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

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The Blue Tango Salvage: Book 2 in the Recovery and Marine Salvage, Inc. Series Page 21

by Chris Poindexter


  “Plenty of time,” Flower winked. “Bye, boys.”

  “Bye!” Amber echoed.

  We watched them walk out and head off in Flower’s Mercedes.

  “Think they’re going to talk about your dick?” Q asked when they were out of earshot.

  “Shut it.”

  “Hehehe.”

  “I’ve got a giant bag of Zip It with your name all over it.”

  Right then Teddy pulled up in his golf cart, watching Flower’s SUV disappearing down the driveway. He walked in with a puzzled look.

  He jerked a thumb in Flower’s direction. “What was that?”

  “I’d say about $3,000 in spa treatments,” I guessed.

  Chapter 18

  True to her word Flower had the girls back by 4 in the afternoon, all freshly waxed, quaffed, clothed and massaged with the weightless air of someone who’s been pampered all day. Q and I already had our bags in the golf cart. I was killing time on the back porch drinking beer.

  “God, I need a beer,” Amber sighed, thumping down next to me. “Keeping up with Flower is a job.”

  She didn’t look like she’d had a trying day. Her hair was styled square just below her ears with subtle streaks. For a salon in the middle of nowhere Florida it was really quite stylish. She had new makeup, a French manicure and a new set of diamond earrings. She was dressed for dinner in a little black dress with matching shoes. Instead of someone who should be road weary, she could have just stepped out of a limo in front of the fanciest place on the Champs-Élysées.

  “I hate to rain on what must certainly have been a marvelous girl day but you’ll have to make a decision pretty soon.”

  “About what?” she asked, turning serious.

  “There was some shit on the Star, the same guys who took a shot at us...Jory took one.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “He’s okay,” I hastened to add, “but it put Fred in a bind not having a medic.”

  “And?”

  “And we can’t be splitting you between ops and the Star anymore,” I sighed. “You have to decide on one or the other.”

  “When?”

  “We’re going to see Fred later tonight.”

  “Wow, welcome back,” she groaned.

  “Sorry. I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of anyone else and you deserved some time to think about it.”

  She slid her chair over next to me so she could put her arm through mine and put her perfumed head on my shoulder. I recognized it as the same fragrance Flower wore and it was mesmerizing. I wondered if Charlotte smelled the same way.

  “I don’t want to think about anything right now,” she confessed, cuddling closer. “It’s been a hell of a three days.”

  “Must’ve been tough fighting off all those drunk, horny defense contractors,” I joked.

  “Pfft,” she dismissed. “They were the least of my worries,” she said, taking a pull on her beer. “I’ve never been on the run like that before.”

  “Just yesterday we were all saying how great you were doing,” I laughed. “You got a job!”

  “I met them on the flight from Atlanta to Nashville,” she explained.

  “You got to the airport?”

  “Not on purpose.”

  “My last sight of you was blazing the wrong way down a one-way street with a black SUV on your ass.”

  “Whew,” she recalled, “those guys were good. That’s the first time I ever shot at anyone for real.”

  “Did you hit any of them?”

  “Maybe, couldn’t tell for sure. I was just shooting to try and spoil their aim. They hit my bike.”

  “Those bastards!”

  “I know, right,” then she paused. “What about you?”

  “We had our own problems,” I confessed.

  “What happened?”

  “Sniper.”

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Suppressed rifle firing subsonic rounds, there’s nothing to hear.”

  “Shit. What did you do?”

  “We were dead. V bailed us out.”

  “V?”

  “She must’ve called Deek to find out where we were. No V in that second, no us.”

  “Shit.”

  “What about you?”

  “They chased me all over town; I finally made it to the train station. I was going to go north but they showed up and the southbound train was just pulling in.”

  “So you ended up at the airport.”

  “They didn’t follow me there.”

  “Too many cops and cameras. Your spare ID and credit card worked for flying?”

  “Yeah, not even any additional screening.”

  “Tits and ass,” I mumbled.

  “When you’re on the run you use what you got,” she reminded me. “A year ago I would’ve just fucked my way across the country.”

  “Not judging,” I said quickly.

  “You don’t wonder if I fucked any of those horny defense contractors?” she said, reaching over to try tickling me.

  “Nah. If you were going to fuck someone else you could do better.”

  “What about you? Miss Flower told me about the accommodating girls. You get any accommodating?”

  “I did not,” I said truthfully. “But Q got his brains accommodated out.”

  Amber laughed. “So I heard. Charlotte’s nice.”

  “Not the word I’d use.”

  “The redhead’s kind of cute. You ever want to try a three-way?”

  “If you wanted to.”

  “That’s not an answer,” she pressed. “That’s a deflection.”

  I was suddenly reminded that the really unhappy men were hooked up with women who paid attention in interrogation class. I sighed.

  “What that means is if you were game and it was right, I’d probably be okay with it. But it’s not something I lay awake nights dreaming about.”

  “Does the idea of me having sex with someone else bother you?”

  “If it’s a woman, no,” I said truthfully, “but another guy would bother me.”

  “Isn’t that kind of a double standard?”

  “It’s definitely a double standard,” I admitted. “Another woman doesn’t arouse millions of years of testosterone-fueled conflict for dominance. Another guy would.”

  “So it’s a penis thing?”

  “It’s a penis thing,” I confessed.

  She seemed satisfied with that answer. “So does that mean our relationship is...exclusive?”

  That’s another one of those land mine questions like asking if those jeans made her ass look big.

  “Relationships are risky as shit in this line of work.” She started to interrupt. “And before you say that’s not an answer that’s the only one I’ve got right now.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, when Amber changed the subject. “I like it here,” she said after another pull on her beer.

  “Me too,” I admitted.

  “So if I stayed on the Star would we still see one another?”

  “Whenever we could,” I guessed, “but job one for you would be the boat and you’d work for Fred exclusively.”

  “And if I stay with ops?”

  “Then we’d see each other all the time and we’d have the associated risks of you being out on the bleeding edge. Those risks are not insignificant, by the way.”

  “I like that edge,” she said honestly, “and I like being with you. What do you want me to do?”

  “You know I can’t answer that.”

  “I know,” she said impishly. “I just wanted to see if you’d slip up.”

  “I want you to be happy,” I said finally, surprising myself at the honesty of emotion.

  “Hmm,” she said, kicking her new shoes off. “In that case I’ll give you and Fred my answer at dinner. But I’m keeping the Jeep either way. What time is it?”

  “About 4:30,” I said, checking my phone.

  “That means we have an hour before we have to leave,”
she pointed out by sliding her hand into my pants pocket.

  “Now?” I asked.

  “I had to wait for my nails to dry,” she explained. “This shit’s expensive. That’s $150 worth of paint,” she said waving the artwork in front of my face. “And some poor kid from the Philippines moved all the way over here just to paint my nails.”

  “You put me in a holding pattern behind drying lacquer?”

  “It was a decision dictated by the parameters of the mission objective,” she said with mock seriousness.

  “Let me guess, the objective was not messing up your new manicure.”

  “Now you’re getting it,” she said, pulling me up out of my chair.

  Later we took two golf carts up to the office; Amber and I in one, Q and Charlotte in the other. I thought it was symbolic that Charlotte drove.

  The van and the rest of the crew were already at the office. Bobby was inside with Flower and Teddy, while Dugger, Jesse and Mateo were waiting outside. I went inside while the rest waited by the cars. Teddy was on the phone and held up a finger, Bobby was looking out the window.

  “Well, that’s some shit there,” he said, nodding at Charlotte’s golf cart. “Never seen her say goodbye to anyone before.”

  What got my attention was Dugger zeroing in on Amber in a manner that Jesse would have described as being like a dog on a hog. He had her laughing already.

  Bobby frowned. “I’ll go apply some education,” he menaced.

  “Hang back, Bobby,’ I requested. “She can take care of herself.”

  “He’s a pretty pushy little fuck,” he grumbled.

  “I’m pretty sure Amber could whip his ass in a fair fight,” I maintained.

  “If you have to beat his ass I’ll totally understand,” he said reassuringly.

  “Thanks, but I don’t think it’ll come to that.”

  “You heading out?” Teddy asked.

  “I’ll have them back to you in a few days,” I assured him.

  “Looks like our people and yours are reaching a working understanding,” Teddy said, nodding at the window.

  Bobby and I turned back around to see Dugger on his knees with Amber jamming his thumb back on his right hand with her tactical knife at his throat with the other. We couldn’t hear the dialog but the tone was crystal clear. Q was trying to get her to ease down.

  “He had that coming,” Bobby assured Teddy.

  “I’m sure he did,” Teddy grinned. “Spirited girl you got there.”

  “She has her moments,” I agreed. “Well, we should head out and get all that energy focused on something productive.”

  By the time we got outside Q had one arm holding Amber back and Dugger was backing away rubbing his hand. She was still swearing at him when we got outside and Dugger was red-faced with embarrassment.

  “Try that again, motherfucker!” Amber spat, punctuating the comment with the tactical knife she stole from me. Q was doing his best to hold her back without getting cut himself. When Amber was off the rails she didn’t always measure the consequences of her actions and it was a bad idea to have a body part in the way.

  I tried really hard not to smile. “We should go,” I announced walking out on the porch. Dugger looked embarrassed and then afraid as Bobby grabbed the back of his shirt and half-dragged, half-pushed him into the back of the van.

  “Fucker!” Amber spat one last time. It would take her a minute to settle down.

  Flower stuck her head out the office door. “Is everything alright?”

  “Fine!” Amber, Q and I all said at the same time.

  She looked puzzled but decided not to push it. She called Amber over and they talked out of earshot for a minute until she calmed down. Then Flower leaned over and kissed her and Amber kissed her back. Not a peck on the cheek but the real deep damn deal.

  “That was--”

  “Friendly!” Q filled in for me.

  “Yeah.”

  “Just a really friendly place,” Q observed.

  Amber came back down from the porch more herself. “Let’s go,” she said getting into the Jeep.

  Q and I followed her. The Jeep had four-point harnesses instead of regular seat belts which took a minute to figure out. Teddy’s group piled into the van and Deek texted them the warehouse address. We’d have provisions there for seven people and the building had showers, so Deek would send a crew with some roll out beds. The great thing about the warehouse was no one paid attention to trucks coming and going and the staff never thought anything of delivering stuff there. The best part was Deek controlled the security cams and we didn’t have to worry about being spotted at a hotel. If we needed to stay in Miami, Deek would find us a different warehouse. Somewhere the van wouldn’t look out of place and with an office we could air condition. Industrial space made a better place to hide out because no one ever thought about anyone living there.

  We followed the van to the highway and went our separate ways. It was a quiet drive to the Twist and we got there early enough for a drink before our reservation. As usual it was slammed when we walked in, the din of conversation loud enough we had to speak up giving our name to the receptionist.

  One drink turned into two before we finally made our way back to the big table under the fish in the back. Right at 7:30 V joined us. Apparently black fatigues are always in fashion in V’s world.

  “So what the hell happened down there?” she asked.

  Q and I exchanged a look.

  “We were about to thank you for saving our ass,” I said, somewhat confused.

  She looked at Q and I, clearly confused. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  It wasn’t like V to kid around. “You had to be there,” Q insisted.

  V looked at Q, then back at me. “You are...how do you say it?...putting me on.”

  “You’re saying you weren’t the sniper in the parking garage?” I asked plainly.

  “I don’t know anything about a parking garage,” she insisted, an edge of irritability creeping into her voice. “We got the A1A when we were descending into Miami and diverted to Tampa, where I’ve been bored out of my mind for the last 72 hours.”

  Chapter 19

  Q and I sat back and digested that news just as the appetizers came.

  “If it wasn’t V,” Amber began voicing the obvious question, “then who was it?”

  We didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

  “Is this a private party or do you have room for one more?” Anita Guerrero asked, materializing out of the crowd.

  There were shocked looks all around the table, except for V who’d never seen her before.

  “How did you find us?” I asked.

  “Really? Missed Connections,” she chided.

  I gestured to a chair. “This is our associate, V,” I said by way of introduction.

  “Wild Jungle Slut 45,” Anita guessed.

  “Humpf,” V snuffed. The two women regarded each other the same way two female tigers meeting in the wild might size each other up.

  “V, this our client,” I smiled.

  “I’m not so sure about that anymore,” Anita said, turning serious. “I should arrest all of you.”

  “What fun would that be?” I quipped. “Appetizer?”

  Anita passed but the rest of us dug into an avocado BLT wrap that was served with a spicy remoulade sauce.

  “You guys really stepped in it this time,” she pressed. “Miami PD was furious and I’ll be lucky to keep my job.”

  “About that,” I said with my mouth still full. “We were thinking of seeing if you wanted to come on board with us once this is all behind us.”

  V frowned and gave the new girl another look, this time with more scrutiny.

  “I might not have any option,” Anita Guerrero frowned. She would quit her job in a heartbeat, but the thought of being forced out didn’t sit well.

  “We can quit now if that’s what you want,” I said easily, “but we know who killed Rafe and we can probably
prove it.”

 

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