Stuart Woods by Choke

Author:Choke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780062035042
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1996-08-30T05:00:00+00:00

33

Tommy stood in front of his hotel, freshly shaved and dressed in a suit, and wondered if he had been stiffed. It was 3:20, and Rita had been supposed to pick him up at three. Had he misjudged the woman?

A red Volkswagen convertible screeched to a halt, top down, Rita at the wheel. “Sorry I’m late.”

Tommy got into the car. “You had me worried.”

“I was primping. This is the first time I’ve met the guy face-to-face, and I wanted to make a good impression.”

Tommy looked her over. “Don’t worry about it.”

She shot him a smile. “Thank you, kind sir.”

“What time’s our appointment?”

“Three forty-five. Don’t worry, we’ll make it. Century City isn’t all that far.”

“So who is the guy?”

“First I want to know what you’re going to say to him.”

“What I’m going to try to do is get information.”

“What’s in it for him?”

“Maybe I can help find Marinello.”

“What happens if you do?”

“Rita, baby, I don’t want the money, I promise you. I’ll see that you get all the credit.”

“It’s just that the money could help me a lot in making the transition to running the business. A lot of Barry’s buddies are going to stop making referrals now that he’s gone.”

“I understand, believe me; I’m on your side. Now tell me about the client.”

“His name is Barton Winfield.”

“Yeah? I was expecting a name that rhymed with macaroni.”

“Your expectations are not misplaced. The guy’s name used to be something else, the rumor is, but I guess he thought he’d get more business and attract less attention if he came on like a major WASP. That’s what Marinello did, too. By the time he was in college he’d changed his name to Ralph Marin, like the county, but his friends called him Rock.”

“What’s Winfield’s line?”

“He’s a lawyer. In fact, Barry said he was Marinello’s law partner in the old days, before our boy decamped with the cookie jar.”

“A mob lawyer, huh?”

“Oh, no; he’s an arm’s-length operator. The gossip in the legal community, if you can call it that, is that Winfield doesn’t represent any mob guys directly; he’s more of a consultant. He suggests who they hire if they’re busted, that sort of thing, and he’s supposed to be a key business advisor to the head of one of the families out here, but nobody could ever prove it. It’s also rumored that he oversees their money-laundering operation, from a distance. Barry figured that Marinello was doing all this before he lit out, and that’s how he got hold of so much cash all at once. Winfield, whom he’d known since Stanford Law School, replaced him.”

“So he knew Marinello well, huh? Perfect.”

“Perfect is always good,” Rita said.

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