Sun on the Rocks: The Cocoanomics Gazette

Coming out of her recent rumpus with Sheik Hari Al-Najib in the British Virgin Islands, teleoperator Clarity Nice flies out of BVI to Florida, in order to stay in Miami, and to avoid taking another plane back to Macau. Awaiting for her there in Asia, are those who purchased the ring by Mauboussin that Clarity received in Singapore, a ring kept by videographer Plum Bailey in BVI, which shows a symbol in one of the baguettes, known as the 'incomplete triangle'.

While in transit in Florida, she is arrested by Customs and Border Immigration at Miami International Airport, after showing up in a list of people to watch, involved with the theft of federal bonds, previously held by the shady Cayman Islands banking agent Buddha Talk. To avoid going to a local detention center, Clarity is hired by Lloyd, a representative of the shady banking agent, who tells her that his boss wants a beachhead in South Florida, in the fast food beef and burger market. The market for burgers in the region, is dominated by rivals Moe Alamy, and by her protege, Gavino di Laure, the owners of the Mclannan's burger franchise, and of its mascot, Ollie the clown.

Clarity reaches the lavish home of Buddha Talk in the Florida Keys, Swankeye, to help him out with 'business'. The banking agent, whose real name is Joe Mannen, has been having some problems with Cayman authorities. Inspectors Taylor and Marville are inquiring in his home in Florida, about the renewal license of Mannen's main business in the Cayman Islands, Lofty Bank. Mannen's reputation as a mobster has been dented with local Cappi of South Florida, by the disappearance of one million in stolen bonds, formerly held in his home in Cayman, now under Federal custody, after a whistle blower in a strip club called Milton's, told di Laure about the stolen bonds held by Mannen's pilot.

In a meeting involving the various mobsters who rule the meat packing, distribution, and retail segments in South Florida, Mannen is left without a share of the meat business, and with the swamped Everglades territory of Monroe as the only turf to establish any burger related business. The only real business di Laure allows for Mannen is a small pawnshop in Miami, called the Gladeview pawnshop.

Mannen knows that di Laure wants him out of South Florida, without any business at all. To restablish credibility with Cappi, using a manual called Cocoanomics found in a liquidation notice listed in the Cayman Islands Gazette, Mannen sends off Clarity to learn of di Laure's plans. She becomes a regular employee of Mclannan's, attending the rigorous training program of Ollie Burger University at the Mclannan's training center in Boynton, Florida. Dodging the henchman of Di Laure, Ambrosio, she will have to find a way to alter the Ollie burger of the franchise, to elicit a sale by Di Laure to Mannen of some of the locations of the profitable burger restaurants.

Dettagli