Comments:
My problems started in Monaco. I walked into the bar on Serafini Street, and they were already there, waiting for me.
The last time the three of us had been together was in Zaire. Chang, myself, and Marcos Del Rio worked the mines until we “discovered” the world’s largest flawless diamond. The diamond is long gone, of course. The diamond had bought us time, and that was all we thought we’d need.
I hadn’t heard from Chang since he drunkenly stood up to the tanks at Tiananmen. (I always suspected Del Rio played a role in that fiasco. He loved a good photo-op.)
Marcos Del Rio was sent packing by my own incompetent hand. Doing reconnaissance in a hot air balloon hadn’t prepared me for a psychiatric residency.
I had known this confrontation was coming ever since The Wall fell. After the debacle in Berlin (another of Del Rio’s staged photo-ops), everyone was forced to choose sides. Regardless of entrée, my side is constant: cole slaw. No substitutions.
I picked this bar for our dog-and-pony show because their specialty was slaw. "Best In The Kingdom" a garishly colored, hand-lettered sign shouted next to the picked-over bowls in the corner; a too rare display of honesty in our line of work.
Marcos Del Rio was a crazed pig at a good cole slaw trough. Chang couldn’t stomach the stuff.
Things would get messy. No getting around that.
