Chapter 10: The Lord and Prince

The small cafe in San Jose was packed with people. Tourist, thrill-seekers, back-packers, and businessmen milled all around the inside and outside of the cafe. The basement level of the coffee bar was only for the private guests who were there for...seedy-dark business.

San Jose police didn't even come around the place. It was too well known.

The criminal organization was about to make a come-back, and its crime bosses were ready and waiting. Out of darkness and out of hiding they came, their labs all but running again.

The Traven family had all but lost what money they had in their banks. The eldest boss of the family, Rufus T. Traven, made sure what money was left be stored away quickly before the indolent side of his family used it all to clean-up their financial problems.

He was sitting at a reserved table now, his bodyguards standing close by and watching for trouble. The bar below the cafe was pretty much empty, with only a few customers here and there. The place was known by the locals as not being the most friendly of bar around.

Rufus was checking his watch right now, waiting for his no-good nephew to show up. Why he kept that little shit-stain in his family business was beyond even himself. When the labs were being taken down and the other crime bosses were going into hiding or getting arrested, Rufus had done the same. But his nephew had other plans. And those plans had quickly and literally almost bankrupted his uncle. Rufus was still pissed that had happened. All that beautiful, green money had been wasted by his nephew's clumsiness and greed. It had all but slipped away right through his little fingers.

That was back in the 1990's. Back when times were good.

Now that no-good nephew was trying to pay him back. He already had two briefcases loaded with the money he had safeguarded on one of the offshore islands. His nephew hadn't shared what island it was yet or what it's name was. Rufus just hoped it was well out of the coast guard's patrols.

Looking up from his watch, Rufus saw his nephew appear down the stairs. In his right hand was a dark-brown briefcase. Rufus smiled, but not at his nephew, whom he wouldn't waste a good day on. His eyes were only on the briefcase. His smile quickly turned into glower as soon as his nephew took a seat at his table, placing the briefcase beside him. Rafael, who was once a tall and handsome young man in his twenties, had gained a little weight over the years. Gone was his slick hair and fine-looking face. His clothes were second-hand and begrimed, cleaned only by the coin operated laundry buildings from around San Jose.

"Well, well," Rufus sneered, taking in his nephew's appearance. "It's about time you showed up. Where the hell have you been, huh, Rafael? Off screwing about with my money?"

Rafael Traven cleared his throat, trying not to say anything smart. He knew what his uncle was like when he was in one of his moods.

"Come on now, uncle," He said. "You know me. I always arrive late for business, you know that."

"Not when it comes to my money, boy," Rufus said, gesturing to the briefcase on the floor. "I survived in this business by trying to make sure my cash is well protected. Everyone else either got shot or ran out of San Jose or is buried six-feet in the ground. And some of those were my partners. They were the ones who made mistakes. I don't make mistakes."

There was a long and uncomfortable pause between the two men.

Rafael knew where this was going.

"You are suppose to be pulling your own damned weight," Rufus continued, coughing a bit before taking sip from his glass. "After that bloody stunt you pulled back in '89, I had to bail your little ass out of debt."

Rafael clinched his fist under the table. He really hated his uncle barraging him like this.

"It was not my fault," Rafael shot back. "If Ortiz had only stayed as my partner, I..."

"Your partner?" Rufus said credulously as he pointed a wrinkled finger at him. "Don't you go blaming others for your own damned mistakes, Rafael!"

Rafael shouted, "Gustavo WAS my mistake. If the bastard had only helped me during those hard times, I wouldn't have asked you for so many loans."

"In short," Rufus said coldly. "You needed me to hold your hand and bail you out because you made a bad deal on a partner who left you as grounded as street pigeon, am I right?"

Fuming, Rafael turned away from his uncle. "Damn it all,"

Rufus sipped from his glass again and said calmly. "When I was younger, I never made a mistake with business partners. I made so much money in my goddamned pocket from bringing hard drugs into San Jose... I had to rent-out storage units and store all the cash and some of the drugs as well. The problem was, that some of my partners and their buyers got hooked on the hard stuff so much that they wanted more. I had to watch some of my partners rot away their own money until I couldn't recognize them anymore. Knowing that someday they would take me down with them, I did what Ortiz did and invested my money."

Feeling as if the conversation was a waste of time, Rufus pointed at the briefcase on the floor and snapped his fingers. Rafael placed it on the table and opened it slowly, careful not to let anyone in the bar see. Rufus leaned in and smiled faintly, his spectacles reflecting the image the money inside.

"Is that the rest of it?" Rufus said as he leaned back.

Rafael nodded and placed the briefcase back on the floor.

"The two other briefcases are on the island with me until all three briefcases can be brought back here to San Jose. This one will be joining the other two on the island just as soon as I clear-up some business here."

Rufus checked his watch again before readying himself to leave. "Well, my nephew, you have at least a week or two to have all my money here, is that understood? Try to be on time."

Rafael nodded. "I will. You put me in charge of safeguarding your money that I owed you, didn't I?"

Rufus stood up from his seat, walking stick in hand, and was about to walk away with his bodyguards, when he turned back to Rafael and said in a deadly tone of voice, "You had better not lose my money again, for your sake, my dear nephew. You may be family, but I am not as forgiving as I was years ago. Do not fuck this up."

Rufus turned and walked out of the bar with his men, leaving Rafael behind.

Minutes passed as Rafael messaged a beer bottle in his hands. Things were getting tense now. The money he had now was all because of his drug labs on the island. His drugs. He knew that this was suppose to be his money as well. His money! But he knew that he owed his uncle big time. To run off with all the cash now meant death. And his uncle was not the one to screw over and cheat.

He could not afford to cross that line.

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