Tsar

in less than eight seconds. Street legal.

The gleaming parade of pimped-up rides was coming through the ornate iron entrance gates and rolling to a stop under the portico where the valet boys waited. A bright red Ferrari Enzo rumbled up, and three valet guys converged on it as if somebody had just dropped a million-dollar bill on the pavement, which they probably had.

Stoke checked his watch. It was past nine o’clock, and Fancha was supposed to sing “Happy Birthday” at nine- thirty sharp, so a lot of people were eager to get back to the pool. Stoke thought half the guests had probably come because she was singing. Wouldn’t surprise him if it was more than half. Girl was climbing the charts.

The woman he maybe loved was maybe, just maybe, on her way to stardom, and it made him proud to catch her name whispered around the room.

Have you heard that beautiful girl sing? Fancha? Go! Go out there! You’ve got to hear her!

Something was going on out on the front lawn. There was a white bakery truck, looked like, motor still running, pulled over on the grass, and the driver was standing outside surrounded by a few of the black-shirt boys. Pretty tense situation. Stoke decided he had time to go check it out.

“Fuck you doing, coming in the main gate?” one guy was screaming at the driver. “You didn’t see the sign, ‘Service Entrance,’ around the side? Whaddya, blind, you dumb shit?”

The delivery guy, who looked like a big blond bear in white pajamas, wasn’t backing down. He’d didn’t look as if he’d back down from Mike Tyson, to tell the truth. He got up in the guy’s face quick.

“Listen up, pal, like I said, I got the freaking birthday cake in the back there. It won’t fit through the pantry door. So I’m bringing it around to bring it in the front door. Because it’s wider. Okay? Just like your caterers in the kitchen told me to do. Awright with you, you skinny fuck?”

The driver’s white outfit had the name “Happy” stitched over his breast pocket. It said “Happy’s Bake Shoppe” on the side of the white truck. This Happy character was a big guy, seriously large, and the security guys were having some second thoughts about messing with his ass too much.

“Is there a problem?” Stoke asked, pushing his way past two of the black-shirted Russian muscle boys.

“There was one. Now we have another one. You. Who the hell are you?”

Russians so full of attitude lately, you notice that? Still pissed about that Cold War thing, Stoke figured. And now that they were rich, well, you know how that goes. He smiled at the guy, stuck out his hand.

“Sheldon Levy. Suncoast Artist Management. I’m coordinating this evening’s entertainment for your employer, Mr. Lukov. I hate to interrupt this little scuffle, but the lovely Fancha is scheduled to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the guest of honor in fifteen minutes. I’m afraid if we don’t get that cake through the door and out to the stage, all of our timing will go down the tubes. I don’t think Mr. Lukov would be very happy about that, do you gentlemen agree?”

Happy the Baker smiled at Stokely. “Finally, someone around here who makes some freaking sense.”

“Can I offer you a hand with the cake?” Stoke asked Happy.

“Nah, we’ll help him,” a black shirt said. “C’mon, guys, gimme a hand here with this freaking cake, all right?”

As the security team opened up the van and unloaded the huge white and pink cake, Stoke went over and offered Happy his hand. Something about the guy looked very familiar.

“Sheldon Levy,” he said.

“I’m Happy,” the baker said, pumping his hand. If he’d expected Stoke’s hand to be small and breakable, he was sorely disappointed.

“Yeah? You’re Happy, huh? Good thing your momma didn’t name you Gay, right?” Stoke laughed. The guy didn’t seem to get it.

“Have we met before?” Stoke said. He was sure he’d either met this guy or seen his picture fairly recently.

“The Steiner wedding?” Happy said. “Maybe that was it.”

“I missed that one. Didn’t make the cut, I guess. No, somewhere else, must be. C’mon out back, Happy, I’ll introduce you to Fancha.”

“You know Fancha?”

“Know her? I’m her manager. C’mon, we’ll make sure they don’t drop your cake going through the house. Cake like that, what does that beauty go for, Happy?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Hundred?”

“Thousand.”

“For a cake? You got Celine Dion in there? Well, it’s a work of art. I’m sure it will be a huge surprise for the guest of honor.”

“Oh, you’re right about that, Mr. Levy. A huge surprise.”

Happy looked happy as he saw his masterpiece being paraded through the crowded house above everyone’s head and lofted out toward the stage overlooking the deep end of the pool.

Fancha was just finishing up one of the hit songs from Green Island Girl, one that might go gold called “A Minha Vida,” when the cake arrived onstage with her.

She looked at the six-foot-high frosted monstrosity and said softly into the mike, “Isn’t that beautiful? A symbol of one life lived. You know the word fado itself means fate, destiny, and-oh, here’s the birthday boy himself! Let’s give him a big round of applause, shall we?”

A thin, clean-shaven man, with dark, deep-set eyes beneath fierce black brows, stepped up to the microphone. It was Ramzan, all right, although in the pictures in his dossier, he’d had a luxuriant beard. He was swaying a little bit and had a kind of goofy grin plastered on his face for a fierce Chechen warlord. Miami got to people, Stoke thought, that’s all there was to it. Ramzan looked out at the crowd and spoke, sounding like that Ali G guy in that Borat movie, but that was just Stoke’s opinion.

“I want to thank my dear friend Vlad for having this wonderful excitement party. And all of you coming. I am very happy we can take time out from our struggle and come together in such a joyful party time.”

That was the wonderful excitement speech, and then Fancha took the mike off the stand. The crowd got quiet fast as she sang the opening lyrics with the voice of an unreachable angel. Behind her, they were lighting the candles on the cake, waiters standing on stepladders. The candles lit up like sparklers, and the crowd cheered as Fancha lit up the whole night with her voice.

“Happy birthday to you…happy birthday…”

Stoke smiled at her and then looked around at Happy standing a few feet behind him. He had a funny look on his face. A little nervous, maybe. Nervous? About what? His cake was a hit.

A big surprise.

Stoke raised his sleeve to his lips and whispered, “Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“You getting this?”

“You bet.”

“Zoom in on the baker in the white suit. Big gorilla. A few feet behind me. Wait, he’s moving away. You got him?”

“Yeah, I got him. Let me get a close-up.”

“Does he look familiar to-”

“Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“Stoke! Get the hell out of there! Now! Grab Fancha and run…”

“What? What is it?”

A big surprise.

“That’s the Omnibomber! The guy the FBI thinks blew up that prison a few weeks ago. Little Miss. The Death Row Bomber. I saw the prison security-camera shots just yesterday. It’s him, all right.”

“Oh, shit. The cake.”

“Yeah, the cake. Gotta be. Come on, Stoke. You gotta move. Get out now, Stoke! I mean it. Those candles, those are probably fuses or somebody’s got a remote detonator, one or the other. Go! Go!”

Stoke looked around. Fancha was still singing her birthday song, her eyes on Ramzan, making it just for him.