and hotels. I own half of Montgomery County, sugar. He couldn’t seem to decide whether to hit on her, buy property with her, both, or neither.
She wondered why Sullivan would make her a part of his criminal conspiracy at all. After all, he had sixty-five million dollars stashed in local banks, at least as much offshore. For bigger deals, he could raise hundreds of millions from his partners or borrow from BankAlabama. He hardly needed her.
But Boone assured her he was interested. Lots of folks can give him money. Just none of ’em look like you. A polite way of saying that if she expected to get close to Sullivan, she’d have to let him get close to her.
A move that would have been easier if she liked Sullivan even a little. But everything about him, from his drawl to his double chin to his boots—boy down near Mobile makes ’em from gators he catches his own self—turned her off. Some successful men seemed to take perverse pride in their own awfulness, the fact that they dominated despite being ugly in body and soul.
Or maybe Sullivan just had no idea how he came off.
She made sure she never hinted at her feelings. She didn’t think Sullivan was the type to notice, anyway. Still, after five months she feared she’d failed. The bureau had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars putting together her cover, made itself the proud owner of two apartment buildings barely fit for human habitation. She had asked Fred Smith about renovating them, but he insisted she do nothing. Nothing will blow your cover faster than fixing ’em up.
If GULFSTREAM failed, her FBI career would be in trouble. Maybe she could move to Clanton, manage the properties. Smith told her not to worry. These jobs have a rhythm; he’s checking you out.
* * *
Sure enough, her phone—Rachel’s phone—trilled a week later. “This my favorite stewardess?”
“Dray? What a pleasant surprise.”
“Rattrap for sale. Down 206 pas’ that Piggly Wiggly.”
“News to me.” Though it wasn’t.
“You think the bank calls you ’fore me?”
“Shouldn’t have told me, now I have to outbid you.”
“Why fight when we can you-know-what?”
“No, what?”
“This way you learn from the best. Gotta get it done quick, though.”
So Rachel Townsend and Draymond Sullivan became partners not even six months after they met. The deal was small, three million in all, six hundred thousand down, the rest borrowed. No laws broken, at least as far as Rachel could tell. Fred Smith assured her they were making progress. He wants to see what kind of partner you are. Don’t ask too many questions, let him lead.
Rebecca didn’t argue with Smith, but she didn’t entirely agree. Sullivan mostly ignored women unless they were either old and useful to him, like his secretary, or young and pretty, like his secretary’s daughter. Yet he liked showing off for Rachel Townsend. Maybe her expensive flashiness reminded him of himself. Rachel drove a new BMW M3, a bright red rocket, two doors and 330 horsepower. The car became a crucial prop, and something more. When she got behind the wheel in Birmingham, she was Rebecca, but by the time she pulled off the interstate in Montgomery, she was Rachel.
Sullivan rode with her once on their way to Clanton. On a flat stretch of 65 where the cops couldn’t hide, she hit 110, swishing the BMW between tractor trailers.
“Trying to kill me?” he said.
“Pussy.”
He looked hard at her. The M3 was cramped, even for average-sized adults. Sullivan stood six foot three and weighed close to three hundred pounds. She wondered if she’d gone too far. Instead he smiled.
“Even wonder why I don’t hit on you, Rachel?”
“You do hit on me.”
“Yeah, but I stop when you tell me, so it don’t count.”
“You respect me.”
A line that set him laughing so hard his belly shook.
“We both earned it the hard way.”
“You spent your twenties on your back for a Russian too?”
“My daddy sold Buicks. Good money. ’Cept he had a problem with dice. Huntsville was just big enough to have its own place to roll. By the time he was done, no more Buicks. No more house. No more daddy, day the sheriff slapped that eviction paper on our door he went upstairs and ate hisself a shotgun.”
“I’m sorry, Draymond.”
He flapped a hand, Don’t be. “Worthless coward bastard. My momma said she’d get a job cleaning houses, only she couldn’t clean worth a damn. Soon enough white people didn’t come poorer than us. Worst part was it happened when I