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Saturday afternoon without making a single move to go inside, certain there was nothing more to Rainey’s frenetic groaning and foot stomping than desperation and rage. Imagine his surprise when Rainey turned up dead.
    It was a mistake any of the others could have made just as easily, but since Baumhower had been the one to make it, Cross had assigned him the task of disposing of the dead man’s body. He said it was the only fair thing to do.
    Cross couldn’t believe his accursed luck.
    Clarke was laying the blame for their predicament entirely at Andy Baumhower’s feet, but everyone knew it was really Cross who was responsible. He was the one who’d brought Rainey into the Class Act fold to begin with.
    His friends had always been able to see the low-rent real estate tycoon and self-proclaimed ‘investments broker’ as the silver-tongued shyster that he was, but not Cross. Forever on the lookout for another mentor, Cross had met Rainey at an otherwise boring dinner party and immediately insisted the Class Act wunderkinds do business with him. Rainey promised he could turn $100,000 of Class Act’s money into a hundred and twenty-five in only six months, and Cross wouldn’t rest until his partners had bought in, dismissing all their objections as the murmurs of small men who were terrified of becoming big ones.
    It was a decision he deeply regretted now, of course.
    Almost eight months later, Rainey had yet to return their original investment, let alone produce a profit from it, and it had seemed he was determined to go on punking them that way indefinitely, counting on their reluctance to spend money he knew they didn’t have by taking him to court. Now the asshole was dead, and every dime of their hundred grand was gone.
    It was a huge setback, to be sure, but only Cross knew the full extent of it. Clarke was blowing a gasket over this guy Joseph Reddick, when Reddick was actually the least of their problems. Their real problem was Ruben Lizama. Cross had managed to keep Ruben’s name out of things up until now, not wanting to hear all the wailing and gnashing of teeth he would have to endure if his friends found out what he’d done, but he couldn’t keep them in the dark any longer. They needed to recoup their hundred grand, fast, and put together another $150,000 to go with it, and the sooner they figured out how to do both, the better.
    They were all just dead men walking if they didn’t.

FOUR
    O f Ruben Miguel Lizama’s three older brothers, Jorge Junior, the eldest, was his favorite.
    Which really only meant that his tolerance for Jorge was greater than it was for either Juan or Roberto. Juan and Roberto liked to get in Ruben’s business, while Jorge never did. As the heir apparent to Jorge Lizama Senior, one of the most powerful Mexican drug lords operating out of North America, Jorge was too self-secure to have any interest in the private affairs of his brothers, no matter how his knowledge of them could be used to his own advantage.
    Ruben liked that.
    What Jorge liked about Ruben, conversely, was his baby brother’s complete indifference to power. While the prospect of someday inheriting the family business from the legendary El Principito (‘The Little Prince’) had both Juan and Roberto openly salivating, Ruben seemed almost put off by the idea. The amenities of wealth gave him great comfort but, unlike his older siblings, he had no use whatsoever for the influence wealth had on other people. Ruben had ways of his own to secure the cooperation of others, and none of them had anything to do with money.
    This last was something Jorge Junior didn’t like about Ruben, but for which he had a great deal of respect, nonetheless.
    ‘So. ¿Que pasa, manito? ’ Jorge said.
    It was late Monday afternoon in Manhattan, only hours after Perry Cross and friends had gathered together to discuss Andy Baumhower’s car accident with Joe Reddick on the opposite coast. The two Lizama brothers were sitting in