Chapter 5: Claire

“What’s up?” I asked as I walked into Ed’s office and took a seat in front of his desk. Lou, Lester, and Joanie were already there, as was Danzig, who was standing next to Ed’s desk with his thick arms crossed over his chest. I caught Danzig eyeing by boobs as I sat down. I was wearing an open-collared white blouse beneath a short black jacket. I guess his vantage point gave him a quick look down my shirt as I sat down.

Danzig was such a perv. A young, very hot perv, but a perv nonetheless. I liked the way he looked in his tight t-shirts and often admired the bulge in the front of his tight jeans, but that was as far as the attraction went. He was not my type. Too many muscles, too much ego.

“Have a seat,” Ed said, sitting behind his desk, stapling his fingers to his chin. He directed Danzig to shut the door. “We might have a way into O’Connor’s organization.” He looked at me and smiled. “Do you still have that old outfit you wore during your Vice undercover days?”

“Oh lord,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Let me guess. You want me to be a dancer at The White Rabbit.”

“Close, but no,” Ed said with a contagious smile. The others grinned like they were all in on a joke I wasn’t privy to. “Remember in yesterday’s meeting, we talked about Boozie Hamilton wanting to retire? According to Lester’s source on the inside, she’d headed to Tampa for good this weekend.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, our wiretap picked up a call this morning,” Ed said, leaning his elbows on the desk and lacing his fingers together. “Sean O’Connor placed a call to a company called Allied Staffing and asked them to send out a few candidates to replace Boozie.”

I frowned at Ed. “Why would he do that?”

Ed frowned back at me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean why would he be so careless as to just hire her replacement from a staffing agency?” I asked. I glanced over at Lester, who was sitting on the other side of Lou picking at his fingernails. “According to your source, Lester, Boozie was a key advisor to Patsy O’Connor and knew every nuance of the business.”

“We don’t think Boozie’s replacement is going to have the same level of access,” Ed said. “This is just a straight secretarial position, someone to answer the phone and do some typing. I guess Sean O’Connor isn’t too worried about this new person getting into anything they aren’t supposed to, although they probably would have access to files, computers, emails.”

Danzig spoke up. “As best we can tell, Sean has moved all illegal ops away from the offices at the warehouse. He’s a sharp motherfucker. Since he took over he has managed to insulate his father and himself pretty well.”

“So why are we still busting our hump trying to convict Patsy O’Connor of anything?” Joanie asked in her bored lesbian tone. “I think we’ve missed the opportunity to catch him with his hand in the cookie jar.”

“There are just more cookie jars now,” Ed said. “And Sean has tightened the lids on them. Just because they’re harder to find, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Patsy O’Connor is a career criminal. He can’t quit breaking the law. It’s just not in his DNA.”

“My source says they’re still moving several millions of dollars in counterfeit goods every week through the docks,” Lester said.

“If your source is so sure, why doesn’t he give us something we can use to get a warrant?” Danzig asked as if he didn’t believe the source was as good as Lester claimed.

“He’s not in the loop anymore since Sean took over,” Lester said with a shrug of his narrow shoulders. “He said the bees are still buzzing, he just doesn’t know where the hive is.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Danzig asked.

“It means go fuck yourself,” Joanie chimed in. She frowned at Lester. “You been talking about this source of yours for weeks. Who is he?”

Lester shifted uneasily in his seat. “An anonymous voice on the phone.”

“You mean like Deep Throat?” I asked, referring to the White House mole from the old movie All The President’s Men.

Lester gave me the “go fuck you” look he usually reserved for Danzig and Joanie. He clenched his jaws and glanced at Ed.

“The source is anonymous, but he has given us intel that we checked out to prove he is an insider at O’Connor,” Ed said, holding up a hand to shut us up. “Let’s get back on point.”

He let his eyes go around the room, like a teacher daring his classroom to say another word.

He said, “I have already talked to the owner at the staffing agency that Sean O’Connor called. He has agreed to help us.”

“How?” I asked warily, knowing by the look on Ed’s face that it would somehow involve me.

“He is going to let us send someone out to interview for the job,” Ed said, tilting his head to look at me from beneath his eyebrows. “So, I’ll ask again. Claire, do you still have that outfit you used to wear when you were undercover in Vice.”

I huffed out a sigh. “Yes.”

“Good,” he said, handing me a resume for someone named Claire Goodman. “Your interview is at three with Sean O’Connor at the warehouse. Do your best to get the job.”