Her friends were already seated in a booth near the back of the bar. Narrowly avoiding misadventure with a cocktail attached to an inebriated woman in a designer suit, Georgina weaved her way through the boisterous happy hour crowd.
“What’s this I hear about you going to California to make your fortune?” Millicent Garrett asked Georgina as she sat down next to Pearl. Millie had become friends with Georgina in business school, but lacking Georgina’s stellar connections, Millie had had to settle for a position with a somewhat less prestigious investment bank. Although Georgina's firm paid considerably more than Millie's, Millie's firm competed favorably with Georgina's in terms of intolerable job stress.
“I’m not going to California to make my fortune,” Georgina replied. “I’m going to help someone who is already very rich add to his fortune and, while I’m at it, I’m going to ensure that whoever is on the other side of the deal is relieved of any hope of acquiring wealth whatsoever.”
“And why are you doing this dastardly deed?” Millie asked, raising her eyebrows, playing along.
“Because if I do this, the rich man will pay my bank handsomely, and just enough of the booty will trickle down to me that I can continue to live in Manhattan and share life with the two of you,” Georgina said.
“Great attitude,” Millie said. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Stop it, you two!” Pearl interjected, exasperated. “How did I manage to find two friends in the same crazy business?”
“You found us because your fancy white shoe law firm is only too happy to take our banks’ money,” Millie retorted, with a smile.
“And we are so very grateful to you for keeping us out of the slammer,” Georgina added. Then she turned more serious. “It’s just starting to hit me that this is really happening,” she said.
“You deserve it, after all you’ve done for Mark,” Millie said. “And you’re going to slay this deal. You have real killer instincts and that’s what it takes.”
“If you say so,” Georgina said.
“Wait a minute, is that new?” Pearl asked, eying Georgina’s handbag. “I don’t think I’ve seen that one before.”
“This?” Georgina said. “Well, yes, it’s new. It’s nothing special, just some low-level retail therapy.” In fact the purse was from a luxury goods purveyor that had recently opened a store near Georgina’s bank. She had been smitten with the bag for the better part of a week before she succumbed to its charms, following a particularly contentious client meeting that had left her nerves raw.
Unconvinced by Georgina’s answer Pearl nonetheless decided not to press the issue. Instead, she leaned forward and asked in a lowered voice, “So, what’s going on with Nick and the job in D.C.?”
“He had another round of interviews today,” Georgina replied. “He doesn’t know where it’s going yet. He’s not even sure that he wants it.”
“He wants it,” Pearl declared. “Would you move to Washington with him?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Georgina said. “He may not get an offer.”
“But he’s keeping you in the loop about the decision, isn’t he?”
“Of course,” Georgina said. “Look, it’s complicated. If Nick decides that this is the right thing for him, then we’ll have to figure out what it would mean for us to live in different cities. I haven’t even begun to come to grips with that yet. Anyway, what I need from you two right now is a lot, and I mean a lot, of moral support. Rios Capital is one of Mark's major clients, and I have to deliver this deal for him. And from what I hear around the office, Alejandro Rios is a major league S.O.B. So, you guys have my back, will you?”
"You got it," Pearl and Millie said in unison.
Alejandro Rios watched impatiently as the ornately framed, antique landscape painting rotated slowly off his office wall. When the painting stopped moving, he punched in the code to the safe hidden behind it. He carefully inspected the contents of a large clasp envelope and then placed the envelope inside the safe. Feeling the need for a break, Rios left his office and descended one side of the dual staircase that lead to his home's capacious foyer. Spying her employer from her cubbyhole office just off the foyer, Lupe Gonzales, the head housekeeper, scurried out to open one of the heavily carved mahogany front doors. Rios strode through the opened door without acknowledging Lupe and quickly traversed the flagstone-laid entry courtyard. He stopped in front of a large rose garden that sprawled for half an acre on the other side of the courtyard.
Rios was a rose fancier. He admired the flowers for their complexity, especially for how their form and even their colors changed as they opened to reveal themselves to the observer. Roses were a metaphor for life, he believed—by turns elegant and thorny, giving back only what they received in care, and gone too soon. Years ago, when he had first acquired the Rancho Secreto property and set out to build his private oasis, he had instructed the architect to site his office to overlook the rose garden. He often stood at his opened office window, admiring the garden and taking in the sweet air. He had done some of his best thinking standing at that window.
Rios was a man with a feel for the big picture. He bought and sold companies dispassionately, much as traders did stocks. He despised details. To free himself up to act like the bird of prey that he was, spotting firms ripe for the snatch, Rios paid people to take care of the details—people like Mark Webber, who could wring the last drop of blood from the victim and then produce a mountain of paperwork that made it legal. As he walked the gravel path that meandered among the roses, Rios contemplated his conversation earlier that day with Mark. Used to having his way, Rios had been aggravated when Mark told him that he could not come out from New York to help him with the ZIFIX takeover. Now he would have to make do with one of Mark’s underlings. But the deal was small, Rios acknowledged, and Mark had assured him that the young woman he was sending out was more than equal to the task. She would be arriving tomorrow. That was none too soon for Rios, because he relished swiftness in a takeover. Experience had taught him that he made the most money when things went down fast.
Rios was in his late sixties but looked much younger due to a rigorous program of diet and exercise supervised by a longevity clinic in Los Angeles, a not-so-secret retreat for Tinsel town’s many aging celebrities. A man of discipline, he adhered strictly to the teachings of the clinic’s founder, a lifestyle doctor who frequently appeared in the media. Because of his efforts to maintain his vitality Rios was fit and strong. He dressed in form-fitting clothing to better show off his still-muscular physique. Not classically handsome, he radiated a certain masculine air that many women found appealing. He was three times divorced, but his last split was now many years in the past. As Rios saw it, his lack of success in marriage, which he did not feel keenly, was more than compensated by his outsized success in business. He had discovered that as his fortune grew, so did his access to agreeable female companionship, free from the uncomfortable bonds of matrimony.
Rios left the rose garden and continued along a newly laid flagstone pathway that led to an imposingly large barn. His enviable monetary position gave him free rein to indulge his passion for thoroughbred horseracing. The recent recession had presented him with several gratifying opportunities—frightened, financially distressed companies desperate for a bailout—and therefore profits were up at Rios Capital, way up. To celebrate the good times (for him), he had used the financial windfall to tear down the modest original barn, built on the site at the same time as the house, and constructed in its place a grand new one that was state-of-the-art. He had also upgraded his racing stable with the purchase of three superb young colts, personally acquired at enormous cost at the spring yearling auction in Kentucky, and he had hired a new trainer to ensure that his equine athletes were properly developed.
Once inside the barn Rios walked at a leisurely pace up and down the rows of horse stalls, taking in the sights, sounds and smells that he so enjoyed. He paused periodically to look inside a stall, assess
ing the condition of the wary animal inside. Refreshed, he was about to return to his office when his daughter, Adela Rios, entered the barn, leading an exquisite bay horse by the halter. A petite, slightly round woman in her mid-forties, she was wearing a black velvet riding helmet cinched under her chin, black leather boots, beige jodhpurs and a black T-shirt.
“Give me a hand with Diamante, would you?” Adela called out to her father. “He’s a handful today. He almost bucked me off.” She motioned with one gloved hand for her father to open the sliding gate to the horse’s stall. Together father and daughter managed to get the balky animal inside. Rios took off the horse’s halter, placed one hand on his neck and nudged him towards the rear of the stall.
Suddenly the horse, whinnying and snorting, reared up on his hind legs. One flailing hoof narrowly missed Rios’ head. Frightened, Adela ran out to the corridor. Keeping the halter in front of his face to fend off the horse’s thrashing legs, Rios calmly walked backwards towards the stall door. As soon as her father reached the corridor Adela slid the stall’s gate shut behind him. The loud clank produced by the engagement of the latch further aggravated the horse, prompting him to pound the gate with his front legs.
The clamor of hooves hammering against wood brought several grooms rushing into the barn to investigate. A minute later the barn manager, Jose Rodriguez, joined them. A paunchy, middle-aged man with a day-old beard, Jose was gasping from the short run from his office in a shed next to the barn. “What’s going on?” he asked as he caught his breath.
“Diamante is loco today, and I don’t know why,” Adela shouted at Jose, trying to be heard above the din.
“Did something spook him out on the trail?” Jose peered through the grate in the stall door. The horse was now pacing rapidly back and forth and grunting loudly.
“Nothing that I could see. He’s just all hot over nothing,” Adela said. “What should I do with him?”
“Maybe he needs more exercise," Jose said. "He’s spending too much time indoors. These stalls are big but they’re dark. In the morning I’ll have someone put him on the line for you before you take him out. For now, let’s give him some quiet.”
The group disbanded. Rios accompanied his daughter to her car. “I’m glad I have Jose to help me with Diamante,” Adela told her father as he opened the door for her. “I don’t know what’s going on with that horse, but I know Jose will figure it out.”
“About Jose,” Rios said cautiously, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about him.”
“Is something the matter?” Adela furrowed her brow.
“I'm afraid there's something not quite right with Jose right now,” Rios said. “He’s been making a lot of noise among the grooms about the changes I've been making at the barn. He’s not happy. I want you and the girls to be careful what you say when you’re here. Best for you all to keep a little distance from the barn staff, until things settle down a bit.” Adela was surprised by her father's admonition but she promised to be tactful, kissed her father on both cheeks, and drove off.
Rios walked briskly back along the flagstone pathway to the house. The episode with Adela's horse had not caused him any distress; in fact, he had enjoyed the excitement. But as he walked upstairs to his office his mood became more somber. He was still impatiently awaiting Detective Samantha Mori’s callback. She usually responded to his calls the same day, but this was already the second day, and he had left four messages. What was the problem? Women were so ridiculously unpredictable, Rios mused. But he had to find a way to reach her, and it had to be today. He desperately needed a read from her on his options before his hand was forced. Up until now, his entrée to her had allowed him to pass on information about the murky financial world in which he held sway, without any personal repercussions. Typically these revelations improved his circumstances by clearing the field of troublesome competitors, but today’s matter hit uncomfortably close to home.
He had called again. Flinging the message into the nearest wastebasket, Sam Mori walked quickly past the reception desk and entered her small office, one of more than a dozen that lined the perimeter of the Detective Division. With an ever-so-subtle hint bubbling just below the surface of her dazzling smile, Sam was adept at charming the men she cultivated as tipsters. Typically, her sources enjoyed the flirtatious repartee with her and left it at that. But recently Alejandro Rios appeared to have become overly engaged with her. While she was ready to get together with him for a drink and some friendly banter, she needed Rios to understand the true nature of their relationship—it was strictly a business transaction. And she needed Rios to understand that in this particular business transaction, the only currency was information. Nothing more.
In their last encounter, less than a week ago, Rios had surprised Sam with a present: an over-scaled jade brooch carved into the shape of a leopard, its eyes set with small rubies. Sam had softly demurred, citing police department policy. To soften the blow, and to maintain Rios' interest, she had let her hand linger for a brief second in his as she handed the brooch back to him. The information that he had given her that day was of little value and obviously a pretext to see her. Annoying behavior of this type cropped up periodically in Sam’s line of work, especially from rich, entitled men like Rios who chose to believe the impossible fiction that a much younger woman would actually be interested in them.
Sam was attractive to men and she knew it. She enjoyed the attention that men paid to her. Although she believed that most men were self-absorbed, and therefore boring, she nonetheless enjoyed exercising her feminine powers over them. It pleased her to create an illusion that sparked men's less explicit fantasies. She never showed cleavage—she had none—nor did she do anything obvious to call attention to her sexuality. Instead, she focused on making herself into an interesting tableau, an exquisite, if somewhat atypical, walking piece of art. To accomplish this illusion she concentrated on a simple, even stark, wardrobe and flawless grooming. Her jet-black hair, cut short and worn swept back from her face, was held in place by a generous application of gel. She applied makeup with a heavy stroke and trimmed her brows in a line that was almost horizontal. And there was something else, something that always caught the male eye. Located, oddly, on the back of her neck was an enigmatic lure—a bold, black V-shaped tattoo that extended well down into the nape.
Sam was well aware that, on their first encounter with her, many men were simply intrigued by her uniqueness. But the artifice that informed her outward persona was only the first act in the seduction. She had a way of making men feel that they commanded her complete attention. She left them with the impression that she wanted to know everything there was to know about them; when they divulged more, she telegraphed how much she admired them for their disclosure. Once fully engaged by her intellect, more than a few men found Sam irresistible.
Rios, it now appeared to Sam, was one of those men who had fallen too deeply under her spell. She detested having to titrate her game. If she paid too little attention, the informant dried up, and if she paid too much, things could get personal, and, if not handled properly, unpleasant. But she could ill afford to lose Rios. His access into the upper reaches of fast money was unparalleled among her sources; it would be impossible for her to penetrate that world so completely without him. Whatever her misgivings, Sam knew that she had to keep Rios talking. She would return his call. But first—she would make him wait.
Chapter Three