So are you some days. I kept that thought to myself. V was volatile on a good day, no point in stirring that pot.
On the monitor I could see Deek setting his wheelchair up next to the truck. Deek wasn’t technically a paraplegic; the accident crippled him by crushing his right side, including his hips and lower spine. He had limited use of his lower extremities and could stand if he had something to hold onto and could get around on crutches but preferred his high tech wheelchair. He held on to the door of his truck, which he used to steady himself getting into his chair. He wheeled across the parking lot and down the dock with practiced ease.
Even with a flat ramp Deek had to rock his chair up on two wheels to get over the transom. None of us made a move to help, Deek wouldn’t have appreciated it and he was hard enough to get along with on a good day. After a bit of struggle we could hear the chair roll down the ramp and a few seconds later the door clicked and Deek wheeled himself in backwards.
“It’s a party now!” he said by way of greeting.
“Hey, stranger,” Q saluted.
“Good to see you, Deek,” I added.
“Hey,” V said without looking.
“This is so weird talking in meatspace,” Deek observed, making his way to the fridge and helping himself to a beer. “Anyone else?”
“Yeah, me,” V said, draining the rest of her bottle.
That took Q and I by surprised and we exchanged raised eyebrows. It was the first civil comment V had made to Deek in nearly a year.
Even Deek was surprised. “Coming right up,” he replied, tucking the bottles into his wheelchair drink holders. Deek handed her the bottle with the same caution one might hold a piece of chicken for a ten-foot alligator. He seemed visibly relieved to get his hand back unbroken.
“She’s had her shots,” I reminded him.
At that moment the alarm chirped another arrival, all eyes turned toward the monitor as the security system zoomed in on the familiar figure.
“Hey, that’s--” Deek began.
“Amber,” I finished for him. All eyes shifted from the monitor to me. “I sent her a text. We’re going to need the manpower.”
“You going to fuck somebody to death?” V asked. Q chuckled in spite of himself.
“I could think of worse ways to go,” I admitted. “But, in this case, we’re going to need another set of eyes with Fred. There’s going to be a lot of moving parts tomorrow and we’re going to need everyone on their shit.”
“And, apparently, someone on your dick,” V observed coolly.
“That’s e-nough,” I said sharply. “Anyone who doesn’t like the way I run things knows their options.” Sniping at Deek was one thing, sniping at me was something else. The rest of the team took a sudden interest in the carpet design.
“Sorry,” V said, taking a pull on her beer. That was as close to capitulation as anyone would ever get from her. She was annoying as shit but she also had her moments. Like the rest of us, she had nowhere else to go.
“She get her door codes?” I asked Deek.
“Texted them to her today,” he acknowledged.
“Let’s see if she reads her mail,” I said to no one in particular.
“She’s clean by the way,” Deek mentioned, watching Amber, still dressed in her scrubs, examining the lock.
“Excuse me?”
“Her background check,” Deek clarified. “She checked out. Dad is the principle in three car dealerships and his new trophy wife has a 16 year old daughter. Pretty much just like you broke it down.”
“I feel sorry for that kid,” I said absently as Amber messed up the lock trying to enter her code before using the fingerprint scanner.
“Her mom is shacked up with some lounge entertainer named Steve Diamond. His real name is Hank Bogen,” Deek chuckled.
“Hair piece?” I asked.
“Oooh, yeah,” Deek confirmed. “Complete with nylon shirt open to his navel. Lives in a camper and migrates to Florida in the winter.”
“Arrest record?” Like I couldn’t guess.
“Mostly minor stuff,” Deek elaborated as Amber flubbed the door lock again, this time by not entering her pin fast enough. “A couple old assault charges that were dropped to disturbing the peace.”
“Bar fights,” I observed.
“Probably,” Deek agreed. “A couple possession charges that are more recent.”
“Cocaine and….ecstasy,” I guessed.
“How did you--”
“He wouldn’t smoke weed because of the dark circles it would leave under his eyes,” I guessed. “Besides, he’s got a new girlfriend. Come on, thumb print first!” I said to the monitor.
Finally, Amber tried the print reader and then the keypad, the door clicked open and our nurse joined us in the salon, surprised to see we weren’t alone.
“You must be Deek,” she beamed, strolling up and giving him a nurse-friendly pat on the shoulder. “He’s better looking that you described,” she said to me.
“You said I was ugly?” Deek feigned.
“Only on the inside,” Q finished the familiar joke for me.
“Hey, Q,” Amber greeted.
“Hey.” Q’s smile was a little warmer this time, which earned him a complimentary set of eye daggers from V. “Beers in the fridge,” he said, with a gesture toward the galley.
“God I need a beer,” Amber said wearily, stepping past Deek toward the galley. “My feet are killing me.”
“Long shift?” I asked.
“14 hours,” she said over her shoulder. “Anyone care if I eat?” she asked after a minute looking over the well-stocked galley.
“Just bring some for all of us,” I suggested.
She returned a minute later with an unwrapped sandwich and deli tray which she deposited on the coffee table, a bottle of beer making her scrub pocket sag. She thumped down next to me.
“Come to momma,”she said to the stubby brown glass bottle, twisting the cap off and downing half in one long pull.
“Impressive,” Deek observed. “I’d like to see what you could do with a long neck.”
“You would not believe the things I can do with a long neck,” Amber quipped, playing along.
“Yeah, I would,” Deek said honestly.
“I’m kinda interested myself,” V said by way of greeting.
“And you’re V,” Amber observed carefully. She was smart enough to recognize a predator when she met one, even if it had round hips and big hair.
“Correct,” V confirmed, “and you’re the hooker.”
“Ex-hooker,” I reminded everyone and gave V my best that’s enough look.
“Well, now that we’re clear on who everyone is,” Amber deflected, “I’m going to eat.” She used a napkin to pluck a sandwich off the tray and the rest of the team, myself included, joined in.
“Oh, this tastes sooo good,” Amber said with her mouth full. “We had a shooting at lunch.”
“Someone shot at you?” Deek asked.
“In the ER,” I pointed out.
“This one guy,” Amber began excitedly, “had a sucking chest wound, collapsed lung and cyanosis. When we inserted a tube to inflate the lung it shot blood half-way across the ER. Nasty.”
“I’ve seen it,” Deek volunteered, “from the inside.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry! I completely forgot,” Amber apologized.
“I’m over it,” Deek said with a smile.
“What’s cy-an-whatever that was,” Q asked, finishing the last bite of his first sandwich and scanning the tray for his next victim.
“Their lips turn blue from a lack of oxygen,” Amber pointed out.
“And their brain stops working if it goes on long enough,” V added, with a sideways glance at Deek.
“His stops working anytime there’s a pretty girl around,” I pointed out.
“Hey, I resemble that,” Deek protested. Deek was a light eater and picked a few pieces of cheese and some grapes off the deli tray.
“While
we’re stuffing our faces, maybe you could bring us up to speed on the horse park,” I asked Deek, since he wouldn’t be eating.
“That I can,” he answered, whipping out his specially modified tablet and tapping away.
“They have a setup that’s going to be hard to crack,” he began. “Multiple shell companies, a network of banks in Panama, Brazil, Venezuela and Columbia.”
“Money laundering,” I observed. “Boring.”
“Yeah, but they’re tight,” Deek clarified. “Squeaky clean money coming in from a very diversified list of clients.”
“Okay, so they’re really good money launderers,” I clarified.
“Best I’ve seen,” Deek agreed. “Bank boards include local politicians, police officials, military leaders, even clergy. The main banking hub is the Manaus Unibanco Holding SA.”
“Manaus is a good choice,” V observed. “Lot of jungle up there. Far out enough they don’t have to worry about getting too much interference from the federal banks. Lot of what you would call...” she searched for the word “buckaroos” she finally settled on, “cowboys.”
“Impressive,” I admitted.
“They run charities for local orphans, provide medical care for all their employees, pay for college tuition for their kids and spend quite a lot of money in the local economy. The horse park is one of several local job programs and there are similar developments pending in six other countries, including the United Arab Emirates.”
“Jesus Christ,” Q breathed.
“Okay, so that explains the high quality team we had tailing us in West Palm,” I sighed. “These guys are the A team and we can forget about flipping any of the employees.”
“The A-plus team,” Deek corrected. “These guys have resources. They could whistle up an army...a real army,” he emphasized.
This is why we got out of our old business, I reminded myself.
“Okay, so we give them their money back and try not to piss them off,” I noted.
“Damn straight,” Q heartily agreed.
“Let me guess, next you’re going to tell me the insurance investigator isn’t really an insurance investigator,” I sighed. “They wouldn’t trust this to a contractor.”
“Unfortunately correct,” Deek agreed. “His real name is Manuel Silva.”
“Silva, fuck. Nephew?”
“Worse, stepson,” Deek clarified. “Adopted.”
Renaud Silva was a name we’d heard before. The Silva family ran one of the biggest and most sophisticated drug trafficking organizations in the world.
“Okay, nobody shoot him,” I said, looking square at V.
“What?” she demanded.
“He’s got a penis,” Q reminded her. “That makes him a target.”
V swatted Q with a back-handed punch. “Asshole,” she said to him but was looking at me.
“What about the locals?” I asked Deek.
“Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Fielding,” Deek began, “now there’s an interesting couple.” He flipped his tablet around to show us a newspaper photo of the pair receiving an award from a local charity. It constantly amazed me that rich people were always wrapped up with some charity as a way to ease their conscience about being rich. So many rich people working on so many charities and yet the big problems just kept getting worse. I pushed the thought aside and regarded the pair on Deek’s tablet.
They could have just come off the campaign trail for any major political office. He was early 50’s, trim with salt and pepper executive hair. He wore a suit and tie but it was what I call a “Florida suit”, a lightweight jacket and narrow tie that was more comfort than style. Mrs. Fielding was at least 20 years her husband’s junior and had all the hallmarks of a trophy wife. She was tall, statuesque and she wore an off-the-shoulder cocktail dress that showed off her ample breasts. A thin but tasteful necklace drew my eyes to a pear-shaped blue diamond that stopped right where her world class cleavage began. She had her blond-streaked hair up with just the right number of untamed hairs to give the impression of a wild side to her character that would never be totally domesticated. She had high cheekbones and a wide mouth with smile that made it look like she had extra teeth installed.
The pose in the photo was what caught my attention. They were standing together, her arm through his but it was almost like she was slightly in front of him and he seemed to shrink ever so slightly into the background. The contrast between her and Mr. Fielding was as striking as it was interesting.
“Combined they’re worth just under $100 million,” Deek observed, turning the tablet back to himself. “He got the bulk of his money from daddy, she’s worth about half what he is and most of that came from a previous marriage.”
That got my attention. “Oh? Divorce?”
“Widowed,” Deek corrected. “Her ex-husband was low-level executive in an oil company. Lost control of his car giving one of his female employees a ride home after an office party. If the police suspected alcohol as being a factor they never pursued it officially. It was ruled an accident but the insurance company held out nearly a year before paying off on his policy.”
“Did they suspect foul play?” I inquired.
“Not officially,” he said, flipping through the insurance file, “but the Mrs. was good friends with the lady in the car with him that night. I found a picture of them together at a club opening in Dallas.”
“Kind of odd,” Q agreed.
“She moved to Florida after the estate was settled in Texas and bought a hobby farm in one of those horse park developments out by Royal Palm Beach. There was nothing about her in the news for two years until her engagement announcement to Mr. Fielding, which came just a scant eight months after his divorce. The announcement says they met when she was a blackjack dealer at a charity casino event in Boca. They’re living in her house in the horse park. For some reason I can’t figure out everyone calls her ‘Mousy.’”
“How does the timing look?” I asked.
“Was he doing her before the divorce?” Deek clarified. “Almost certainly. I can find pictures of that charity event, but none with him in them.”
“So she picked him,” I observed.
“Looks like it,” Deek agreed. “Whatever is going on with that development in Brazil, it’s her name on the company papers and she’s the one quoted in articles about the park.”
“What else did you learn about the horse park?” I asked, now curious.
“Pretty much just like that operation you mentioned in Kentucky,” he began. “They can raise horses in northern Brazil for about a tenth the cost of what they can here. They take the top one or two percent and air freight them up here for training and sales. Then they turn around and sell the horses, at vastly inflated prices, to foreign buyers and the horses mysteriously disappear during the transfer.”
“And the whole thing is tax deductible for the individual owners,” I pointed out.
“Including the travel to and from Brazil,” Deek pointed out. “It’s money laundering and a tax shelter all in one,”
“Convenient,” Q observed. “What happens to the horses?”
“Dog food,” Deek filled in for him, “or glue.”
“Animals,” V spat. We had forgotten she raised horses on her own ranch in Brazil.
I had to give Mrs. Fielding credit, it was a solid plan. It would have been an easy sell to the elder Silva and the fact the lady was knock down gorgeous with the morals of a tiger shark only added to the macho appeal. The horse business always attracted big money types. Hedge fund managers, rock stars, and actors were all attracted to the world of show horses, private jets, lavish parties and expansive ranches. The opportunity to rub elbows with that crowd would have appealed to Renaud Silva. For some reason I could never figure out, women who got involved in these types of enterprises always seemed to be the most lethal.
“What do you think?” I asked Amber, who had been silently nursing her beer.
“I think you guys talk in shorthand,” she observed, “and
I don’t know all the story.”
“Don’t need to know,” V injected.
“A little harsh in the expression but V’s right,” I said to Amber, “in this case you’re better off not knowing.”
“Can’t get kidnapped and tortured for what you don’t know,” Q added.
“That happens a lot?” Amber asked.
“Not recently,” I assured her. “We’re a lot more careful these days.”
“Good to know,” but she didn’t look very reassured. “Anyone need another beer?”
Three of us decided we did, Deek already had a spare in his wheelchair pouch.
“So, what’s the play then?” Q asked.
“We can’t fight on too many fronts at once,” I observed, “so we need to co-opt the dangerous ones. So, step one is to have a heart to heart with the junior Mr. Silva.”
“We give them the bonds back,” V observed.
“Absolutely,” Q agreed. “We don’t need them on our ass. If they ever put it together where they know us from…” He trailed off with a glance at Amber.
“Oh, that must be the part that would get me kidnapped and tortured,” Amber picked up.
“Right,” I affirmed, “and that’s why you’re strictly in the background on this gig. No one has connected you to us.”
“And no one ever will,” Deek assured. “In two weeks your electronic history is going to be so polluted no one will be able to figure you out.”
“Good,” I confirmed. “Okay, so you’re invisible,” I said to Amber. “Then we have the good Sergeant call his loving wife and arrange a meet.”
“She’s under some pretty heavy surveillance,” Deek pointed out. “Phone is bugged, house is bugged, car is bugged, and probably her office phone, too.”
“You think the whole office is bugged?” I asked.
“Doubtful,” Deek observed.
“Special delivery,” Q offered up.
“Special delivery,” I agreed. We’d deliver a clean phone to Ms. Meadows at the office.
“What about the meet?” Q asked. “Somewhere by the water.”
“Agreed,” I said without hesitation. Normally water cuts off potential avenues of retreat but the twisting inlets of Florida were our home court. “The waterfront angle also helps explain how Mr. Meadows managed to evade the police for so long.”
The Rogue Horse Recovery: Book One of the Recovery and Marine Salvage Inc Series (Recovery and Marine Salvage, Inc.) Page 9