“Twenty-seven times they hit him,” Nolen said. “A prick like that, I guess you have to be sure.”

Moran was patient. “De Boya came to Miami-I imagine with a few million he’d scored. He was a general in charge of something or other…”

“Something or other-try head of the secret police,” Nolen said, “the Cascos Blancos, the white helmets. You’re a poor Dominican you see a guy wearing a liner painted white you run for the fucking hills.”

“I thought he owned sugar mills,” Moran said.

“That’s how he got rich. Trujillo used to pass out sugar mills for good behavior. Three days after the old dictator’s killed, de Boya’s on his yacht bound for Miami. With all the U.S. dollars he could get his hands on.” Nolen was looking at Moran’s sneakers again; his gaze thoughtful, still somewhat skeptical as it raised to Moran’s beach-bum bearded face.

“How do you know him?”

“Leucadendra Country Club. I played golf with him a few times. Actually it was twice,” Moran said, “in the same foursome. That was enough.”

“Too rich for your blood, uh, the bets? Little Nassau?”

“No, the guy cheats,” Moran said. “You believe it? Guy that’s worth, easy, forty fifty million, he cheats on a hundred-dollar round of golf and all the clucks, the guys that play with him, know it. I couldn’t believe it. They not only pay up they go, ‘Gee, Mr. de Boya,’ give him all this shit what a great game he plays.”

Nolen said, “Yeah?” Still a little hesitant. “What about you? You pay him?”

“No, as a matter of fact I didn’t,” Moran said. “My father-in-law at the time, I thought he was gonna have a stroke. ‘You out of your mind? You know who that is, for Christ’s sake?’ I said, ‘Yeah, a guy that cheats. Fuck him.’ My father-in-law goes, ‘A hundred bucks, Christ, I’ll give you the hundred.’ I tried to explain to him that wasn’t the point, but my father-in-law was nervous because de Boya was putting money in his condominium developments and I worked for him, my father-in-law.