Page 43 of The Fourth Option
“Then what can I get you?”
“Since this is on Genyra and we’re all dressed up, let’s go with a bit of Pappy.”
“I should have guessed.”
“I’ll take it neat. A double.”
The order grated on Kimbel as trendy and needlessly expensive, but he fetched one from the bar anyway. Bates was vital to the operation and had a direct line to Vargas.
“So,” Kimbel said as Bates took his first sip, “Icy’s going to be our next governor.”
Bates lowered the glass and smiled. “Maybe your boss shouldn’t have dumped her.”
Kimbel shrugged. “I stay out of my CEO’s romantic life.”
“Well, you screwed up mine tonight. Her name’s Cecily, by the way. She took an Uber to my place. What the hell am I doing here, Walt?”
Kimbel picked up the iPhone on the table, unlocked it with his face, tapped a few numbers, then tilted it toward Bates.
“Still the account you want me to use, right?”
The slightest hint of a smile fractured Bates’s poker face when he saw seventy-five thousand dollars in the app’s transfer column.
Walt stabbed the button and waited for a response from the man across the table. A normal person would have expressed gratitude. Not Cornelius Bates.
“That’s just a little bonus to make sure our arrangement doesn’t change once Icy gets into the governor’s office in Baton Rouge,” Kimbel said. “We wanted to let you know what a valued partner you are.”
Kimbel caught the subtle shift in Bates’s posture, the way his mouth sucked his cheek. The trouble with dirty cops was that they never knew where to draw the line. Their egos always took over, incapable of the cool detachment needed to keep an operation running smoothly. Then again, that’s why they were cops, not businessmen. Kimbel knew what was coming.
Bates leaned in close, his voice nearly drowned out by the piano playing on the far side of the bar. “You think I’m fucking stupid, Walt? That I’ll keep doing this for scraps? I know you have your big product launch coming up.”
“Which one is that, Bates?”
“Xylaxyn.”
“You read the business section, congratulations.”
“I also know the ties between Xylaxyn and Snowball.”
“The hand that feeds, Cornelius,” Kimbel said, holding up his palm. “Watch those big teeth of yours.”
Bates sat back and laughed, sipping a little more bourbon, regarding Kimbel with a slit-eyed stare before leaning in again. “Xylaxyn will replace fentanyl. That’s your plan, right?”
“It’s possible. Fentanyl’s tainted even though it’s a bona fide cancer treatment.”
“What would your board, hell, what would the FDA do if they found out that your business partner in El Salvador was taking the precursor chemicals for Xylaxyn, which are every bit as potent as fentanyl but not on the DEA’s radar, and cutting them into the white pills the kids call Snowball?”
“You are playing a dangerous game, Bates.”
“If that fucking Staub kid figured it out, someone else will too.”
“You took care of that.”
“He figured out that Cuchillo’s legitimate sugarcane freighters were bringing it in. Now, how do you suppose a kid who was not even a journalist worked that out?”
“I think it started with your crew, Bates. I told Vargas that selling it in New Orleans was a bad idea.”
“I know you think you are hot shit, Walt. Even Cuchillo thinks you’re the whiz kid who masterminded a way to use Genyra’s pharmaceutical distribution network to move Snowball around the country and then launder the money to make the earnings reports shine. I understand all that, but with Genyra’s growth I want points on this.”
