St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

getting.”
    Foley looked at the table. “Listen, babe, you really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “Then I’m out of time for you,” Kayla said, tucking the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “Places to go, things to do, and most of all, people to talk to. ”
    She put her hand around Rand’s wrist and tugged.
    “Huh?” he said.
    She lifted out one earbud and leaned in close. “We’re gone.”
    “Wait!” Foley said.
    “For what?” Kayla asked.
    “Look, I know how hard you’ve been working,” Foley began. “You’re overdue for a raise. Twenty thousand a year, okay?”
    “Twenty a year? That’s chump change,” she said.
    But she stopped pushing Rand out of the booth.
    He stuffed the second earbud back into place and closed his eyes, mostly because he was afraid to look in Faroe’s direction. Both of them would have fallen out of their chairs laughing.
    “She’s a natural,” Faroe said between snickers.
    “You’re making a lot more than twenty thou a year under the table,” Kayla said to Foley.
    “I didn’t say anything about money under the table, babe. I never said a word about that.”
    “I see. I threaten to talk out of school and you decide I’ve earned a raise. Yeah, that’ll fly, babe. ”
    Foley’s lips moved, but nothing came out.
    “You’re booking a fat, fat profit on Bertone’s money coming through the bank,” Kayla said. “It will look sweet on your year-end evaluation, so good that your bosses won’t go looking for unhappy lumps under the know-your-client carpet. Bet you get performance bonuses. Big ones. You’re a director, after all.”
    Foley took another swallow of his peppery drink, coughed, and cleared his throat.
    Rand sang fragments of “Devils and Dust.” Springsteen’s driving rhythms were echoed in Rand’s hips.
    “So I want the same percentage of profit from Bertone’s account that you get in bonuses,” Kayla said. “Somewhere around two million.”
    Foley removed his glasses, revealing the red eyes of a man who hadn’t slept well. He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked around as if expecting someone. “That’s impossible,” he said finally. “I can’t justify a raise like that.”
    “Make me a vice president, with performance bonuses back-dated to a month ago,” Kayla said. “Of course, you’ll have to clean up that lousy personnel evaluation you gave me two months ago, but I’m sure you’re up to it.”
    Rand forgot the words and just kept humming.
    “Hoo-yah,” Faroe said. “She’s a pistol!”
    Foley looked like he wanted to bang his head against the booth. “All right. It’s a deal.”
    “What is?” Kayla insisted.
    “You’ll be a VP and report directly to me. You’ll have your choice of offices—”
    “Yippee skip,” she said.
    He ignored her. “Plus the raise.”
    “Fifty thousand, minimum,” Kayla said.
    “But—” Foley throttled back his temper. The hell with it. The bitch won’t live to collect a cent. “Of course.”
    “I don’t expect to get paid the same performance bonus that a director gets,” she said reasonably, “but be smart and don’t chisel me.”
    “Don’t worry,” Foley said through his teeth. “You’ll get everything you deserve.”

48
    Chandler Mall
Sunday
11:28 A.M. MST
    A ndre Bertone’s hands were locked around the wheel of his parked car hard enough to leave dents. They’d been that way since he’d seen Kayla walk into the Cheesecake Factory with a man who looked like a cowboy and moved like a bodyguard.
    The headphones he wore kept bringing him news that went from bad to worse. Part of Bertone admired Kayla’s brass.
    Most of him just wanted to kill her. Then Foley.
    Slowly.
    What a putz.
    But a useful one. Until that changed, Foley would live.
    Mother of God, he didn’t even ask for Jerry’s last name. She could have told him everything!
    Not that it mattered. The snipers could kill two as easily as one. It was just that Bertone hated incompetence. He’d killed men simply because they were too stupid to live.
    Foley was shaping up to head the Must Die list.
    Bertone forced himself to unclamp his fingers from the wheel. No matter how delightful Foley’s neck would feel crushed betweenBertone’s hands, the banker was necessary. It would take time to cultivate another bank, another banker, all the messy details needed to launder money safely.
    In the meantime…
    Bertone punched a number on his speed dial.
    “Bueno.”
    “Nothing good