Ties That Bind

Chapter Fifty-Nine.

Pedro Aragon was sunning himself on the patio of his hacienda when one of his men brought him the phone. A nubile, brown-skinned woman in a thong was lying beside Pedro. The woman looked a lot like the fantasy woman in the dream that he'd awakened to on the day he met Harvey Grant, Wendell Hayes, and William Kerrigan so many years ago.

"It's Senor Kerrigan."

Pedro had been expecting the call but he had hoped it would never come. He was sad that Bill had made it.

"There's a lot going on, Pedro."

"I know. I get the papers here. Poor Harvey and Stan. It doesn't look so good for them. How are you doing?"

"I'm sweating bullets. So far, they haven't given me up. Neither has Maria. You did a good job raising her. She's a great kid."

"Thank you, Bill."

Pedro waited. He knew that his old friend would get to the point soon. He could hear the strain in his voice.

"We should get together, fast," Kerrigan said.

"Sure. When can you come down?"

"I was thinking that you'd come up here."

Pedro wondered who was forcing Bill to make the call. Was it the FBI, or the DEA, or the Portland police?

"It's all rain and gloom in Oregon, but the sun is shining down here. Visit me, amigo ."

"That will be difficult."

"I have a lovely young woman with me, Bill. She makes the best margaritas. I'll get one for you, too. You want a redhead, a blonde? Whatever you want."

"It wouldn't be smart to meet down there. After what happened with Manuel, there's got to be a million eyes on you. Come up here, but we have to move. I'm not under suspicion for the moment, but that could change fast."

The woman lying beside Pedro shifted from her belly to her back, giving Pedro a lovely view of her breasts. He especially liked her nipples, which stood up nice and straight.

"What's that you said?" asked Pedro, who had been distracted by the nipples and had missed Kerrigan's last sentence.

"I said you could fly up in your private plane. Use the landing strip in Sisters. We'll talk in my fishing cabin in Camp Sherman. No one will be watching it."

"Good thinking. Let me check and get back to you."

"When do you think you'll know?"

"We got to move fast, right?"

"Very."

"Then I'll be back to you soon. Take care."

Pedro hung up. He smiled sadly. Fucking Bill Kerrigan. There was no honor among thieves. Blood, that was a different story. Maria was holding up. Pedro stopped smiling. He worried about her. The lawyers said her case was tough, but they weren't giving up. Maybe they'd cut a deal.

Pedro sighed. He stood up and walked to the edge of the patio. There was a swath of lawn, a large pool, more lawn, and then the jungle. Armed guards walked the perimeter.

Pedro watched the guards for a moment before losing interest. He turned away. There were those breasts again. He felt himself getting hard. Better do something about that, he thought. He patted the woman on the rump and whispered in her ear. She giggled and got off her lounge chair. As Pedro followed her inside, he felt a moment of melancholy. The Vaughn Street Glee Club was no more.

Then he cheered up. It had lasted longer than he ever thought it would--much longer. He felt sorry for Harvey and Wendell and Bill, but Pedro was a big fan of Darwin. Survival was for the fittest, no? He was the sole survivor and he was going to get laid as befitted the leader of the pack. He felt like he would live forever.

Miss Sunny Day was peeling off her G-string on the main stage of the Jungle Club while its owner, Martin Breach, sat in his office at the back of the strip joint, waxing philosophical. The recipient of his musings was his only friend and chief enforcer, Art Prochaska, a giant with a bald, bullet-shaped head and no conscience.

"I was at that Chinese restaurant on eighty-second yesterday, Arty. You know the one."

"The Jade something."

"Yeah."

Breach handed a narrow slip of paper across the desk to his friend.

"I got that in my fortune cookie. See what it says?"

"'While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity,'" Prochaska read slowly.

"Exactly. That fortune got me thinking about how life can give us surprise opportunities, like the Jaffes, for instance. I do a favor for Frank, now his kid does one for us by chopping up Manuel Castillo. Such a nice kid, too. Who'd of thought she had it in her?"

"That was sure a surprise, Marty; a girl making hamburger out of Castillo."

"With Pedro's muscle off the street we're seeing a little anarchy in the drug business," Breach continued.

Prochaska only had a dim idea of the definition of "anarchy," so he just nodded and hoped that Breach wouldn't ask him about it.

"Aragon is weak right now, what with all the judges and lawyers and cops who are connected to him being arrested." Breach paused and fixed his beady eyes on his friend. "Do you see where I'm going with this, Arty? Opportunity is knocking. Like the cookie said, we'll miss it if we don't do something fast. What do you think?"

Prochaska's brow furrowed for a moment while he contemplated the opportunity about which his friend spoke. Then he remembered that the gist of Marty's fortune-cookie message was that thinking too much could screw up everything. Thinking had never been Prochaska's long suit anyway. He was a man of action.

"What's that anarchy mean?" Prochaska asked.

"Everybody running around doing what they want. No order or nothing."

"Order is good, right?"

"Sure. Especially if the right guy is giving the orders."

"Pedro's not just going to give us his territory, Marty. He'll make trouble."

"Yeah," Breach said thoughtfully. "He's the type of guy who'd say we'd have to take it over his dead body."

Prochaska grinned and Breach stared at the wall in rapt concentration.

"Anthony speaks Spanish, right?" Breach asked.

"I think so."

"Think he'd like to go to Mexico?"

About the Author

Phillip Margolin's insider's view of the criminal mind comes from his unique background as a long-time criminal defense attorney. All eight of his novels have been New York Times bestsellers. His PerfectBound e-books are Wild Justice; The Associate; and Ties That Bind. Visit www.phillipmargolin.com.

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