Beyond Blue Read Free

crap. It’s bad enough I got to listen to Francine without having to listen to you, too. She’s thinking divorce. I know it.”
    Vinnie did not answer. He chewed on his lower lip and decided that whether Alex liked it or not, Vinnie was going to help him. Alex could no longer think straight.
He’s just figured out that Francine is thinking divorce?
he thought, convinced that Francine Brooks had been thinking about divorce from the first day she married Alex. The woman was taking him for a ride and if Alex wasn’t careful.. well, Vinnie didn’t like to think about what might happen, especially with Alex drinking more and more.
    Suddenly, Vinnie’s head snapped around. “Hey, man, did you see that?”
    On the other side of the Expressway, a new, silver 350Z shot past them in the other direction, seeming as blurred as a bullet in flight.
    â€œHe’s doing a hundred for sure,” Vinnie said.
    They were in uniform and could have turned around to stop him, but Vinnie had something else he had to deal with this morning. Besides, his ratty old Fairlane wouldn’t have a prayer of catching that sports car.
    â€œScrew him,” Alex said. “With any luck, he’ll be dead in five minutes. One less asshole in New York City.”
    Rafael Sandoval, piloting his brand new silver Nissan roadster expertly through the growing morning traffic, had no plans of dying anytime soon. He just loved the speedand the handling of the car and kept trying to push it to the limit. The thought of dying would never occur to him. In his world, handsome gentlemen in thousand dollar suits didn’t die in highway crashes.
    Sandoval was short, barely five feet six, but that had never bothered him.
Anyone can be tall. But it takes brains to be rich.
    He had a face like polished teakwood, his teeth even and very white, and his long-lashed eyes were the kind that men found a little disquieting and women loved to talk about getting lost in.
    Rafe pulled his Adidas sport glasses down over his face, against the sun which now burned into his eyes as he cut left onto Linden Boulevard toward JFK International Airport. He checked the lowest of the three small dials set into the blue face of his Breitling Chrono Avenger. When you pay more than three grand for a watch, you use its features. That morning, it was tracking his elapsed time. Time was money and money had always been the driving force in his life, especially since he had come from his native Colombia to the United States.
    He had come with only two hundred dollars and the clothes on his back, but with an ability to speak perfect English, courtesy of the nuns at his childhood parochial school. He quickly realized that his ability to speak English, along with his charm and native intelligence, made him the perfect choice to help other new immigrants navigate their way through the maze of bureaucracy and government that was the United States. At first, he charged small fees, then bigger as he moved from unknown to well known. His business cards now referred to him as an “expeditor,” and he had no shortage of Central American clients who needed help to relocate, to set up businesses, or just to deal with American bankers. He knew that most people with just a nodding acquaintance of him thought he was probably a drug dealer. But why bother with crime? This was the United States, and anyone could get rich if he wassmart and willing to work.
    If only he could convince his dumb kid brother, Hector, of that. He had promised their mama that he would take care of Hector, but the young brother was a little bit of a hothead, a sucker for get-rich-quick schemes. Still so far, not so bad. He had kept Hector out of trouble and the boy was young and could still learn.
    Rafe had gotten him a job at JFK Airport, working in baggage security. Then, to everyone’s surprise, some stupid retired cop had gotten himself suspended when drugs were found in his locker and