He swam underwater until he thought his lungs would burst. Then he surfaced.
He was maybe fifty feet off shore. Both boats were burning. So were the ATVs. There were bodies on the beach, and one of the illegals was kneeling down in the sand, weeping softly.
A man was standing on a rise, just behind the fires. Even without the skull T-shirt, John Saint would have known him anywhere.
“Castle,” he whispered.
It was almost as if the guy heard him. The man turned, and, at that instant, his face was lit up by the moonlight.
He looked straight in John Saint’s eyes and smiled.
“All of it?” The color drained from Howard Saint’s face. “Goddamn it, Quentin, all of it?”
Glass nodded reluctantly. “All of it, Howard.”
Saint uttered something wordless, inarticulate, then turned and threw the brandy snifter in his hand against the mirrored wall. Both shattered.
Saint stood there a moment, in front of the mirror, breathing heavily, trying to compose himself. “Castle,” he said through gritted teeth.
Glass lifted his hand off the mouthpiece of the receiver and spoke into it.
“Get back here as soon as you can,” he told John, then hung up the phone.
Glass took a deep breath and tried to compose himself as well. This was not just bad news, it was catastrophically bad news. How they responded to it was as critical for him as it was for Saint: his fortunes rose and fell with Howard’s, just as they had for the last thirty years.
At this particular moment, sad to say, those fortunes were about as low as they’d ever been.
It hadn’t seemed that way minutes before: yes, Johnny Piscatelle’s man from Memphis had failed miserably, but Castle was only one man, no matter how capable, and he was going up against an entire organization. Sooner or later (probably sooner, Glass guessed) they would kill him. And this time, they’d make sure he was dead.
But beyond that bit of bad news, the evening had been going very well. Chadwick had had dinner here with them, in Howard’s private office, and the three of them had spent that time finalizing the list of invitees for the official campaign kickoff party next week.
For his own part, there hadn’t been any further word from whoever it was who’d tried to extort money from him last Thursday. Glass wouldn’t be surprised if his would-be blackmailer had gotten wind of his reputation and backed off. He hoped so. He’d thought for years about finding a way to break the ice with Howard regarding his sexual preferences, but the right moment had never presented itself. And this, most certainly, was not the right moment.
“Okay.” Saint sat back down behind his desk. “We need to think this through, Quentin. I want you to get Epstein and Hegyes up here. They might have some ideas.”
Glass nodded. “I’m on it.”
“And make sure: No one—you hear me,
“I understand. I’ll get Epstein first. He always—”
But Quentin never got to finish his sentence.
There was a commotion at the door to Saint’s office. Lincoln and Cutter, who’d been guarding it, stepped sheepishly aside; a second later, Mike Toro, with brother Joe on his heels, entered the room.
One look at their faces, and Quentin knew that there was no need to tell them a thing about what had happened tonight. He could see Howard realized it, too.
The question was, What were the Toros going to do about it?
“Evening, Howard,” Mike said. “Quentin.”
Saint stood up behind his desk. “Mike. Joe. What can I do for you?”
“That’s a good one,” Mike said. “Isn’t it, Joe?”
“Oh, yeah. What he can do for us. That’s very good.”
Glass saw his boss flush. Saint took a deep breath and, for the second time in as many minutes, visibly forced himself to relax.
“We had chicken Havana tonight,” Mike said. “Very tasty.”
He began circling the room in one direction as he talked. Joe circled it in the other.
“We were going to invite you for our feast,” Joe said. “But then we decided . . . nah.”
“It’s all right. We ate,” Saint said.
Mike stopped right in front of the desk. He picked up a clear yellow rock from the desk’s surface and held it up to the light.
“What is this?” he asked.
“It’s amber,” Howard Saint replied. “Fossilized tree sap.”
“Fossilized tree sap?” Joe asked. “No shit?”
“That’s right.”
“Looks like a yellow rock to me, Mike,” Joe said. “But what do I know?”
“Don’t feel bad, Joe. I didn’t know what it was either.
Amber.” Mike shrugged, and put the rock down. Next to it was a dark wooden box. Toro hefted the box and smiled. “But this. Now this, I know what it is.”
So did Glass. It was a cigar humidor. Howard Saint’s personal cigar humidor. You did not lay hands on it without his express permission, and you certainly didn’t dream of opening it.
As Mike Toro was this second doing.
“Don’t touch the Cubans, Mike,” Howard said.
Toro ignored him and pulled out a cigar. He clipped the end and lit it.
Then he frowned.
“It’s not a Cuban, Howard. It’s Honduran. Me—I’m a Cuban.”
Mike blew a big puff across the desk. Again, Saint visibly controlled himself.
“Have you heard the news?” Mike asked. “I’ll bet you have.”
“A shipment of cash was torched on Mullet Key,” Joe supplied. “Whose money was it?”
Glass had to give his boss credit; Saint didn’t blink an eye. He regarded the two Cubans impassively.
“Our money,” Joe said into the silence, answering his own question. “It was our money, Howard.”
“Our mother always put her cash in the mattress,” Mike said, “which I thought was a good idea until the house burned down. It was a big fire. She lost everything. That’s what happens when you don’t watch your money. You lose everything, Howard. Everything.”
Mike and his boss locked eyes.
Saint leaned forward on his desk, till his face was inches away from Mike’s and Joe’s. Then he spoke. “Is that a threat?”
“Just a recitation of the facts, Howard. The facts that happened to us this very evening,” Joe said.
“Fourteen out of fifteen shipments are perfect. One goes bad, and you give me this? And because you’re, what—mad at me? You want to scare me?” Saint asked.
Mike puffed on the Honduran again.
“Thirteen out of fifteen,” he said. “Don’t forget the weather last week. The sudden hundred-dollar-bill shower.”
“Two shipments gone bad, Howard,” Joe said. “Two times fifty million. That’s what—a hundred million, Mike?”
“A hundred million, Joe. That’s exactly right. A hundred million fucking dollars we’re out.”
“You can’t get insurance for what we do,” Howard said. “So I’m not going to cover your fucking losses, and if you don’t like that, remember one thing, Mike. I’ve got more guns.”
Mike Toro took another puff on his cigar. “So that’s how it is, Howard?”
“That’s how it is.”
“All right.” Toro pressed the lit end of his cigar into Saint’s desk. The wood began to smoke.
“Chicken Havana,” Mike said, dropping the cigar.
Without another word, the Toros left.
Glass shook his head.
