Dead and Gone - Andrew Vachss [123]
“Me? The only boat ride I’ve ever been on in my life was the Staten Island Ferry.”
“Ah, well. It does not matter. You will not be posing as a sailor. And if you appear … ill at the time of your meeting, it will be in character. But we will need one more person.”
“One more? You said four, right?”
“Oh, I will be going, too,” she said.
“I need a driver, Sonny,” I told the kid. Only he wasn’t a kid anymore.
“I heard you were—”
“Now you know better.”
“Oh man, this is great! I—”
“In or out, kid?”
“Can I use my own ride?”
“Which is?”
“A Viper GTS. But it’s got—”
“No. We need something with plenty of room. Got to carry some people, long distance.”
“Can we use your—?”
“No. That’s gone.”
“Damn! That was one sweet—”
“The job is a delivery. You bring some people somewhere, you pick someone up when you get there, you drive them all someplace else. Then you come back on your own.”
“Why would you need me for that?”
“You thought I was … what? Remember?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Okay. You need fast or smooth?”
“Smooth. And roomy. Lots of room.”
“My buddy has a Ford Excursion. We use it to tow mine to the races. Big enough?”
“Plenty. With clean papers all the way through, son. You’re going to be crossing a lot of state lines.”
“Just tell me where to meet you.”
“Sonnyboy!” the Prof greeted him with a hug, then stepped back to look him over. “The wheelman’s a real man now!”
The kid whose mother had named him Randy blushed.
We loaded the truck in the back alley behind Mama’s. The guy she brought over to do the heavy lifting was so big he should have given off a beeping sound when he backed up.
“It’s about fifteen hundred miles,” I told Sonny.
“This one’s got the V-10 in it. I can make fifteen hundred miles in—”
“You can make it in about thirty hours, kid. No tickets, understand? Max might be able to stop a rhino, but he drives like one, too. So you’ll have to break up the run. Just grab a motel anywhere along the—”
“I am an excellent driver,” Gem announced.
“You ever drive anything this big?” I asked her, pointing at the red Excursion’s huge bulk.
“Bigger,” she said. “And over much worse roads than we will be traveling.”
Sonny and I exchanged shrugs. When I didn’t argue with her, he decided he wouldn’t, either.
When the Excursion pulled out, it carried a silent Mongolian who could take a life with either hand; a pasty-faced, pudgy guy with thick glasses and a satchel full of stuff they don’t allow on airplanes; and a cargo hold full of equipment. And Gem.
Right behind them was a dark-blue BMW 7 riding caravan, Clarence and the Prof inside. And me.
I jumped off in D.C., grabbed a flight to Tampa. Met Michelle at the airport. She had a man-and-wife rental at the Hyatt Regency, where we spent the night going over it, again. The next morning, we took off for Key West.
When the rest of the crew arrived—a couple of hours ahead of schedule—we went over it one more time. I finally thought we were all finished, but Michelle had one more thing.
“That nurse’s outfit does look cute on you, but are you sure you can handle the needle?” she asked Gem. “The Mole will get the dosages perfect, but you’ve got to slip it in like you’ve been doing it for years.”
“Shall I show you?” Gem asked, reaching for the syringe.
It took hours to get the old man into the back of the Excursion.
Not to load him, to convince him. Michelle had greased the skids, all right, but the man was old … not dumb.
I was the businessman, in my alpaca suit. Michelle was the working girl who was going to get a cut of the profits—that part actually calmed the old man down, as we expected. Max was the bodyguard, Gem the nurse.
The Mole’s role was mad scientist. Fortunately, that wasn’t much of a stretch. By the time he got done explaining how individual cells could be extracted from first-trimester aborted fetuses, tested for a unique DNA combo-string with a producer-multiplier effect on testosterone,