Maurice Stanway, the man who was so easily led.
Now he was trapped in a cage of his own making.
Gilbert had such power and personal influence over him it was impossible to resist. For his own survival he had to help Gilbert again.
He pulled his briefcase onto the desk and snapped it open. In his notebook he turned to the page where he had jotted down the number Gilbert had dictated to him. The very private number of a very dangerous man.
Stanway squeezed his face in the palm of his hand, breathed in, held it and exhaled slowly. Then he picked up the phone and dialled quickly so he would not stop halfway through.
Despite the long distance, connection was made immediately.
On the second ring, the phone was answered by a woman.
Stanway quickly explained who he was and asked to speak to that man.
After the rain, Miami was boiling hot again.
However, Felicity Bussola, previously known as Felicity Kruger and before that, Jane Creek, was sitting in the shade of a large umbrella, laid out full-length on a sun lounger by the pool.
She answered the cell-tel as soon as it rang. It had been left on the drinks table next to her. After listening for a few moments, she pressed the ‘secret’ button and shouted across the pool.
‘ It’s for you, darling, she called. She held the phone out between her first finger and thumb.
Mario Bussola was sitting at a table in the full sunshine, working on a laptop. There was a fax machine by his side, a small copier, a shredder and two other phones, all within reach. He was stripped down to his boxer shorts and the heat of the sun was making his rippling fat glisten and perspire.
Bussola sat up. He frowned. Few people ever called him on this number because it was only divulged to selected and thoroughly vetted individuals. ‘Bring the fucking thing here,’ he said. There was no way he was going to get up.
‘ Okay, babe.’ She rose to her feet stiffly because the broken ribs had not really begun to heal, and shuffled around the edge of the pool. Not only did the ribs still hurt, but also the base of her spine which was sore and bruised. This particular injury meant she walked like an eighty-year-old.
On the way round the pool she had to walk past two of Bussola’s new bodyguards. One was on duty, sat up at a table, reading in the shade of a tree. The other was off-duty, laid out on a recliner in his boxing shorts, browning himself in the rays. Guns and holsters were very much in evidence. They both watched Felicity from behind the dark lenses of their Ray-Bans.
Even though she was injured and probably incapable of anything more than very passive sex, Felicity could not help noticing the bulge in the guard’s boxers. It looked a dangerous packet. She longed to reach out for it.
Her husband was gesturing impatiently with his fingers. She handed the mobile over.
‘ Why don’ you just fuck off inside? I’m sicka lookin’ at cha hobblin’ around like a witch all day long,’ Bussola suggested.
‘ Okay, babe,’ she murmured. ‘Anything you say.’
She shuffled away.
Bussola stuck the phone to his ear.
‘ Is… is that Mr Bussola?’ Stanway stuttered.
‘ You rang the number, you tell me.’
‘ I’ll assume it is… My name is Maurice Stanway and I’m very sorry to disturb you, I know you are a busy man.’
‘ How did ya get this number?’
‘ I… er, represent Charles Gilbert. I’m a solicitor — lawyer, if you like. He gave me the number and I’m phoning on his behalf.’
‘ In that case stop friggin’ about and get on with it. You’re right — I am busy.’
Felicity crept up the stairs which wound their way up the rear of the house. A first-level landing gave her the chance to rest. The window there looked over the terrace to the pool where she could see her husband on the phone.
Had her eyes been pistols, they would have shot Bussola to pieces. She perched the corner of her bottom on the low window-ledge and opened the window quietly. Just below her were the two bodyguards, unaware she was hovering above them. Bussola was talking gruffly on the phone. The bodyguards were whispering something to each other. Felicity craned her neck and strained to eavesdrop.
‘ She deserved it… no fucker pisses with Mario,’ the on-duty guard was saying.
‘ He made a classic mess of her,’ the other observed. Felicity knew his name was Gus. She did not know the other’s name.
‘ Yeah — she used to be a good-lookin’ piece a tail. Now her face is so outta line she couldn’t even blow a candle out.’
Felicity choked back a sob at the words. They were true. She was horrible to look at now. Face swollen, body bruised to hell and back — was she ever going to recover? Her husband had made a mess of her and she hated him for it.
‘ Shit!’ Bussola roared. He threw the phone down in a fit of temper and it smashed to pieces on the terracotta floor.
The bodyguards shot to attention, nerves showing.
‘ Ira!’ the Italian bellowed. ‘Get your stinking Jewish ass out here now.’
Bussola rolled up to his feet and waddled over to the bodyguards quicker than they anticipated. They jumped to their feet.
Felicity dodged behind the cover of the drape.
‘ Siddown, you assholes,’ Bussola instructed them. ‘Ira? You heard me, or what?’
‘ I’m here, I’m here, keep your big Italian mouth in check.’ Ira Begin, Bussola’s lawyer and adviser in all matters of law, strategy, finance and tactical operations, scuttled like a beetle out of the house, where he had been busy on paperwork. He was the only person who could get away with talking back to Bussola, but even he judged it carefully. Sometimes Bussola needed to be treated with kid gloves and Begin generally knew when. He had been with Bussola many years and though he was a small, insignificant-looking man, he wielded great power and influence in Bussola’s empire. He was ruthless when necessary, having cold-bloodedly murdered four people in his time and assisted Bussola to murder or dispose of eight others, including the Armstrong brothers; mostly, though, Begin liked to keep timidly in the background, using his various skills to assist in the acquisition of money and power for his boss. He slid his John Lennon style spectacles on and blinked in the sunlight. ‘What’s up?’
‘ Got an issue.’ Bussola perched himself on the edge of the table the bodyguard had been sitting at. He always used the word ‘issue’ rather than ‘problem’.
‘ Shoot.’
‘ Gilbert’s been arrested in England.’
‘ How is that an issue?’
‘ Let me finish, you twerp. In two ways. Firstly, the equipment we are shipping over to him — you know, the video games — need to be dealt with by him. He’s going to hand over the little extras we have secreted in them to our other contact in Manchester.’ Bussola was referring to the two kilos of cocaine that were going to accompany the arcade games; Gilbert was due to deliver them to a drug dealer who was handling Bussola’s North of England operation. If Gilbert was not there to receive the games, there could be major complications, not only of a financial nature. ‘And secondly, the English cops are coming across here to pick up a witness against him and take that witness back to testify. It’s about a murder five godamned years ago! I mean, who the hell gives a shit about something that old? Anyway, it’s that stupid little girl who spoiled some of our fun.’
‘ Tracey Greenwood — the English girl.’ Begin knew immediately; it was his job to know.
‘ Yeah — that junkie piece a shit. She could damage me — possibly,’ Bussola complained. ‘And not only that, Gilbert is a friend. I look after friends.’
‘ I take it you would rather she did not testify?’ Begin said fussily.
‘ It would simplify things all round. Make some enquiries, find out where she is and then just fucking waste her.’
In the window Felicity drew back again when Begin turned and walked back into the house.