Page 10 of Safe Enough
“I’d be nuts. Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t. You don’t have to.”
“You could disappear with my two million.”
“I could, but I won’t. Because if I did, you’d call Octavian and tell him that a face just came back to you. You’d describe me, and then your problem would become my problem. And if Octavian is as bad as you say, that’s a problem I don’t want.”
“You better believe it.”
“I do believe it.”
“Where would I find you afterward?”
“Right here,” I said. “You know I use this place. You’ve seen me in here before.”
“Method acting,” he said.
“You can’t betray what you don’t know,” I said.
He went quiet for a long time. I sat still and thought about putting one million dollars in cash and ten keys of uncut cocaine in the trunk of my car.
“OK,” he said.
“There would be a fee,” I said, to be plausible.
“How much?” he asked.
“Fifty grand,” I said.
He smiled.
“OK,” he said again.
“Like a penny under the sofa cushion,” I said.
“You got that right.”
“We’re all winners.”
The bar door opened and a guy walked in on a blast of warm air. Hispanic, small and wide, big hands, an ugly scar high on his cheek.
“You know him?” my new best friend asked.
“Never saw him before,” I said.
The new guy walked to the bar and sat on a stool.
“We should do this thing right now,” my new best friend said.
Sometimes, things just fall in your lap.
“Where’s the stuff?” I asked.
“In an old trailer in the woods,” he said.
“Is it big?” I asked. “I’m new to this.”
“Ten kilos is twenty-two pounds,” the guy said. “About the same for the money. Two duffels, is all.”
