An Excert
Larry Jenkins picked up the telephone on the fourth ring, just before the answering machine picked up.
"Hello?" he said into the phone, more a question than a statement.
"Larry?" a female voice asked from the other end.
"Kelly, what can I do for you" he replied pleasantly.
Larry was an information broker, a dealer in data. He'd known about Kelly's meeting with Hernando and he'd expected her call. But it was best not to advertise that fact. Over the years, he'd discovered that most of his clients liked his information unless it was about them. So he kept up illusions that he gathered information on everyone, except the client he was currently speaking with.
"I need some information," she told him.
"Go on," Larry replied, already aware that she was going to ask for one of two things. She either wanted to know whether Hernando could be trusted, or where she could find what Hernando was looking for.
"I assume you already know that I met with Hernando yesterday," she said.
She was a rare one. She was realistic enough to know that Larry gathered all kinds of information and gave him the benefit of the doubt about his abilities.
"I remember hearing something to that effect," Larry replied as noncommittally as possible.
"Can he be trusted?" she asked him.
"Normally, I'd say no, but this time, I think he is probably legit."
"Then you know what he's looking for?"
"I've heard," Larry responded.
"What can you tell me about it?" Kelly asked.
"Not much, I'm afraid. Once out of Argentina, they fell off of the map."
Kelly knew that Larry was lying. He had to be. He was an information broker and this was valuable information that any number of parties would be interested.
"Do you have any idea where they might be?" Kelly asked, looking for anything that would help her narrow down the search.
"Not really. I've heard vague rumors, nothing more. And the rumors seem to contradict each other. Nothing reliable at all."
It didn't make sense. This was uncharacteristic for Larry. He usually took great pride in having the information his clients needed, or at least being able to find it. But he didn't even seem interested in this.
"Will you let me know if you hear something?" Kelly asked.
"Certainly," Larry replied.
Kelly hung up, severing the connection. If Larry wasn't interested in this, that meant that he'd either been told to leave it alone or he'd already sold the information to another client.
It would take someone pretty big, bigger than Kelly, to make him leave it alone. There weren't many players who had more pull than Kelly, other than governments. Perhaps the United States was leaning on him for some reason.
But if he already sold the information to another client, then that could explain a great many things. Maybe that was why Hernando had been trying to negotiate on her price. He may have already hired some of her competition. She couldn't think of anyone who would be able to pull this off, but maybe Hernando didn't know that.
She picked up the phone and quickly dialed a number. When the person on the other end answered, Kelly didn't waste time with pleasantries.
"Send payment instructions to Hernando. We're taking the job."
She hung up and tapped the phone lightly against her cheek, lost in thought. She would be damned if she was going to let Larry stonewall her on this. He should know better. She was going to take the assignment and then she was going to have a long talk with Hernando about proper etiquette.