head.
“I got no plans,” T.J. said. “Bobby, though . . . he seems to be in a bit of a hurry.”
“Now why am I not surprised about that?” John folded his arms across his chest and smiled. “I heard some idle chitchat about you and a Russian boat.”
Shit. How did he know about the boat?
Bobby tried to recover.
“Like you said. It’s just idle chitchat. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried. But I think Father would disapprove.”
“Father doesn’t need to know.”
John shook his head. “Do you even understand what’s happening tonight, Bobby? What’s going to happen over the next few months?”
“Of course I understand. Father’s going to run for governor. I’m not stupid, you know.”
The second those words were out of his mouth, he wanted them back.
John smirked. That same smirk that Bobby had hated ever since the two of them were boys. The smirk that said
“No. You’re not. So you know that in order to run successfully, he needs our support. He needs us not to do stupid things that could reflect badly on him right now. He needs us—”
“I get the picture,” Bobby said, standing. “Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”
John sighed.
“I suppose there’s no talking you out of this foolishness.” He looked over at T.J. “Go with him.”
“Yeah,” T.J. said in a long-suffering tone, and struggled to his feet.
Bobby pushed him back down in the booth.
“No. This is my deal.”
T.J. glared up at him.
“Don’t be stupid, Bobby. This is dangerous,” John said.
Bobby let his blazer fall open so his brother could see the 9mm tucked inside his belt.
“Yeah? Well, so am I.”
In the car, though, he suddenly didn’t feel that way.
Suddenly, he felt nervous. John would go to his father— and then what? Would Bobby have to bow out of the deal? Would Howard Saint even let him get to the boat tonight? He wouldn’t put it past his father to send Dante after him, bring him back to the club.
Except that wouldn’t happen, Bobby realized. John wouldn’t, couldn’t rat on him right away—his father was too busy. His brother might indeed tell where Bobby was going, but not till later. Not till after the deal. And after the deal . . .
Bobby would feel a whole lot differently about getting yelled at. For one thing, he’d have the weapons to show his father, to prove he wasn’t just blowing smoke about the whole thing. And he’d have the down payment from their first customer—Manuel Ordito’s group, right over in Ybor City, whom he and Micky were going to see as soon as they had the weapons stashed. Cuban exiles with an ax to grind and money to burn. As far as Bobby was concerned, they were unbelievably naive—thinking they could smuggle RPGs into Cuba to use on Castro. But hey, as long as they had the money . . .
He relaxed a little, switched on the radio. Queens of the Stone Age—“Go with the Flow.” Bobby smiled. Another omen. He felt it again.
Luck was with him tonight.
He cranked up the volume, pulled a roach out of the ashtray, and lit up.
Pot was how he’d met Micky Duka in the first place. Hanging out with him one night in the Cobalt Lounge, after the upstairs at Saints and Sinners had closed, they found out they had a mutual affinity for herb. Before too long, Bobby was buying all his pot from Micky. They started hanging out more and more.
And then Micky told him about this opportunity he’d come across. A chance to make some real money. Thing was, Micky explained, he needed some backing. Some serious cash, as he put it, to lay out up front.
One thing led to another, and before he knew it . . .
Well. Here he was.
And there, on the seat next to him, was the briefcase with the $60,000 in cash he and Micky needed to make this deal.
And there, standing at the intersection of Guy Verger and Maritime, just where he said he’d be, was Micky Duka himself.
Bobby brought the BMW to a stop and opened the passenger door. Micky climbed in.
“Bobby. My man.”
The two shook. Micky was a slightly built, short man with slicked-back hair and small, beady eyes. He looked shifty—like the con artist he was. Looked nothing like his father, Mike Duka, a tank of a man who’d been a longtime fixture on the Tampa crime scene, an enforcer whom Bobby had seen in old pictures with his dad, back in the day.
Micky patted the briefcase on the seat between them.
“This is it, right? The sixty large?”
“That’s it.”
“Beautiful. We are making history tonight, Bobby. A whole new chapter in the book about the Dukas and Saints, right? I mean our families, we go way back together, but this is—”
“Enough,” Bobby interrupted. “Let’s stay focused.”
“Right.” Micky drummed his hands on his thighs. “Focused. We’ll take it easy. Let me get a hit off that, Bobby?”
“Yeah.” He passed Micky the roach. He wished the man would calm down, would shut up already about their family’s shared history. One thing Micky always neglected to mention when he talked about that history: the elder Duka had died in Howard Saint’s service.
That was not something Bobby liked to dwell on.
“Easy man. Here it is,” Micky said. “Slow down.”
Bobby looked up, saw the sign—TAMPA BAY TRANS-NATIONAL TERMINAL—and turned into the drive. Micky gave the guard at the gate a thumbs-up—they’d already bought him off, another grand out of his pocket, but that was small change compared to what they were expecting to clear on this deal—then they parked the BMW by the dockmaster’s shack, and climbed out.
“There it is,” Micky said. “What’d I tell you? There it is.”
He was pointing toward a huge, rusted hulk of a cargo ship berthed at the pier closest to them. Russian letters were stenciled in barely visible gray along the side of the ship.
“Better let me take that,” Micky said, holding his hand out for the briefcase.
After a second’s hesitation—they’d talked about this already, Micky knew these people, he’d set up the deal, so he had to make the exchange—Bobby passed it over.
They started walking toward the ship.
“Just hang back and let me do the talking, right?” Micky said.
“You got it. I’m just here to watch, don’t worry.” They’d talked about this, too—Micky had even suggested Bobby let him make the exchange on his own, but no way that was happening. Howard Saint hadn’t raised any fools in his household.
“So this Astrov guy,” Bobby began. “He’s promising a three-to-one return on the money?”
“He says that’s the least we can expect. The market is volatile, that’s what he told me, but if we find the right customer, for the Kornets maybe—he says we can maybe do ten-to-one.”
Bobby nodded. That jibed with the research he’d done, too. The RPGs—the grenade launchers they were selling to Ordito—they were getting three-to-one for them, but the Kornets—antitank weapons—those could turn a much heftier profit. More than enough to get him out on his own, make him a player—Bobby Saint, international arms dealer. Private jet, villa in the South of France, swimming pool stocked with the requisite babes . . .
He stepped from the gangway onto the metal pier itself. The sound of his footsteps echoed into the distance, and disappeared. He smelled the ocean, heard the slap of the waves against the ship, the sound of traffic in the distance. The pier itself, though, was silent and dark. So was the ship. Bobby frowned.
