Shane wandered the shopping malls with Jody, but eventually they split up and he found himself at Don Vincent's Store for Men, on North Palm Canyon Drive. He selected a lightweight blue blazer, gray slacks, and a pale-blue shirt with a white collar, along with new underwear, socks, and shoes; then he rolled up his old clothes and put them in the store bag. Shane was just coming out of the dressing room when he was stopped in his tracks by a rayon nightmare. Lounging in a nearby chair, dressed in a new shimmering mint-green shirt, which stretched ominously across his overdeveloped chest, was Victory Smith.
"Hey, Scully," the huge weight lifter said. "Two hours I been wandering in these stores buyin' stuff, but I ain't happy, man."
"It ain't easy bein' green."
"Rod was my home slice. He and I rolled up scumbags together for two years in SWAT. I loved that guy. Because of you, he got dusted, an' it's pissing me off."
"Whatta you want from me?" Shane asked, setting down his bag so that both hands were free while feeling the comforting weight of the automatic on his right ankle.
Smith saw him freeing up and smiled: "Hey, dickwad, I'm not gonna try for you in a Palm Desert men's store. Gimme a little credit here."
"I don't want any trouble. Why don't we put this behind us?"
Victory Smith pulled himself to his feet. He had dropped one of the crutches somewhere and was now using only one. He propped it under his left armpit and leaned on it casually. "You know where the abductor canal is?" he said lazily.
"North Michigan, up by Lake Erie."
"Keep the jokes comin', asshole." They glared at each other. "The abductor canal is in the mid-thigh. That's where your slug hit me. You'd be surprised how much really necessary stuff goes through the abductor canal: you got your deep femoral perforation artery-carries blood to your feet; your femoral nerves-fuck with them and they hurt like a bitch. Then y'got all the other abductor muscles-your abductor minimus and magnus; plus a lotta tendons and shit, too numerous to mention. After you shot me, this leg looked like a plate a'spilt spaghetti- a fuckin' mess. Beyond that, my Beaner doctor musta got his license at the Tijuana School of Terminal Agony. How much of this is ever gonna work right again is anybody's guess."
"You trying to tell me something?"
"Just fillin' you in on what happened, Scully; what you did to me." He turned and hopped toward the door, then stopped and swung back. "I got one real bad habit. Even back on the job it kept getting me in trouble. Wanta guess what that was?"
"You fart in squad cars."
Smith ignored the remark. "I'd go outta my way to make things right. Didn't leave no negative balance on the books. Fuck with me an' you got some payback comin'. No exceptions, no reprieves."
"I'll consider myself warned." "It's not a warning. Hot… Sauce," stretching it out, making the nickname sound ridiculous. "No, sir, not a warning." "Then what?"
"A promise, a fact of life. Course, I gotta wait till I'm feeling a little stronger… Couple a'days and I figure these stitches oughta hold. Then, after I see what's left a'my leg, I plan on givin' you my own Viking funeral… Very small event… Just you, me, Rod's ghost, some gasoline, and a match." He turned again and, using his one crutch, hobbled out of the store.
They all met back at the motor home at seven-thirty as agreed, but Smith was late. All of the Vikings except Shane were now dressed like breath mints. Jody had on a plain, light blue, spring-weight sport coat, aqua blue shirt and linen slacks, with a pair of two-tone brown-and-white shoes. He looked like a cartoon gangster. Even Lester Wood had shucked his Western garb in favor of tan slacks and a light-purple shirt. He had a new off-white linen jacket. The rough-out cowboy boots and aviator glasses were all that remained.
Jody studied Shane's conservative attire: "This is the Springs, Hot Sauce."
"I didn't realize we were supposed to dress like Disney characters."
"Where's Smith?" Jody grinned.
They heard the crutch poke-poking along on the sidewalk around the corner from them. Then the massive ex-cop limped into view, and stopped.
"Where you been?" Jody asked.
"Me an' Hot Sauce went shoppin' together."
Jody nodded, not registering the implausibility of that idea. "We gotta get up to Papa Joe's before eight. While I cut the deal with Lisa, you guys hang out by the pool and back me up. Papa Joe says there're only gonna be one or two other people from All-American Tobacco there, so this should only take half an hour. Then we'll find a bar and celebrate."
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel sat on twenty-four landscaped acres in the foothills of the Santa Rosa Mountains, overlooking the Cochella Valley. Jody drove the motor home to the front gate, gave Jose Mondragon's name, and was directed to the Palo Verde villa at the end of a road that skirted the hotel grounds. The view looked across Frank Sinatra Drive into the twinkling lights of Rancho Mirage. The Palo Verde villa, like everything else in Palm Springs, had sweeping arches and Spanish tile, all of it wrapped in flowering bougainvillea.
As they pulled up to the villa, they could hear a band playing swing music somewhere inside. The melody leaked out across the grounds. Valets in red Ritz-Carlton jackets were grabbing the car keys of arriving guests, jumping into the vehicles and running them backward up the drive at breakneck speed to park them in the overflow lot above. The motor home was jamming up traffic, causing a difficult parking problem.
"Half the fuckin' world's here," Victory complained. "I thought this was a private little deal with just one or two tobacco executives."
"So did I," Jody said, getting out of the motor home and handing the keys to the attendant. "Sorry, nobody up at the gate told me this was so tight down here," he said to the valet. "Who are all these people?"
"AAT executives and their wives," the valet answered. "They're having their Western Regional Sales retreat."
"How do we do a deal with all this goin' on?" Victory said as they headed into the villa.
The band called themselves the Majesties-a string quartet, plus piano, drums, and bass. They seemed stuck on forties music, which the mostly gray-haired men and women in dark suits and cocktail dresses danced to energetically. The Spanish-style living room had been emptied of furniture to accommodate the makeshift dance floor.
Jody was gazing down at his pastel outfit with concern. "Shit," he growled, "we look like a buncha ushers at a Mexican wedding."
After a minute the man who had called out to Lisa when Shane was in the pool walked up, and Jody introduced him as Jose Mondragon. As Shane shook hands, he could see that the short, powerfully built man was dripping with pricey accessories; a twenty-thousand-dollar gold Cartier watch peeked out from under diamond-studded French cuffs.
As they released the handshake, Jody patted Shane's shoulder, "Jose, this is my friend Shane I told you about. Of course you remember Victory and Lester."
"Mucho gusto. "Jose shook hands all around, then smiled at Jody. "Con su permiso, por favor. " He smiled, dismissing them curtly as he took Jody's arm and led him off, leaving Shane and the other two Vikings standing there.
"Besame lapinga, asshole," Smith growled. "Since we all know this fucker went to Harvard, why don't he speak English?"
Without inviting him to join them, Smith and Wood moved off, leaving Shane alone.
He pushed into the bar and ordered scotch on the rocks, then wandered slowly through the party, feeling out of place and suddenly very lonely. He desperately missed Alexa and Chooch. Finally, he wandered onto the veranda and leaned against the concrete rail, looking out across the twinkling lights of the valley.
"I liked your swimming outfit better." A rich contralto voice interrupted his thoughts.
Shane turned and once again found himself looking into the remarkable jade-green eyes of Lisa St. Marie. He wondered if she got that color by wearing contacts. She had changed out of her business suit and was now dressed for maximum effect. It was a high-fashion balancing act, teetering precariously between sexy and slutty. Her neckline plunged, her short dress was sl
it way up one side, all the way to her abductor canal. She had on just enough jewelry to accent her alabaster complexion, but not too much to detract from her eyes. A single pearl rested between her swelling breasts, diamond earrings twinkled from behind shoulder-length wings of honey-blond hair.
"Is it too soon in our relationship to make a personal observation?" she smiled. Her teeth and personality glittered.
Shane didn't feel compelled to answer; she was working hard enough for both of them.
"You have a magnificent tush."
Shane gave her a slow smile. "I'm trying not to get into any trouble with you, Ms. St. Marie."
"I must have made a good first impression. You bothered to find out my name," she enthused, then moved closer to him and slid her right hand through his arm.
He pulled out of her grasp and put out his hand. "I'm Shane." She shook it formally.
"Nice to know you, Shane. Lisa."
"Aren't you supposed to be having a business meeting with Jody right now?"
"I might get around to Jody, but right now I'm more interested in you." She brushed up against him, pressing a breast against his arm.
"You always leave this many skid marks?" Shane asked. "We could both get whiplash. Why don't we start by trying to be friends."
She studied him for almost half a minute while the Majesties switched to "Stardust." Then she kissed the tips of her fingers; this time, instead of wiggling them at him, she gently touched his cheek. "Nobody can resist me for long, Shane." She smiled at him seductively. "Let me get you another drink; then we can get started on our new friendship. Or better still, why don't you keep me company? Come to my meeting with Jody."
Shane finished his drink to buy time. He didn't want to piss off Jody… At least not yet. But this was a heaven-sent opportunity to stand up close and watch the players in this deal. The ice cubes clinked against his teeth. As he set down his glass, he had a strange flashback.
Alexa was standing in his backyard, at the canal house, looking up at Chooch and talking earnestly. Shane's heart froze with the memory, followed by deep pain and intense longing. Then Alexa and Chooch were gone, and Lisa St. Marie remained, frowning at him. She had seen the painful look pass through his eyes.
"Whatever that was, I don't want any," she said.
"I was just remembering something," he muttered.
"Follow me, I'm betting we'll have some fun."
So he followed her… Across the dance floor full of swirling executives and into the bedroom where Jose Mondragon, Jody, and three other men were waiting.
Chapter 26
TRIPPING
THE BEDROOM WAS large, dominated by a king-size Spanish-style poster bed. Four men turned simultaneously as Lisa opened the door. A frozen tableau.
Jody, dressed in powder blue, with two-tone shoes, his drink halfway to his mouth, glaring; Jose Mondragon, by the desk, looking up from a sheaf of papers, startled, like a kid caught cheating on a test. And then there were three gray-haired AAT tobacco executives who were standing together by the plate-glass window. As the door opened, these three West Coast cancer distributors stared as Shane and Lisa entered the room.
"I don't think we need any more people here than is absolutely necessary," Jose said, now speaking in perfect, unaccented, English. He had completely dropped his bullshit "como esta" act.
"I can vouch for Mr. Scully," Lisa said. "He's working with us on distribution. He's also an extremely qualified deep-end retrieval expert." She twinkled this nonsense at them, and the room tension dissolved in her smile like an Alka-Seltzer tablet in a sea of sexuality.
Only Jody seemed unmoved. In fact, there was a crazy tightness to his mouth and around his eyes, as if he had just been insulted and didn't know where to park the anger. Finally he nodded-a jerky, almost spastic movement not at all like him.
Lisa motioned toward one of the lung-cancer salesmen. "This is Chip Gordon, head of our overseas subsidiary, American Global Tobacco," she said, smiling at a tall, narrow-shouldered man whose face in profile had the shape of a quarter moon. "And this is Arnold Zook," she said, motioning to a nondescript, pudgy man with a laurel wreath of gray hair circling a shiny pate of open scalp. "He supervises some of our other Latin American duty-free transactions." She turned toward the third man, dressed in black: "And our host this evening, Louis Petrovitch." She didn't mention his corporate title, but it was obvious that Petrovitch was the power player. He had a Prussian general's military bearing- tin-colored short hair, a mile of jaw, and eyes the approximate color and texture of poured concrete. He didn't acknowledge the introduction.
"Shall we go out onto the patio, where it's safe?" Jose suggested, fearful of listening devices. He swung open a pair of double doors, and the group walked out onto a large deck, almost twice the size of the bedroom. Shane followed, finding a spot near the door where he could observe but would hopefully be forgotten. The rest of them walked to a glass-topped table ten or twelve feet away. The lit golf course stretched out, fragrant and verdant below them. Shane watched as Jody sat; he seemed stiff, uncoordinated.
Where was that old fluid grace… Jody's athletic elegance… where was the casual economy of motion?
Lisa was the last to join them. She slithered into a chair and wrapped her legs to the side, showing a lot of well-shaped thigh. Chip Gordon, Arnold Zook, and the formidable Lou Petrovitch stood nearby, holding glasses of melting ice. When Lisa crossed her legs, Shane heard Petrovitch inhale sharply.
He's sleeping with her, Shane suddenly realized.
Lisa smiled at Jody with jade-green confidence, while Papa Joe started the meeting.
"Lisa will conduct this transaction for AAT," Jose said. "As the representative for Blackstone Duty-Free Imports, I will act as a court of last resort in any dispute. My company will also control the drafting of the transaction, and the contract will be held at the Blackstone office in Geneva for obvious reasons. Acceptable?" The question was aimed at Jody, who simply nodded. Strangely, Jody's hands were trembling on the tabletop.
What the hell's wrong with him? Shane wondered.
"Okay, Ms. St. Marie, you're on," Jose began.
"Senor Mondragon tells us you want to buy some duty-free, V-Five product and market it in Aruba," Lisa said. "Aside from distributing product, we can also handle all the shipping, warehousing, and insurance. I'd like to pitch a package deal."
"Skip that. Let's start with the cost per case." Jody's voice was shaky. "Since we're dealing in bulk, I think five percent to Blackstone and three hundred dollars a case to All-American is fuckin' nuts. You're not even paying federal taxes. It's way too high. We're gonna need a break on those numbers." Unexpectedly, Jody started rubbing his eyes. The people on the deck watched him with growing concern until he finished and squinted up at them. "What?" he said angrily, catching them staring.
"It's always bad form to look into someone else's pocket, Mr. Dean. I think if you want to do a deal, we need to transact it along traditional lines. Whether or not we have a federal tax burden just isn't any of your business," pudgy, dark-suited Mr. Zook said.
"Traditional lines? How many guys you do business with want to buy fifty million in V-Fives in one shipment? I'm looking for a discount and a lowered percentage for volume."
"Let's get back to who handles the product-shipment insurance and warehousing," Lisa said, smiling across the glass tabletop at Jody, trying to calm him down.
Jody didn't answer; instead, he rubbed his eyes again. It was almost as if he couldn't see properly.
"We'll ship for fifty cents a carton," Lisa said. "We'll insure for another dollar fifty. We'll warehouse in our building in Aruba for two hundred dollars a pallet on an amortized weekly rate."
Jody dug into his pocket and pulled out a folded paper with some math scribbled on it. He squinted as if he could barely read his own writing.
"Either that," Lisa said, "or you can get your break from Jose out of Blackstone's five percent. That's up to them, but All-American is not cuttin
g our three hundred dollar per case base price."
Petrovitch nodded. He seemed proud of her.
"Leon Fine said there was room to negotiate on volume," Jody protested.
"Ahhh, yes, Leon… Whatever happened to poor Leon? He sorta up and disappeared," Lisa said softly. "And since Leon isn't here to confront that issue directly, maybe we ought to leave him out of it."
"Who do you fucking people think you're dealing with?" Jody asked, his voice too loud and badly out of sync with the setting.
Shane took another hard look at his old friend: Jody was smarter than this, yet Shane saw something in his eyes that he had never seen before. Jody's eyes were on fire. Gone was the cold appraising confidence. Shane wondered if he was on something. He couldn't believe Jody would be stupid enough to get high and then come to this meeting, yet he seemed clearly out of it.
"There's no need for rude behavior," Lisa said.
"Fuck you, honey!" Jody responded hotly, exploding to his feet. "Just 'cause there's no history here, don't think you can fuck me over! You people act like this is a business transaction. It's not! It's a criminal conspiracy. Let's not forget that you're all money launderers. I make one call and this whole deal goes into federal court and back to the taxpayers."
The Prussian general cleared his throat: "Get this… This person out of my party." Petrovitch turned and left the deck, taking his two flunkies and most of the available oxygen with him.
Jody was left standing, glaring awkwardly. Jose Mondragon turned and followed Petrovitch.
Lisa finally rose from her chair while Shane put a hand on Jody's shoulder. "Come on, man. Cool down."
"Get your fucking hands off me!" Jody screamed and backhanded Shane's arm off with his fist.
"What'd you take?" Shane asked, looking at Jody closely. "You're on something… This isn't you."
"No… No… I'm… I wouldn't… I didn't…" And then he fell backward.
Shane had to scramble to catch him before he cracked his head on the tile. "Somebody slipped him something," Shane said, looking at Lisa.
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