Delicate Chaos Read Free Page A

he already looked like
     he’d been on a six-day bender. It was common knowledge that that sort of thing happened when you hit fifty. For him, forty-five
     had happened a month ago. This meant he was five years ahead of his time—at looking old. Great.
    The waiter dropped another beer on the table and gave the untouched glass a sideways look that said, trailer trash . Anderson shook his head, wondering how even waiters in DC could be such sanctimonious pricks. A few seconds later Leona
     entered the restaurant and he caught her attention by waving. He watched as she picked her way through the throng of tables.
     When she walked, her body was a dichotomy, different parts moving in different directions. The result was sultry. Her breasts
     swayed slightly, but not too much. Her hips moved with a wavelike motion and he could see the heads turning as she made her
     way through the tables. From the first moment he had met her, he’d thought she was sexy—her body and her smile. He liked working
     for her charity. It meant he got to see her and talk to her, one-on-one. She settled into the chair opposite him.
    “Sorry I’m late,” Leona said, flashing him one of her natural, disarming smiles. Fact was, she was almost always late, despite
     setting her watch ten minutes early. It was a minor character flaw—one she felt could be overlooked. “Unexpected business
     at the office.”
    “I’m happy. I ask for a beer, waiter brings one.”
    Leona glanced at the bottle. “How are you, Mike? You okay with the booze?”
    “Yeah, I’m fine. Sticking to beer these days. No hard stuff.”
    “How are things with Susan?” Leona asked.
    Anderson shrugged. “She’s an ex-wife I still love. And she’s living with another guy. How do you think things are?”
    “You have to let her go.” Leona slid her hand across the table and rested it on his thick forearm. “Life goes on.”
    He didn’t respond other than to take another sip of beer with his free hand. The waiter approached and asked Leona what she
     wanted to drink. His tone was nicer now, civil even. Leona was business class—she belonged. Christ, he hated the whole DC
     hierarchy thing. Maybe because he was on the outside looking in. The fat kid with pimples sitting by himself in the school
     cafeteria.
    “How’s Kubala?” Leona asked, concern creeping into her voice.
    “Not good. The poachers are still pissed at him over what happened when you were there three months ago. Every day is dangerous
     right now.”
    Mike Anderson was Leona’s point man for her nonprofit foundation. Save Them was dead in the water without him, and she knew
     it. Once the accountants finished totaling the donations from the fundraisers, Anderson took the money and made sure it got
     to the right people in Nairobi. Distributing cash from a nonprofit in the US was easy and safe, but in Africa it took on a
     whole new dimension. Arriving in Nairobi with a suitcase full of bearer bonds was an invitation to a permanent home in a small
     pine box. The first few times were scenes out of a bad movie. The corrupt immigration guards at the border, the dark cars
     that tailed them to the bank. Invitations, at gunpoint, to meet some of Nairobi’s most important, and dangerous, people. Those
     who could ensure the foundation’s money filtered down to those who needed it to protect the elephants. For a fee, of course.
    By his fifth trip to the Kenya capital, he had established the pipeline. Thirty-eight percent of Leona’s hard-earned donations
     went to three distinct groups who provided protection for the remaining sixty-two percent. The most difficult part of deciding
     who to pay was figuring out who was the most despicable. No sense paying someone in Nairobi who was subservient to somebody
     else, or you ended up paying two people. Find the most corrupt, most despicable, most loathsome guy on the block and deal
     with him. It was the approach Mike had taken, and it had worked well.
    The