Free Levon's Trade (Levon Cade Book 1) by Chuck Dixon

restaurants within walking distance. Or to the trolley to take them to warm bars and shops in Ybor City ten minutes away. That left most of the tables on the upper level of Channelside empty.
    Levon arrived early. He parked the Avalanche on the first level of the parking tower across the street. He joined the growing crowd of new arrivals and drifted up to the food court and took up a vantage point in the shade of an awning. From there he could watch as two men in leather coats took seats in front of the plywood-covered front of River Rock. The rest of the seats and tables bolted down to the deck were empty. They were both young guys with dark hair and carefully trimmed goatees. Both the kind of guys who spend a lot of time on their appearance. Their wrists flashed with jewelry.
    At the same time they arrived, three other men took up positions around the food court, doing a poor job of appearing to be casual lookie-loos. They got their coats off the same rack as the seated men.
    Each man at the table either spoke on or played with smart phones as they waited. They might have been strangers except that they were dressed like actors auditioning for the same part.
    Levon approached using the milling crowd around the hot dog and pretzel wagons as cover. He was right up on the pair before they noticed him. The younger of the two eyed the Nike bag slung under Levon’s arm. He took a seat across from them, straddling it with one leg free. The bag went out of sight under the table. The younger man stuck out his hand and smiled.
    “They call me Dean,” Dimi Kolisnyk said.
    “Bill Coates,” Levon said.
    The other man didn’t offer his hand or a smile.
    “Cold, yes?” Dimi said hunching his shoulders.
    “It’s the water,” Levon said.
    “Still, warmer than Ohio, yes?” Dimi’s eyes weren’t smiling any more.
    “You ran my plates,” Levon said.
    “We know you are not called Bill Coates. But it is okay. If your money is good you call yourself whatever you like.” Dimi laughed at his great joke. He was alone in his mirth.
    “It’s good.”
    “We see, yes?”
    The other man pulled the Nike bag to a place on the ground between them. He unzipped the bag and pulled aside the t-shirt lying atop the stacks of cash bound with rubber bands. Dimi leaned over to run his fingers through the bundles.
    “We good?” Levon said.
    “Good. Very good.”
    “Where’s my goods?”
    Dimi slid a plastic card with a key atop it over the steel table top.
    “Is in a locker at Gold’s Gym. The one off Waters. You can find it?”
    “I’ll Google it.”
    “Yes. Google it,” Dimi said, amused. “Your stuff is in the locker with this number. The card is a one-day guest pass. Come and go. Stay and work out. Whatever.”
    “What if I want to reach you again?”
    “You use burner that Dutch gave you. He tells me. We set up deal.”
    “He tell you this is a once a month deal?”
    “He told me. You like the shit in locker we do more business.”
    Levon sat regarding Dimi. The tourists moved past like fish in a pool, colorful and slow. Dimi’s lips thinned and eyes narrowed.
    “You leave first. Go back to Ohio. Shovel snow,” Dimi said, no smile. He waggled his fingers in a shooing motion. The other guy smiled for the first time.
    Levon moved away through the crowd for the exit, never looking back. He brushed right by one of the leather jacketed watchers who eyed Levon all the way down to the street.
    He crossed to the parking tower and walked to where the Avalanche was parked. A panel-sided van was parked in the next slot. Levon stopped to turn.
    A flash of light turned his world to an explosion in luminescent white before going black.

 
    Gunny Leffertz said:
    “Never let them bind you. Never let them take you to a second place. You won’t like it. You fight like a cornered hound or a treed cat. You never, never, never let them take you somewhere else. Even if you have to die. Believe me when I tell, it’s better to die on your