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“And thank you, Nolan,” Felix continued, “for being kind enough to send over some refreshment. Very thoughtful. Would you like something to cool yourself off, Nolan?”

Nolan said, “Get me a Schlitz,” to Angelo.

Felix said, “Lowenbrau, Angelo.”

“And,” Nolan said, “crack open a couple Schlitz for you and what’s-his-name, Angelo.”

Angelo looked to Felix for approval. He got it.

“Thanks,” Angelo said to Nolan. He had a gruff voice that didn’t fit the red coat and tie, as his head didn’t fit his body.

Nolan waited till everybody had beers and then figured all the bullshit preliminaries were over and said, “What’s the word, Felix?”

Felix smiled, turned to Angelo and said, “Bring me a glass,” and Angelo brought him a bathroom glass still wrapped in paper. Felix waited for Angelo to tear off the wrapping and hand him the glass. Then Felix poured the golden liquid out of the green bottle and sipped it and said, “Have you heard from your friend in Iowa?”

“I’m having trouble getting through to him.”

“Trouble?”

“I’ve tried twice. Nothing to worry about. He may try to call me. I told the switchboard girl to route the call to me here in this room if he does.”

“Do you think there could be a problem on his end?”

“No. It’s nothing. You got to understand he’s an eccentric old guy with a mind of his own. He feels like stepping out for a while, he steps out for a while.”

“I see. I hope everything is all right.”

“Everything’s cool. The money’s safe where it is, like it has been for almost a year now. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“I wish I could share your confidence,” Felix said, wagging his head gravely. “I won’t feel safe until the money is in that bank of ours.”

“Me, too, but no sweat. I can’t see how anybody could know where the cash is. Do you know where it is?”

“No,” Felix said.

“Maybe you’re telling the truth,” Nolan said, “I don’t know.” He took a gulp of his beer, giving Felix a chance to say something, then went on. “You know enough to find out, that’s for sure. You know about the bank job, and I went so far as to tell you the money’s stashed in Iowa someplace. Send some boys snooping to find out about me, you could figure where the stuff is, easy enough. Charlie could’ve figured it out, if he wasn’t dead.”

Felix smiled meaninglessly, like a sphinx.

“But nobody else could,” Nolan said. “Unless you leaked what you know about me. Or unless you talked as loose as I am now in front of bodyguard clowns like these two.” Nolan caught out of the corner of his eye Greer narrowing his. “Nobody in my field knows I’m the one who pulled that particular job, and if they did, they sure wouldn’t figure I’d leave the money sit where I did. For this long especially.”

“What you’re saying,” Felix said, taking a genteel sip from his glass of beer, “is this hiding place is so stupid it’s smart.”

Nolan shrugged, took another gulp of beer. They’d been over all of this before, a lot of times. Nolan had resisted handing the money over to the Family immediately because he didn’t trust them, he wanted to fully understand their intentions before making any final steps. Now, after these months at the Tropical, he felt assured that the offer Felix had made in that other room in the motel at the LaSalle-Peru exit on Interstate 80 was legitimate. Of course, even by Family standards the amount of money involved was a sizable one, but it didn’t seem logical that they’d try to get at it through so elaborate a double cross. And why should they double-cross him? Nolan was convinced that the Chicago Family was grateful to him, glad to be rid of Charlie. After all, they had entrusted Nolan with the reins of the Tropical, an expensive bauble for even the Family to be tossing casually around, and had been paying him well for this “trial run.” But still he’d waited until recently to tell Felix he was ready to transfer the money, and it was only yesterday that he’d mentioned to the lawyer that Iowa was where he had to go to get it.

Felix said, “What I had in mind was this. You will leave here this evening, around eight or nine, and arrive in Iowa, wherever in Iowa it is, sometime after midnight, depending on how far you’re going. We have a car for you with a specially rigged trunk compartment, so that you can get stopped by the police, for God knows what reason, and still get by even a fairly thorough search. You will deliver the money to our bank in Riverside an hour and a half before opening — that’s seven-thirty, Daylight Savings Time — and the bank president, a Mr. Shepler, will be waiting for you.”

“Fine. What’s the name of the bank in Riverside and how do I get there?”

“Just leave that to Greer.”

“To who?”

“Greer,” he said, nodding toward the baby-face gunman.

“Why should I leave it to him, Felix?”

“He’ll be accompanying you, Nolan. You wouldn’t want all that money to go unguarded.”