The dock was unoccupied, just the way it had been when Sharkey had scouted the location earlier that afternoon. The host, a Mr. Vladimir Lukov, didn’t own a yacht, Sharkey had learned. Sharkey had been counting on them being early, the only guests to arrive by sea. At the very least, he hoped he’d be first and get the dock before anyone else. It looked as if he’d been right. Or maybe just lucky.
Shark maneuvered the big boat alongside the wooden dock, then used his bow and stern thrusters to crab the boat sideways toward the piling fenders. Two young guys appeared on the dock, ready to take Fado’s lines. Stoke saw another couple of guys in black, clearly security, making their way down the sloping lawn to the dock.
“I’ll take the helm,” Stoke said to Sharkey. “You go down and handle the lines.”
Sharkey turned the wheel over to his boss, then scrambled below to heave the preset bow and stern lines to the boys waiting at either end of the dock.
“Here we go, Harry,” Stoke said into the mike as they bumped up against the rubber fenders. “Roll tape.”
“You got it. We’re rolling. Perfect camera position, by the way, great angle from up there. We got the back of the house, the whole terrace, the pool, perfect. My compliments to the camera crew.”
“Fancha ready?” Stoke asked.
“Our star’s coming up on deck right now. Wait till you see her outfit, Stoke. Unbelievable.”
Stoke shut the twin two-thousand-horsepower CAT diesel engines down, removed his headset, and stowed it in the compartment under the helm station. He’d be wearing a different commo system now. An invisible earbud and a tiny mike hidden inside the sleeve of his jacket would keep him in constant contact with Harry Brock aboard Fado as he moved through the party.
“Harry?” he said into his sleeve. “Radio check.”
“Loud and clear,” Harry said, and Stokely hurried down the ladder. It sounded like one of the badass security guys was already giving Sharkey a hard time. These weren’t rent-a-cops trucked in for the birthday party. Stoke could tell just by the way they moved and carried themselves that these Russian boys were in the death business.
“You got a problem, chief?” Stoke asked the big blond Russian dressed head to toe in black combat fatigues. The guy was standing on the dock with his feet wide apart and his arms folded across his chest, giving Stoke what must have passed for the evil eye back in Mother Russia.
“Nyet. You got a problem. Your little one-armed bandit here says he doesn’t have an invitation. This is a private function on private property. So, unless you show me an invitation, and your name appears on my list, you got two minutes to get this boat out of here.”
“I’m sorry,” Stoke said, stepping to the rail and smiling at the guy. “I’m sure we spoke on the phone. But I’ve forgotten your name. You work for Mr. Lukov, right? Chief of security? Boris, isn’t it?” It was the first Russian name that popped into his head, but it didn’t seem to faze the guy.
Stoke stuck his hand out, and the man instinctively took it. Stoke squeezed a second too long and caught the guy wincing. He was a seriously big guy, ex-military, no doubt about it. Had that unmistakable special-forces look about him.
“Who the fuck are you?” the man said, withdrawing his hand with some difficulty from Stoke’s bone cruncher. Boris’s black nylon windbreaker fell open, and Stoke saw a Mac-10 light machine gun hanging from a shoulder sling. Probably to keep the kids in line bobbing for apples or playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey later.
Stoke smiled at Boris again. “Levy, Sheldon Levy, Suncoast Artist Management. That ring a bell?”
No reply.
“We’re providing tonight’s entertainment.”
“What entertainment? The birthday singer?”
“Exactly. The singer. And look, Boris, here she is now.”
Fancha stepped out of the shadows of the boat’s main salon as if out of a dream. Her bold brown eyes, slightly uptilted at the corners, were shining beneath a fringe of silken black hair. She climbed two steps in her shimmering sequined red dress and stood on the bridge deck next to Stokely. He’d never seen her look so beautiful. He looked at the Russian.
“This is-”
“Fancha,” the security guy said, trying to keep his jaw off the deck. He looked as if he was going to dissolve into a puddle and just drip over the gunwales into the canal. He looked around at his buddies. “It’s Fancha,” Boris said, reverent, as if Madonna had suddenly popped out of a pumpkin.
Stoke looked at her and smiled. “Some dress, huh, Boris? Who’s that designer you’re wearing tonight, Fancha? Oscar? Lacroix? Zac Posen?”
“What a lovely house,” Fancha said, ignoring Stoke and smiling at the drooling security guy. “Sorry I’m late, gentlemen. I hope my band hasn’t been waiting too long for the sound check.”
“Oh, no, not at all,” the guy said, “They just got there. Here, I mean. Still setting up. I will escort you up there to the pool? I’m afraid the grass is a little wet still from the sprinklers, and it can be slippery. Please?”
“You’re so kind.”
Stoke rolled his eyes as Boris held out his hand to her. She took it and stepped lightly from the boat onto the dock, beaming at the good-looking Russian.
Stoke’s fists clenched involuntarily. He knew this guy. Didn’t really know him, of course, but knew his type, guessed who he was. One of the Kremlin’s storm troopers in a previous life. The Black Berets, they were called. Riot police, which, in the new post-Democratic Russia, meant they had the legal right to beat the crap out of anybody whose skin color they didn’t like. Namely, black. Black covered a lot of territory in Russia and included Chechens, Jews, and, of course, Africans and their cousins, African-Americans.
“And what’s your name?” Fancha asked the guy, smiling up at this dickhead as if he was freakin’ Dr. Zhivago.
“I am Yuri. Yuri Yurin.”
“I’m Fancha, Yuri,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Let me give you my card,” Yuri said, pulling out a business card and handing it to her. Without even glancing at it, she handed it to her one-man entourage, Stokely, and started off across the grass, letting Yuri hold her by the damn arm the whole way.
Stoke turned the card over in his hand. It had a picture of a sleek offshore racing boat, a Magnum 60. Beneath was Yuri’s name, Yuri Yurin, and his office address over on Miami Beach. Something called the Miami Yacht Group Ltd. So, Yuri only moonlighted as security. His day job was yacht salesman. Fish where the fish are, Stoke thought. Russians were buying most of the big yachts these days. Yuri was probably getting rich, too.
“That’s pronounced ‘Yurin’ like in piss, right?” he called after the Russian, but he guessed Yurin hadn’t heard him, because there was no reaction.
Fancha paused to look back at Stoke, still holding onto the guy. “Oh, Sheldon?”
“Yes, my Fancha?” Stoke said, bowing slightly from the waist.
“My Fiji water?”
“We have Fiji at all the pool bars,” Yuri said, the little shit.
“She has her own Fiji,” Stokely told him, maybe a little too loudly. “Estate-bottled for her in Fiji personally by David and Jill Gilmour right at the spring on their property at Wakaya.”
“Estate-bottled Fiji water?” Yuri said, finding it hard to believe there was some luxury item on the planet he’d not yet heard of.
“Of course.”
“Sheldon? My water?”
“I’ll be right there with it.”
“Chilled, Sheldon?”
“Chilled to perfection, goddess.”
17
Half an hour later, Fancha was onstage, in the middle of her first set, singing her little heart out. Stoke was busy invoking Rule One of fancy cocktail soirees: Circulate. He was cruising the crowd like a hungry shark, using his nom de guerre, Sheldon Levy, talking to anyone and everyone who looked interesting, just seeing what itch he could scratch here and there.