White Cargo (html) by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-05-14T23:39:28+00:00

They were on their first course when a large party entered the restaurant and were shown to a huge round table in a nearby corner. Cat counted twelve, and two of them were Anglo-looking women, elegantly dressed. The men seemed a mixture of Anglo and Latino, and all wore sober business suits. One of them interested Cat more than the others.

He seemed to be in his mid-thirties, and, in spite of his conservative suit, his hair was long, worn in a ponytail.

Cat nodded toward the table.

"I have the oddest feeling that the man with the ponytail is the woman I saw playing tennis at the drug dealer's house this afternoon."

"Are you sure?" Meg asked.

"No, but I remember she ran in a masculine way. I think the hairdo may have clouded my judgment."

Cat glanced frequently at the table. No menus were offered, but food and wine appeared as if the host had ordered everything in advance. As Cat and Meg were finishing, and as waiters were clearing away the dishes from the first course at the large table, the man with the ponytail rose and walked in the direction of the men's room. Cat got up and followed him for a better look.

The man was smaller than Cat, and his pin-striped suit was closely cut, with double vents, a full skirt, and pinched at the waist. Cat had been buying clothes in London long enough to know a Savile Row suit when he saw one. He was about to follow the man into the rest room, when another, larger man stepped in front of him and said something in Spanish.

Cat shrugged.

"I just want the men's room," he said.

"One moment, please," the man said in heavily accented English.

Cat waited a couple of minutes, then the ponytailed man came out and walked past him back to his table, without so much as a glance at Cat.

The larger man indicated that Cat could now enter the men's room. He did so, etching into his mind the memory of the ponytailed man. He was small, five-seven or so, well-built, athletic-looking, fair skin, light brown hair, an intelligent face, with a wide, vaguely cruel mouth. Cat had never seen him before, but he would never forget him, he was sure of that.

Back at the table. Cat lingered over coffee and dessert, trying vainly to pick up snatches of conversation from the larger table. At one point the two women went to the ladies' room and the bodyguard, who had been hovering nearby, followed them there and back.

Cat and Meg finished their dinner and left the restaurant.

As they came out of the building. Cat saw the stretch Cadillac limousine waiting at the curb, and a few yards away. Bill's taxi.

"Bill," Cat said, as they got into the cab, "drive around the block and park where we can see the building entrance."

Bill did as he was told.

"What are you going to do?" Meg asked.

"I'm not really sure," Cat answered.

"I just want to see where they go. As he spoke two other, shorter, limousines drove up and parked at the building's entrance.

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