The Blue Tango Salvage: Book 2 in the Recovery and Marine Salvage, Inc. Series

by Chris Poindexter

  Another mistake Teddy avoided was hiring people who would spend their money lavishly. There were no flashy cars, expensive homes or flashy jewelry. In fact, the residents didn’t have to buy their own cars at all. Like us Teddy had his own motor pool. They took care of the maintenance and made sure the cars were in tip-top shape. The cars were late model but not new and tended toward non-descript vehicles that wouldn’t attract attention. While occasionally the adults would partake of some their own harvest within the bounds of the park, carrying weed or other drugs outside the park was a major no-no in Teddy’s organization. There was a lot of tolerance for what went on inside the park, but anyone being stupid outside the park would find out that Teddy could be as ruthless as he was gregarious and generous.

  The same was true for boats, dirt bikes, mud buggies and 4 wheelers. Instead of conspicuous monuments of redneck spending parked in driveways, residents could check out a camper, boat or 4 wheeler from the park vehicle pool whenever they wanted. The park owned all the surrounding land, which included woods and orange groves that were full of wild turkeys, wild pigs and deer. The guys would hunt and fish together, drink together and work together. When one of the boys or girls wanted to settle down, the park would find them a space on the family side of the park so, if they decided to start a family, the kids would grow up not knowing anything about the main business of the park. That was partly to shield the kids from the reality, but also to keep them from talking about it at school.

  Teddy’s distribution system was also a marvel and used a series of cutouts to further insulate the park from any connection to the finished product. The park had frequent large dinners and cookouts, which were the perfect excuse to bring in a large catering truck, which would then leave with a couple tons of premium weed. From there it went to the distribution center where smaller batches, packed in coffee, went out through several different distribution channels. Most of the distribution involved food, which helped mask the scent of the product.

  Part of the deception involved making his product look Canadian. Teddy used Canadian packing materials and mixed his product in with shipments that originated in Canada. His drivers, who were taking the biggest risks, were exceptionally well cared for and knew exactly what to do if they ever got stopped and their cargo discovered. It was a testament to Teddy’s meticulous planning and tight organization that had happened only once.

  Besides being the Teddy’s business, the park was also the county’s business. Spreading his money around wisely, Teddy managed to get his people elected to city mayor, the county commission, the sheriff's office, and the school board. All of that sophisticated smuggling and trafficking all hidden behind the low-tech trailer park lifestyle.

  Flower wheeled up in front of a pair of double wide trailers at the end of a cul de sac. “Here we are!” she beamed. “Here are the keys and I’ll have Sandi send over some refreshments. If memory serves you boys are beer drinkers, am I right?”

  We assured her she was correct.

  “Alright then. I’ll have a golf cart sent up along with a case of beer so you can get around the park. Anything else you gentlemen desire?”

  “We could use a couple phones,” I pointed out.

  “No problem at all,” she said. “Is tomorrow soon enough? There’s a phone in the house if you need one right away.”

  “Tomorrow’s fine,” I told her.

  “Well, fine,” she said in her best Alabama drawl. “It’s so great to have you back, Teddy will be so excited. I’ll call you when he gets back and you all can come on over to the house.”

  “Thanks for everything, Flower,” I said, suddenly feeling the weight of the day.

  “It’s no trouble at all,” she insisted. “Well, I should be getting back and you boys probably want to clean up. Dinner at the big house tonight.”

  We watched the golf cart disappear down the street and, since the houses were virtually identical, we decided to hang out for a while in mine. While the exterior of the house was nondescript the interior was like walking into a different world. The furniture was high end and the whole house looked like it had been staged by professionals. The interior walls were neatly painted and the kitchen had a stainless steel refrigerator. A big screen TV and entertainment center dominated the comfortable looking wraparound style living room furniture.

  “Damn,” Q said looking around. “Not bad for a trailer.”

  “Not quite as nice as the villa,” I observed, “but closer than I thought it would be.” We explored the rest of the house and found a hot tub out on the back deck. There was another one just like it over at Q’s house. The trees provided ample shade and the wind whispered through the pine boughs. It was really quite nice.

  “I could totally hang here,” he observed.

  “It’s nice,” I said heavily.

  “You’re worried about Amber,” Q speculated.

  “I’m worried about everyone,” I corrected. “I almost got us all killed.”

  “You saved my ass,” Q pointed out. “Another step and I would have walked right into that shot.”

  “We shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” I grumbled. “I knew something wasn’t right.”

  “We all missed it,” Q reminded me. “Amber missed the sniper and the ambush. If it wasn’t for that mental ninja shit you do we’d all be dead right now.”

  “You can thank Deek this time,” I admitted. “He sent me a text right before the shooting started.”

  “And?”

  “The boat cleaner’s dead.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ll be right on top of Miami PD’s shit list for that one, too,” Q pointed out.

  “You gotta admit it was a good plan,” I conceded. “They get rid of us and frame us for murder in one stroke. A nice, neat little package. Just the kind of thing we would do.”

  “They didn’t just know someone was coming...” Q began.

  “They knew we were coming,” I finished. “And I bet they hosed Pig Fucker, too.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s our play?”

  “For the next three days, nothing,” I confirmed. When it comes to criminal cases the first 48 hours are critical. Most departments will put a lot of resources into finding whoever was responsible right away. After the first two days the pressure of additional cases would push us off the front burner. We’d still have to be careful; Miami would be a hornet’s nest for months. West Palm would rightly be skeptical we had anything to do with it but we’d have to be careful even there. It really depended on whether any bystanders got killed. We knew the girl at the table next to us got hit but not how bad her injuries were. It would take time for ballistics to clear us.

  “We could do worse for a hideout,” Q concluded. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

  We both cleaned up and Q was walking back over when a pickup followed by a golf cart and another pickup pulled into the cul de sac. A familiar face stepped out of a big, blue Dodge truck. A tall, lanky young man, a little older than Q stepped down from the truck cab.

  “Jesse!” I said, coming down the steps to get a manly handshake.

  “Mr. Fatman, Mr. Q,” he said with a smile. “I heard you were in town. Ms. Flower is faster for getting news out than the local paper.”

  I didn’t doubt that. “How you been?”

  “Doing fine,” he smiled. “Got two on the ground and the Mrs. has another one on the way,” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s good to get out of the house, brother.”

  He walked around and dropped the tailgate of the truck to find two cases of beer, still sweating with condensation.

  “Sweet!” Q jumped in to scoop up the cases and headed inside to stock the fridge.

  “What do I owe you for the beer?” I said, reaching for my money clip.

  “Whoa! Miss Flower said you’d try that and I was to tell you your money’s no good here.”

  “I feel like we�
�re imposing.”

  “She said you’d say that too,” he grinned. “She said to tell you to quit trying to fuck her cat. Said you’d know what that means.”

  I did know exactly what it meant. “I am but the queen’s humble servant,” I said with a mock bow.

  “I’m not sure she’ll buy that bullshit, either,” Jesse joked, “but I’ll run it up the flagpole when I see her.”

  “Stick around for a beer?”

  “Love to, but the wife’s waitin’ to run me back,” he said with a nod at the second pickup. “Here’s your key to the truck and the golf cart. Your clothes and gear out of the car are in a bag on the front seat. When you’re done with the truck, just park it anywhere and leave the keys over the visor.”

  It was big, blue late model Dodge with an upgraded suspension, big tires with zig-zag tread, a brush guard, bumper winch and a tall chrome rollover bar with an off road light package. I could just make out a spare 50 gallon transfer tank in the bed.

  “You’re not worried someone will steal it?”

  Jesse chuckled. “Ain’t nobody gonna bother it around here,” he grinned. “Oh, I almost forgot, Mr. T sends his regards and says he’ll catch up with y’all a little later.” Jesse produced a pair of Cohiba Behike Habanos cigars out of his shirt pocket. Now that trade was legal with Cuba they were slowly making their way out of the country at a hefty $50 a pop.

  “Well, now there’s a sight I haven’t seen in a while,” I said, accepting the cigars and inhaling the dark leafy aroma.

  “Dinner tonight at the South House, 7 sharp. We’ll have time to catch up there,” Jesse said over his shoulder as he trudged off toward the second truck, a big 4 door King Ranch. A boy about 12, the golf cart driver, climbed up into the truck bed and the big diesel rattled to life and wheeled off around the cul de sac.

  Q came back outside with a beer for each of us. “Cigar?”

  “Nice!”

  We stowed our clothes, which also included my HK and Q’s Sig/Sauer and went out on the back porch to enjoy our beer and cigars. The sun was setting and the breeze was delicious.

  “That is a damn good cigar,” Q observed. “I don’t even like smoking but I like these.”

  “These used to only be available to members of the Cuban government,” I informed him.

  “Cubans definitely zeroed in on that one,” he said appreciatively. “This beer ain’t bad, either.”

  “That’s Teddy’s brand,” I pointed out.

  “Teddy owns a brewery?”

  “That he does,” I confirmed.

  “Damn, that dude’s hooked up,” Q observed. “Cuban cigars, his own brewery, and all this…” he gestured around the park with his beer bottle.

  “This is only part of it,” I reminded him.

  “Damn, we should start something like this.”

  “You really want to be nailed to the ground?”

  He thought about that one a minute, taking another puff off his cigar. “Maybe not,” he concluded. “But it is a nice change of pace.”

  “We should invite Teddy and Flower out on the boat,” I mulled. “They have a condo in West Palm.”

  “Really?”

  “You know that big peach-colored building downtown?”

  “The one across from the amphitheater?”

  “They have a condo in that building.”

  “Damn,” Q breathed. “Teddy is the man.”

  “You got enough money to buy all that shit,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah, but then I’d have to take care of it,” he reminded me. “That’s so....domestic.”

  “I suppose we could buy a brewery,” I conceded.

  “Sweet,” Q agreed.

  “It’s getting late,” I pointed out, “we should change before we head over for dinner so we don’t smell like cigar smoke.”

  We changed and took the golf cart to the big clubhouse, which was already crowded by the time we got there. Another advantage of living at the park is you rarely needed to go to the store. Big dinners like this one went on all the time.

  Like everything else at the park the inside was nicer than the outside. A long buffet attached to a kitchen was already laid out with enough food for a small army. There were steaks, ham, roast beef, salads, salmon and more side dishes than I could count. At the end of the buffet was a dessert bar, with a chocolate fountain, and several tubs full of ice and stocked with various drinks, including a tub of beer.

  The hall was divided into two big sections, one for the adults and a separate dining room for the kids. The kid’s dining room was staffed separately and arranged so parents could drop the kids off and have some downtime to themselves, or they could all eat together at one of the tables in the kid’s room. Most of the adults opted to drop the kids and gathered at big round tables to unwind over dinner and a couple beers. The line ran continuously and a few were already done eating.

  Flower, now dressed in black slacks and black and white checkered top and carrying a glass of red wine, materialized out of the crowd.

  “Just help yourself,” she advised us over the din of conversation. “There’s a table right up front where I’m sitting.”

  We started through the chow line and Q was inspecting the clear plastic plates which had a hole in the center.

  I grinned. “Let me show you.”

  I went down to the end of the line and got two beers. I took one of the plates and showed Q how the beer bottle fit through the hole and made a handle for the plate so you could carry both in one hand.

  “Ain’t that some shit,” he smiled.

  “Life in the country.”

  We filled our plates and made our way to the table up front, where Flower was talking to another couple. Flower introduced us to the couple who excused themselves and left us alone.

  “Getting enough to eat?” she asked, swirling her wine glass.

  “You could feed an army,” Q pointed out.

  “We have an army!” Flower laughed, gesturing around the room with her wine glass.

  “This is really something,” he said between bites of roast beef.

  “Just our little corner of heaven,” she said with a smile. “Teddy should be back in a little while. I’ll take him a plate home and call y’all after he gets settled.”

  We were interrupted by a young boy, maybe five, who wanted a word with the lady of the house.

  “Well, hey, Brandon!” she greeted, “These are my friends Mr. Fatman and Mr. Q.”

  Brandon turned his head and buried it in Miss Flower’s boobs. Smart kid.

  “How’s your sister doing?” she asked him, trying to coax him out of his shy attack. “His little sister has...can you say it with me?” she asked Brandon. “Sound it out...ret-in-a blastoma.”

  “Cancer of the eye,” I explained for Q’s benefit.

  “Mr. Fatman’s a doctor, just like Dr. Bradley at the hospital in Orlando.”

  Brandon regarded me with big, doe eyes from the safety of Flower’s ample bosom. Shyness won the struggle and he turned away.

  “His sister and parents are up in Orlando and Mr. Brandon here is staying with his aunt Charlotte until they get back,” she explained. “We paid for a new type of experimental laser treatments. The prognosis is supposed to be good. Which means she’s gonna be o-kay, right Brandon?”

  At that moment aunt Charlotte, who was a serious knockout, materialized out of the crowd. Q was certainly impressed. “There you are!” she said to Brandon. “I’m so sorry, he ran off when I wasn’t looking.”

  Flower said it was no problem and passed him back to Charlotte. She caught Q’s look.

  “She’s not really his aunt,” she said with sly grin as soon as the lovely Charlotte was out of earshot. “Charlotte’s one of the Accommodating Girls and, by all accounts, she’s very accommodating.”

  Ted kept “accommodating” girls on staff for the same reason we did. A blowjob could speed negotiations and a visit from one of the girls could make minor legal and permit troubles dis
appear. For us it was part business, part intelligence gathering and part convenience. It was also amazing to me how often clients would talk to the girls, even if they knew they worked for us. If capitalism was a machine, pussy greased the gears. Central Florida wasn’t quite as blessed with natural talent as we had along the coast and, since the majority of his employees were men, the girls were a necessary accessory for employee morale. By the looks of the girls Teddy kept around to fill that particular need, morale was very high indeed.

  “I could arrange an introduction if you like, Q,” Flower teased.