The bluffing, of course, was only for the red-vested barkeep and the mouthy, bragging bastard next to him. But the fact of the matter… the fucking truth of the whole picture was, that the doll was coming in with sixty Gs… sixty thousand bananas for him… after two fucking years of beach combing and playing dead! Jesus Christ! He could hardly comprehend it! He scooped up his glass, drained it and ordered another. He still had three bucks in his pocket.

"That's VO, boy!" he reminded the barman.

"Yes, sir."

"I can't stand cheap booze," Earl said, dragging cigarettes from a side pocket.

"Know what you mean, Man," the bald-headed asshole beside him bit. "This one's on me… what'd you say your name was?"

"I didn't. But it's Weldon… Diamonds, Copenhagen."

"Yeah… well. Clark, farm machinery, Des Moines. Ah… give me a Cutty-soda, Jack. Tell me, Weldon… what could you pick up a nice mounted stone for… I mean we got this little chick in Pittsburgh, see."

Hell, he'd laid it on that bullshitter all right! Even given him one of his old cards that he'd found in the suit… one of those special jobs he'd had printed when he was occasionally Lawrence Weldon from Copenhagen representing the International Rare Gems Associates… shit! If he hadn't had to lay low these past twenty-four months he could've made himself a small fortune, but he would have been a fool to blow sixty grand clean… and now it was coming in… with the doll carrying it. Man! He was going to fuck her silly this night!

Sixty grand and a delicious fuck! That didn't sound too much like a dumdum's agenda. And that sixty, with Rudy's thirty, and what they'd made on the girls, was going to do it! One hundred Gs! Enough to do business with Lopez… all those beautiful rifles, handguns, tommy… what have you. Christ! Two hundred Gs once the cache was delivered into that Blackman's hands! So… the Blackman intended to stir up a little rebellion with 'em… so piss on that, too! If he didn't get 'em from Rudy and himself, he'd get them somewhere else, but he'd get 'em!