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the Turkmen looked like. Brull imagined a fleshy, jowly guy in a cheap suit, the armpits stained with sweat. Probably small eyeglasses perched on a piggy nose, and sparse hair plastered sideways across his scalp with Brylcreem, or whatever brand of hair product they used in Turkmenistan.
    Brull had Googled Turkmenistan, too. It looked like an utter shithole, squashed into the middle of Asia next to the Caspian Sea, with a human rights record that put it in Amnesty International’s basement. Kind of like Brull’s own Cuba in Castro’s heyday, but without the sunshine and the terrific music.
    But what it did have, was natural gas reserves. A ton of them. And that meant that there were a whole lot of rich people in Turkmenistan. Rich people who were looking to branch out internationally, and who were putting out feelers into locations such as Beijing and Bangkok and  London and Toronto and Miami, where businessmen like Ernesto Justice Brull were offering a niche product.
    So Brull didn’t much care how repulsive Popok, or his home nation, were.
    He saw a market, and he responded to it.
    He said: “It didn’t work out tonight. There was a complication. I’m working on it.”
    Down the crackle of the line, Brull thought he heard heavy, labored breathing. Maybe Popok had asthma or something. Maybe he was smoking a cigarette.
    Or maybe he was getting a blowjob.
    Brull recoiled at the thought.
    Popok said, “Complication?”
    “Yes. Don’t worry about it. It’s a detail. Nothing more.”
    Another pause.
    “This is unacceptable,” said Popok.
    “It is what it is,” Brull said, easily.
    “I require confirmation that product has been dispatched.” The Turkmen sounded to Brull like a not particularly intelligent customer calling to complain that his bulk order of Doritos was late arriving.
    Brull said: “You’ll get that confirmation. Right now, I’ve got nothing more to offer you but my word.”
    He expected the man to start blustering, to threaten him. But instead he listened to silence for a few seconds. Then Popok said, “When can I expect news?”
    “Most likely tomorrow night.”
    Popok grunted. He sounded disapproving, but pacified.
    “What went wrong?” he said in his thick accent.
    “Nothing, really,” Brull answered smoothly. “My men were just taking extra care. They evaluated the situation, believed there to be a risk of the police taking an interest, and decided to abort the meeting. They chose wisely, in my view. Better to be safe than sorry.”
    “The police...?” murmured the Turkmen at the other end.
    “Like I said. Don’t worry. Of course there are cops everywhere. This is Miami. There happened to be a few of them in the vicinity tonight, just out on patrol, and my guys decided it wasn’t worth the risk.” Brull was getting impatient at covering old ground all over again. “Listen, I’ll call you tomorrow, around the same time.”
    He hung up and dropped the phone on the seat next to him.
    In truth, he had no idea if the meet could take place tomorrow night. He didn’t know what the cops knew, or whether they were even now boarding the boat and making enquiries. He was pretty sure this New York cop, this Venn guy, wasn’t anything more than a passerby who, in an unfortunate turn of coincidental events, happened to have seen Elon knocking the mystery man unconscious. But Venn had called the local cops, and the unconscious stranger was now under their protection, and Brull didn’t know who in the hell the man was.
    So things had gotten complicated.
    There were three priorities, then.
    Find out more about Venn and what he was doing in Miami.
    Find the stranger whose assistance Venn had gone to.
    And reschedule the Merry May business.
    Brull saw a wide boulevard ahead and floored the accelerator, exulting in the surge of the Challenger’s engine as it roared beneath him.
    It was going to be a long night.

Chapter 10
    The cop Venn was riding with was good, keeping pace with the