Bailey Boys would be enough to turn them away to softer targets.
Lots of maybes.
Dean didn’t have security at the New Duchess, as such. Óscar behind the bar looked pretty handy, and Reuben, whose main role was standing out on the seafront promenade trying to smooth-talk potential customers in for a drink and maybe a bite to eat, was no hundred pound weakling, but there was no-one on the door. It wasn’t that kind of place.
I spent the first evening out on the street by the Duchess with Reuben, working my Cockney charm with the punters, getting a feel for the place.
It was a different pace of life here in San Pedro, just a few miles along the coast from Puerto Libre. It was hard to match up Dean’s story of dealers and mobsters with what I could see over the next two days and nights.
But I trusted my brother, and you don’t exactly misinterpret a discussion like the one he’d had with the Russians. They never like to leave much room for interpretation, in my experience.
I wondered how many of the local businesses they’d already acquired an interest in? The tapas restaurant next door? The bar next to that? The row of tourist shops after that? The hotel on the other side? The sea food place?
On my second day hanging out at the New Duchess I explored the neighborhood, asked a few questions. Drew up a blank. That wasn’t unusual, of course. Nobody liked to talk about that kind of thing. But there’s not talking because you’re scared, and not talking because you haven’t got a clue, and I started to get the distinct impression this was an example of the latter variety.
So if that was the case, why was the New Duchess being targeted? Was it because of who owned it, or was it simply because it was a newly thriving business in what had been a sleepy pocket of this coast and so the obvious first move for someone who wanted to claim the territory?
It was impossible to say, on the information I had, but I was getting a feeling. The kind of feeling a cop describes as a hunch and someone like me recognizes as survival instinct kicking in.
Again, I was reminded of the way Fearless talked about the Costa. Layer upon layer of complexity, currents of power and corruption seething below the surface but which you can never quite grasp.
I’d promised Dean I’d keep an eye on things, and the more I did so, the more convinced I became that we had very good reason to be wary.
§
On the second night I sat at the bar with an Estrella and a bowl of peanuts, just another customer.
I liked what Jess and my brother had done here. The whole English bar thing was huge on the Costa, but the New Duchess was pitched at the upper end of that market, classy.
When Dean and Jess had taken the place over I’d been surprised, and I’d put it down to a kind of homesickness: bringing a bit of London to the Costa. Even the name had been a play on our old family pub in Poplar, The Old Duchess.
I’d been mistaken. What I’d identified as misplaced nostalgia had been a sharp business sense at work: between them, Dean and Jess had taken a look at the market and worked out where to pitch in. Dean really had stepped away from the old life.
Maybe my cynicism was misplaced. Maybe he really could make a clean break. If only we could sort out the current situation.
I’d been trying to explain some of this to Jess, who was working the bar tonight. Trying to get across how impressed I was, and how I’d realized maybe Dean was talking more sense than I’d credited him with a few days earlier.
Maybe it was me who was foolish, trying to get back into the business when it was, as everyone kept telling me, a very different game out here.
“So what’s happened, Lee?”
I’d been surveying the room, but now I swung my gaze back to Jess. She sometimes came across as a bit flippant, but she could be more perceptive than just about anyone I’d encountered. And she had a look that could cut right through you.
“Huh?”
“You,” she said.
Lots of maybes.
Dean didn’t have security at the New Duchess, as such. Óscar behind the bar looked pretty handy, and Reuben, whose main role was standing out on the seafront promenade trying to smooth-talk potential customers in for a drink and maybe a bite to eat, was no hundred pound weakling, but there was no-one on the door. It wasn’t that kind of place.
I spent the first evening out on the street by the Duchess with Reuben, working my Cockney charm with the punters, getting a feel for the place.
It was a different pace of life here in San Pedro, just a few miles along the coast from Puerto Libre. It was hard to match up Dean’s story of dealers and mobsters with what I could see over the next two days and nights.
But I trusted my brother, and you don’t exactly misinterpret a discussion like the one he’d had with the Russians. They never like to leave much room for interpretation, in my experience.
I wondered how many of the local businesses they’d already acquired an interest in? The tapas restaurant next door? The bar next to that? The row of tourist shops after that? The hotel on the other side? The sea food place?
On my second day hanging out at the New Duchess I explored the neighborhood, asked a few questions. Drew up a blank. That wasn’t unusual, of course. Nobody liked to talk about that kind of thing. But there’s not talking because you’re scared, and not talking because you haven’t got a clue, and I started to get the distinct impression this was an example of the latter variety.
So if that was the case, why was the New Duchess being targeted? Was it because of who owned it, or was it simply because it was a newly thriving business in what had been a sleepy pocket of this coast and so the obvious first move for someone who wanted to claim the territory?
It was impossible to say, on the information I had, but I was getting a feeling. The kind of feeling a cop describes as a hunch and someone like me recognizes as survival instinct kicking in.
Again, I was reminded of the way Fearless talked about the Costa. Layer upon layer of complexity, currents of power and corruption seething below the surface but which you can never quite grasp.
I’d promised Dean I’d keep an eye on things, and the more I did so, the more convinced I became that we had very good reason to be wary.
§
On the second night I sat at the bar with an Estrella and a bowl of peanuts, just another customer.
I liked what Jess and my brother had done here. The whole English bar thing was huge on the Costa, but the New Duchess was pitched at the upper end of that market, classy.
When Dean and Jess had taken the place over I’d been surprised, and I’d put it down to a kind of homesickness: bringing a bit of London to the Costa. Even the name had been a play on our old family pub in Poplar, The Old Duchess.
I’d been mistaken. What I’d identified as misplaced nostalgia had been a sharp business sense at work: between them, Dean and Jess had taken a look at the market and worked out where to pitch in. Dean really had stepped away from the old life.
Maybe my cynicism was misplaced. Maybe he really could make a clean break. If only we could sort out the current situation.
I’d been trying to explain some of this to Jess, who was working the bar tonight. Trying to get across how impressed I was, and how I’d realized maybe Dean was talking more sense than I’d credited him with a few days earlier.
Maybe it was me who was foolish, trying to get back into the business when it was, as everyone kept telling me, a very different game out here.
“So what’s happened, Lee?”
I’d been surveying the room, but now I swung my gaze back to Jess. She sometimes came across as a bit flippant, but she could be more perceptive than just about anyone I’d encountered. And she had a look that could cut right through you.
“Huh?”
“You,” she said.
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