The Viking Funeral

Chapter 26

THE BEDROOM WAS large, dominated by a king-size Spanish-style poster bed. Four men turned simultaneously as Lisa opened the door. A frozen tableau.

Jody, dressed in powder blue, with two-tone shoes, his drink halfway to his mouth, glaring; Jose Mondragon, by the desk, looking up from a sheaf of papers, startled, like a kid caught cheating on a test. And then there were three gray-haired AAT tobacco executives who were standing together by the plate-glass window. As the door opened, these three West Coast cancer distributors stared as Shane and Lisa entered the room.

"I don't think we need any more people here than is absolutely necessary," Jose said, now speaking in perfect, unaccented, English. He had completely dropped his bullshit "como esta" act.

"I can vouch for Mr. Scully," Lisa said. "He's working with us on distribution. He's also an extremely qualified deep-end retrieval expert." She twinkled this nonsense at them, and the room tension dissolved in her smile like an Alka-Seltzer tablet in a sea of sexuality.

Only Jody seemed unmoved. In fact, there was a crazy tightness to his mouth and around his eyes, as if he had just been insulted and didn't know where to park the anger. Finally he nodded-a jerky, almost spastic movement not at all like him.

Lisa motioned toward one of the lung-cancer salesmen. "This is Chip Gordon, head of our overseas subsidiary, American Global Tobacco," she said, smiling at a tall, narrow-shouldered man whose face in profile had the shape of a quarter moon. "And this is Arnold Zook," she said, motioning to a nondescript, pudgy man with a laurel wreath of gray hair circling a shiny pate of open scalp. "He supervises some of our other Latin American duty-free transactions." She turned toward the third man, dressed in black: "And our host this evening, Louis Petrovitch." She didn't mention his corporate title, but it was obvious that Petrovitch was the power player. He had a Prussian general's military bearing- tin-colored short hair, a mile of jaw, and eyes the approximate color and texture of poured concrete. He didn't acknowledge the introduction.

"Shall we go out onto the patio, where it's safe?" Jose suggested, fearful of listening devices. He swung open a pair of double doors, and the group walked out onto a large deck, almost twice the size of the bedroom. Shane followed, finding a spot near the door where he could observe but would hopefully be forgotten. The rest of them walked to a glass-topped table ten or twelve feet away. The lit golf course stretched out, fragrant and verdant below them. Shane watched as Jody sat; he seemed stiff, uncoordinated.

Where was that old fluid grace… Jody's athletic elegance… where was the casual economy of motion?

Lisa was the last to join them. She slithered into a chair and wrapped her legs to the side, showing a lot of well-shaped thigh. Chip Gordon, Arnold Zook, and the formidable Lou Petrovitch stood nearby, holding glasses of melting ice. When Lisa crossed her legs, Shane heard Petrovitch inhale sharply.

He's sleeping with her, Shane suddenly realized.

Lisa smiled at Jody with jade-green confidence, while Papa Joe started the meeting.

"Lisa will conduct this transaction for AAT," Jose said. "As the representative for Blackstone Duty-Free Imports, I will act as a court of last resort in any dispute. My company will also control the drafting of the transaction, and the contract will be held at the Blackstone office in Geneva for obvious reasons. Acceptable?" The question was aimed at Jody, who simply nodded. Strangely, Jody's hands were trembling on the tabletop.

What the hell's wrong with him? Shane wondered.

"Okay, Ms. St. Marie, you're on," Jose began.

"Senor Mondragon tells us you want to buy some duty-free, V-Five product and market it in Aruba," Lisa said. "Aside from distributing product, we can also handle all the shipping, warehousing, and insurance. I'd like to pitch a package deal."

"Skip that. Let's start with the cost per case." Jody's voice was shaky. "Since we're dealing in bulk, I think five percent to Blackstone and three hundred dollars a case to All-American is fuckin' nuts. You're not even paying federal taxes. It's way too high. We're gonna need a break on those numbers." Unexpectedly, Jody started rubbing his eyes. The people on the deck watched him with growing concern until he finished and squinted up at them. "What?" he said angrily, catching them staring.

"It's always bad form to look into someone else's pocket, Mr. Dean. I think if you want to do a deal, we need to transact it along traditional lines. Whether or not we have a federal tax burden just isn't any of your business," pudgy, dark-suited Mr. Zook said.

"Traditional lines? How many guys you do business with want to buy fifty million in V-Fives in one shipment? I'm looking for a discount and a lowered percentage for volume."

"Let's get back to who handles the product-shipment insurance and warehousing," Lisa said, smiling across the glass tabletop at Jody, trying to calm him down.

Jody didn't answer; instead, he rubbed his eyes again. It was almost as if he couldn't see properly.

"We'll ship for fifty cents a carton," Lisa said. "We'll insure for another dollar fifty. We'll warehouse in our building in Aruba for two hundred dollars a pallet on an amortized weekly rate."

Jody dug into his pocket and pulled out a folded paper with some math scribbled on it. He squinted as if he could barely read his own writing.

"Either that," Lisa said, "or you can get your break from Jose out of Blackstone's five percent. That's up to them, but All-American is not cutting our three hundred dollar per case base price."

Petrovitch nodded. He seemed proud of her.

"Leon Fine said there was room to negotiate on volume," Jody protested.

"Ahhh, yes, Leon… Whatever happened to poor Leon? He sorta up and disappeared," Lisa said softly. "And since Leon isn't here to confront that issue directly, maybe we ought to leave him out of it."

"Who do you fucking people think you're dealing with?" Jody asked, his voice too loud and badly out of sync with the setting.

Shane took another hard look at his old friend: Jody was smarter than this, yet Shane saw something in his eyes that he had never seen before. Jody's eyes were on fire. Gone was the cold appraising confidence. Shane wondered if he was on something. He couldn't believe Jody would be stupid enough to get high and then come to this meeting, yet he seemed clearly out of it.

"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… This 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… No… 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… Some kinda mood-altering substance, maybe GHB. He went nuts… Blew 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.