The Retirement Plan

Chapter 29

Ricky chewed furiously on the gum in his mouth. The flavor had long gone, the gum on the verge of disintegrating. He scratched at a dried flake of chocolate embedded in the fibers of his white linen trousers, courtesy of the cone he'd had earlier. Ricky liked to bite off the hard chocolate stuffed point at the bottom, before starting on nut glazed topping. He had it down to an art, leaving just enough chocolate to keep the ice-cream from dripping out. Only today, the heat in the car had caused the exposed chocolate to melt before he had finished the cone.

"You see anything?" Reggie said.

"Nope." They had cruised past the overgrown bushes obscuring the entrance to the trail three times, now. Ricky hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary the first time, and nothing had changed in the intervening ten minutes.

"You sure?"

"Sure I'm sure." He saw Reggie look at Miley through the rear-view mirror for a second opinion. "What's the matter with ya? I said, I'm sure. Ain't nothin' but the same bushes as were always there."

"You need to chill, cuz," Reggie said, voice calmer than a narrator on a damn meditation CD. Ricky's nerves stretched so tight they about ready to twang. The whole drive, from the villa to the mountains with Vic trussed up in the trunk, Ricky had been at ease. Even the cop car flying up behind them, lights flashing and siren screaming, hadn't ruffled his composure. Now, with their hostage securely tied to a tree, and 2.7 million worth of bitcoin lying in their virtual wallet, he had morphed from Charlie Bronson into Charlie Cheswick. Man, if they didn't get this done soon, he'd be busting a fit, demanding his cigarettes.

He glanced back at Miley, sitting in the back, sullen, arms crossed across her chest. "You all right back there?" She didn't react, ignored him, the same as she had done for the past three days. Ricky couldn't figure her attitude of late. When they'd asked her to transfer the bitcoin into her account, she'd responded with a rotund no. But then she surprised the two men by volunteering to pick up the bag at the drop. Saying she wanted to earn her share, petrified of being cut out of the deal.

"She fine," Reggie said, beaming up at the mirror. Before shooting Ricky a shut-the-fuck-up look. "Ain't that right, girl?"

Miley nodded.

"Soon as I find a place to turn, we gonna go back and collect that cash money. And tonight, we gonna find us a fine restaurant, have ourselves a lobster dinner." Reggie's face, animated like a child telling their friends about the Christmas present they'd gotten. "With a side plate of oysters tasting better than a supermodels snatch."

Miley smiling, now, listening to Reggie deliver his patter. With the smoothness of a game-show host tantalizing his audience with descriptions of the prizes on offer.

"Wash it all down with some Dom Pérignon, while mister teetotal here have to make do with some fizzy water."

"While you're chowing down on caviar in your head," Ricky said. "Farmer José out shooting rabbits might just have stumbled upon a lotto win."

"Man, what you—shut up," Reggie said, tensing. "Ain't no farmers up in here. We's out in the boondocks. You believe this guy?"

"Didn't you see the sign back there? Caza—that means hunt. Behind them bushes is where they hunt rabbits, so Doña José can cook her a nice paella for supper."

"You're tripping."

Reggie hit the brake, put the car into reverse.

Miley made a face, reaching down to pull her foot from the tangle of stems and leaves. Should not have worn heels for this. But it's not as if there's a guidebook for collecting ransom drop-offs. In the movies, the bag containing the money gets stashed in a street trash bin. To be snatched up, just as a vagrant goes foraging for their lunch. But this wasn't the brainchild of some twisted cinematic villain. Today's plan had hatched in the stoned incubator inside Ricky's thick skull. And it was apparent he'd put as much thought into it as the blunts he rolled.