Fool's Run

by Sidney Williams

  I thought I heard “…upside…” from Moates followed by a raised language.

  Then Moates moved toward the kitchen, still talking.

  “Currently things are pretty simple. I don’t see complicating them.”

  He was on script. Or script outline, improving, drawing on his expertise.

  Alexeeva had proposed something somewhere along the way, and from what I could tell, Moates began pointing out real issues with infusions of cash into his viatical company or a trust. Something called dirty sheeting got a mention and other aspects of viatical fraud that had come under scrutiny. I needed to look up all the jargon. I knew street slang, but this was crime in circles other than I was used to.

  Alexeeva had done his homework. He countered with a proposal related to healthy people attached to policies being sold. It shouldn’t matter if money came through, should it? I wasn’t clear exactly how it was supposed to work even with details Moates had briefed me on, not through a muffled door. It didn’t really matter. I’d told Moates to build to an impasse, to resist proposals to a point of breaking off discussions. Finding a deal breaker shouldn’t be impossible with the proposed wedding of two illegal enterprises.

  Minutes ticked past, and verbal sparring went on. Moates was essentially a con man, and his natural inclinations seemed to take over. Alexeeva maintained a calm tone in counter proposals, perhaps the way he always negotiated.

  I’d endured a number of stakeouts in my lifetime but none quite so surreal. Mostly they’d involved sitting in a car, watching and waiting and keeping an eye on doors or windows.

  As Owen grew restless and shifted in his seat, making me nervous, Alexeeva began to offer inducements to sweeten the deal. Cars? He could make that happen. What about property? We might be getting closer.

  Moates feigned interest in a couple of the carrots dangled then changed his mind. Nothing was quite worth endangering what he described as a stable business that could withstand scrutiny. Dollar figures were touted and countered, but, while he might be jelly on the inside, contemplating rumors of bad ends and swampy graves for people who cross Alexeeva, Moates remained a stern negotiator, unwavering.

  The sweetest of offers had been rejected by the time I turned to the spot where Crystal rested, getting into character and letting her hair attain realistic twists and tangles.

  “Curtain going up,” I said in a soft tone.

  She pulled herself off the bed and blinked a few times. She hadn’t actually been asleep, but she’d had her eyes closed and that made her react to the light. She slid off the bed and lifted the back of her hand toward her face.

  “Save that,” I said reaching for her arm. “Open them in the hall.”

  I guided her over to the door then stepped back as she opened it and began a barefooted pad along the narrow hall toward the kitchen.

  I gently pressed the door back into the frame, letting it stay cracked just the tiniest fraction of an inch so that I had slightly better audio.

  The back-and-forth between the men continued several seconds before she reached the end of the hall.

  “Hey, Ryan,” she said in a soft voice, keeping it contained in the front of her mouth with the lilt high, not quite letting it squeak.

  Their conversation stopped mid-sentence. Both of the men would be turning, taking her in. In her interruption and appearance, she’d be as much a surprise to Moates as to Alexeeva. That was planned of course. His reaction would be natural as would the embarrassment.

  She’d donned tight, sky blue shorts, the kind that stop at the very top of the thighs, and a pink bare-midriff blouse with a loose neckline that slipped off one shoulder. Her hair had been tied into pony tails with bits of pink ribbon.

  She’d either look under aged at a glance or come across as affecting a young persona. Either should work to suggest a proclivity on Moates’ part that could be exploited. There’d be no mistaking her for a daughter or youthful ward, at least not for anything above board.

  “You don’t come by on Sunday, Ry,” she said. “Sorry, I’m all yucked out. I was sleeping.”

  Moates stammered.

  “Is this friend?” Alexeeva asked.

  The women had stopped talking in the living room. Hopefully, being on Alexeeva’s arm, the woman wouldn’t be too quick to dial child protective services.

  I wasn’t sure if they could see her, but she’d practiced turning one foot in and cocking a knee just slightly all while she bit one thumb and opened her eyes wide with a gaze that was both naïve and nervous at the same time, not wanting to displease Daddy. I’d found it both uncanny and unsettling. She looked much smaller than her actual size and much more vulnerable.

  Moates probably was finding it surprising too, making his expressions natural, and Alexeeva, if there was a God, was making a mental note.

  “Looks like this is business again,” Crystal said. “Or is this…a friend for me to meet?”

  Moates stammered, managed to try a few words, but didn’t.

  “Just getting some water,” Crystal said.

  I heard glass clink, then the tap come on.

  Then she must’ve turned around because in another second was padding back up the hallway.

  When she slipped back into the bedroom, her eyebrows went up in a “How’d I do?” query. I gave her performance two thumbs up. She closed the door behind her and slipped the lock in the handle inward.

  Now we’d just have to wait and see if the seed we’d planted bore any fruit. Of course, I couldn’t imagine that Moates believed we were with the SEC any longer.

  Chapter 37

  “What the ever-lovin’ fuck was that about?” Moates demanded, momentarily dropping his posh veneer.

  The post-brunch party had wound down quickly after Crystal debuted her nymphet character. Sounded from where we sat like polite excuses and a little small talk and then a departure.

  Seconds after the last goodbye, Moates was banging on the door.

  “Who the hell are you people?”

  Crystal was sitting on the foot of the bed brushing her hair. She caught Owen’s attention as he appeared over Moates’ shoulder. She was still in her Vieux Carre Lolita outfit. She just stared down at her colorful toenails as Moates continued to pound.

  I pulled the door open and planted my feet.

  “That’s really irrelevant. Doesn’t change your role in this,” I said. “We needed natural embarrassment….”

  “I’m calling the….”

  “No, you don’t want to do that,” I said.

  He had a hand in his pocket, but he left the phone there, remembering he had legal vulnerabilities. Plus, I’d made the statement with enough force and menace to slow him down, and so far, he hadn’t decided to call on his meat-necked asset, Owen, for a beat down. That was good. Having to shoot him would throw off the production schedule just when we might be getting somewhere.

  “What are you trying to pull?” Moates demanded. “Trying to ruin me? Rumors start to get around town I have a thing for little girls….”

  “How would they like it if information about how you’ve been channeling money from new investors into payouts for longer-term investors reached…?”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  I rattled off a few more facts and threw information about life expectancy evaluations on policy holders that looked shaky, and reminded him of the possibilities of mail and wire fraud in the mix, using the word conspiracy a couple of times. All of it served to deflate him anew. Looking like a pedophile still seemed worse, but some of the people he rubbed shoulders with, especially the politicians he’d been donating money to, wouldn’t be happy with either revelation about his reputation.

  “What’s really going on?” he asked, leaning against the door frame.

  I gave him a thumbnail, keeping in mind we were still speaking in front of Owen.

  “So, you’re dangling me to bring out something he might have?” Moates asked.

  “We needed to show the currency th
at might interest you, and we needed it to look convincing.”

  “Fuck.”

  “It’s any consolation, you did a great job. Now, he calls back with any offers you just need to string him along. You’ve been swindling retirees to finance your houses and boats.” I rolled my eyes upward at our surroundings. “And fuck pads. This is just another cost of doing business.”

  “How do I know that guy’s not going to cut my head off?”

  “Probably wouldn’t be your head. Not first anyway. He’d want you to give some thought to the other body parts you were losing.”

  He repeated the single word he’d said before.

  “Keep processing it. If you’d like, we can get a laptop, and I can show you the details we have that we could drop into an email to the real SEC.”

  We had him by them, might as well give his balls a squeeze.

  “You want…?”

  That’s all Owen got out before Moates lifted a hand to shut him up.

  Hollie had come into the hallway now. She had to be furious at me and harboring as many questions as Moates, but calming the situation took precedence. She didn’t want him turning on her.

  She stood several paces behind him, silent, daring just to put a hand on his shoulder. He sloughed it off. He had to have suspicions about what I knew and where it came from. He’d process those at some point, and whatever they’d had, if there had been any affection or real emotion and not just the shared energy of risk and lust, was long gone.

  I’d seen it before from street criminals in interview rooms, and it was the same. For the moment, Moates was just focused on all of his world that was crushing in around him. His game required nerves of steel, the kind of nerves Bernie Madoff maintained through the years, or maybe some sense of invulnerability like Jeffrey Epstein, but the knowledge that things had to eventually fall apart always nagged. Now it was here.

  He’d processed dealing with the SEC and had factored in their protections, and he’d allowed himself a glimmer of hope that he might come out the other side with a deal. I could see in his ashen features that he’d lost that glimmer. He bowed his head and raised a paw to wipe some of the beads of sweat off his forehead then looked back at….

  Who the fuck was this guy making his life so miserable?

  I could see it in his now glassy brown eyes.

  “I was a cop,” I said. “I ran into a few legal problems of my own.”

  He’d figure it out eventually anyway. He’d be looking for leverage.

  He found a new word. “Shit.”

  Hollie tried again. Her fingers closed over his shoulder and she steered him to the foot of the bed. He let his weight sink onto the mattress, which gave a slight sigh. His slacks tightened over his knees, and he leaned forward, resting a forearm on a thick thigh.

  “How do we even get the right girl? What if he’s got…?”

  “We made my associate look as much like Dagney as possible. Our best hope is he’ll include her in any casting calls, but it needs to be his idea. We start asking, he knows it’s tied to someone looking specifically for her. There may be a chance he wants to be done with her, so that could push things our way. No guarantees, but this is not an easy job.”

  It was insane, and it sounded futile as we went over it, but it was what we had.

  “How am I going to know her? If he shows me pictures or something.”

  “We’ve got a computer aged photo of her. What she probably looks like today.

  “I help you get this prize, how do we all walk away from this?”

  “Couple of ways it can go,” I said. “We get the girl, and he can’t really say anything without facing a kidnap and trafficking charge or we get the girl and send up a flare to the authorities. You’re a hero who helped rescue a friend’s daughter who he thought was long lost.”

  That seemed as unlikely as everything else, but he kind of liked that notion. He was bilking retirees. We got out of this alive, Rose would see the copies of the spreadsheets she now had in a sealed envelope found their way into the right hands, but he didn’t need to know that.

  He already had a gift of duplicitous gab. We just needed to channel it for a while.

  “Otherwise? If it doesn’t work?”

  “For you, go back to your life. See if he calls. If not, I’ve got to find another way to get Dagney free.”

  I could be duplicitous too.

  He looked around the room at nothing in particular, trying to think.

  “Just don’t think about screwing me,” I said. “Or calling someone about me. I sniff anything, information I have goes in, and your best-case scenario is the Feds and they’ll want you worse than they want anything about me. You’re headlines and the job promotions those bring in.”

  He gave a little nod to that.

  “I said `best case.’ Worst, I know people who can cause you about as much pain as Alexeeva. You know what this city has to offer, and I worked those streets.”

  He processed the threat level.

  “Let me share some wisdom a friend of mine on the inside said to me once.” It had been Jasso, of course in his deep and lazy drawl. “Life’s a fool’s run on a crooked road. You have to find the best route you can.”

  I looked at Hollie now.

  “Get him a glass of water. He looks like he’s about to have a heart attack.”

  Chapter 38

  Arch ran a finger across a blue stretch on the map on his tablet computer, tracing the Geoghegan Canal, a narrow passage stretching from the neighborhood where I’d viewed Alexeeva’s house to Lake Ponchatrain. I’d driven alongside it to the gated peninsula.

  “This would probably be ideal if he picks the summer place. You can’t get a boat from the lake into the canals around a neighborhood for obvious reasons, but we get a boat right here,” he tapped a spot on the map, “then get the girl to it, we just have a short run to the lake, and then that opens up a lot of possibilities. He’s gotta launch another boat to chase us. Somewhere in town where we have to make a run in cars, you’re a cop, you know what that entails.”

  “What kind of boat?”

  “A little bit of a souped-up outboard rig and a skiff would look normal and be ready to get us out of there. Kenny and I could pose as fishermen. We hang out, two guys casting, blend right in.”

  They could look right for that, no question.

  I’d driven back out to their place to go over the contingencies he’d been considering since we’d dropped the bait for Alexeeva, to carry over the fishing analogy.

  We’d been considering a lot of his locations, anything we could connect to Alexeeva in property searches, his home, the garage, the club, and a couple of other businesses he held a stake in, including a hotel near Midtown that Yelp reviews didn’t speak kindly about.

  “If he’s wanting to keep things classy, the Slidell house is the way to go,” Arch said. “Although the hotel has a reputation for hourly rates under the table, Yelp says there are customer service issues.”

  “Clerks bad about calling the cops?”

  “Nah, just about keeping you in clean towels.”

  I’d looked at shots of the exterior online. It wasn’t a spot for wooing and compromising a seedy if upper-crust associate even if you already had a slot for cameras.

  A lot of money could be moved through Moates’ operation. It called for finesse.

  If Alexeeva proposed a girl as an inducement as we hoped, he’d want somewhere private and a little more elegant. It wouldn’t be that hard to prod him toward the Slidell spot. A few suggestions here or there should do it unless he had another mansion tucked away somewhere Jael and the earlier detective agencies had missed.

  “I think we can get them there,” I said. “I wish I had a better way of getting the right girl. I’m hoping in his mind she’s something special and he’s been saving her. He’s always got a couple of things swirling, but if we get any chance to offer suggestions we’ll angle more toward her look.”

  “You gonna let Moat
es ask if Alexeeva doesn’t come through?”

  “That’ll look pretty suspicious. He needs to make the offer, and we’re screwed if it’s someone other than Dagney. I hate to think of any kid resigned to a fate tangled in his fingers, though.”

  “Feels pretty awful,” Arch agreed.

  “Maybe we could get him pulled in with any girl he puts forth, and my buddy on the force could leverage Dagney out of him, but it gets shaky at that point. Further self-incrimination’s not how he rolls.”

  “Neither’s letting go of an asset easily.”

  “Unless he sees it as one of his games,” Arch said. “Even if he’s suspicious, and he figures whoever got Dahlia is perpetrating this, maybe he thinks that person deserves to be jacked with a little.”

  “I’d like better odds. On the location, and the girl,” I said. “But if that’s how we get her, I’ll play.”

  “Or at least we might be able to let Hollie King steer him toward the Slidell house without looking too obvious. She can mention a desire for privacy at least.”

  We looked back at the tablet screen, and Arch ran a finger across the blue form of Lake Pontchartrain. “You get ’em out there, gives us all this to lose them in before we go back ashore.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said.

  Maybe I needed to find a vodou bokor or something to tip things our way or counter Alexeeva’s Russian magic.

  Or at least to know Alexeeva better. I’d learned enough to devise the nudge, to try and manipulate a manipulator. Was there another push I could try to bring him out with an offering of Dagney?

  I was back home and casting about for ideas when Sandra called. “Unknown” flashed on my screen, but I clicked it to accept and say hello. I probably wanted to talk to anyone who had the number.

  “Terri got ahold of me, said you were looking for me.”

  I recognized her voice instantly. It was like I’d talked to her the day before over breakfast, and the feel of what had once been natural flooded over me. It was like meeting someone you dated once at a club or restaurant and sitting down for a drink. It feels for a while like it always did when you were out together. Time travel. You laugh like you once did, repeat reflexive gestures from before, and the things that caused you to part are submerged for a while and the good things resurface.