“You’re not hungry?” guesses Tony.
“Well, that wouldn’t be a secret, silly,” says Felicity. “Tony, I feel like I can trust you?”
“You can,” agrees Tony. “Everybody can.”
Felicity looks around her, trying to form her thoughts into words. “I’m not busy, you see. I’m never busy. I don’t really do anything.”
“Okay,” says Tony.
“I just…I don’t really know what I do anymore, or what my company does. And I’ve been thinking lately that it would be very nice to talk to someone about it.”
“I see,” says Tony.
“And then in you walk,” says Felicity. “With your lovely smile and your big hands.”
She doesn’t do anything? Doesn’t actually know what her business is? Tony is dimly aware that Steve will want to know this. But for the moment he’s too busy looking at his own hands.
“Shall we?” says Felicity, standing. “There’s a posh pub, or there’s The Crown, where you can get a shepherd’s pie?”
“Shepherd’s pie for me,” says Tony. “Unless you—”
“Shepherd’s pie is perfect,” says Felicity. “Absolutely perfect.”
Tony Taylor smiles. It is a reminder that, sometimes in life, you really should risk the traffic.
49
Rosie is driving them to see Nelson Nunez at Bluff Point. As expected, her name did the trick. Nelson had announced he would be “delighted” to see them at nine a.m., so here they are, bright and early on a Sunday of all days, on their way to a drug dealer’s home. She turns off the coast road, and onto a rough track. The house is nearby, she knows that, but it is nowhere to be seen. Drug dealers, like celebrities, will pay a great deal of money for privacy. And often for the same reasons.
“So someone steals your blood, presumably Joe Blow, sends it to Loubet, and there you are,” says Steve. “You’re physically present at every scene?”
“They’ve got me,” says Amy.
“But no one’s going to believe you killed them,” says Rosie. “Why would you?”
“They won’t need to believe it,” says Steve. “If there’s solid proof, there’s solid proof. So we need some proof of our own that somebody else did it.”
Rosie looks at Steve in the rearview mirror. This guy can really fill out a suit. He is sweating fairly profusely, but these things can’t be rushed. She takes the next bend much too fast, because where’s the fun in doing anything else, and finally sees high iron gates set into a stone wall. On the gates are three signs. One says Guard Dogs on Patrol, the second says Trespassers Will Be Shot, and the third says St. Lucia Welcomes Careful Drivers.
Rosie winds down her window and presses the intercom button on a security post. There is a quick back-and-forth, and the gates swing open. As she continues down the driveway, a Land Rover emerges from bushes to her right and settles in behind her. Mounted in the flatbed of the Land Rover is a machine gun, currently manned by a young man in a Coldplay T-shirt.
“Welcoming committee,” says Rosie. “That’s nice.”
“I’d hate to see what happens when he’s not delighted to see someone,” says Steve.
“They’ll frisk me for my gun,” says Amy. “Rosie, you take it.”
“You think they won’t frisk me?” says Rosie.
“I wouldn’t,” says Steve.
“Never say never, Stevie,” says Rosie, leaning her arm around her seat to take Amy’s gun. The house comes into view now: pretty enough, white wood and painted green shutters.
“Smaller than you’d think,” says Amy. “For a big-time drug dealer.”
Rosie pulls up on a tarmac strip at the front of the house, the main doors swing open, and a man who can only be Nelson Nunez steps out onto a wide porch carrying a tray of glasses and a pitcher of orange liquid that, to Rosie’s trained eye, looks lethally alcoholic. The drive home will be even more fun.
Rosie, Amy, and Steve exit the car. Rosie has hidden the gun where she has hidden many things over the years. Not easy in a jumpsuit. It is a testament to the trust she has in Amy that she didn’t even double-check if the safety was definitely on. As Steve walks around the car to join Rosie and Amy, she sees Nelson’s face change.
“There are three of you?” says Nelson.
They look at each other, as if to confirm this.
“My friends,” says Rosie. “Amy and Steve.”
They take their drinks.
“Okay,” says Nelson, clearly thinking something through. “Then we have a problem.”
The Land Rover pulls up behind Rosie’s hire car, and the young man in the Coldplay T-shirt jumps down. Nelson looks at him, and then looks at his guests.
“Well,” he says. “Come in. I’m sure we can sort this out between us.”
As Rosie walks up the two steps to the porch, she sees Nelson give a slight nod to the boy from the Land Rover, and receive a slight nod in return. She is glad, not for the first time in her life, to have a gun.
50
From the Desk of François Loubet
