He couldn’t get on an airplane with all that money; his luggage would be X-rayed, so he had to do something else. He thought about driving his rental car to New Jersey, but that presented too many opportunities to get arrested. Then he remembered something: there was a train. The Silver Bullet—no, something else . . . Meteor, the Silver Meteor. He found a website and checked the Amtrak schedule. The train left Miami at four o’clock; he checked his watch: one forty-six. There was a stop at Lauderdale, and he found a map to the station on the website; the train departed Lauderdale at four-forty. He found a reservation button, clicked it, and looked at the choices: there was a roomette, but it looked very small. He moved up a notch to a suite. Bigger, and available. He made the choice, typed in a credit card number, and after a long, long minute’s wait, got a “Reservation Confirmed” message.

He took a last look around the room, then took a hand towel and wiped down everything he could see. He was ready to leave the room at two o’clock.

He checked outside for flashing lights, found none, then walked out with his bags and the empty duffel and put them all in the trunk. He drove to the office and checked out, paying in cash, then he drove to Fort Lauderdale International Airport, turned in his rental car, tossed the empty duffel into a waste bin, and caught a cab to the train station. He had an hour-and-twenty-minute wait, and it was hard. He got a sandwich and a Coke from machines and made himself consume them slowly. He bought a New York Times, put on his glasses, and pretended to read the newspaper. Then two uniformed cops walked into the station and began a stroll around the waiting room, checking everybody out.

Ryan knew that, with his two suitcases and wearing glasses, he looked like any middle-aged guy, and if they braced him, he still had his badge to fall back on. They gave him a hard glance, then moved on.

At four-twenty, the train was called, and he picked up his bags and walked onto the platform. No train yet. He put down his bags and opened the paper again. A lifetime later—ten minutes—the train rolled into the station and a dozen people began to get on. A porter took his bags and led him to his suite, which turned out to be pretty nice, just big enough for a couple of easy chairs that turned into a berth and an upper berth that swung down for a second occupant. He stowed his bags, sat down with the paper, and turned to the crossword puzzle. The train began to move.

Suddenly, a rap on the door of the suite startled him. “Come in!” Ryan said loudly, and the conductor walked in. He checked Ryan in on his handheld computer. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Ryan,” he said. “The dining room starts serving at six, or you can have meal service in your suite.”

“Thank you,” Ryan said, and the man closed the door.

Ryan put down the paper and rested his head against the seat. Vinny was dead, Charlie was dead, and Al was dead. He was alone in the world.

Then the throwaway cell phone rang in his pocket. Everybody who had the number was dead. He took it out of his pocket and looked at it. “Private Call” the display said. He stood up, pulled down the window, then he took the SIM card from the phone and threw it as far as he could. He dropped the phone out the window, then pulled out the Glock, wiped it with a handkerchief, and threw the gun out, too.

He closed the window, sat down, and looked at his watch. Twenty-seven and a half hours to go.

Frank Russo’s secretary buzzed him. “Yes?”

“There’s a call for Jimmy, but he’s out. The guy insists on talking to you.”

“Okay, I’ve got it.” Frank pressed the flashing button. “Frank Riggs.”

“This is the guy Jimmy spoke to about the job?”

“Yes, I know.”

“It went down like it was supposed to, except we’ve got one cop down and one of yours made it out.”

“How could that happen?”

“It went exactly as it was supposed to, up to a point: we got the driver and two of the other three. The third guy tried to fire his shotgun, but we gave him bad ammo. He pulled a gun we didn’t know he had and fired, hitting one of ours. It’s an in-and-out, he’ll be okay, but your third guy jacked a cab out front and disappeared. A patrol car found the cab in an alley, ditched and wiped. The guy’s in the wind.”

“Which one is he?”

“I don’t know. There was Charlie, then a young guy, maybe early twenties. It was the other guy made it out.”

“Did you find anything on the other two that might help us find the guy?”

“Charlie was carrying a throwaway phone.”

“What was the last number he called?” Frank wrote it down. “Can you trace it?”

“We’re taking it to the station to see if we can trace it.”

“Call me if you find it.”

“Sure.” The man hung up.

Frank stared at the number. Gene Ryan had made it out. Just for the hell of it, he dialed the number. It rang three times, then made a funny noise and stopped ringing. Frank tried it again, but he got a message saying the number was not in use. The phone had been disabled. Oh, what the hell, he thought, Gene Ryan was not important.

His phone rang again. “Yes?”

“The same guy,” his secretary said.

Once again, he pressed the flashing button. “Hello?”

“I forgot to tell you: the guy who got away took nearly half of the money with him—about two hundred thousand. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“I can’t help it if your people fucked up,” Frank said, and hung up. He reached into his desk drawer for some Rolaids. Gene Ryan had just become a lot more important.

—

Ryan dozed for a while, and when he woke up it was dark outside, and he was hungry. He opened his bag for some fresh clothes, and the sight of the money made him jump. He’d have to do a count at some point. He peeled a dozen hundreds off a stack for pocket money and put them into his wallet, then he changed into fresh clothes. He was about to stow the luggage again, but the sight of the money had made him not want to leave it. Then he had an idea; he unlatched the top berth and let it down, then put the suitcase on the bed and closed it again. There, that was better. If a thief wanted to rummage through his luggage, he could try the smaller case and steal his dirty laundry.

He locked the cabin door behind him and made his way to the dining car. The headwaiter seated him at a table for two, took his drink order, and left him with a menu. A moment later, a Chivas Regal on the rocks appeared before him, a double, as he had requested. A moment after that, as he was poring over the menu, a voice broke his train of thought.

“Excuse me, may I join you?” she asked.

Ryan looked up into a very large pair of eyes and his gaze dropped to her cleavage. She was bending over him slightly.

“Sure,” he said, half rising, “please do.”

She lowered herself into the chair and gazed at him with Mediterranean eyes. Italian? Jewish? he wondered.

“I’m Sylvia Mays,” she said, extending a hand.

“Gene Ryan,” he replied. The hand was soft and warm. She was wearing a tailored business suit that swelled to accommodate her breasts, which seemed to be fighting to get out. He wanted to help.

“You have a nice tan,” she said. “You must have gotten in some beach time.”

“A couple of days,” he said. “I was down on business, but that didn’t work out, so I thought I’d take the train home.”