“Why are we here?”
He wipes a crumb from the corner of his mouth. “I have a shipment arriving in ten days. I don’t give a fuck what you’re up to, but that shipment will move through this city without a hiccup.”
Only if I allow it, you bastard.“Women?”
“Not my game, Huntsman. You should know that by now.”
“What’s coming through my city?”
“Arms. Same as always. Not that it’s any of your business. I leave the drugs to the cartels, and the flesh trade to those without daughters and granddaughters.”
I couldn’t care less about guns and ammunition passing through the city. I have more pressing concerns. “Does Tomas help you distribute those arms, or just move them?”
He narrows his eyes. “Your cousin?”
I nod.
“Don’t confuse me with an idiot. I don’t do business with him.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“Don’t believe every little thing you hear.” He takes a drink of coffee. “Tomas contacted me shortly after you paid his father a visit at the hospital.”
I have eyes everywhere, but so does Fedorov.
“I listened, because I always listen, but he has nothing I want.”
That, I don’t believe.“He can give you the kind of access that an outsider will never have.”
“Why would I want that?”
“It would give you a foothold in the region. Legitimacy. This is a good spot on the Atlantic, where you can ship your toys in and out without hassle, and play a little game of chicken with the Americans. Isn’t that what the big boys in Moscow want?”
He peers at me from across the table, his jaw clenched. But he doesn’t respond.
“Isn’t that why you planted a bomb at Santa Ana’s to stop my wedding?”
“For someone who claims not to be a boy, you have a wild imagination. Do you have a pen?”
“I’m not a secretary.”
“Bring me a pen,” he calls to one of his men. Fedorov opens a napkin, then balls it up and tosses it aside. “Paper too.”
The guard brings a pen and a small pad of paper from near the cash register. Dimitri pulls back some pages and begins to write.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you a civics lesson that outsiders normally don’t get. I suggest you pay attention.”
He draws twoXs in the center of the page. “These represent the two oligarchs in Porto. Nikitin and Chernov. They want a foothold, and they take their cues from Moscow. They’re like siblings fighting for Papa’s attention.” Above theXs, he puts a triangle representing Moscow.
At the very top, he draws a sun with rays emitting from the center. “This is the Bratva—they take their orders from me.” He places a dot in the center of the sun as he says the wordme. “I take my orders from no one.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because Nikitin and Chernov are not just thorns in your side, but in mine too. While I don’t take direction from Moscow, I’m not foolish enough to spit in the president’s face.”
“So you want me to do your dirty work for you?”