A Legitimate Businessman by Dale Nelson

Author:Dale Nelson [Nelson, Dale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

Jack woke on the hotel staff’s fourth wake-up call.

He asked room service to send up breakfast and a pot of coffee. While he waited for breakfast, Jack stretched out on the floor and went through a yoga routine to loosen up. After breakfast, Jack took a shower, bringing the case of Carlton jewels with him into the bathroom. After the events of the past two days, he was not letting them out of his sight.

At ten a.m., he finally powered on his phone and called Hassar, or rather, Hassar’s lieutenant. His actual number two, not the army of executive functionaries, like Arshavin. This was an undisclosed number, likely on a cell phone that would be smashed and discarded after this call. Hassar’s assistant, if that really was the right way to think of him, told Jack to meet them at the Rome Cavalieri Hotel. The assistant would meet Jack in the lobby himself and escort Jack to the penthouse suite.

Jack wore his cream-colored suit with a robin’s egg Oxford, a blue-and-gold striped tie and his McQueens. The Beretta was tucked inside the glove box. Jack knew he’d be searched as soon as he got into Hassar’s hotel room—that was to be expected—but if the events of the past twenty-four hours had taught him anything, he wasn’t making the trip across town empty-handed. Jack allowed himself to be caught off guard last night. That wouldn’t happen again.

Jack took a circuitous route across town, doubling back several times and making turns that would have confounded the GPS in his phone if he’d had that on. Luckily for him, Rome was a city he knew well.

He arrived at the Rome Cavalieri at 10:40. Jack guided the GranTurismo counterclockwise through the wide roundabout that circled a perfectly manicured garden with trees and a small pavilion designed to look like an ancient Roman structure with a triangular roof supported by columns. The hotel itself was a massive, sprawling structure set in the center of a fifteen-acre park overlooking central Rome. Lush, leafy plants hung from each of the hotel’s three hundred seventy private balconies to appear like an ancient hanging garden. Prior to the hotel’s acquisition by the Hilton chain and subsequent inclusion in their Waldorf-Astoria collection, the Cavalieri sported one of the finest art collections in Italy.

Jack stepped out of the car with the case in hand, accepted the valet ticket, and told the valet that he was not a guest, would not be staying long, and would prefer if his car were kept out front. He handed the man a twenty Euro note to make sure that happened and then walked around the front of the vehicle as he fastened his jacket. He entered the lobby. It was ostentatious, even for his taste.

The central lobby sat beneath a ring of large, globe-shaped lamps, though the ring itself was also lit. Four huge, white marble columns just inside the ring linked the floor with the slightly vaulted wood ceiling. The bank of reception and

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