'He was the product executive who was working with Leon Fine. When Leon disappeared, Jody preferred working with me. Arnold lost the account, and he didn't take it too well.'
'What's the difference? Don't both of you work for All-American Tobacco?'
'Our individual financial arrangements are complex, but they're tied to product placement. If Jody made an ass of himself and pissed off Mr. Petrovitch, Arnold Zook wouldn't lose any sleep over it.'
'Okay, so how do you get Petrovitch to come around?'
'Leave that part to me,' she allowed. 'I just need to know what we're talking about.'
'And, like Tremaine said, you picked me because I looked like the biggest moron.'
'I picked you because you're the only one who isn't fucked up on drugs. You can still think. I swear… Jody's let these guys get completely out of control. This is my first and last arrangement with him.'
'Okay, let's hear your offer.'
'I can't cut a deal on product price. Mr.
Petrovitch won't go for it. Our parallel market is in place and has been operating along set guidelines for a very long time.'
'Over twenty-five years, I hear.'
'Yeah, maybe. And if word gets out that I cut you a discount price on product, it's gonna haunt me on every other deal I make in the world.'
'So, you smuggle tobacco and launder drug cash in places other than just Colombia?'
'I don't like to use words like 'smuggle' and 'launder.' I'm a tobacco-company account executive, negotiating a deal with you to supply the Blackstone duty-free zone in Aruba with cigarettes to be sold there. Period. End of discussion.'
'Lisa… You're laundering Colombian drug money for the Cali cartel.'
'I'm not laundering anything.'
'The Vikings set this deal up with a Cali cartel drug dealer in L. A., then Jody cut a deal with Papa Joe at Blackstone. They brought All-American in to supply the cigarettes, which get shipped to Aruba, paid for with drug cash, and smuggled back into Colombia, where they're sold by the Cali cartel, who then gets its money back. If that's not a laundry, then I'm Pippi Longstocking.'
'Where Jody or anybody else gets the money to buy our product is their business, not mine. Listen, Shane, I'm cutting you a lot of slack here. Don't make this impossible.'
'Okay, so you won't negotiate on the cigarettes. How 'bout the shipping and insurance and warehousing-all that other stuff you were talking about?'
'I'll give you ten cents per case off the shipping, and forty cents on the insurance-'
Shane put up a hand and interrupted her, 'Slow down. I don't even know what we're talking about.'
'We're talking about all the ancillary expenses.'
'Hell, I don't even know what's good or bad… Or what competitive bids on those services might be. I'm negotiating blind here.'
'So, then, how are we gonna make a deal?'
'You have rate cards on all this shit? For your legitimate deals? The shipping and insurance and warehousing?'
'Yeah.'
'Okay… Fifty percent off on the entire package, per your rate card.'
'What?'
'I want those services at cost.'
'I heard you, but that's ridiculous. I'd be cutting my price by over…' She reached into her purse and pulled out a calculator and began poking at the keys, her lacquered nails clicking as she punched in numbers. Shane watched her while she worked, her features shimmering in the moving lights from the swaying date palms. After a minute, she looked over at him. 'Thirty percent. Best I can do.'
'Fifty percent, Lisa. Don't fuck with me on this. If I cut too bad a deal, Jody's just gonna tank it. You can sell this to Mr. Puffenguts, I know you can.'
'Petrovitch,' she said, smiling.
'You guys will be running your shipping, insurance, and warehousing at no profit, but you're still getting a full three hundred dollars a case on the smokes; like Jody said, it is a huge shipment.'
She looked down at the computer in her hand. 'Fifty percent off.' She punched in a few more figures. 'That comes to a little more than seventeen dollars a case.'
'Okay, that's the deal then. Yes or no.'
She tapped her thumb on the Texas Instruments computer, which had a twelve-digit LD screen instead of the normal ten.
'Okay. But if I can't sell this to Lou, I'll need you nearby. I want you to wait for me in a place where I can get back to you without having the rest of Jody's animals contributing their opinions.'
'Where?'
'AAT rented me a separate villa at the Ritz-Carlton, down by the tennis courts. How 'bout there? Lou should still be at the hotel, packing. That way, if we need to adjust anything, you'll be handy.'
'Okay.'
She put the car in gear. They pulled out from under the date palms, shot down Bob Hope Drive, and turned right again on Highway 111. Lisa St. Marie was holding her head erect, her shoulders straight. She seemed lost in thought while she drove: intense, hard and beautiful, no flirtatious nonsense now. She had turned back into a very busy executive on an important lung-destroying mission.
Shane wondered if she was planning to blow the Prussian general to get the deal done.
Chapter 28
HER ROOM WAS full of shiny masonry, Italian terra-cotta, and Spanish tile. Expensively framed but marginal abstract art hung on the walls. Like everything else in the desert, this junior-executive suite had a pastel-peach color scheme. Except Lisa's suite was without the magnificent views of the valley or the golf course. Shane could see a lit tennis court out the main window and hear the steady thunk-thonk of a singles match, mixed with energetic grunts and squeaking shoes. The match was obscured behind a green screen that hung on the chain-link fence a few yards from the window. The shadows danced and lunged on the colorful canvas like ghostly memories.
Lisa was still with Petrovitch. Shane looked at her telephone and again considered making a call to Filosiani. But he didn't want the LAPD number to show up on her bill, so he decided to wait. Instead, he took the opportunity to get to know her a little better.
He started his search where most cops do- in the bathroom, where you often learned personal secrets. Lisa's bathroom was no exception. She had the standard beauty aids: eye shadow, makeup brushes, and Vaseline; two round metal hairbrushes, each tangled with honey-ash strands. He pulled several loose. There were no dark roots-a natural blonde. Lipsticks by Langome: Iced Amethyst and Bronze Fire. No eyewash or contact-lens case, so it seemed the jade-green color came direct from the factory. Then he found two small, brown plastic compacts stuck way down in the webbing of her cosmetic travel case. The powder inside was not from Revlon, but Colombia. Fine and white, it dusted the mirror. Shane ran a wet index finger across the stuff and tasted it…
Bingo. El Diablo!
Lisa St. Marie kept that high-strung motor of hers redlined with toots of Inca whizbang.
Shane closed the compact and put it back where he found it.
Welly he mused darkly, there are worse things than snorting coke… You could always punch a round through your girlfriend's heart.
He moved through the rest of the place.
The closet contained mostly expensive designer stuff. She either did very well at All-American Tobacco or
