Late that next afternoon, Geoff banged on the floor. “Team meeting,” he yelled. “Coming up the stairs. You decent, mate?”

I figured “decent” meant my T-shirt and boxers, and “team meeting” was “beer time, four P.M.” I swung open the door.

To my surprise, there was Ellie, and Geoff hanging back with a grin.

“I want to thank you, mate, for your keen sense of discretion in keeping it just between us, and the fucking FBI, that you are here.”

“Guess you two have met,” I said, kicking open the door. I scrambled around for a second, putting my legs into a pair of jeans.

Ellie peeked around the disgusting storage room – boxes of spare parts; cycle catalogs strewn all over the floor; the unmade cot I’d slept in – trying to find a place to sit. “Nice digs…”

“Thanks,” Geoff said, kicking a box of twisted rims out of the way. “Used it many times myself. And I have to admit,” Champ said, nodding, approvingly at me, “when you said FBI agent, Neddie, I wasn’t exactly thinking Jodie Foster.”

She did look cute in a black suit and pink top, but not very cheery. “What’d you find out about Liz?”

“Not much.” She took a beer and tipped it obligingly toward Geoff. “The woman’s untouchable. Her maiden name’s O’Callahan. An old Florida family. Lawyers and judges, mostly. About as private and influential as you can get. She went to Vanderbilt, worked for a while at her daddy’s law firm. She married Stratton about eighteen years ago. I’m told she was his access into the circles that financed many of his business deals.”

“We have to talk to her, Ellie.”

“I tried,” Ellie sighed. “I wanted to question her without drawing the attention of my office. But I hit a wall with the family lawyer. Only with Stratton present, and even then only with a presubmitted list of questions.”

“Christ, the tart’s tighter than a nun in a condom factory,” Geoff said, then gulped a swig of his beer.

“Nice,” Ellie scrunched up her nose. “Stratton keeps her totally under wraps. She doesn’t even go out for lunch without guards. I don’t have enough to bring her in for questioning.”

“Jesus, Ellie, you’re the FBI…”

“What do you want me to do, run this by my boss? What we need is someone in her circle. Someone who can get to her. Make her talk. And I don’t have any contacts there.”

As I said, I had a trump card. And it wasn’t worth holding any longer. I rolled the beer bottle around in my hands. “I may have a way.”

Chapter 62

SOMEONE SAYS HE’S your friend, but you never really know. Life has taught me that there are always barriers that get in the way. Like the rich siding with the rich, whatever side they’re on. What is it I hear the English say? There are no lifelong friends, or lifelong enemies. Only lifelong interests. And I guess you never know what those interests are until you try.

So the next morning I made the call. I might as well have been a sixteen-year-old asking a girl out for the first time. I was never so nervous dialing a number in my life.

“It’s me, Neddie.” My mouth went dry as soon as I heard him answer.

I waited. No reply. I started worrying I had made a mistake. I could be getting us all in an awful lot of trouble.

“You sure dropped the hose in the deep end – for a pool boy,” Sollie Roth finally sighed.

I didn’t laugh. He didn’t mean for me to. That was Sollie’s way of being dead-on serious. “You said something, Sollie, as I drove away. You said a man doesn’t run off in the middle of the night. That no problem was too big to solve. Maybe I should’ve listened to you. I know how things look now. What I need to know is, do you still mean that, Sollie?”

“I never turned you in, son, if that’s what you’re looking for. I said I was sleeping when you took off.”

“I know that,” I said, feeling a little ashamed. “Thanks.”

“No thanks needed,” he said matter-of-factly. “I know people, kid. And I know you didn’t do those crimes.”

For a second I hung my head away from the phone. I swallowed thickly. “I didn’t, Sollie. I swear to God. But I need some help to prove it. Can I trust you, Sollie?”

“You can trust this, Ned,” the old man said. “I’ve been where you are now, and I learned that the only thing that’s gonna keep you from spending the rest of your life in prison comes down to the quality of your friends. You have those kinds of friends, Neddie-boy?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. My lips were dry. “What kind are you, Sollie?”

I heard him chuckle. “In matters like this,” Sol Roth said, then paused. “The highest, kid. The highest.”

Chapter 63

“SO WHO ARE WE meeting here?” Geoff pulled the bike into the parking lot across the street from St. Edward’s Church and cut the ignition.

Green’s was a luncheonette/pharmacy situated on North County, a sleepy throwback to a bygone time. When JFK was president and Palm Beach held the Winter White House, Kennedy and Washington staffers would party all night, attend early mass at St. Ed’s, then spill into Green’s for a jolt of joe and some waitress sass while still in their tuxes.

The man we were meeting was sitting in his corner booth, under the window, wearing a powder blue V-necked sweater and golf shirt, a Kangol hat next to him, his thinning white hair plastered tight against his scalp. He had the Wall Street Journal open and wore a pair of reading glasses.

He looked more like some retired accountant checking his stocks than the man who was going to save my life.

“So, you got some kind of ringer, mate?” Champ elbowed me, sweeping the room for whom we were going to meet. “That’s why you’re holed up with me. Someone really on the inside.”

“I told you, Champ, trust me.”

I shuffled over to the table. The man seated there took a sip of coffee and folded the Journal into an even square.

“So you never turned me in,” I said with a grateful smile.

“Why would I want to do that?” He looked up. “You still owe me two hundred dollars from gin.”

I grinned broadly. He did, too. I put out my hand.

“It’s good to see you, son,” Sol said, shaking my hand and cocking his head a bit at how I’d changed. “Seems you went to an awful lot of trouble just to cut your hair.”

“Time for a change,” I said.

“You want to sit down?” He moved his hat and looked at Geoff. “This is the fellow you were speaking about?” He squinted a bit uncomfortably at Champ’s striking orange hair.

“Either of you mind cutting me in?” Champ stared blankly, wondering what the hell was going on.

I grinned. “The pit just got a little more crowded, Champ. Say hello to Sollie Roth.”

Chapter 64

“SOL ROTH!” Geoff did a double take, eyes wide. “Like in the Palm Beach Downs Sollie Roth? And the dog track? And that hundred-foot Gulf Craft docked at the marina over there?”

“Hundred and forty,” Sol said, “if you’re counting. And the Polo Club and the City Square Mall and American Reinsurance, if you need the entire résumé. Who are you, son, my new biographer?”

“Geoff Hunter.” Champ stuck out his hand and sat across from Sol. “Of the single-lap, 1000cc superpole speed record. Two hundred fifteen miles per hour. Two twenty-two, if they could ever fix on the blur. Face to the metal, ass to the air, as they say.”

“As who says that, son?” Sollie took Geoff’s hand a little tepidly.

A waitress wearing a Simpsons T-shirt came up. “What can I get you boys? Mr. Roth?”

I did my best to hide my face. Two other tables were calling for her. She rolled her eyes at Sollie. “Now you know why I drink, Mr. Roth.”

I ordered scrambled eggs with a little cheddar thrown in. Champ ordered some kind of elaborate omelet with peppers, salsa, Jack cheese, and tortilla chips sprinkled in. A short stack of pancakes, home fries. Sollie, a soft-boiled egg on whole-wheat toast.