The Deadly Kiss-Off Page 14

  “Yes, well, one application of the happiness treatment will have to last both of you for a good long while.”

  In Santo’s office, we gave our report to the rapaciously alert crime boss. He listened quietly and, when we were finished, said, “This is all excellent news, boys. I am going to tell Gunther to transport the Intel chips over as soon as construction is finished. Meanwhile, Luckman Enterprises now has a bank account at my favorite institution, which has reason not to inquire too closely into any business of mine.”

  For one fleeting moment, I wondered idly whether that meant Santo had an arrangement with the bank to launder his fake money, but I quickly deemed that kind of federal-level pull beyond even his reach.

  The mobster continued. “You’ll have credit cards and checks and letterhead and all that other good stuff by tomorrow. That should alleviate any out-of-pocket expenditures.”

  “Thanks, Vin, we really appreciate that.”

  Santo waved a fat hand dismissively. “Trivial stuff—just bookkeeping, really. But I got a more important development to share. I rousted up your go-betweens, the smarties who are gonna put you in touch with the buyers, after which all you gotta do is the selling. They’re waiting in the next room. Richie!” One of the bodyguards, a crew-cut blond with biceps rivaling Caleb’s, jumped to attention. “Richie, show our new friends in.”

  28

  I really didn’t know what kind of person or persons I was expecting to see. Years of James Bond and Mission Impossible films had left me with the impression that weapons brokers came in basically three types: sleazy and/or fanatical Levantines, icy Russo-Eurotrash; and implacable, cruel-eyed Asians. Also, they were always male, either stubbled or dapper, and certainly steeped in many, many years’ worth of vile experiences that would have made John le Carré hide quivering under his bed.

  So when steroid Richie escorted in the pair of putative arms-trade experts Santo had dug up, I was a little taken aback.

  My eyes went ineluctably first to the female of the pair. I wanted to call her a girl, she looked so young. But I swiftly realized that she put on the gamine persona with the rest of her outfit. Her tall, willowy form and short feathered auburn hair consorted well with a pale face rendered almost childish by its soft lines and small nose. Only on closer inspection did I spot the sophisticated makeup job that concealed her maturity.

  She was dressed elegantly and expensively. Her simple white blouse and little black bow tie were not particularly upmarket, nor was the leather skirt whose hem rode at midthigh. Ditto the black knee socks. But her shoes were Gucci mules, the red ones with an embroidered snarling panther face. And her long sweater coat I recognized as the same one I had once scoped out for Nellie: cashmere with a fractal pattern resembling the Painted Desert. I had put off buying it for Nellie because it went for forty-five hundred dollars.

  The woman smiled at us as she stepped across the room, and the dissonance of her taut, swaying carriage, posh clothes, and tweener body blasted an erotic charge straight at every male present.

  Her associate contrasted sharply but was no less striking in his own unshowy way. He was an East Asian male—Chinese, I was guessing. Equally youthful, he nonetheless looked like someone in his reliable, steady midtwenties, not an adolescent. His short, neatly styled hair was black as licorice, and his bluntish features exhibited a nice symmetry without any pretensions to handsomeness. As with many males of his ethnicity, the skin of his face was smooth and stubble-free. A loose magenta polo shirt showed from beneath his unzipped taupe anorak, the kind with a ridiculous amount of fur trimming the hood. His narrow-legged pants were a dusty shade of lilac, and his brown shoes were that same style of brogan gunboats we used to associate with bog-dwelling Irish terrorists of the 1930s but which had inexplicably become fashionable. He radiated a broad grin meant, I supposed, to assure everyone of his harmless affability.

  Between them, the two had pretty much all the seductive-first-impression bases covered. Charm and substance, outgoingness and reserve, competence and polish. I sensed that they would make an impressive sales team, and so I quickly began to recover from the initial shock at their failure to conform to my stereotypes.

  One thing I could not immediately suss was whether they were just coworkers or there might be a romantic angle between them.

  Santo actually stood up from behind his desk—a magnanimous gesture he had never made when Stan and I entered. He waddled over to the woman first and pecked her on the cheek. Then he pumped the guy’s hand as if he were churning butter, all before turning toward us.

  “Gentlemen, I wanna introduce to you Chantal Danssaert and Les Qiao. Chantal, Les, say hi to Glen McClinton and Stan Hasso. They’re the fellows in need of your expertise and savvy.”

  “I’m Glen,” I said, and took Chantal’s slender, strong hand. Whether from being recently outside or as an artifact of her natural metabolism, it was cool as a summer brook.

  “It pleases me to make your acquaintance, Glen.” Her charming accent was hard to place.

  I found myself still holding on to her hand after our shake. She made no effort to withdraw, but a delicate flick of her eyes alerted me to my faux pas, and I hastily released her.

  Stan stepped up. He seemed unwontedly awed at Miss Danssaert, as if she were an emissary from some sphere he had never before encountered, perhaps Fairyland or Oz, and I could almost hear his estimation of her as “some pretty exotic, high-tone trim.” What he actually said was only a little more decorous.

  “If you were a grenade, lady, I would pull the pin and die happy.”

  Chantal’s laugh rang like bells in a carillon. “You would survive any explosion, Stan, I think.”

  Les Qiao’s handshake was firm and his mien respectful yet commanding in the manner of, say, a safari guide, if that makes any sense. He seemed to say, You’re paying the bills, but I’m the one who knows where we’re going.

  “Stan, Glen, good to meet you.” His voice was a pleasant tenor, and his idiomatic, faintly accented speech and commonplace first name suggested American origins, but I thought I’d ask.

  “Native to the States, Les?”

  “Not at all. Hong Kong. But sometimes I think my parents must’ve been more British than the queen. Anyhow, twelve years at the International School left me sounding like this.”

  “Where are your stomping grounds, Chantal?” Stan said. He managed to pronounce her name as if he had read it off a strip-club marquee.

  The woman did not immediately answer, but instead took a tin of mints from her coat pocket, delicately selected one, then popped it between her elegant lips, all as if erecting a cordon sanitaire between herself and Stan. “I am originally from Belgium. But I have not lived there for many years.”

  Vin Santo had stood by patiently enough during these introductions, but now he began to chafe a bit. Apparently, he had other matters to attend to—maybe pulling out someone’s fingernails or cutting a brake line.

  “Okay,” he said, “now that you four have gotten all palsy-walsy, I’m gonna let you work out your plans without me. Just keep me in the loop, okay?”

  The four of us left Santo’s office. Out on the frosty sidewalk, I said, “So, where shall we go to talk?”

  “We are staying at the Parkside Hyatt for the duration of our mutual endeavors,” said Chantal.

  “Sweet!” Stan exclaimed. “The lap of luxury.”

  Chantal rewarded him with a thousand-watt smile. “Indeed. And they have a superb restaurant there. I have already spoken to the chef about preparing a certain dish from my native Flanders. And it is approaching the supper hour, I think.”

  “Sounds jake to me,” said Stan. “Who cares what a good time costs, anyhow?”

  “Your devil-may-care flaneur’s joie de vivre, Stan, warms a girl’s heart.”

  Stan frowned but apparently chose to interpret her remark as a compliment.


  29

  Stan took the last thick slab of artisan bread from the woven-porcelain bread basket and used it to wipe the last drips of golden-white gravy from his plate. The bread disappeared in three bites. But for the nice sharkskin suit, one might think he had just hit the soup kitchen after a week of starvation.

  “Man, this stuff is like liquid crack. Whaddya call this dish again?”

  Chantal Danssaert responded to Stan’s gargantuan appetite with cosmopolitan tolerance and a bemused smile worthy of the Mona Lisa. “This is kippen waterzooi. A kind of chicken stew made with beer and cream. And I must compliment our chef later for his mastery of an unfamiliar recipe that is uncomplicated yet demanding.”

  “Beer and cream, huh? That’s like holding pussy in one hand and another guy’s dick in the other—ya gotta commit to one or the other.”

  Les Qiao laughed heartily. “Stan, you’re a pip.”

  In the face of Stan’s raunchiness, Chantal stayed cool as the avocado gelato the waiter had just suggested for dessert. “You describe a not-unheard-of scenario, I think, Stan. Such juxtapositions often produce intriguing results, I have found.”

  Much as I enjoyed hearing a gorgeous woman talking about a ménage à trois, I tried to steer the subject gently back to business. The meal had indeed been delicious, and Chantal and Les proved to be enjoyable company. They each had a vast stock of stories and anecdotes, mostly relating to their vocation as arms brokers, that were delightful to hear. The subtext, of course, was, Allow me to present my bona fides. I had listened raptly as they recounted their experiences in May at CANSEC, the big annual arms fair held in Ottawa. To cement one deal involving a certain Middle Eastern client, they had been obliged to find a live camel at two in the morning. Their client had left the reason for his unusual request to their imagination and, now, ours.

  Throughout the dinner, while captivated by their exploits, I had tried to scope out whether the two were lovers. I don’t know why I was so interested. Maybe just because I was already missing Nellie after just a few hours’ separation. Or maybe it was because I always felt that the more I understood about how people were connected, the more handles I had on them for my own manipulative, self-centered purposes. In any case, their behavior had led me to no firm conclusions. Yes, Chantal had laid her delicate fingertips on Les’ bare arm, but she had done the same to me to emphasize a point. And Les had leaped up and kissed Chantal enthusiastically when she delivered a particularly funny punch line, exclaiming, “Babe, you’re the greatest!” But his lips had only caught the corner of hers, and she had not reciprocated with much vigor. So I was still left puzzling over the exact nature of their relationship.

  Tabling the matter for now, I cut to the heart of the matter: money. Having learned that Stan and I were expected to foot all their expenses for the duration of their stay here, I had been working sums all night, especially after making a discreet inquiry to the Parkside Hyatt’s registration clerk before dinner, regarding the price of the suite that Les and Chantal had already engaged. She had informed me that we were on the hook for twenty-five hundred dollars per night, though there might be “a small discount for long-term residency.”

  Suppose this whole scam ran for another month, from assembly of the units to closing a deal. That would be seventy-five thousand dollars just for lodging this pair, to say nothing of feeding them. Not much out of our potential profit of twenty million apiece. But still, I didn’t want Vin Santo thinking we were being spendthrift with his up-front dough.

  “Guys, I think Stan and I would be relieved to nail down the fee for your efforts in drumming up some customers for our product. Vin never mentioned a number to us. He’s our silent partner, so to speak. Did you quote him a price yet?”

  Chantal waved her hand dismissively, as if the matter were too obvious or tawdry to consider for long. “We follow the standard rate in our industry: one percent of the transaction.”

  “Gross or net?”

  “Gross, of course.”

  I found the number astonishing. “With the best outcome, we hope to sell one hundred and twenty million dollars’ worth of goods.”

  “It won’t require a calculator, then, to determine our share as one point two million.”

  Stan whistled. “Not bad dough for some schmoozing and pimping and matchmaking. Hey, maybe there’s a Tinder for generals and dictators and secretaries of defense and such, and we could go it on our lonesome.”

  Chantal’s entire bearing instantly assumed a glacial quality impressive to behold, and I got the feeling I was facing not some genteel, well-mannered procuress, but more a Euro version of Madame Chiang Kai-shek or Grace Mugabe. Les stiffened, too, his generally jovial face hardening. But he left the talking to his dagger-eyed partner.

  “I can assure you wholeheartedly, Stan—and you as well, Glen—that no such simplistic online resource exists. I can also say without an iota of uncertainty that two rank amateurs such as yourselves would get nowhere without our connections and experience. Your merchandise would gather dust and never sell before it quietly became obsolete. You could hide it up your asses for all the benefit it would bring you. I doubt you have even a single name at the moment as a potential customer, whereas Les and I can readily adduce at least a dozen. I think, however, that in a small-scale deal such as this, we would do better to bring in only two or three buyers and let them bid against each other.”

  Stan didn’t take the slightest offense at this scathing riposte to his gibe, but rather seemed delighted. “You’re a kick-ass little gal, ain’t ya? But that’s exactly what we need. So consider your fee locked in. After all, it’s only six hundred grand apiece from me and Glen boy. Why, we drop more’n that on condoms every year. Hell, maybe we’ll even kick in a bonus if you can bring us a live camel or two.”

  Again Chantal’s delightful laughter pealed like bells. “We will see what we can do, Stan. One hump or two? But first, let us learn more about the stellar virtues of this product you wish us to tout.”

  30

  The afternoon following our dinner with the arms experts—the bill for the meal had topped out at a mere seven hundred thirty-nine dollars and forty-five cents, exclusive of generous tips for both waiter and wine steward—I wheeled my Lexus into the driveway of Ronald Luckman’s home. I had persuaded Luckman to leave off supervising construction at the factory long enough to do a show-and-tell for our new partners. He was so eager for production to begin that he was putting in insane hours.

  Hours that his wife must somehow fill on her own.

  The four of us got out of the car and into the chilly air. Stan and I went to ring the doorbell while Chantal and Les stood back a way, gawping at the drab suburban surroundings as if viewing the village huts of a newly discovered Amazonian tribe.

  Rosa Saxby Luckman appeared, her hair pulled back, looking fine and vaguely regal in a simple blue shift patterned with large white camellias. Her gaze shot right past me to Stan, and I could practically feel the lightning bolt of lust zap between them, crackling and sizzling and ionizing the air. Dragging her eyes away from her former prize science student, Rosa said, “Ronald’s not here yet. He phoned to say he was running into some traffic. But please, come in.”

  Mrs. Luckman showed us into the front room, where we took our seats. Les and Chantal continued their silent anthropological assessment of the natives’ habitat.

  “I’ll fetch some refreshments,” Rosa said.

  “Lemme give ya a hand,” Stan offered.

  I sighed rather too loudly as the two hustled out of the room. Les was handling a gaudy souvenir made of seashells and twine as if it were the Antikythera device. Chantal appeared to take note of my dismay and to draw from it whatever deductions her imagination and worldly wisdom could provide.

  The fetching of refreshments involved rather more half-muffled thumps and clatterings than the task typically entails. Les and Chantal refrained from co
mment. Then the front door opened.

  I jumped up and rushed to greet Luckman, hailing him in a booming voice as if we were two hikers on opposite rims of the Grand Canyon.

  “Ron! You made it! Shame about that traffic!”

  Luckman regarded me as if I were moderately demented. Then his attention turned to the newcomers. He had been informed of their role and was naturally curious and eager to impress them. I made introductions all around, with Luckman effusively welcoming the pair to the USA, the state, his neighborhood, his home, and his workshop. While I was officiating, Rosa and Stan emerged from the back of the house. Rosa carried a bamboo tray of biscotti and fine china cups, while Stan toted an insulated carafe and a matching sugar-and-creamer set. This little spread clearly had required some effort on the hostess’ part, but one would be hard put to associate it with the banging noises that preceded it.

  After we had politely sampled the sweets and drained our demitasses, Rosa excused herself from the business palaver, and the rest of us trooped out to the garage.

  Luckman went almost blow by blow through the entire development history of his device. Chantal and Les, to their credit, listened alertly and asked intelligent questions. Then Luckman did his test with the ANFO sample, triggering the alarm. When he had finished, Chantal set her Marc Jacobs purse down on the benchtop near the LBAS and bent over to peer closely into the innards of the machine. She pointed with a manicured finger.

  “And this component, Ron?”

  Ron lowered his head next to hers, and I could register his instant intoxication. Indeed, Chantal’s subtle perfume was alluring even at this remove.

  “That?” he answered woozily. “Oh, that’s the heart of the unit. I invented that little bit of circuitry myself. I’m afraid I can’t disclose its exact nature just yet, even to such a charming business associate as yourself. But when the patents are finalized, I’ll be most happy to go over it with you.”