We pulled up in the driveway, Verone himself coming out to meet us as I stepped out and held the envelope to him.
'Hey, man. You got something to eat up in there?' Brian yelled out to him as I looed back at him, 'We hungry'. Verone just smirked and whispered something to Monica.
'Nice. Come on', she said, tilting his head towards the direction Verone was going. I smiled and followed as Brian rushed up beside me.
'What you checking her out for?' I whispered to him as he turned to me shocked.
'I'm not checking her out'; he answered sternly. I didn't say anything till we were standing near our respective seats near the pool.
'Yes you were', I said out of nowhere.
'No, I wasn't', he answered gravely.
'I seen you checking her out', I continued as he sighed.
'Shut up', he said sternly.
'You shut up'; I retaliated. 'Tell me to shut up', I said, as I crossed my arms and looked at him.
'Both you girlies shut up. Unbelievable', Monica stated as she sat down, Brian and I not far after.
'You sure are cosy in this big old mansion, sleeping with the enemy', Brian muttered to her coldly. I turned to Monica with the weirdest look on my face, finding it hard for a girl like her to have sex with a bony guy like Verone. I went to stand up as Verone walked over.
'No, no, no, sit down', he said as he opened the yellow envelope.
'Nice Ferrari you got in the driveway', I stated, remember the black Ferrari I had flogged off back in LA.
'I'm glad you like it', he smirked, tipping the contents of the envelope out onto the table. It was a Cigar. 'Darling, will you hold that?' he ordered more than asked as he handed Monica the envelope. I tried my hardest not to laugh.
'We did all that for a damn cigar?' Brian asked, not very happy.
'No', Verone muttered, 'you did that for a job'; he pointed at the both of us. He reached over and grabbed the cigar cutter that had been in the envelope and cut the bottom off of his cigar. 'Do you really think I'd let someone impound my car?' he asked us as he spat out a couple of waist parts of his cigar. We just stared at him. 'The boatyard is mine', he stated simply when he realised we weren't impressed. 'Oh', he said pointing between the two of us, 'You two owe me a gate'. I smirked a little, as did he as he continued; 'I'll just take it off your cut'.
'Off our cut?' Brian laughed before looking rather serious.
'Yeah', Verone answered simply.
'I like that', Brian said looking at me for a reaction.
'Good', Verone answered, lighting his cigar.
'What's this job you got for us anyway?' Brian asked as Verone nodded.
'Come with me', he said, leading us away from the house. 'The house has ears in it', Verone stated as I looked at Brian weirdly. I watched Verone throw away his cigar and I gaped before turning my attention back to Verone. 'I have something for you to carry from North Beach to the Keys', he stated as I stepped up beside him.
'What is it?' I asked sternly, looking at the side of his head.
'Just put in the car what I tell you too, and drive it to me and don't let anybody stop you. Understand?' He asked tapping my arm with his index finger, cigar cutter in hand.
'Yeah', I said before continuing, 'Any chance of cop trouble?'
'No, I'm buying you a window of time, but it's not gonna be open very long', he paused as he crossed his arms, stopped at the edge away from the house. 'You make it, and I'll personally hand you one hundred thousand at the finish line'.
'Make it a hundred a piece', Brian butted in as I turned to him glaring, 'Look man, obviously your pockets aren't nervous', Brian bent down and touched his pockets which I almost laughed at, but given the situation, I didn't.
'Hey, Hey, hey', Verone stated, 'Don't ever touch me'.
'Ours are empty', Brian finished what he was going on about earlier. 'Like I said…we're hungry'.
'I got an idea', Verone started just after I had turned to Brian and shook my head, 'Why don't you guys join us at the club a little later tonight?'
'Yeah?' Monica agreed from behind us, 'Pearl at midnight?'
'We can get to know each other a little better'; he said smirking.
'All right, sounds good', I answered before Brian had another word vomit.
'We'll see you tonight', Verone muttered, shaking my hand.
'See you', I muttered in return going to knock shoulders with Monica but she pulled away. Brian and I had gotten nearly ten metres away from the couple, before…
'Hey you', Verone shouted out. I turned around and headed a few steps closer to them, Brian still had his back facing them, 'Pockets aren't empty'.
'Damn', I heard Brian whisper behind me.
'I'll take my cutter back', he said as Brian pulled it out of his pocket and laid it flat in his own hand.
'Stupid ass', I muttered as he walked passed and handed Verone his cigar cutter.
'Hey, man, I figured you had like twelve or thirteen of these', Brian muttered.
'Your not to bright, get out of here', Verone whispered as Brian turned around and walked down the pathway. We were out of sight range and hearing range. I jumped and got Brian in a headlock.
'Same old Brian, doing stupid shit', I sneered at him as he pushed me away.
'Get off me', he stated.
'Look, running your mouth? Insulting people? Stealing Verone's shit?' I stated, livid, as he turned to me.
'Think I'm going to let someone stare me down?' he asked me, turning away from me as soon as I looked at him, he was acting strangely but I could figure why, 'I didn't let anybody stare me down in jail, think I'm going let it fly on the beach?' we continued walking until Brian had a little more to whinge about. 'And you, I'll take my cutter back' he mimicked Verone, 'His rich ass'.
'And your packing', I yelled at him.
'Like you aren't', he retaliated as I stormed off ahead of him, 'Exactly'.
'From here on out, I do the talking', he said to me firmly as I got into my Evo, him into his spyder.
'You want to do a little more than that', I mumbled as he stood back up and leant on the door of his car.
'Oh, what's that supposed to mean?' he asked heatedly.
'It means, you always get in trouble because of a girl, Brian', I said seriously. He just glared at me before getting back into his car. I shook my head and got back into my Evo and led the way to Tej's garage.
'I'm hungry', I mumbled heading over to Jimmy. 'Hey, yo Jimmy, what's up man?'
'Hey what up, Bullit?' he asked, as I gave him a quick hug.
'Hey, do me a favour, when you've got second, I want you to go check out the Evo and Spyder, make sure everything's compensated'.
'Evo?' he said surprised, 'Where'd you get an Evo from?'
'Yo, it's a long story', I smiled as I headed towards the inner workings of the garage.
'All right, I gotcha man', he said, wiping his hands.
'Ok, thanks Jimmy', I said walking further towards the back of the garage as Brian came up beside me.
'Ray, don't do that man, your making me lose money', I heard Tej yell through the loudspeaker, 'Come on, stop that, I know your better than that'.
'Damn', Brian said with a straight face as I walked forwards, laughing, shaking my head. 'Damn, now I'm hungry too', Brian muttered. I laughed at him and pulled him away by the neck.
'Let's go', I laughed.
'Serious, man', Brian laughed.
'Hey, Tej', I sighed. 'What's up Suki?' I said bending down and giving her a kiss on the cheek.
'What's up, baby?' she asked, before turning back to working on her car.
'How you doing?' I asked, watching her.
'Good', she muttered in reply, 'How you doing?'
'What's this, what's the latest?' I asked as she tilted her drawing pad up and showed Brian and I what she had been drawing.
'It's a work in progress, it's not finished', she stated.
'That's some artistic shit. You've still got talent', Brian assured empathetically.
'Yeah she's good, she's the best', I said as I watched Tej chuck a hissy at one of the water skiers.
The race had finished and I watched Tej collect his winnings quickly. 'I see you're still about your money. You race too?' Brian asked as Tej shook his head gravely. Brian hadn't really had much to do with Tej, he usually showed up to races or stayed back home.
'No, man. I hit a wall doing like a buck twenty a couple of years ago', he replied, 'Ever since then I've been organising and collecting man'.
'Shit', Brian said softly as I shrugged, giving Tej a quick hug. He smiled and turned back to his races.
'Bye, Suki', I mumbled, kissing the palm of my hand and touching her cheek. It was something she had come up with, and we both didn't question it. Patting the back of my leg, she mumbled something resembling a goodbye as she continued to sketch. Brian and I headed back out to the front of the garage just to see where Jimmy had gotten with the cars.
'So, Jimmy, you ever seen anything like this before?' I asked, not really expecting what he was going to tell me next.
'Nah, both of them are wired like I never seen before', he stated, not happy.
'What?' Brian said from beside me as I followed Jimmy round from the Evo to the Spyder.
'Yeah man, they've got us wired with GPS', I muttered, filling Brian in to what he didn't understand, 'That's why Markham knew we were at that impound lot'.
'You're the master mechanic; can't you just yank it up out of there?' Brian stated dumbly as jimmy gave him an answer.
'I'll try, but this ain't LoJack. The DIS box, the engine management system, hell, the main harness, the GPS has spidered into all that', Jimmy answered as Tej and Suki walked out from the back of the garage.
'Hey, tell me something man', Tej started looking at me, 'Do I even want to know where the skyline is, dawg?' he paused before starting again, 'Or where've you've been these passed couple of days or where the hell you got these rides from?'
'They're hot', Suki laughed.
'Yeah, they hot. They're wired so hot, anyone tracking these things will know every time you don't wear your seatbelt', Jimmy exclaimed.
'All right, Jimmy. Just do what you can do bro', I ordered as I headed off with Brian.
'I got you', Jimmy replied.
'Hey, bro, check it out', I whispered to Brian, 'See that Cadillac across the street?'
'Yeah', he replied.
'Yeah, well they've been on us ever since we left Verone's house', I muttered scratching my chin. We made a quick dash back to the garage, Brian grabbing some windscreen wiper crap, while I grabbed the Evo. I stayed back for a while as I watched him spray the liquid before lighting it on fire. I sped forward, stopped, picked Brian up and sped off.
I pulled up outside of the meet up building and we let ourselves in freely. 'He'll blow our cover before we even get started', Brian cursed as we walked further in.
'Hey, yo Bilkins, can you tell me what went wrong?' I asked seriously.
'That's what I want to know', was his only reply. Before we could do anything, let alone breathe Markham popped up out of nowhere and shoved a gun at us.
'Show me your hands. Keep them up', Markham shouted shoving the gun at Brian.
'What's this about?' Brian asked panicky.
'Hold this', Markham ordered as he threw his gun at agent dun before launching himself at Brian. 'You think you can shoot at me? I'm a god damn federal agent'.
'What the hell are you talking about?' Brian yelled as Bilkins, Agent Dun and myself ran over to stop them.
'Get your hands off me', Markham yelled.
'Get him away from me', Brian cursed. 'Just cause you wear a badge doesn't mean you can come right in and mess shit up for us'.
'Shut up, Brian!' I shouted.
'Don't tell me to shut up, James', he shouted at me before pointing at Markham, 'You almost blew our cover old man'.
'You shouldn't have shown up like you did', I said calmly before looking over at Bilkins and Brian, 'You didn't know Verone was testing us?'
'No!' Markham spat, 'I thought you punks were running'. Brian started yelling and carrying on.
'That's great!' I stated angrily, 'That's real great!' I pulled out my gun from the inside of my pants, 'And if Brian wanted to shoot you? You wouldn't be here right now'.
'Alright, we got to get this under control', Bilkins stated, pocketing my gun. Brian was pacing before he saw a paper bag on the table, and he opened it.
'Hey', Markham stated, 'That's mine'.
'So?' Brian questioned as he opened it up and started to eat the contents.
'Tell me what you know', Bilkins started as we had all sat down.
'We're making a run for Verone', I muttered, 'I'm not sure when or where, but he did say he had bought us a window, I assume from the local cops'.
'I can talk to some of the guys at the local P.D', Dun suggested.
'They're no good. If Verone has some of them on payroll, then we can't let them know our operation', Bilkins told Dun.
'Exactly', I added, 'In addition, Verone told us that he himself will be at the drop'.
'That's good news', Bilkins cheered slightly looking back at Markham, 'If you're going to be delivering drug money, we can get him for laundering'.
'Now, there's only one problem', Brian chimed in.
'What's that?' Bilkins said cautiously.
'Fuentes', Brian stated, 'Verone's tapping her'.
'Tapping her?' Bilkins reiterated in confusion, 'Tapping her how?'
'That is crap', Markham swore.
'What you talking about?' Brian shouted angrily, 'We know what we seen'.
'What do you think, O'Connor?' Markham asked, looking over at me with that smug look, 'you think she's compromised? You should know'.
'Cut it out', Brian said from behind me urgently. The whole business in L.A had been a sore subject for the both of us since we arrived in Miami.
'Your pal O'Connor didn't tell you?' Markham relished, as he continued to dig my grave deeper, 'She flipped on Bilkins in LA. She gave her mark her car keys and let him disappear. That's why she's not a cop anymore'. Brian sighed behind me as Markham continued, 'So what do you think, expert?'
'Man, I don't know', I answered honestly.
'All right', Bilkins interrupted before things got ugly, 'We'll keep an eye on her'.
'We're out of here', I said looking back at Brian as we got up and headed out of customs.
'Let your man go, huh?' Brian asked with a sarcastic smile as we walked down the ramp on the outside of the building.
'They still think it's me', I smiled, 'I wonder what would happen if I told them it was you', I said irritably.
'I would pay to see that', Brian said in mock happiness. 'We got Fuentes in with Verone, Markham trying to blow our cover and we got two wired cars', Brian yelled, stating the obvious as we got in. 'I'm going to tell you, you let our man Markham do that shit again in front of Verone, that's going to be our ass'.
'I know, man, I know. It's just getting thick real quick. We may need a way out, got to come up with an exit strategy', I said, saying whatever came to my head.
'Exit Strategy, huh?' Brian repeated.
'Yeah', I said looking from him back to the front of the car.
'I like the way that sounds, what you got in mind?' he asked with a smile, still stuffing his face with Markham's sandwich.
'I don't know man, but we need two more cars', I started up the car before pulling out.
