Frank and Jimmy sat at the conference table in the law office and completed their tally. The money was stacked in three roughly equal piles. Frank hit the last button on the calculator. “We net a million two, plus our twenty-five grand,” he said. “Charlie gets the rest.”

“Unless we remove Charlie from the equation,” Jimmy said.

“That would be a bad decision—word gets around if Charlie disappears. It would come back to bite us in the ass, so let’s don’t get greedy.”

Jimmy shrugged. “I guess you’re right.” He started dividing their stack into two, while Frank packed Charlie’s share into two duffels. Jimmy went and got a catalog case and raked his half of the third of the take into it, then left. Frank put his half into his safe, then took the two duffels down to his car. He called Charlie on his throwaway cell.

“Yeah?”

“I’m ready to deliver. I want to get this off my hands, so you tell me where.”

“There’s a Walmart on the western edge of town.”

“I know where it is.”

“I’ll park in their lot, as far as possible from the store. Half an hour.”

“Go.”

Frank drove into the lot and picked his spot; Charlie pulled up five minutes later and put his car alongside Frank’s. Frank rolled down the window and pressed the trunk button.

“There you go,” he said. “Your two-thirds is a little over two million. Nice day’s work.”

Charlie moved the two duffels to his car, gave Frank a wave, and drove away.

Frank drove back to his office, relieved to have the money off his hands and the event behind him. It was very clean, he thought—nobody got hurt, everybody got paid.

And he had six hundred grand in the safe; he was set for at least a year.

Chapter 36

Forty thousand feet above Frank and Charlie in the Walmart parking lot, Stone got the first clearance for his long descent into Key West. Half an hour later, he greased his landing into Key West International.

“Nicely done,” Pat said. She had been sitting in the rear of the airplane, working, for the last hour of their flight. “How do you like your new airplane?”

“It’s wonderful. Look at all the fuel we’ve got left!” He pointed at the gauges.

“And now you can fly the Atlantic from Newfoundland, nonstop.”

“And I will.” Stone taxied into Island City Air Services and went through his shut-down checklist. Half an hour later they pulled up at the Marquesa’s loading zone, and someone came for the luggage. Another twenty minutes, and they were sipping piña coladas on the front porch of their comfortable cottage. “I love general aviation,” Stone said.

“Me too, since it’s how I’m making my living,” Pat replied.

“You know that your old boyfriend—what’s his name?”

“You know his name.”