Palm Beach Taboo (Charlie Crawford Palm Beach Mysteries Book 10) by Tom Turner

Author:Tom Turner [Turner, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tribeca Press
Published: 2021-01-12T16:00:00+00:00

At 7 o’clock p.m., Crawford drove to Elysium on North Lake Way to pick up Vega and take her to Mookie’s Tap-A-Keg. He had a lot to pick her brain about, but he didn’t want to start right in on it. When he picked her up, he noticed way up on the third floor a man looking down through a window. He thought it might have been Crux and was pretty sure he had a frown on his face.

Crawford warned her that she might have to step over a body lying on the beer-stained floor at Mookie’s, but turned out the coast was clear.

“Table or bar?” he asked her as they walked in.

“Bar, please,” she said looking around, “That’s where the colorful types hang out, right?”

“Some call ’em colorful, some call ’em strange.”

Vega sat down and Crawford slid onto the barstool next to her.

Jack Scarsiola, the owner and barkeep, approached them. “Hey, Charlie, what’s it gonna be?” Then nodding at Vega. “Ma’am?”

“Vega, I’d like to introduce you to the proprietor, Jack Scarsiola… but you can call him Scar.”

“Hey, Scar. Could I have a pinot grigio, please?”

“Sorry, how about chardonnay?”

“That’ll be good. Thank you.”

“I’ll take a Yuengling,” Crawford said

“Coming right up.”

A few moments later Scarsiola showed up with the drinks.

Vega took a sip of her wine and glanced behind the bar. “I see what you mean. Those eggs,” she said, pointing. “Does the health commissioner know about those?”

Crawford laughed as he spotted someone at the end of the bar. “Don’t look now, but remember me telling you about Slim Jims?”

“Yeah, made from ‘mechanically separated chicken’ and ‘extractives of paprika.’”

“Good memory. Well, a guy down at the end is eating a Slim Jim sandwich.”

Vega looked anyway. “How do you know it’s a Slim Jim sandwich?”

“Because that’s what he always has. Joe Wright’s his name. I think he invented it. Scar lets him go behind the bar and make them. Wonder bread, Gulden’s mustard, and Slim Jims.”

Vega frowned. “Ew, that’s really gross.”

“No argument from me. So, you okay changing the subject?”

“Please do.”

“Thank you. I’m curious about the SOAR hierarchy.”

Vega took another sip of her wine and set it down. “Well, despite what you may have heard, it’s pretty corporate.”

“Corporate? What do you mean?”

“Okay, so Crux is the CEO. Guy Bemmert is the CFO, Frannie Melhado is the COO—chief operating officer—Leo Peavy is the CIO and CMO—”

“Wait, what do the last two stand for?”

“Umm, Chief Information Officer and Chief Marketing Officer,” Vega said with a chuckle and a shrug of the shoulders. “And me, I’m nothing.”

“Those are actual titles?”

Vega nodded, then something caught her attention at the other end of the bar. “You can smoke here?” she asked, noticing an older man puffing away on a cigarette.

Crawford glanced down to where she was looking. “Oh, no, that’s just Scarpa. He’s what you might call our local scofflaw.”

“Is he a cop?”

“Was a cop. A damn good one.”

“But he smokes in defiance of the law.”

“Yeah, pretty much. Scarsiola kind of gave up on him.”

Vega shrugged. “O-kay.”

“So back to SOAR.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.