The Mole

   "There."

   "What?"

   "The leak."

   Bronson squinted and tried to scan the audience, but his efforts were to no avail.

   "Point him out, will ya? I can't pick out anybody in the crowd."

   "Not in the crowd. On stage. And there's the contact."

   "Where?"

   "V.I.P. table, front and center."

   "Damn, Stroehman, are you sure? Which one? And who on stage?"

   Anthony shook his head and sighed.

   "I knew she wanted to feel smart, but I didn't think she'd go this far. It's ironic, you know?  Almost funny... I don't know if you can see it, but right above her left hip, she has a mole."

   "Will you tell me what in the hell-"

   "The one in the middle. It's Leili."

   Immediately, Bronson turned to watch the lead dancer. Before Stroehman had said something, he really hadn't paid attention to her beyond enjoying the way her body curved. Her face hadn't mattered to him until now. The kid had to be wrong. This woman, whose hips rolled and snapped, who had entranced most of the men in the room and some of the women, who was intoxicating to behold... She could not be his boss's daughter.

   "There's no way... If Sayeh finds out, she'll kill her," Bronson whispered, "And us."

   Anthony didn't hear his colleague continue to voice his fears. Instead, his imagination clung to Leili's writhing torso, and every glittering ring of her zills increased the heat beneath his skin.

   "Are you paying attention, Stroehman?! We need to figure out how she got into this in the first place, if we're going to get ourselves out. If she's the mole, then how's she communicating with the Marcantoni family? How is she leaking names, telling them where our guys are? If you're right, and she's the one behind all this, Sayeh's going to find out that her own daughter is the reason all her top men are being killed off. Personally, I don't want to be around when that goes down."

   Bronson loosened his collar and wiped his brow with his handkerchief, replacing it neatly in his coat pocket. He took a quick swig of whiskey and leaned in.

   "Kid, look at me. Back to my first question. How'd she get here? You're the one who was supposed to be her bodyguard. There's no way she could've started dancing without you knowing. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it partly your fault we're in this mess. You screwed up, big time, and I don't want to be the one who pays for it."

   Anthony's chair creaked as he leaned back, searching for the ceiling lost in the haze of cigarette smoke. He ran his fingers through his already tousled brown hair and smiled.

   "Hey! Are you even listening? Dammit, you can be one condescending little-"

   "Yeah, it's my fault," shrugged Anthony. He sat back up and lit a cigarette of his own, blowing the smoke in his partner's face. "But do you want to know the difference between you and me?"

   "And what the hell is that?" coughed an irritated Bronson.

   "I'm not worried about it. Yeah, I'm the one who got Leili started here, and that was three years ago, when she started college. No one besides the two of us knew. Honestly, the poor girl needed it, the way Sayeh kept her under her thumb. She had no freedom. Even my assignment-I was to make sure Leili stayed in check, but it was making her insane. I just wanted to give her an outlet, you know?"

   "That's one hell of an outlet," his partner murmured, smiling.

   "And something else-she felt stupid. The kid got nearly a perfect score on her SATs and could've gone to any school she wanted, but to her, it was her mother's influence that guaranteed her education. In her eyes, it had nothing to do with her own ability. So I tutored her, taught her a bunch of different, random things... that ordinary people don't know. I have to give her credit; Leili caught on really fast. But like I said, I didn't think she'd use it like this."

   "I still don't get how you're not wor-"

   "She's doing it now! She's relaying the information with the zills."

   "The what?"

   "Her finger cymbals."

   "Oh. How?"

   "If you let me finish, I'll tell you. There are some specific rhythms in belly-dancing: beledi, chiftatelli, ayub, and bolero, to name a few." Anthony ignored his partner's yawn. "She's combined a number of those rhythms with some of the codes I taught her. Honestly, if you know anything about either one, it's not that hard to figure out."

   "Says Sayeh's pet genius," grumbled Bronson, polishing off his drink. He slammed his glass down on the table. "Look here, not all of us are child prodigy college boys like you, but we pull our weight, so stop acting like you're better than everybody. As far as we're all concerned, you're just another limb of the body, got it?"

   Anthony rolled his eyes.

   "This again? I never asked for special treatment, and I've never bragged about myself, ever. Sayeh's the one who says stuff like that. It's all her, and she's done that ever since the night she and I met. Can I help it if a woman likes what she sees?"

   "Shut up..."

   Though it was indirect, Bronson didn't like being reminded of Anthony's status in the organization. The upstart, at first merely a face in the crowd, caught his boss's eye and made his way up the ranks faster than anybody in recent memory. The way Sayeh fawned over him was sick, like he was her little dog. However, this one had exceptional bite. His first job, to prove his loyalty, was to kill the only child of one of her rivals, and he did it too, in broad daylight. Bronson thumbed the sweat of his glass, then motioned to the waitress for another.

   "Hey, I'm kidding," Anthony offered, his voice sounding most genuine. "It's no big deal, I swear. I'm not trying to put you or the other guys down. You have to remember-I may be her favorite pet, as you say, but that only means I'm kept on the shortest leash. If I screw up or cross her, I have more to lose than anyone."

   "Hmmph." The young man's conciliatory tone went some ways toward pacifying him, but Bronson wasn't about to show it. He decided to redirect the conversation. "So, how do you know where the contact is?"

   Anthony quickly nodded toward the V.I.P. table.

   "You see those three guys there?"

   "Yeah. What about them."

   "Tell me what you notice." Anthony understood his partner's frown. "Look, I'm not testing you or trying to make you look stupid. Just tell me what you see."

   "Alright." Bronson took a few seconds and scanned each of the men at the table practically at Leili's feet. "Two of them are pretty big, and the one in the middle is kinda puny."

   "Right. What else?"

   "The big guys... aren't watching her. They're looking around the room, while trying to look like they're not.  Wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. Why come to a place like this if you're not going to watch the women?"

   "Exactly. Keep going. What about the third one?"

   "The small fry is wearing sunglasses... inside? What the hell?"

   "And?"

   "There's a cane leaning against his leg. And he has a Blackberry in front of him!"

   "So...?"

   "He's blind! Why would a blind guy come here, with, well, all there is to look at?"

   "My thoughts as well. He must be her contact, the one with whom she shared the code. Each one of her rhythms has a specific meaning and unlike the rest of the men here, he has nothing to distract him from her message. Since it's easy to memorize key placement on a Blackberry, all he has to do is translate what she's telling him and let the guys with him read it."

   "Damn, you're right. She is smart."

   "Yeah... Smart..."

   Bronson watched Anthony return his attention to the stage, fully understanding why the kid could barely keep his eyes off the mole.