Orange Blossoms & Mayhem (Fantascapes)

by Blair Bancroft

  “Your Viktor plays with the big boys,” Rhys added. “Whatever they’ve planned, they’re no longer afraid of our stopping it. They’re counting on Viktor’s guaranteed right to get married when and how he sees fit. They’re the giants, we’re the ineffectual little ants nibbling at the beanstalk. I see it all the time.” Rhys frowned, sinking his teeth into his lower lip. I’d never seen him so serious. “Statistics tell us organized crime takes one thousand billion dollars a year out of the world economy. Cops try so effing hard to make a difference, but sometimes it all seems so . . . futile.”

  “So they’re laughing at us.”

  “Right in our faces.”

  My pride bristled, refusing to accept the image. “Unless, of course,” I countered, “we’re completely wrong about everything.”

  “Not bloody likely,” Rhys growled.

  Instead of using Rhys’s rental car, I had him drive the Lexus, which was already loaded with the tools of the trade I feared we might need, as I rode shotgun in the front passenger seat. Okay, so the shotgun was under the seat, the Glock in the glove compartment, and the HK MP-5 and bolas in the trunk, but the satisfying feel of my Lady Smith weighted my jacket pocket.

  Over-reaction? I didn’t think so. We were two known targets of the Russian organizatsiya driving into a town where the mob was suspected of establishing a strong enough hold to intimidate the local police. We might be protected by the truce we thought Viktor had indicated . . . We might not. I scowled at a particularly fine example of staghorn fern wrapped around a live oak and settled down to giving Rhys directions.

  We’d allowed enough time before Rhys’s appointment to check out the city boundary, hoping Jeff had been mistaken. Nine miles east on the Tamiami Trail I ground my teeth as we passed the sign to Deep Spring, where Arlan Trevellyan had beaten me to the punch. The turn-off was tastefully marked by an incongruity in this land of right-wing politics and evangelical churches. Three bronze statues—all female, all nude—raising their arms in seeming ecstasy over the recuperative powers of the springs, beckoned people to the waters that had attracted humans as long ago as ten thousand years.

  We drove past a sign welcoming us to Three Rivers, continued on past the left turn to the Three Rivers government complex that included city hall, the police and fire stations, and a community building. Three more blocks on Route 41, the Tamiami Trail, and we passed another left leading to the Slavic American Club. One more long block . . . two. We passed a sign saying, Thank You for Visiting Three Rivers.

  “Damn!” I muttered.

  “That’s it then,” Rhys sighed as he slipped into a left-turn lane and did a U-ey back toward the police station. “Wish me luck.”

  While he was busy with the chief, I went back to the Slavic American Club and examined it from the outside with great care. Though far from the elegant clubhouses of Calusa County’s myriad golf course communities, it was quite a few steps up from a local church hall or the Three Rivers community hall. The club’s pink stucco walls and red tile roof were embellished with classic Greek columns in front, making an interesting combination of Mediterranean Revival and Georgian. Or maybe it was the Tara influence.

  The club was about a quarter of a mile off the Trail, set on a large lot, with one of the area’s widest canals—at least thirty feet across—at the rear property line. But there was no waterfront view, the steep bank down to the canal hidden by a dense tangle of underbrush. The front of the club, the part with the tall white columns, faced the side street. A large parking lot wrapped around all four sides of the building.

  Other than a narrow strip mall along the Tamiami Trail, there were no other buildings. The club was wide open, surrounded by empty lots featuring straggly grass and a few scattered trees. No way could anyone post men, even our innocuous-looking Gerries, without them being visible to Viktor’s security. There was simply nothing to hide behind. The only cover was the underbrush along the canal, and that was probably chock-full of snakes and maybe even a gator or two.

  I didn’t go inside. I’d long since memorized the interior of the club. A large entrance foyer and two nicely furnished rooms where we would keep the wedding guests until the bride was inside the eggs. The main hall was large, with a high, almost church-like ceiling, and handsomely decorated with modern lighting that illuminated hand-carved woodwork by a fine Russian craftsman. The chairs, though folding, were good quality and made it simple to adapt the room to many purposes. There would be a raised dais with a canopy where the Eastern Orthodox priest waited, and where Viktor would lead his bride after she emerged from the eggs, which, of necessity, would be set on the flat floor, off-center so they wouldn’t obstruct the audience’s view of the wedding.

  A corridor along the side of the main hall led to several smaller rooms, and that’s where the bride and I would wait for the signal that it was time to get her inside the eggs. Viktor thought she might have another girl with her, an attendant, but he wasn’t sure. I’d sighed, smiled, and assured him Weddings Extraordinaire was always flexible.

  And that was pretty much it. After the wedding, the chairs would be cleared, the caterer would deliver mountains of food to tables already set up in the rear of the hall, the band would settle onto the now-vacant dais, et voilà, instant wedding reception.

  Outside of my nightmare that one, or all, of the eggs would shatter into confetti, what could go wrong? We’d put on a thousand weddings. Viktor’s was merely number one thousand and one. Yet as I did a final sweep of the blissfully peaceful setting, a shiver swept up my spine. What if Rhys was right and I was wrong? He’d said something about a mob boss in New York trying to take over the business of the boss in Miami. If so, Viktor probably belonged to the Miami mob and his boss might, just might, be among the wedding guests. Along with a number of other mob VIPs.

  What if . . .?

  No way. These men were hard-headed businessmen, not suicidal terrorists. The escape routes just weren’t good enough from here. There were only two ways out of Three Rivers—the Tamiami Trail and Interstate 75. The Trail was always congested, and the superhighway was a run of several miles east, giving time to get Sheriff’s Deputies, Flint’s helicopter, and even the Florida Highway Patrol hot on the Bad Guys’ tail. So . . .an attack of any kind simply didn’t make sense.

  Unless someone was willing to take the chance, figuring the results were worth it.

  Oh, shit.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As I sat in the Lexus, glumly contemplating World War III in the parking lot of the Slavic American Club, Rhys called to say he was ready for pick-up. To get to the police station, I had to do a squared-U, driving back to the Tamiami Trail, right for three blocks, then right again, crossing over the canal before I reached the local government complex, where Rhys was standing on the sidewalk. He opened the passenger door and climbed in.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Did you know,” he said, “that one of the founders of Interpol was from some county just south of here? Collier—is that it?”

  “Barron Collier,” I confirmed. “A mover and shaker in early Florida development. He’s also credited with adding white and yellow lines to our highways. And, no, I didn’t know that until I started researching Interpol. Big surprise to discover Florida and Interpol in the same doc.” I backed into the police station driveway and headed back to the club.

  “I received the impression the present Three Rivers Chief was more interested in passing along that bit of information than he was in listening to what I had to say,” Rhys said. “The Russian mafia in Three Rivers? Human trafficking? Impossible. Yes, they have trouble with teenagers and a lot of empty roads . . . I didn’t quite understand what he meant by that?”

  “On the map Three Rivers looks like a big city,” I explained. “Roads everywhere, platted by the original development company that dug canals to drain the land, laid out an enormous grid of paved roads—big enough to make Three Rivers look as large as Sarasota. Then they sold lots to unsuspecting out
-of-town buyers, with drainage ditches touted as ‘waterfront property.’ Not too surprisingly, the company went bust. Until the last decade or so the roads remained a maze of empty streets, most leading nowhere. No houses, no infrastructure, grass growing up through the asphalt. The perfect hideaway in the woods for everything from drug planes to cattle rustling, drag racing, grand-scale keg parties, not to mention teenage make-out heaven.”

  Rhys whistled. “In short, a great place to hide.”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s not surprising Slavic immigrants chose Three Rivers. It’s isolated, woodsy to the point of being jungle. Remarkably like home, except for the temperature. And for those who like their privacy, it’s a literal backwater, off the affluent radarscope. So far from the Gulf and the Intracoastal, it’s not on the rich-man’s-paradise map. In addition, the whole area is prone to flooding. Sometimes, after a heavy rain, people get trapped in their houses for days at a time.”

  “But it’s growing now?”

  “By leaps and bounds. There’s not much affordable housing left in Calusa County, so Three Rivers has hit boom-time. With all the problems that go with growing too fast for the infrastructure. Police, schools, road improvement, and a contentious city council—I mean, really contentious.”

  “So the acting Chief of Police doesn’t want to hear about one more potentially serious threat.”

  “A-men.”

  “Actually, he was . . . sympathetic, but afflicted with your Aunt Candy’s attitude. Even if there were mobsters in Three Rivers, they aren’t going to mess with a wedding.”

  “So enjoy your Florida vacation, Inspector Tarrant. Nothing’s going to happen.”

  “He did a little better than that,” Rhys told me. “He promised to have men on stand-by. And he’s willing to coordinate with the Sheriff’s Department. A reasonable man, just not up to the job of policing a town that’s become home for so many diverse elements.”

  “You think the mob is taking over?”

  “I think it may have more influence here than anyone has realized.”

  Not what I wanted to hear. “So . . . everything goes ahead as planned.”

  “We can grab a wiseguy off the street, take him to a shack in the everglades and torture him ’til he talks. Or not, as the case may be.”

  “Okay, okay, I get it. Sarcasm isn’t necessary.”

  We’d arrived back at the Slavic American Club, where I took Rhys on a complete tour, inside and out. He frowned, shook his head. It was all so perfectly innocent. Short of a helicopter waiting in the back parking lot—and how obvious was that?—this was a cul-de-sac with no viable way out. A couple of patrol cars at the head of the street—police courtesy for the wedding—and the club was bottled up tight.

  Rhys continued to frown. We’d missed something, he was certain of it.

  Just to make my day complete, while we were driving home, Flint called, New England granite behind his Florida good-old-boy drawl, with a hint of slashing steel as well. It was, he said, a courtesy call to tell me Dad had invited him to the strategy session at the house tonight. And that he’d been told the man from Interpol was in town.

  Implying, in my apartmen, in my bed. I managed something bright and probably idiotic, and hung up. “Helicopter pilot for the Sheriff’s Department,” I said. “Dad’s invited him to the meeting.”

  “Friend of yours?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Not likely to be a friend of mine?”

  “Um . . .” My tongue twitched on a reply, but my brain balked.

  “He could be a great help if we end up in a chase,” Rhys offered, carefully neutral.

  I seized the bone. “Absolutely.” But the gauntlet had been thrown down. No matter how civilized the veneer, my two guys were never going to be buds.

  That night, when Rhys and Flint met, they all but bared their teeth, actually stooping to the white-knuckled-handshake routine, like a couple of rival teenage linebackers. After about five seconds of female disdain, I succumbed to the tiny glow expanding in my belly. There was only one reason these two exceptionally fine examples of macho manhood were making hostile. Me. Golly, gee, wow.

  With that little exhibition over—I swear I saw Dad’s lips twitch—we tugged on our professional attitudes and got down to work. But no matter how we worried the mystery of what could go wrong with Viktor’s wedding, there wasn’t a shred of proof of a nefarious plot. Because of the power of the Interpol warning notice, the wedding was going to be under surveillance by the Three Rivers police, the Sheriff’s Department, and the FBI, with Jordan’s Gerries hovering in the background. That was the problem—everyone but a couple of Three Rivers patrol cars would be hovering way in the background. Nothing, but nothing, could be allowed to tip off Viktor’s security to the fact they were watched. Only one person from our side was going to be right there in the thick of things.

  Me.

  One wrong move and . . .

  Not that I really believed I was in danger. I was certain Viktor didn’t want me dead. But since his fingerprints had been confirmed, I had to admit he was a professional who would do what had to be done, whether he liked it or not.

  The old argument zoomed back. Viktor was getting married. To a bride who would make her appearance from the center of four fabulous Fabergé eggs. Exotic. Romantic. A true spectacle. No one was going to mess with Viktor’s vision. Most particularly, not Viktor.

  The meeting swirled around me, with Dad laying out plans, taking notes on all the phone calls that had to be made. The FBI, Dad informed us, kept close tabs on the Russian mob in Miami, but only minimal surveillance on Three Rivers. They had admitted, with reluctance, that they didn’t know Aleksei Tatarkin was in the U. S. Nor that he was getting married on Saturday. Or importing a bride from Odessa. Interpol warning? Naturally, they would co-operate. But, Dad added, the FBI preferred to initiate action, not tag along on somebody else’s hunch. Their cooperation was going to be more in the nature of providing a couple of observers than in any significant back-up. Fortunately, our old friends, the Calusa County Sheriff’s Department, weren’t so cagey. To get away, any Bad Buys had to cross into county territory, and the entire SWAT team would be on stand-by. A good training exercise, Sheriff Purvis decreed. He would also give the Florida Highway Patrol a heads-up.

  Dad still looked grim, but everyone agreed we’d done the best we could. Much ado about nothing? Only time would tell.

  “The bride arrives when?” Rhys asked.

  “Wednesday, late afternoon. Tampa. We’ve made reservations for her and a probable companion, at The Beach Inn—all very posh. I’m to take her shopping for a wedding gown—the local bridal shop is expecting us and will roll out the red carpet, if you’ll pardon the antiquated pun.”

  “You still don’t know if there’s a second girl?” Dad asked.

  “Typical Viktor. He shrugs and smiles. Says maybe yes, maybe no.”

  “Don’t girls need months to get ready for a wedding?” Rhys asked. “My sister must have spent a year planning hers.”

  “Evidently, Marina Galikova is so thrilled to be here, she’ll put up with anything. The bridal shop is poised to be accommodating—money and Fantascapes’ continued goodwill work wonders. I promise you, no droopy bodice or trailing hemline for our Russian bride.”

  We wound up the meeting by sampling Dad’s fine collection of brandies. While the vanilla scent and flavor of Navan filled my head, I turned a bit philosophical. Success to some—like Mom, Candy, and me—was a job well done, chalking up another extraordinary wedding by Fantascapes. Success to the others? I was very much afraid the men in our lives preferred a scenario that allowed them to save the world. That was the trouble with the male of the species. They seemed to have a knack for instigating trouble just because things were too quiet, or they needed to be heros, or . . .

  Oh, hell. It was time to go home.

  Late Tuesday afternoon I was in the office, where I’d been on the phone attempting to sound out the possibility
of a sky-diving wedding (again, scratch Helen Lomelo as J. P.) and the nitty gritty details of a journey through the South African veldt in an elegant train with turn-of-the-century sleeping compartments. The usual thing—flight arrangements for Fantascapes’ clients to Cape Town, train tickets, plane tickets to safari country on the other end. Making certain our clients didn’t pass over or through any civil wars on the way. I glanced up, giving my eyes a rest from the computer screen, and discovered Arlan Trevellyan standing in the doorway, looking a far cry from the Cheshire Cat he’d emulated the last time he was here. I waved him to a seat in front of my desk.

  “Hi.” He dropped into the chair and stared at me. “Look, Laine, I know we haven’t exactly been friends”—he summoned a weak smile—“I mean, we’re rivals, right? And I admit I’ve overstepped the bounds a time or two. Good-looking woman like you—hard not to get a little itchy when you look at me like I’m something you just scraped off your shoe.”

  He was right, I did. But only after suffering a surfeit of his nasty little tricks over the years, tricks similar to the wrong airplane at Nazca and the bolas that missed me by a fraction of an inch.

  “Okay, so we don’t have to kiss and make up,” Arlan grumbled when my only response was a raised eyebrow. “But there’s something I thought you should know.” He paused, wiggling his slightly pudgy butt along the smooth blue leather of his chair. “I’m traveling with our first Florida dive tour,” he said at last, “just to make sure everything’s smooth.”