New Orleans/ the Funky Pirate
That night Billie and Rosie return to The Funky Pirate in the French Quarter to meet with Little Willie. First, though, they stop at Coop’s Place for a late-night dinner of burgers and fries. After that they walk the short distance to The Funky Pirate. If everything goes according to plan, Little Willie will have with him the documents—Rosie’s new fake ID—driver’s license, passport, credit card etc.
Billy and Rosie enter the popular New Orleans Blues club. It is crowded with what Billy takes to be mostly tourists. Again, as they pass by the bar, Billy hails the bartender, Ray. They find an empty table in the back, order a drink, and a half-hour or so later Little Willie comes into the club. He stops for a moment at the bar to talk to the bartender. There is—Billy notices—an exchange of money over the bar. Then Ray points toward the table occupied by Billy and Rosie.
Little Willie waves a hand and makes his way toward the table. Billy rises from his chair to shake his friend’s hand. Willie smiles down at Rosie.
“Hello, Beautiful Lady,” he greets her.
“Hi, Willie,” she replies. The big man again arranges two chairs and settles his large frame down at the table. Billy asks if Rosie’s new papers are ready.
Willie nods. “Let’s see the color of your money, my man.”
Billy smiles back, takes out a wad of bills, and again counts out ten one-hundred-dollar bills into a small pile. Then he pushes it across the table in front of Willie.
“Here’s your money, my man!”
Willie removes a sealed 8 ½ X 11 Manila envelope from his leather briefcase and hands it across the table to Billy who opens it and examines the contents. Inside is a driver’s license—in the name of Fredricka Davis, with a nice picture of a smiling Rosie—and a passport with the same picture, social security card, and a new VISA credit card with an expiration date of July 2025.
Billy grins and passes the documents to Rosie. “Nice job, Willie,” he says.
“What do you think—Fred?” Billy asks Rosie. “That’s what I’m going to call you from now on, Fred.” Rosie makes a small face.
Willie says, “You’ll have to tie the credit card to a real account.”
Billy looks back at Willie. “No problem. I can take care of that tomorrow. I’ve got an account at a bank in the Cayman Islands we can use.” Billy pulls out his wallet and shows Rosie his own fake ID.
Rosie reads the name on Billy’s fake driver’s license. “George Jones?”
Billy smiles. “Yeah. There must be at least a million of us around the world. Hard to trace to any single person.”
Rosie looks at Billy. “Well, if your George Jones—then I should be Tammy Wynette!” she jokes. They all laugh.
The waiter comes by and Billy orders Little Willie a drink. Then Billy and Willy reminisce a bit, talk about old friends and remember a time when they were both young, fighting, and trying to hustle out a living from the tough New Orleans streets and back alleys.
Little Willie looks at Rosie and smiles. “You know, it’s too bad, Beautiful Lady, but my friend, Billy, here was just getting to be a good respectable criminal—then he found old Sam, went to college and law school, became a gentleman and a scholar, and lost his respectability among his old friends.” He pauses and shakes his head. “It was a damn shame if you ask me.”
Rosie gets a bright smile and turns to Billy. “Were you a criminal?” she asks.
Billy gets a little grin and responds back to Little Willie. “Yeah, but I could never keep ahead of you, my friend.”
The big man laughs. “That’s because you never had the right genes to be a real first-class crook.”
Little Willie gets up from the table and pockets the money. “Nice doin’ business with you again, Billy.” He smiles. “And nice seein’ you again, Beautiful Lady. You be safe.” With that he leaves the table and goes back to the bar to talk to the bartender. Billy follows the big man with his eyes.
Rosie says to Billy, “Like I said, Billy, you sure have some—interesting friends.”
Billy grins—is matter of fact. “I told you, that’s where I come from, Rosie. The streets, the docks, and back alleys of New Orleans.” He pauses and looks thoughtful. “And if it weren’t for Sam, that’s where I’d still be—either there or in jail.”
Rosie smiles. Billy seems to be always honest and upfront with her, but in a lot of ways she is having trouble understanding him. He does so much for her and goes so far out of his way to help her, and yet he never asks for anything in return—not even sex. Billy has not once seriously tried to come on to her—not yet. Rosie is beginning to wonder if maybe there might be something wrong with her. Billy is a puzzle that she has yet to figure out. All she knows for sure is that she feels safe with him.
Billy and Rosie stay to the end of the last set. On stage with the band is a sultry black female singer in a slinky long dress. Fitting to New Orleans, and in true Billie Holliday fashion, she does a rendition of the blues classic Stormy Weather and the Norah Jones song Turn Me On, plus her own torchy version of the all-time favorite Black Velvet.
The next morning, after breakfast on the boat, Billy calls his banker friend, Feliz, in the Cayman Islands. Billy had opened the account—on the advice of Shane McGregor, director of Counterintelligence in the CIA’s Russia House division—when he first started doing his contract work for the agency. Customers were required to always maintain a minimum one-million-dollar balance, and there is no name on the account—only an identifying number.
“Feliz? This is Billy.”
“Bee—ly! How are you?” the gregarious Caribbean banker asks with his pronounced, Mexican American accent. “How can I help you today, my friend?” Feliz is always accommodating, keen on giving his clients—particularly those, like Billy, that he likes—his best top-line service.
Feliz goes on. “When next you come, my friend. We will go together to veez-it the girls. Always there are new ones coming in from Amer-eeka. It is a most bountiful country—that Amer-eeka!” The diminutive Mexican banker has a decided penchant for tall blond, well-endowed Scandinavian-looking women (In his expensive, polished-black elevator shoes, Feliz is—on his best day—barely five-feet-five-inches tall).
Billy first met Feliz when he came to the Caymans to open his private numbered account. On a later follow-up visit, the two went out for a night on the town and Billy paid a thousand dollars for his new banker friend to enjoy, for a couple of unforgettable hours, the voluptuous pleasures of a particularly buxom, high-end Norwegian call-girl—or “escort” as they are called.
Feliz Benitez was originally from Mexico City. He had worked in New York for Citibank, in their private banking division, before leaving New York City for the Cayman Islands where he is fast building a private banking clientele of wealthy Americans—and other foreign nationals—who want to keep their financial dealings off-shore and secret.
Billy says, “Feliz, I need you to do me a favor.”
“I we-el, my friend,” Feliz replies, “do whatever is within my power.”
“I have a credit card that I want tied to my account. It’s a Visa card.” Billy gives Feliz the card number and expiration date. He then reads back his own account number so the banker would know what account to attach because there is no other identifying information on Billy’s account. In the murky underworld of off-shore banking he is simply a number—not a person.
Do you want to establish a lee-mit on the card? Feliz asks.
Billy thinks for a second, gazes across the table at Rosie, “No limit,” he says.
“Okay, Bee—ly, I will take care of it within the next hour. The card should be ready to use by tomorrow.” The two men say good-bye and Billy ends the call.
Rosie looks across the table at Billy. She is bland. “Just what every woman wants. A man’s credit card—with no limit.”