Page 67 of Princess's Revenge

“What are we going to do about it?” She said to tell her if I got anything out of Leo, but I didn’t know what he’d give me and she didn’t say what our course of action would be.

I hope she doesn’t think we’re going to take twenty-five guys down there and get into a gun battle over this.

“Andrea?”

“Go shower, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Hey,” I grab her arm.

She raises her brow at me, I need to remember my place. I let go and raise my hands in deference.

“I know you’re the boss but you’re also twenty-one years old and new to all of this. Maybe you’d like to share your thoughts with me on this situation?”

“Okay, what would you like to know?” She gives me a smile like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

“What are you going to do, Andrea?” I’m not screwing around anymore, I’m serious.

She calls me down with a finger, then whispers to me, “I’m going to call the DEA.”

“Christ, Andrea! That’s absolutely out of the question. You’re going to rat them out? That’s rule number one, you just don’t do that. You can’t collude with the federal government to have them take downmadeguys like this.”

She snaps, “Would you calm the fuck down?”

“You can’t do that, Andrea. We’d lose the respect of everybody. No one would ever work with us again. No one would trust us!”

“I’m not going to rat them out,” she says innocently, “I’m going to rat out the people bringing the drugs in. The Cassaduchis pay the port authority to let them know if anything is off, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“The DEA would have to wait till money changed hands for the drugs in order to be able to prosecute the Cassaduchis. They’ll be sitting somewhere in the dark waiting for the ship to arrive, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“So, when their inside man at the port sees all the DEA agents and warns off the Cassaduchis, it’ll just be the traffickers that the DEA have to deal with.”

“He’ll warn the ship that’s coming in too, Andrea. You’re probably only going to end up delaying them by a day or two, nothing more. The DEA isn’t going to tell the port cops to start searching every container on every ship.”

“I know that,” she smiles.

“Also, if you call the DEA now, they’re going to scout the location and set up everything from snipers to plain clothes undercover guys five hours in advance. This is not going to work.”

“That’s whatyouthink,” she taps my nose. “Why don’t you shower, then we’ll go get something to eat and I’ll show you. I’ll meet you at the car in thirty minutes.”

With that, she turns on her heel and she’s gone.

She certainly seems confident. I wonder what she’s up to?

We have dinner at a nice restaurant in the city, an Italian place, of course. The chef is a friend of my father’s. He is very happy to meet Andrea and they speak for quite some time.

Giovanni makes her feel very welcome and tells her—Your money is no good in this establishment, Donna Lupertazzi.

Andrea feels bad so she leaves the waitress a handsome tip.

She also manages to avoid talking about anything related to the drug deal at the docks.

We drive towards the port in silence and she directs me to where she wants to go. It wasnotin the port. After some prodding, Andrea tells me we’re going to a lookout point on top of a cliff with a fantastic view of dock eighty-seven.

Once I park, Andrea pulls a pair of binoculars out from the bag she’s brought with her, “You’d be surprised how much you can get done on the internet. Google maps is amazing!” She gives me a big smile and gets out of the car.

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