Summer winds blew with the hot air with a whimper shaking the palm trees outside. The afternoon sunlight had melted away ay comfort one may have found when walking the streets. Shade was brief outside Venus' Beauty Salon in Little Havana, Miami Florida. Inside, the fans were blowing hard on the highest setting as a girl was busy cutting hair for a customer in a chair. Cuban music was heard in and clear from a stereo boombox across the room. The volume was turned high on purpose to distort out any unwanted listeners from overhearing conversations in the back room. 

Venus sat behind her fancy, black marble and gold desk. A fan was on her desk blowing cool air towards her face. Hair fixed in a ponytail to compliment her casual wear of the day. Another fan was blowing across the room as she sat with a phone on the table and other paperwork. This was the day-to-day life Venus had. She hid within her salon and operated the real business behind a door for employees only. Charlotte was her only trusted assistant. The blonde haired, buxom girl spent all her time waiting on Venus hand and foot. She answered the phone; delivered drinks, lunch and the most important thing of handling the notebooks. It was Charlotte's duty to keep tabs on all the girls back at the Sunburst Hotel. They were a small crew of girls escorting under Venus.

"It's so fucking hot today. I don't know how we're gonna last another month of this." Venus sighed. She raised her glass to her lips, taking a sip of cold soda while Charlotte stood in front of the desk. 

"I guess we have to get used to this. It'll be even hotter next year."

Venus rolled her eyes at that remark. She tried to smile, not wanting to think about the intense heat for now. The desk phone started to ring. Charlotte wasted no time rushing over to the desk to grab it and answer.

"Hello?" Her face lit up in a wide smile.

"Oh, hey Tony! You just get back in town?" 

"Yeah, I'm back. Put Venus on the phone." 

Before Charlotte had a chance to hand the phone over, Venus grabbed the receiver and pulled it from her. "Hey baby. I'm glad you called, I was getting bored in here." 

Tony laughed. "Oh yeah? I'm back from my little trip. I'll tell you about it when we're home." 

"Are you home now?" 

"No, not yet. I'm coming by to pick you up and go home. I'm in the car using the phone from it. Get ready, I'm about to pick you up."

That reply made Venus smile. She was saved from the heat of the day. The phone clicked and hung up. She got up from her black leather chair and stretched her arms out. She grabbed her sunglasses off the shelf behind her and her purse. She then turned to Charlotte as she began to walk out the door.

"You're closing shop today. I expect you'll be back at the hotel after you lock the doors?"

Charlotte nodded. "Yes, just like you showed me." 

Venus nodded as she stepped out the door. She slipped on the sunglasses and then stomped out of the back room, taking the back exit like she always did when Tony came to pick her up. The sunlight and heat was overwhelming outside with no shade to cover her. She stood around and waited to see that slick, black Mercedes Benz 300SD pull into the parking lot. Tony beeped the horn in a playful gesture as she dashed to the front passenger side door and opened it up. She got in, smiling as he leaned over to kiss her cheek. With her seat belt strapped on, Tony shifted gears to pull out.

"Thank God we're going home. It has been so fucking hot today in the salon." She let out another sigh while leaning back in the seat. 

Tony had used the built in-phone inside the car to call her. He hated using a cellphone or a landline to make calls. One quick phone call on the road was untraceable. The brick sized cellphone they kept in his office was used only to make deals with established contacts and given to trustworthy people. Venus had a burner phone and pager she made Charlotte use for arranging the escorts with their clients. Every other call had to be made via payphone as a testament of caution. 

"How was your trip?" Venus turned to look at him after asking her question. Tony just shook his head.

"It's too hot up north, I can tell you that. I did get some of the guns, but not the stuff I wanted." 

She turned to gaze out the window, watching the streets pass in a blur. The deal to acquire an ownership stake in the Sunburst Motel had left them in a bit of a bind. The drug deals had slowed down to a complete halt with no major deal to give dealers a steady supply on the street. Tony still had 20 keys of pure Colombian cocaine sitting and ready to be sold. Those were saved for a big time deal, one that was worth months of waiting. 

Starting over from the ground up, Tony was left with much debt and an organization in shambles before he made that trip to the Bahamas and met Venus. They had been slowly working their way to rebuild the organizational structure of the cartel, piece by piece, one step at a time. The beauty salon and hotel were part's of her business. All of that involved the escorts Venus ruled over with authority. Tony did not interfere with her business. He kept his drug games away from those girls, so they could not be pinched by narcs on sting operations. 

This was his first day back after a 3 day trip to Fort Lauderdale following a lead on a gun supplier. Tony had arrived too late after the dealer had sold his stock of military grade assault rifles to other people on the streets. The least he was able to get his hands on was a MAC-10 submachine gun and a few pistols. He still wanted better firepower than this. Assault rifles would be needed for securing defenses around territory in the near future.

All of that would be discussed hours after unwinding at at their Coconut Grove home.

After dinner, the sun was beginning to set outside. The air conditioned house brought Tony and Venus both comfort, as well as the security guards inside and their personnel. 

In the living room, Tony had lined up the cache of weapons he was able to purchase from the dealer in Fort Lauderdale. They were spread out across the refectory table on a white towel. The MAC-10 sat in the middle with two black Colt series pistols to the left, and two chrome plated Smith & Wesson 4506s on the right. Venus stood in front of the table, bending over to inspect the guns. Neither she or Tony would be wielding them, since they had their own handguns with holsters upstairs in his office. 

"These aren't too bad. We can never have enough guns, but I know you wanted those rifles."

Tony sat on the couch, legs crossed as he watched her study the guns. Venus grabbed the MAC-10 to get a better look at it.

"Did your contact ever get back to you about those biker guys from California? Felix said they were interested in a deal." 

Venus' lit up with a smile on her face as she turned to look at him. "Oh yes, they were interested! I think we get a deal with them." 

"That would be great! Let's go upstairs and start arranging things." 

Up the spiraling staircases and into the first room was the massive office Tony did all his business in. The night hours would soon commence as he sat down in the desk chair. Venus grabbed the brick sized cellphone and pulled the antenna out before handing it over to Tony. The time had come to give Felix a call. Tony pressed in the numbers and raised the phone up to his ear. It rang a few times before someone answered. 

"This is Felix." 

"Hey Felix, it's Tony." 

"Tony! Are you back in town?" 

"Yeah, sort of. I need to talk to you about something. You remember the biker guys? I'm ready to get that deal going." 

"Oh yeah, I remember. Call me from a payphone tomorrow around 8 AM." 

The phone clicked hanging up. Tony set it down on his desk and leaned back in the chair. His eyes wandered over to Venus. "I've gotta call him back from a payphone sometime past eight tomorrow."

Venus nodded. They now had an evening all to themselves before business tomorrow. 

Felix was a man known as 'eyes and ears' out in the streets. A second generation Cuban born man with shadowy connections to organized crime spread across town. Miami was home to various different groups operating. Cubans, Colombians, Venezuelans. Everyone followed their own code and kept around their own people. Before Tony's arrival in town, Miami had one Cuban Mafiosi trying to organize other Cubans under one flag. Frank Lopez was long gone with Tony taking over his business and forming the Montana Cartel. Tony's ultimate goal was to form some kind of collective among the Cubans, similar to the Mafia groups he had heard. So far, he had a small crew but the books would need to be opened in the future to have new members made.

People like Felix were useful for knowing the streets. He worked as a middleman of sorts between dealers and negotiator with groups outside of Miami. His connections were resourceful enough to get him in contact with the Night Lords MC. Felix had originally approached Venus about the opportunity, one night when she and Tony were together at the Babylon club. As the middleman, it would be Felix's duty to arrange a meeting between both parties with protection away from the watchful eyes of law enforcement. 

Tony found Felix over a year ago. He had connections with a drug smuggler known as Schuler and a dancer downtown by the name of Cassie. Schuler went by the funny nickname of "the delivery man". He hated using boats, only making use of his private planes to fly in and out of Colombia making drops in the Everglades. Cassie on the other hand was something of a celebrity in Miami known for her dancing talents. She worked at one of the biggest strip clubs Downtown, making a reputation for herself as a big earner. Cassie knew every player in town and how to get a hold of the ones who paid her under the table for private dances. That made her a resourceful connection to keep around. 

The next morning, Tony and Venus got up and prepared themselves for a trip into town. The clock on her gold watch read 8:12 by the time they pulled up in a parking lot outside a hardware store. A row of payphones sat in the grass. Tony got out of the driver's door with some spare quarters in his hand as he walked to one of the phones and picked it up. He deposited the quarters and then pressed the buttons to dial Felix's phone. 

"Hey, it's Tony. You said to call this early, so I'm ready. I've got Venus with me, so I don't want to wait. Let's get to work before it gets real hot."

"We'll get right on it."

To be continued...