the Viking Funeral (2001) (21 page)

"There's no need for rude behavior," Lisa said.

"Fuck you, honey!" Jody responded hotly, exploding to his feet. "Just 'cause there's no history here, don't think you can fuck me over! You people act like this is a business transaction. It's not! It's a criminal conspiracy. Let's not forget that you're all money launderers. I make one call and this whole deal goes into federal court and back to the taxpayers."

The Prussian general cleared his throat: "Get this..
. T
his person out of my party." Petrovitch turned and left the deck, taking his two flunkies and most of the available oxygen with him.

Jody was left standing, glaring awkwardly. Jose Mondragon turned and followed Petrovitch.

Lisa finally rose from her chair while Shane put a hand on Jody's shoulder. "Come on, man. Cool down."

"Get your fucking hands off me!" Jody screamed and backhanded Shane's arm off with his fist.

"What'd you take?" Shane asked, looking at Jody closely. "You're on something.... This isn't you."

"No..
. N
o... I'm... I wouldn't... I didn't..." And then he fell backward.

Shane had to scramble to catch him before he cracked his head on the tile. "Somebody slipped him something," Shane said, looking at Lisa.

"Get him out of here," she replied. "Go back to Jose's."

"What's going on? Jody wouldn't use drugs. He's trying to get everybody off drugs."

"I think I know what happened. I need to do some damage control. Just do what I say. I'll be there as soon as I can." She turned and left the deck.

Shane got his hands under Jody and half dragged, half carried him off the patio. He laid him down on the damp grass at the side of the villa. Jody was groaning. Inside the party, the Majesties ended "Begin the Beguine," finishing up with a corny drum riff. Jody rolled over and vomited on the grass.

"Always a music critic," Shane mumbled.

"Get me outta here, Salsa," Jody moaned. "I feel like shit."

A few minutes later Shane found Sawdust and Victory on the far side of the room, pounding down scotches like construction workers at a neighborhood bar.

"Let's go. Jody's outside," Shane said, and left without waiting for them to reply.

They found Jody on the grass where Shane had left him, but now he was unconscious, snoring loudly.

"What'd you do to him?" Lester growled.

"I didn't do anything to him. Somebody spiked his drink. It was weird..
. S
ome kinda mood-altering substance, maybe GHB. He went nuts..
. B
lew the whole deal."

"What?" Sawdust said, then looked at Shane suspiciously. "Who would drug him? Everybody's in this for the money. These people need us to move their product. You did this to him!"

"It wasn't me," Shane said. "You want a guess? I think we got some competitors inside All-American who don't want this deal to happen."

Victory stood leaning on his crutch while Sawdust ran to the parking lot above and retrieved the motor home. When he pulled up, Shane and Victory dragged Jody inside. They drove back to Jose Mondragon's villa to wait for Lisa St. Marie.

But she was already there, standing with Tremaine Lane out by the pool.

Chapter
27.

WHILE THE REST of the Vikings put Jody into bed, Shane talked it over with
Lisa.

"I think I can still save this," she told him. "I know what happened. At least I'm pretty sure I know. I think I can convince Lou..
. B
ut we need to..." She stopped because Victory Smith had just come out of the house and was hopping around the deep end of the pool, over to where they were standing. He leaned in on his crutch, glaring.

One by one, the rest of the Vikings came out and formed a circle around them.

"You ain't supposed to talk to her. Jody does the deals," Victory growled.

"Somebody, and I won't mention who, dropped hydroxyl methylphenidate into Jody's drink," Lisa said.

"I'm not a fucking druggist. Talk English, lady," Smith said.

"MDMA-two, a form of juiced up Ecstasy. It's a big-time depressant, causes irrational behavior," Shane replied, and Lisa nodded. Apparently, Victory had been so busy at SWAT, kicking doors and doing kneecaps, he missed out on his drug tour in Vice.

"We don't have any time," she continued. "If you guys still want this deal, I have a chance to save it. Mr. Petrovitch is leaving on his private jet in two hours. I either put this back together by then, or it's dead." She was cool and in control. Her jade-green eyes seemed to twinkle with excitement. Or was it amusement? Shane couldn't shake the feeling that she was thoroughly enjoying herself.

"I need to cut a deal now," she pressed.

"If Jody's X-ing, he won't be up to anything for hours, maybe a day," Tremaine said.

"I need to take Lou a deal tonight, in the next hour. I know I can square things with Papa Joe. It's Petrovitch we need to capture. Jody threatened him, and frankly, Lou doesn't like being threatened. I may have a way to straighten that out, but I want one of you to cut the deal with me now. I need to bring him an offer."

"One of us?" Sawdust asked.

"Him," Lisa said, pointing at Shane.

"Fuck him. He not even scheduled t'live till Friday
"
Victory growled.

"It's him or nobody..
. A
nd, whatever he and I work out, you've gotta make Jody stick to it."

"Maybe it was you, spiked Jody's drink so you could front up and kick Scully's ass on this deal," Tremaine Lane said lazily from a chair a few feet away, his feet propped up on a glass-topped table.

"Okay..
. H
ave it your way. See ya around," Lisa said, then started to walk to the far end of the pool. They all watched, mesmerized by the hip action. Shane guessed she was probably not doing it intentionally. She'd learned that walk in high school when she first realized it turned every guy's brain to mush.

"Hang on a minute," Lester drawled. "We'll do it your way."

Lisa stopped and turned theatrically to look at them.

"What if Jody don't like the deal once he comes to?" Victory asked.

"Hey, boys," she said softly. "The big money is in the smuggle. You guys are gonna make your percentage off that. You wanna blow this over whether it ends up being two seventy
-
five a case or three hundred?"

They stood glaring at her, trying to decide what to do.

"What's it gonna be? Once Mr. Petrovitch's plane takes off, this is over. He won't revisit it. We're out of time."

Victory Smith leaned forward on his crutch and whispered softly to Shane, so nobod
y e
lse could hear: "Okay, Party Boy, go ahead. But if you get shorted by this bitch, the balance comes out of your end."

"Y'mean I'm gonna be around for the payoff? I thought I wasn't gonna make it till Friday."

"Keep yer hands off her. I'm the one's gonna be doing her. You fuck her, you're dead."

"Is this on or off?" Lisa asked from the far side of the pool, where she waited impatiently, hands on her hips.

"Go on, gaffle with the bitch," Tremaine said softly, his deep ghetto voice rumbling.

Lisa crossed back, took Shane by the hand, and led him around the side of the house to the front drive, where her car was parked. It was a white Mercedes convertible with the top down. She slid behind the wheel and got it started.

"Where're we going?" Shane asked, still standing by the passenger door.

"I'm not gonna try and cut a deal here, with all these testosterone cases leaning on me. We'll find a nice quiet spot. Get in."

Just before sliding in beside her, Shane looked up and caught Victory glaring out of the living-room window. Shane shot him a wide grin, then grabbed his crotch. Smith was still there as they pulled away from the house.

"It's Arnold Zook," she said. "I can't prove it, of course, but I'm pretty sure he's the one who spiked Jody's drink."

"Who? You mean the little round short one who looks like he should be stacking cans at Ralph's?"

They were parked halfway between La Quinta and Rancho Mirage, off Bob Hope Drive, in a small, sculpted park. Up-lit date palms stood over them, swaying in the breeze like giant eunuchs waving fans.

"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..
. Y
ou'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..
. O
r 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..
. F
ifty 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 gonn
a t
ank 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."