Chapter One
“Isn’t that the hotel pro she’s beating out there?”
“Yeah, but where are we? Cabo San Lucas isn’t exactly the eye of the world tennis hurricane, you know.” Russell barely looked up from his spreadsheets.
“Ah, of course,” Armando murmured, still watching the hard golden body pounding around the court to relentlessly destroy the humiliated man across from her. So she only beats male professionals of the lowest caliber. And I was about to think she was more than your average corporate housewife.
Ordinarily Armando Lios Leyva wouldn’t be caught dead at the Hacienda, especially not in the rackety hotbox of the tennis club bar. Normally he’d do business at the Finisterra, where he loved the feeling of being backed up against the sheer granite cliff face, a hundred meters above the Solmar beach. The highest table in the Whale Watcher Bar, with its isolated view of whale spumes miles out to sea, was made for him, an eagle’s roost. Or sitting like a cave-dweller in front of a mesquite fire in the sweeping natural fireplace, watching flames from the mesquite logs chase shadows on the rough-hewn stone walls. Even the men’s restroom, no more than a walled-in grotto of live stone, felt right to him. Open air, commanding height, raw stone. People think of Cabo San Lucas as a beach, but to Armando Lios it was a mountain with marine views. But this time there was no view he found more riveting than Stan Russell’s wife out there on the tennis court.
“I think I finally figured it out,” Russell was saying, “I’ve been working backwards from the basic ass-covering figure, then adjusting it to wholesale and costing by weight. I should have just started out from how much I can leverage. I think I’ve blocked out what will let me cool out the old man and have a little extra for myself.”
Armando twirled the Scotch and rocks around his glass, trying to shift his attention from Dancy Russell to her husband. “It would pain me to think of you and your beautiful wife only getting a little for yourselves.”
“I’m sure it would,” Russell smiled perfunctorily. “No, it may seem funny coming from an embezzler, but I don’t really believe in excessive greed. It’s always that one last apple that ends up getting you caught in a tree full of birdshot. It’s just a matter of exercising moderation.”
Oh yes, moderation, Armando thought. While we swill expensive Scotch that costs twice as much here as in Los Angeles. Armando always drank Scotch when abroad and, like many Mexicans, felt “abroad” when in Los Cabos. He drank Tequila at home, but wouldn’t have considered the Scotch an affectation. It was merely part of the international folkways, like his white shorts, sockless deck shoes, and yellow polo shirt. Here a man could wear such things without embarrassment. He presented “international image” because he was very much an international male who knew playgrounds on several continents, although his import-export business was confined to Mexico, the United States, and much more recently Peru.
Most Mexican men would have felt like children or fairies wearing shorts for anything other than soccer or swimming. Ramos and Morales, watching him from a nearby table, were conspicuous in slacks. In fact, they would have preferred to wear jackets, even in the heat, rather than hide their UZI’s in the Adidas bags they kept on top of their table. Not even the waiter would have connected the two bodyguards with Armando, who ordered in English with a perfect American accent. His resemblance to American businessmen was the product of years of work and study, a sort of hobby. The fact that he wore a steel Rolex, instead of a gold one like any other Mexican of his wealth would have chosen, was on the advice of a sleek young wardrobe consultant he’d hired out of Houston, who’d spent a memorable two weeks with him at his place in Cancun.
But he spread his manicured hands in agreement with Russell’s caution. “Please don’t bite more than you can swallow easily. I think it’s wise to be conservative your first time out.”
“My only time, remember?”
“Well, we’ll see. Sustained, moderated greed is the very basis of commerce, after all.”
Armando and Russell could easily have been two Americans, even fraternity brothers. From across the patio bar, Russell was the more striking of the two, and apparently the more physical. The classy strut of a top athlete and the bulge of muscle was impressive even as he sat at rest, idly fooling with papers and calculators as they talked. A big, sandy, ex-jock with freckles and a Wheaties grin. Perfect wide brow and firm jaw for giving off “can do”. But a closer look would see that Armando; older, slimmer, with crow wing hair and a hawkish face, was the more interesting and dominant of the pair. His Spanish nose and deepset eyes weren’t zeroed in on Russell at the moment, though.
Their week discussions had been limited to mutual benefit, what Russell termed win/win scenario. They’d been socializing and talking numbers for three days, and both knew that it was not a normal matter of reaching agreements and prices, but of sounding out the depths of the other man, getting an idea of his reactions, the weight of his nerve, the limits of his greed. That part was done, for Armando. He’d moved past the deal and was sniffing much bigger game.
Russell was smiling ruefully. “It takes all the balls I’ve got to do it once, Armando. And the problem isn’t getting rid of it. Working with her old man puts me in contact with a lot of big names.
“Ironic, this whole thing.”
“It’s not meeting your prices, either. Just a matter of how to structure the payments up so there won’t be a lot of noise with this much cash moving in and out of the companies.”
Armando knew Russell was writhing, awaiting his decision, so he extended the moment with a long sip on his drink and a long look at Dancy ranging around the court. He’d been exposed to her beauty in sports clothes and evening wear the entire week, and he’d been captivated to extent he found disturbing. But watching her move, especially in the short white tennis dress, was something totally different. So many women look like dresses with limbs sticking out, but Dancy Russell was very blatantly a naked woman temporarily draped in cloth. She was also quite apparently a bred champion, and would have looked aristocratic except that her bosom was too full, her nose too perky, her jawline too strong, and–above all–her hair too taffy-colored. Ash blonde, she still could have been a prep princess. But that bouncing candy-apple bob was just too girl next door, too Cathy Rigby. It drew her cool, self-possessed beauty away from the regal WASP image, towards girl-next-door. The young Cybil Shepherd lived next door to somebody, after all. Armando’s squinted in pure pleasure at her sudden move to smash her opponent’s strong return; her entire body snapping around the shot as though the string of a recurve bow had been cut. He turned back to her husband, licking his lips.
“Well look, Stan. I’ve thought over that stock buyback thing you mentioned last night. I mean, it’s essentially collateral, right? Only I’m holding convertible stocks and you’re holding top quality coke.” Armando took a sip and eyed the darting body on the main court, savoring Russell’s suspense. “But I don’t see why I shouldn’t go for it. There’s not much downside as long as I’ve got the securities, is there?”
Russell’s relief was visible. “No, of course not. That’s why they call them securities. And it’ll only be for six weeks. That should swing it, pal. It’s great to be working from a basis of mutual trust.”
“Well, it’s not exactly like I’m fronting you the stuff. I mean, if I can’t trust a top kick in the War On Drugs, who can I trust?”
“You get a big kick out of that, don’t you?”
“I’m a collector of anomalies. Like skeletons in closets.”
“I don’t suppose you have any glaring contradictions of your own?”
“My favorite. Do you know I don’t use any drugs at all? Never have. And I was originally trained as a painter. I even have a degree in art from UAM.”
“Amazing. But while we’re on trivia questions, I’ve been wondering.” Russell was elaborately casual, his relief that the deal could be done giving way to secondary anxieties. “Sure, I can open you up to a whole new area of wholesale. But not an entire new crop of users. I mean, somewhere down the line somebody is getting cut out. Are they going to get their feelings hurt? Where will you be? Who were you moving it to before? You see what I’m driving at?”
“Perfectly. And I don’t think you should worry. By the way, I never sold any coke before.”
Russell stared dumbly, his mouth half-open, the calculator frozen in his hands.
Armando pretended to notice Russell’s state for the first time and explained it away with a shrug, “They wouldn’t let me.”
So we all have our “they”, Russell thought, but found himself actively suppressing any attempts to imagine a “they” heavy enough to shove Armando around. All he could ask was, “And now?”
Armando gave him the same expansive shrug, “Fuck them.”
Russell’s bulky shoulders sagged and he muttered, “Not a very auspicious prospectus, Armando.”
“Take it or leave it, my friend. I mean, cocaine isn’t hard to buy. Look at DeLorean.”
“Not exactly my favorite role model at the moment.”
“I’ve been teasing you Stan. Leave all this to me. Look, the selling is the scary part, right? That’s where people get caught. But that doesn’t bother you because you’re very slick and you’re protected by your position on your father-in-law’s staff. Same way, I’ve got my ass completely covered. And I’m big enough to deal with anyone that tries to uncover it. So, you okay?”
Russell relaxed again, smiling faintly. “We’re the perfect pair for this, all right.”
“A marriage made in heaven,” Armando saluted with a wave of his drink, “But, speaking of marriages, tell me something. Do you think your wife would desert you like DeLorean’s did?”
“What, after the trial? No way. She’d be out the door before the ink dried on my fingerprints. She can smell it when a man’s going down.”
Armando digested that a minute, watching her energetic attack on the court, then shifted gears. “Could you beat her at tennis?”
“Beats me. I’m a football jock, remember? Turned ski bum and finance stud. About to turn corporate pusher man.”
“Does she also ski?”
“I’ve seen better. Mostly at Olympic prelims. She could be regionally ranked as a racer but she’s too crazy and aggressive to have any discipline.”
Armando absorbed that, somewhat overwhelmed by it. He looked at Russell in a confidential, man-to-man way and said, “May I ask you? Does she also have a mind? She doesn’t seem to be too talkative with me, you know.”
“A mind. God, yes. Like a stainless steel sewer. It’s hard to tell about intelligence, you know–hers is mostly non-verbal. Is a monkey smarter than a cat? Is a timber wolf dumber than a spelling bee champ? Search me. Ask her yourself.”
“What a woman. It must make life a continual amazement for you.”
“Yeah, it’s a wall-to-wall blast.”
Hearty joshing wasn’t Armando’s strong suit, but he pulled it off enough to say, “You’d better watch out, amigo, or I might steal her away from you.”
Russell seemed almost preoccupied as he set down his drink and took his first real look at the flashing white figure on the red court. “You know,” he said, “That just might be arranged.”