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He hung up and looked at Byrth.
“What was that about?” Jim said.
“I called the Union League, where you stayed last time?”
Byrth nodded.
“They’re sold out. Then, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it first, I called the Hops Haus. They maintain a couple of one-bedroom condos that they rent out like hotel rooms. If you don’t have room for a guest in your condo, you can put them up downstairs in a place that’s as nice as any five-star but at a quarter the price.”
“Thanks. But a week? My blood is too thin for this cold weather, and I’m accustomed to closing cases faster than that.”
“However long you like. Now, I need to find us a car.”
“I’ve got a rental,” Byrth said, pulling out a key. “You want to drive? It’s your town.”
“You do remember what happened to the last two cars I had.”
Byrth met his eyes, then stuffed the key back in his pocket.
“On second thought, you can navigate.”
VIII
[ONE]
Kensington, Philadelphia
Monday, November 17, 3:21 P.M.
Driving back into Philadelphia, Ricky Ramírez knew he was on extremely shaky ground with Dmitri Gurnov.
Gurnov was the angriest he had ever been with him after he allowed Krystal Gonzalez to get her hands on the ledgers and then screwed up the chance to get them back. He shook his head, remembering what Dmitri had said.
“There’s gonna be hell to pay for this. Mr. Antonov does not like surprises.”
And now, driving back from Atlantic City when Gurnov thought Ramírez was headed to Miami would probably put him over the top.
But not if I get this woman, get the books.
Everything, it will be good again.
Especially since he called and said he hadn’t found her at none of those places.
Héctor, he will know what to do.
Ricky was on his third NRG! drink in as many hours, sucking down the small cans of caffeine and sugar water to battle his hangover and exhaustion. It was starting to make him even more anxious.
It had been a miserable trip to the Jersey Shore. The drive had begun early that morning, after he had loaded into the Mazda minivan four girls who had spent the last week working out of the Players Corner Lounge. It was snowing, and the road conditions were poor, making rush hour traffic worse than usual on the way out.
It had taken more than two hours to reach Atlantic City. At Tiki Bob’s Surf Shack—which was eight blocks inland from the Lucky Stars Casino on the boardwalk and set up similar to Players Corner Lounge, with strippers downstairs and two floors of beds above—the exchange of the four in the minivan for the three girls who had worked the week at Tiki Bob’s had taken far longer than Ricky would have preferred.
Then, on the way back on the Atlantic City Expressway, just past the exit for Egg Harbor, New Jersey, a bus had been in the middle of at least a ten-car pileup.
Worse, he had been stuck listening to the girls whine.
“I still don’t get why we aren’t hitting Florida next, Ricky,” Janice, a twenty-year-old pasty-skinned brunette, had said from the backseat.
His chunky, pockmarked face filled the rearview mirror as he met her eyes.
