Jack’s beeper vibrated through his pocket against his thigh. He checked the readout: one of the Ashe brothers. He went to the phone on the corner and used one of his calling cards to pay for the call.

Joe Ashe came on the line. “Twin Air.”

“How’d it go?”

Joe started laughing. “What a pisser you are, boy! What a evil pisser! Frank was laughin’ so hard he damn near put us in the drink! Those tires”—the word came through his Georgia accent as “tahrs”—”was bouncin’ ever’ which way. You shoulda been there, Jack! You shoulda seen!”

“Oh, I’ll see it,” Jack said, hoping Sal had made a good tape. Exhilaration bubbled through him. It had been a wild idea, one that easily could have flopped. “I thought it might work, but you never know until you do it.”

“Jack, it worked so well I don’t know why the Air Force don’t use tires instead of bombs next time we have another Gulf War or Yugoslavia thang. You know how many tons and tons of old tires we got in this country that we gotta go out and bury or sink in the ocean ever’ year? We could load ‘em all into B-52s and drop ‘em from fifty thousand feet. Can you imagine the commotion of a zillion tires landing after a ten-mile drop? Why, they’ll be bouncin’ right over buildings is what. Panic in the streets, man. If we’d thoughta this before, we coulda just buried Baghdad and Belgrade and got rid of a whole pile of junk to boot.”

“I’d appreciate it if we kept the U.S. Air Force out of this for the time being,” Jack said. “We’re still set for another run on Sunday, right?”

“Set? We can’t hardly wait! Almost seems a sin to be gettin’ paid for this! Say, y’ know, I was thinkin’ maybe I’d add a little music on Sunday, y’know, like special for the occasion.”

“Joe, I’d rather you—”

“You remember that ol’ Bobby Vee song, ‘Rubber Ball,’ and the part where it goes ‘Bouncy-bouncy, bouncy-bouncy.’ Wouldn’t it be cool if we could be blastin’ that from some speakers while all those tires—”

Jack had to smile. “Let’s keep it simple, Joe. Once we start embellishing, we start asking for trouble.”

“The ol’ KISS rule, huh? I gotcha. Just a thought.”

“And a good one too, but let’s do the second one just like the first, OK.”

“You got it, boy.”

Jack waited for Joe to hang up, then hit the # key to make another call.

12

His guests had gone now, most managing to exit under their own power, some needing assistance. After profuse apologies, Milos had seen the last one off, then got down to business.

He’d had Kim set up Cino in the theater room with the new Keanu Reeves film on the plasma screen and a fresh bottle of Dampierre in an ice bucket as her companion, then had put the Korean in charge of the caterer’s staff to start them on the massive clean up job. That taken care of, Milos lined up his men in the security office in the basement.