The Five Year Plan (1998)

'This isn't exactly fuck-off money, Jimmy. Three hundred grand minus the change doesn't buy you a lifestyle.'

'I could recommend some things. Some investments maybe.'

'Thanks Jimmy, but I don't think I can afford the green fee.'

'Consider it waived. You know, now is a perfect opportunity to get onto the property-owning ladder. There's plenty of good value real estate throughout the county. It so happens I have an interest in the development of some country club homes on Deerfield Island.'

'Isn't that the island Capone tried to buy?'

Figaro grimaced through the cigar smoke.

'This is fifty years ago you're talking.'

'Maybe, but I thought that was all zoned as a nature reserve. Racoons and armadillos and such like.'

'Not any more. Besides racoons aren't nature. They're pests. You should really think it over. Go and take a look. Nine-foot ceilings, gourmet eat-in kitchens, a fitness center, intercoastal views. From as low as two-ten.'

'Thanks a lot Jimmy, but no.' Leaning over the arm of the sofa Dave unzipped the bag and glanced inside. 'I need this money to set me up in something. Something that feels a little more real than landfill real estate.'

'Yeah? Like what for instance?'

'I've got some ideas floating around.'

Figaro shrugged.

'Would you like to count it?'

'And leave myself with nothing to do this evening? No thanks.'

Dave decided to skip lunch with Jimmy Figaro. The sight of Jimmy's car, his two-thousand dollar suit, and the wide-eyed look on his secretary's face had been enough to remind Dave of how out of place he now appeared. The Lucifer beard and the curtain rings in his ears might have helped keep his ass out of trouble in Homestead, but things were different on the outside. In the kind of respectable, wellheeled places Dave expected to be going, maintaining the don't-fuck-with-me image would not be good for what he had planned. It was like Shakespeare said: the apparel proclaimed the man. He was going to need a complete makeover. But first he had to find a car, and well aware that he stood zero chance of driving away in something leased or rented, it made sense to keep the mean-as-shit look going for a while, at least until he had his wheels sorted. That way he figured he wouldn't get sold the kind of fucked-up automobile that might have to bring his bad ass back to the showroom.

Now that he was out of Homestead he wanted to spend as much time in the open air as possible. That meant a convertible; and in the sports section of the Herald he found what he was looking for. A Mazda dealer offering a selection of keenly priced sports cars. A cab took him west of Downtown, along Fortieth, to Bird Road Mazda, and thirty minutes later he was driving back east toward the beach, in a '96 Miata with CD, alloys, and only 14,000 on the clock. He had just started to enjoy the fresh air, the sunshine, the sporty stick shift, and the music on the radio -- he didn't own any CDs

-- when, pulling up at a traffic light to turn north onto Second Avenue, he looked across at the car alongside and found himself staring into the mean eyes of Tamargo, the guard who had escorted him from his cell in Homestead not three hours before.

Tamargo was driving just $1,900 worth of old Olds and seeing Dave in a car that had cost almost ten times as much, the prison guard's sofa-sized jaw dropped like he'd had a brain hemorrhage.

'The fuck d'you get that car, Slicker?'

Dave shifted uncomfortably in his leather seat and glanced up at the still red traffic light. Serving his full sentence gave him certain advantages now that he was on the outside. Not the least of these was the absence of any nosey-fucking-parker parole officer interfering in his life. But the last thing he wanted was the city police asking awkward questions about where the money for the car had come from. The major question was whether Tamargo could be bothered reporting what he had seen. Right now all the information the cops had on his whereabouts was care of Jimmy Figaro's office. There was no sense in letting them discover the license plate on his car, and maybe a whole load of other shit as well. So keeping one eye on his rearview mirror, and tightening his grip on the leather steering wheel, Dave smiled back.

'Hey, I'm talkin' to you, motherfucker. I said, where'd you get the fuckin' car?'

'The car?'

'Yeah, the car. The one that says stolen on the fuckin' license plate.'

Still watching the traffic light.

'This is a clean car, man.'

'Oh yeah?'