“How about Spanish?”
“I’ve got my Tex-Mex from back home; I could get by on that.”
“Let me do some research.”
“You’d better research some passports for us, too.”
“The trick is to leave legally, with our own passports, before the Feds or the cops shut us down.”
“We’ve go
t to move some cash soon,” Sharpe said. “The safe is full.”
“Sell the product that’s in there, and I’ll take a couple of suitcases down to the Bahamas and make the hop to the Caymans.”
“Not without me, you won’t,” Sharpe said. “Anyway, the jet charter is cheaper per person, if you have a few people aboard.”
“You don’t think like an accountant, Derek.”
“Have you sent that prospectus to Stone Barrington?” Sharpe asked.
“It’s on the way uptown as we speak.”
“You think he has any money?”
“Not enough for us to bother with,” Larsen said.
41
STONE HAD MADE IT HOME and was at his desk when Joan buzzed him.
“A man to see you. He says he’s from Sig Larsen,” Joan said on the intercom.
“Send him in,” Stone replied.
The man did not look like someone from a messenger service; he looked like someone from the Russian mob, tall and thick. “Good morning,” he said in unaccented English. He handed Stone an envelope. “Mr. Larsen says you can read this, but you can’t copy it; I have to take it back with me.”
“Would you like some coffee?” Stone asked.
“Yes, thank you.” The man took the offered chair. “Black, please.”
Stone buzzed Joan and asked for a large coffee, and she brought it in.
The proposal was forty-one pages long, and Stone began to read every line.
The man finished his coffee and began to look restless.
Stone was on page eight.
“Could I use a restroom?” the man asked.
“Right over there,” Stone said, pointing to a door.
The man got up, went to the toilet, and closed the door.
Stone picked up the proposal and ran down the hall to Joan’s office. She watched incredulously while he shoved the stack of papers into the Xerox machine and pressed the button. “How many pages a minute does this thing copy?”
“I don’t know, maybe twenty-five.”