No Rules, Ridge King [the snowy day read aloud TXT] 📗

under control, somehow, even though he hadn’t been the one to hire her. Jonah Lomax was the original owner. He’d brought in Napoleon LaPierre from Marseille, part of some underground crime network, and LaPierre had brought in Vlad Kucherov, as anxious to bring illegal cash into the U.S. as Derek and his people were to get it out. Napoleon and Vlad had quickly marginalized Jonah. Wilma’s position as GM, however, had only become stronger.

“This week, I promise,” Derek said to Wilma.

“How about tomorrow at the Tides. Our usual room?”

“Tomorrow’s fine.”

“At one o’clock.”

“One o’clock it is.”

“OK, preppy boy. You can go now,” she winked, a long sultry eyelash covering one of her deep dark eyes. “Vlad’s waiting for you in the Cigar Room.”

She walked away and Derek turned to look at her move away toward the office, her sensuous hips swaying.

He had just fucked Lucy Azzinaro the day before up in the Biscayne Inn flophouse, their usual meeting place. She hadn’t had any more to tell him about Jack Houston St. Clair and his snooping around his wire transfers, transfers he’d stopped making once Lucy had told him Jack was poking around. It would be great to be back in the arms of a sexual predator like Wilma Kassman, a tigress in the sack. And in a swank joint like the Tides Hotel on Ocean Drive where they gave Wilma her room by the hour, or, as she once told Derek, “two hours in your case, preppy boy.”

In the Cigar Room, Derek took deep breaths as he enjoyed inhaling the air, thick with the scents of the finest tobaccos in the world.

Howard was already there.

“Hiya, Derek?” said Jonah.

“Jonah. Guys,” Derek nodded at Napoleon and Vlad.

“Got some Starbucks if you want coffee, Derek,” said Napoleon.

“Thanks, I’ll take some.”

Vlad was behind the bar picking up one of the Starbucks cups.

“Here you are, Derek,” he said, handing Derek a paper cup with the java.

“Let get rolling, boys,” said Howard. “I’ve got a big meeting in an hour and a half.”

“We just want you to set up a meeting with the Oyebanjos,” said Vlad.

“So we can pick up where Flores left off,” added Napoleon.

“OK,” said Howard. “Let’s do it. We got a lot of business to do together.”

Howard looked at Derek, who took a sip from his Starbucks and pulled out his cellphone and punched in some numbers.

“Hi, Aricela, it’s me, Derek. Yeah, I want to set a meeting with you and Severo as soon as possible.” He paused while she spoke. “Yes, I know you’re in a hurry to move the product, but we’ve had a little issue. Our friend Omer, you know was with the DEA, and they’ve unexpectedly sent him out on an undercover assignment in Italy, so I want you to meet the new guys that’ll be handling the product for us. Really great guys. You’ll get along fine. Right. No, tomorrow’s not too soon. Where do you want to meet?”

Derek saw Vlad notion to him and put the cellphone against his chest.

“Same place they met before,” Vlad said in a low voice.

“Same place we met before OK with you, Aricela?” said Derek. He nodded as he listened to her. “OK, see you tomorrow at ten.”

He touched a button ending the call.

“Good,” said Howard. “It’s all set.”

“At Enriqueta’s on Second Avenue,” said Derek.

“That was good, what you said about Flores,” said Vlad.

Again that sly smile from Howard.

“Yeah. Derek’s good at making things up.”

* * *

Jack had just poured himself another cup of coffee in the St. Clair Agency offices on Kane Concourse in Bay Harbor Islands when Sean Walsh strode through the front door.

“Hey, Sean? What’s the latest?”

“Plenty.”

Sean poured himself a cup and looked over at Adele, the office manager, sitting behind her desk working away on her computer.

“Hi, Adele.”

“Hey, Sean.”

“How old is the coffee?”

“Old enough to put hair on your chest,” Adele said without bothering to look up.

“Just asking.”

“There’s a Starbucks on the corner.”

“There’s a Starbucks on every corner,” said Sean.

Jack went into his office and took a seat. Sean came in and sat down across the desk.

“One of our guys following Aricela Oyebanjo saw her pick up a guy down in Tavernier and bring him back to Hialeah.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s the same guy we spotted with them at the meeting at Enriqueta’s that day, the Cuban agent, Pozo.”

“Tavernier? What you suppose he’s doing down in Tavernier?”

“Beats me,” said Sean. “She got him at the Tavernier Creek Marina.”

“Sure, I know it—right under the bridge there.”

“Yep. She took him to a patio furniture store in Hialeah.”

Jack leaned up and rested his elbows on his desk.

“Now what the hell kind of business would a top operative in Cuba’s Dirección de Inteligencia be doing at a patio furniture store out in fucking Hialeah?”

“Beats me.”

“Or even at the Tavernier Creek Marina.”

“Beats me.”

“Adele?” Jack called out through the open door.

“Yes, Jack?”

“Bring in another couple of guys for surveillance.”

“OK.”

To Sean, he said: “Put these guys on the furniture store and have them follow Pozo. I don’t want any of our people knowing who he is. That’s not the kind of word you want leaking out.”

Jack had met with Gargrave that morning to get his report on additional feedback from the inquiries Gargrave continued to make as he followed the money in the wire transfers sent by Derek all over the world. Each new report that came in merely reconfirmed the pattern Gargrave had discovered: the money was all headed into the Cuban national banking system in Havana.

“No,” said Sean, “you don’t want people knowing about Pozo. We’ve got like fifteen guys following people now, right?”

“At least that many. We’re starting to look like a