The Retirement Plan

Chapter 26

"You gotta smoke that in here?" Reggie said, brow wrinkling over the top of his shades.

"Whadda you care?" Ricky said, blowing smoke out. "It's a rental. And it's in my name."

"And, I'm driving."

"I've seen you drive drunk. Hell, I've been in the car with you while you doing it."

"Your point being?"

"My point being," Ricky said, flicking ash out the window. "If you weren't worried about eight rum and cokes impairing your driving, don't be getting all high and mighty about a little smoke getting in your eyes."

"I ain't concerned about it affecting my ability to steer," Reggie said. "I'm worried about it affecting my ability to breathe."

From the back seat, Miley said: "Where was the ceremony?" The two men looked into the back, puzzled. "You're like an old married couple."

Reggie chuckled. "Married to him? Sheeit, you see the way he live. Man, the roaches slip under his door, seconds later, they scuttling back out in shock."

Ricky snorted. "You're so anal, you'd give an obsessive-compulsive a migraine." The two men looked at each other and cracked up.

"How've you guys not killed each other yet?" Miley said.

"The day is long," Reggie said.

"Be a lot shorter for all us," Ricky said. "You don't watch where you're going."

"The what now?"

"You damn near knocked that pillar over."

Reggie switched the engine off. "I left plenty of room—it's all that dope you smokin', boy, fucking up your spatial awareness."

"My financial awareness is just fine," Ricky said, "and I know what Carlo's like—we leave a skid mark on the john, he'll bill me for it. Already cost me two grand to get this place for the week."

"You serious? We coulda booked into a five-star hotel for half that."

"I'm pretty sure they operate a no hostage in the room policy."

Reggie parked the car under the red clay-tiled pyramid-roofed gazebo in the middle of the curving, paved driveway. "Even got a place to park your car, so it remain cool. That's money."

"That's an illusion," Ricky said as they exited the car and made their way up the paved drive to the large, cream-colored terraced villa. "Guys racked up more debt than an emerging nation. His restaurants are tanking, and he can barely keep up with the mortgage on this place."

Reggie gave the garden a sweeping gaze, stopping on the variegated foliage of the Pink Beauty Caladiums edging the drive. "Huh, this Carlo something of a green thumb."

"Think I'd entrust my grow to any old fool," Ricky said. "Man names the plants. He rings me up, tells me how Gia and the girls are getting tall, how they budding. I hadda tell him to quit it."

"Why?"

"'Cause, if anyone listening in to us talking 'bout budding girls, won't be the drug-squad kicking down our door, it'll be the sex-crimes unit." Ricky unlocked the white front door, letting Miley and Reggie squeeze past.

Reggie fixed himself a glass of water from the tap. "Good call on moving place."

Miley dropped her shopping bags on the kitchen table. "Definitely. That place gave me the creeps."

Reggie removed the shades, let her see how offended he was. "What the hell's the matter with my crib?"

Miley waved a hand. "No, no, I didn't meant it like that."