It wasn't that Jimmy Figaro thought that Dave was planning to double-cross Nudelli or anything. He had no idea what business he and Dave were involved in, merely that Dave and Al Cornaro were somewhere out of town and doing it. Actually he didn't think the news was so bad. But with the paranoid way Nudelli had greeted the news of Dave's release from prison, Figaro couldn't see his client treating this latest revelation with equanimity. So he had made sure to bring some really good news as well.
With a face like a rock, Nudelli listened to Figaro explain the whole story, and then stretched the cheeks across the bones with his fingers while he gave the matter some thought. Finally he said, 'And what's the silver lining you want to sew into this fucking cloud of shit you brought me, Jimmy?'
'Just this,' smiled Figaro, shifting excitedly on the leather sofa. This was the moment he had been looking forward to. 'The Court of Appeal affirmed the lower court's decision throwing out the challenge to the public portion of our new hotel's financing. It means the city properly created a redevelopment district to finance its share of the project.'
'That's good news, Jimmy.'
'Isn't it great?' Figaro smiled. He had worked it well, he thought.
'So the builders can start when?' Nudelli asked him.
'Just as soon as you give them the down payment, Tony.'
Nudelli remained silent.
'There's no problem about the money, is there? Twenty-five million in cash. That's a lot of green. But without it--'
'The money's on its way. Be here any day now. Soon as Al gets back to Miami. So don't worry about a thing. Now when do you think we can open the hotel?'
'By early '98.'
'Then I think this calls for a bottle of champagne.' Nudelli pushed a button on his library desk to summon Miggy, his butler. 'I can't tell you how happy this makes me, Jimmy.'
'I'm glad. And I'm relieved. To be honest I was a little worried how you'd take the other thing. About Dave Delano.'
'I appreciate your concern, Jimmy. Maybe now you'll understand me a little better, huh? I had a nose about that kid, remember?' He pointed a finger at Figaro. 'You thought I was being paranoid.'
Jimmy Figaro started to disagree but Nudelli wasn't about to be contradicted on this point.
'Don't fuckin' argue, it's true.' But Nudelli was laughing as he said it, still wagging the finger at Figaro. 'I seen it in your eyes. You were thinkin' it, even if you weren't saying it. Well, I got an instinct for these things. Maybe this is why I am where I am. Not by havin' no college education, or no rich daddy, or by marrying some classy broad. Some hope. I got to be where I am by trusting to my fuckin' instincts, y'know? Just like I knew we could get past this redevelopment district bullshit.'
Nudelli's finger tapped the side of his nose and then the side of his temples. He chuckled as he said, 'It's a basic instinct. Like Sharon Stone's pussy. You see it only once, for a second, but it's always there. Waiting to go into action.'
Figaro grinned back at him and shook his head in apparent wonder. 'I have to admit, Tony, you were right, all along.'
This was all Nudelli wanted from Jimmy Figaro. The acknowledgment.
'So what happens now?' asked Figaro. 'About Delano?'
'How do you mean?'
'I had the impression that some sort of business relationship had been concluded.'
Nudelli looked up at the grandfather clock against the wall of his study. Twenty thousand dollars' worth of time-keeping. It was English. A George II walnut eight-day long case, the height of a basketball player. The same height as the pile of cash he expected Al to bring back from the Atlantic score.
'Concluded? Yeah.' Tony Nudelli laughed. 'In just a few hours that's what it's gonna be. Concluded.'
Chapter TWENTY
Dave was out of breath. A walk to the accommodations block along the narrow side of the ship at night and in a high sea could do that for you. Several times he and Al had to stand still and hang on to the guide-rail until the swell passed and they could move again. Usually the journey took five minutes. This time it took more than twenty. And when finally they reached their objective they were both soaked to the skin. For a moment there passed through his head the thought, 'What the fuck am I doing here?' Then he got it together again, and left the question unanswered in case Al should take offense. Both of them realizing the size of the task they had taken on, they parted silently for fear of giving expression to the doubts that each man now felt. Dave headed toward the radio room, and Al made his way down below to secure the engine room.
