The United Cartels of America, Season 6 (Queen of the South)

Part 2 - Snowblow

Pote really liked the grand pool at their Madagascar resort, especially when he could do laps undisturbed by others early in the morning and when his lungs didn't want to choke him. He was very proud to have tossed smoking out the window a year ago. The recollections of hardly being able to swim in the lake where Kelly Anne had been submerged in the water after they car having been run off the road, still made the hairs on his neck stand up.

Just then he realized that someone was standing over the pool edge waiting for him to get to the end of the lane. Then came Kelly Anne's voice: "I reviewed all loading manifests last night as you started snoring and I couldn't fall asleep!"

Pote brushed the water off his face, mumbled an apology and then gestured for her to go on.

"The liquor and the food deliveries all tie...whatever is happening is not in the restaurants." Kelly Anne had squatted by the poolside and now got up impatiently: "When are you going to be out of here? I want us to visit the expansion construction site."

"Isn't James there with Alina, the lawyer?" Pote said surly. They had come on the same flight yesterday, but James had run off to the office to a meeting with that Alina and had left them at the hotel. Kelly Anne, who hated to sit tight when something was bugging her, had made calls and written emails, until finally a clerk had appeared with a stack of loading manifests and a bottle of champagne, complements of the hotel operations manager. Pote had enjoyed the alcohol alone as Kelly Anne avoided drinking unless it was a special occasion. Sacrificing one of her kidneys to get James out of prison had had some positive consequences! Pote thought and smiled secretly.

===

An hour later they parked at the dusty improvised parking lot next to the construction site to be informed that Mr. Valdez and Ms. Alina Alicante had gone to brunch where they'd review the contact that was to be signed this afternoon. No surprises there! Pote thought grimly as Kelly Anne kept talking about going to the storage facility alone to check the newly arrived material: from cement bags and brick pallets to construction steel beams. He pushed the thought of James and the lawyer out of his head as it kept giving him nasty premonitions.

"I myself don't understand much about construction...as it was always James who dealt with things...", Pote was saying as she interrupted him: "I was the one ordering things for James when Teresa was preggo...I know what I'm looking for! Come with me...Let's get the documents of the most recent order and look around!" and off she went in her low heel loafers, worn exactly for the occasion.

===

They had walked around for more than half hour after having received the loading documents from the clerk on shift, the only person manning the facility. They had been informed that all four cement trucks had been loaded very early in the morning and had left, while all other construction workers had been called on site.

Kelly Anne was dressed down but even that could not stop her from making faces as the dust and the dirt settled on their clothes and their hair. She kept brushing her jacket with her hands as she finally pulled short and said: "I don't get it. The discrepancy I showed you was only about 100 kgs in that last delivery. It's not a lot for this shitload of cement...but still...and there's a delivery every week...so it's 400kg!"

"Let's see behind the panel where the glass is stored!" Pote said and started walking. "I don't get why they'd order glass panels when the building has one floor ready only! This only keeps our money tied!"

The glass panels were over 50 and made the walking around them tricky, but Pote kept squeezing as he was certain there was a pallet offloaded in the back. Kelly Anne made disgruntled noises behind him but kept following.