over the side, or coming back on. So . . .”

“Easy does it,” Lucas said.

“Are you still in Hollywood? You personally? Right now?”

“No. We’re across the highway from you,” Lucas said. “Your two guys walked out three or four minutes before you. It looks like they’re headed for the same place you are. There’s not much else up there.”

“They might have been listening to us; they rented the room, there could be a bug, so . . . don’t call.”

* * *

Virgil handed the phone back to Rae, who turned it off and dropped it in her jacket pocket. Virgil took a joint from her and said, “Sweet authenticity.”

Virgil took a drag, blew the smoke into Rae’s hair and passed it. She took a drag, blew the smoke into Virgil’s hair. They did that one more time each, then dropped the joint and Virgil smashed it into the gravel.

Regio and Lange were sitting in a two-person booth when they arrived at the shrimp place. Virgil lifted a hand when he saw them, and drifted over. “Place is a little sketchy.”

Regio laughed and said, “So you fit right in.”

Lange sniffed: “You gotta go easy with the weed, man. You gotta be straight tomorrow.”

“I don’t touch it before a dive,” Virgil said. Rae had taken another booth. Virgil ambled away from the two men, sat down.