Free Where There's Smoke by Mel McKinney Page B

his head. “Ain’t even changed the beds yet,” he mumbled.
    â€œGood. Keep ’em just like that. Want to get the state boys to come over and check for prints. Should be within a day or so. I bet they paid cash, right?”

    â€œYep. Nice new twenty-dollar bills.”
    â€œThey had just this one car?” Hiram asked, copying the Florida license number.
    â€œYep. An old Chevy sedan, green.”
    Poor Nestor, thought Hiram. Now that he’s lost the game, he can’t wait to give away more.
    Hiram pulled out a pack of Muniemakers and ensured he had a good light before stepping out into a steady, chilling rain. The ones in the black Caddie aren’t going to be this easy, he thought as he cupped the glowing cigar.
    Â 
    Cornelius Gessleman had used the chauffeured drive from his Palm Beach estate to solve his problem. He stepped out of the car into the brisk Kentucky evening, his head cleared of the night before. Refreshed and confident, he stretched his legs and strolled over to the white fence edging the pasture nearest the manor house. The solution was so simple, as he had known it would be.
    He now owned the Kennedy cigars, or at least most of them, and was pleased with himself for having bested his host. Securing three boxes of coveted Sancho Panzas in exchange for those obscure Don something or others confirmed the old panther still had a bite.
    What a rube , thought Gessleman as he reached across the fence and scratched the muzzle of Glo-bug, his candidate in the coming year’s Triple Crown. Recalling Raul Salazar’s smiling hospitality, he told the blowing horse, “Fella thinks that front he put up fooled me. ‘Good will.’ ‘Trust.’ Ha! Conniving hustler plans to be in my pocket the rest of my life. Not so, my fine one, not so.”

    Cornelius cradled the horse’s nose and savored the brush of silky hair against his cheek. Energy from the animal throbbed across the fence, affirming his decision.
    It has always been this way, he thought. The courage to act has been my strength. It has separated me from the others. It’s what took a small family business and turned it into a fortune. I can’t let this Cuban extortionist and that incompetent dolt my daughter married destroy all I’ve built.
    â€œOh, yes, yes, yes.” He laughed aloud, as the horse tousled and blew some more.
    Gessleman sighted down the unbroken line of sparkling fence. When the boards are rotten or weak, we rip them out. That’s what I’m doing, removing something rotten and something weak, that’s all. Get this whole sorry business behind me. Too bad about Margie. But she’s still young and pretty enough. Maybe next time—who knows?
    As for the Cuban, he thought, this will be poetic justice. The blackmailing assassin will get what he deserves. Just as soon as he’s delivered the cigars . He peeled the foil from another Sancho Panza and walked, humming, toward the house.
    Later, in his study, pleased with the even burn of the magnificent cigar, Cornelius Gessleman opened a locked desk drawer and removed a black leather notebook. It had no markings. He riffed its pages with purpose, knowing exactly where to stop.
    â€œAh, yes.” He spread the book open to read the number and the coded greeting that would identify him. “Marinara,”
he chuckled. Then he remembered. With all the Don had been into, he loved his food. He dialed and sat back, listening, wondering if he would still recognize the voice.

FOURTEEN
    JOSEPH BONAFACCIO JR. stepped from the elevator, bowed, and swept his arm toward the hallway’s brocaded expanse. “This way, Laurie-May,” he cooed to the lithe blonde.
    Her eyes widened in happy reaction to the rich decor of the twenty-fourth-story entry to Joseph Bonafaccio’s legendary playpen apartment.
    A slender Rafael Gonzalez Lonsdale clamped in his teeth, Joseph extended both arms to the leggy Rockette and