The yellow Lamborghini slid up to the curb, looking as out of place in Queens as a party hat at a funeral. The passenger door swung open in that unexpected reach for the sky, and a blonde creature flung herself out of the shotgun seat. Tall, leggy, poured into her clothes, hair like an anvil thundercloud. The exact same thing happened a moment later when the driver got out. Twins.
They laughed at the stuff blondes laugh at, enraptured with each other and oblivious to their surroundings. Including the two figures sitting in a parked car halfway up the block.
Despite being plainclothes, the watchers looked like cops and would have been made for cops on a less busy street. Tusk, in the passenger seat, looked keyed-up. Keegan, the driver, looked bored. Keegan seemed unhappy to be there, but so far he was actually quite entertained.
"So these two here," he said. "They are, according to your confidential informant-- and stop me if I've got this wrong --in charge of all cocaine trafficking for North America, which pretty much means the entire world, and have La Cosa Nostra at their beck and call." He chuckled, gestured with the kind of contemptuous languor only New Yorkers seemed capable of. "These two. These two bimbos who don't look like they have a single thought in their head between them. And he knows this how?"
"Doesn't say," Tusk murmured.
"Really."
As they watched, one of the twins flung her keys overhand to the valet, who plucked them easily from the air. Still laughing, the pair disappeared into the club.
"Look, he's never given me bad information before. And I know how ridiculous it is on the face of it, but at least we get to stake out some hot women."
"Yeah, until Merchins pulls the plug on whatever this is."
"It isn't anything, yet."
There was a long silence as Keegan let his partner's gears grind.
"Do you have names?" he finally said.
Tusk produced his notebook, but didn't consult it. "Arial and Mnemora Svenska."
"Good. Good work."
"'Svenska' means 'Swedish,' by the way. Not Swedish as in nationality, as in the language."
"Huh."
"They're supposed to be from Europe, but nothing backs that up. They don't have a paper trail, not so much as a public library card with their name on it. Obviously it doesn't prove the story, but it's interesting."
"So they're illegal."
"Maybe." Tusk gestured to the yellow Countach, now effortlessly reversed by the valet into a tiny gap in the club's parking. "They've got money. Why would they enter the country illegally?"
"It's somebody else's car."
"Yeah, maybe. There's something here."
"They're a couple of party girls talking themselves up while they live out their little fantasy of running with a buncha gangsters." Keegan looked beatific.
Tusk turned to face him. "Yes, and who would believe that? Why would my never-fail informant come to me with such obvious bullshit like it's a real thing?"
"I dunno, are you paying him enough?" Keegan smiled on the inside. "So what are we supposed to do with this?"
"Just follow them around a couple nights, see who they meet, find out whose bed they sleep in."
"See if we can use them to get inside," Keegan said. Now that made sense.
Tusk shrugged unhappily. "Yeah, if it's nothing, see if we can use them... maybe press the immigration thing, see how they react to that..."
"They're probably from fuckin' Nebraska." Keegan poked Tusk in the ribs. "Hey, did you check to see they have a license for that thing? Maybe you could give 'em a ticket."
Tusk rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna run the plates, I'll do all that. First I wanted to see if these two were even real."
There was a sudden flurry of staccato noise. Keegan and Tusk both startled. Fortunately for their self-respect, neither reached for their guns. Someone was tapping on the window like an angry crow, and it continued as the detectives flailed logily for the source of the sound.
It was the blonde twins, one on each side. Up close they were all long limbs and perfect, bosomy smiles, their eyes shiny as new pennies. They shouldn't have seemed intimidating, bracketing the car like that, but they really were tall, and apparently sneaky. The one on the left leaned down into Keegan's window, giving him a precipitous view of her cleavage.
"Yes," she purred. "We're real."
