Madison's Avenue

by Mike Brogan

  “He’s not here today.”

  “Is the $8.7 million still here?”

  He frowned. “Again, Ms. McKean, please understand that I’m not at liberty to discuss the disposition of these funds.”

  As her brother predicted, the banker was digging in. Madison felt her frustration mounting.

  “As his banker we are obliged to respect his wishes. You understand our position.”

  “Yes. But as his daughter, you understand mine.”

  He nodded, but gave her the old my-hands-are-tied shrug.

  Clearly, she would learn nothing more from Tipleton today. She stood and thanked him for his time.

  Stepping back outside, she took out the phone number of the local lawyer, Peter Parsons, that her brother Thad had recommended. Thad had spoken to Parsons and said the man sometimes worked miracles in getting local banks to release information. She had tried to phone Parsons yesterday, but he was in court. Now, she dialed his firm again.

  A young woman answered. “Brooks, Kelly, Parsons and Phipps, Barristers at Law.”

  “This is Madison McKean. Could I please speak with Mr. Parsons?”

  “Oh, Miss McKean, I’ve been expecting your call. Mr. Parsons wanted me to tell you that he had to fly unexpectedly to London this morning. He asked me to apologize for his absence and to tell you that he’ll return in a fortnight.”

  “Two weeks?”

  “Yes.”

  Crap! Madison thought, breathing out slowly. “Would you please let him know that I called, and that I’ll try to reach him again.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Madison left her number and hung up. No luck with the banker. No luck with the attorney.

  The trip was turning into a dead end, she realized, as she started walking back into town.

  Twenty Eight

  Walking down Prince William Street, Madison realized she had some time before taking the ferry back to St. Kitts. Enough time to make some phone calls at the quaint restaurant she’d seen beside the dock. She began window-shopping down the street, when suddenly she sensed someone was following her. She turned, but saw only a nun walking with an elderly woman and some kids. Madison shrugged it off and continued walking with some tourists toward the dock.

  Minutes later, she entered Unella’s, a charming restaurant overlooking the bay. She sat at a small table in the corner and breathed in the delicious aromas of freshly-grilled fish and curry. She ordered lunch and looked out at the harbor. Boats sparkled like polished gems in the sun-dappled water.

  Nearby, a large pelican dove into the water, scooped out a small fish and swallowed it.

  Her phone rang. Kevin, maybe?

  She answered.

  “Madison, it’s Linda.”

  “Hey, Lin. What’s up?”

  “Not the media rates you asked about. Your agency pays about two percent less for MedPharms TV commercials than what other clients with comparable budgets pay.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “Yeah. But I stumbled onto something that’s not.”

  “What?”

  “An odd fee.”

  “Why odd?”

  “Because it seems to be hidden in our Turner Advertising records.” Madison didn’t like the sound of “hidden.” “What type of fee?”

  “A consulting fee.”

  “Our agency uses consultants.”

  “Yeah, but this fee seems ... wrong.”

  “Why?”

  “For one thing, I can’t find anything on the consulting firm’s name, MensaPlan.”

  “MensaPlan ... I’ve never heard of it either.”

  “And it looks like the fee has been paid for maybe fifteen years or more.”

  Madison leaned forward. “Paid to someone at Turner?”

  “No way to tell.”

  “You said it’s in the Turner Advertising records?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe it’s related to our media commissions?”

  “No. That checks out to the penny.”

  Madison tried, but couldn’t make sense of the weird consulting fee. “So what now, Lin?”

  “I’ll dig into it some more, ask my boss about it. But the fact that it’s been paid to a consulting company I’ve never heard of scares me.”

  “The fact that it’s hidden in our Turner records scares me!”

  “I’ll phone you when I know more.”

  “Thanks, Linda.”

  After hanging up, Madison looked back at the shimmering bay. What the hell was going on? Was someone at National Media skimming money? If so, for themselves? Or for someone at Turner Advertising?

  Then it dawned on her. The MensaPlan fee had been paid for more than fifteen years – and the anonymous e-mail accused her father of misappropriating money for sixteen years and depositing it in the Caribe National Bank. Did the multi-year fee accumulate to the $8.7 million in the bank?

  $8.7 million wasn’t much compared to the billions of dollars Turner Advertising spent with National Media over the last sixteen years.

  National Media, like other large media companies, was under increasing pressure to hang onto their large, but shrinking share of traditional-media advertising dollars: the money spent to place ads in TV, cable, radio, magazine, newspaper. The problem was that many small upstart agencies were developing advertising expertise in the new tech-driven media, like the Internet, BlackBerry, blogger sites, iPods, social communications, Twitter and more. And these upstarts were chomping off big chunks of money that used to go to the big traditional-media companies.

  Was someone at National Media so driven to hang onto their big fat traditional budgets that they paid the secret fee to someone at Turner in return for keeping those big ad budgets? Someone like Karla Rasmussen? As the Executive Vice President of Media Services, Karla had steered hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe even billions, into National’s coffers over the last sixteen years. Was the MensaPlan fee some kind of kickback to Karla?

  Kickbacks and gifts were no less common with media companies than with other industries.

  You scratch my back, I’ll put mink on yours.

  Madison sipped her iced tea, phoned her brother and left a long voice message updating him. Then she dialed Kevin’s number, but it didn’t ring. She tried again and still got nothing. Looking down, she saw why: the red light on her phone suggested the battery was dead.

  Perfect day, she thought. A banker who won’t disclose any information. A local attorney who’s en route to London where he’ll be for two weeks. A secret fee that could ruin her company’s image. And now, a fancy phone that won’t work.

  “Bon appetite,” her waitress said, setting down her lunch. The red snapper had been marinaded in herbs and spices, chopped scallions and mushrooms and smelled delicious.

  She took a bite. It tasted wonderful. She realized this might be the best part of her day.

  * * *

  Eugene P. Smith repeated the last words of Madison McKean’s phone conversation with someone named Linda into his palm-sized recorder. He’d also recorded her conversation with the fat banker.

  Smith’s ability to read lips, the result of partial deafness from childhood viral meningitis, had over the years paid off for him. Surgery had restored over seventy percent of his hearing. And what he couldn’t hear with his ears, he heard with his eyes.

  Smith dialed Harry Burkett.

  “What did the banker tell her?” Burkett demanded.

  “Nothing about the money.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I lip-read their conversation.”

  “Good.”

  “Yeah, but you got trouble, Harry.”

  “Why?”

  “She just got a phone call from somebody named Linda at National Media. Madison got all worked up about a consulting fee this Linda found.”

  Burkett sputtered. “A consulting fee?”

  “A hidden consulting fee to a company called MensaPlan.”

  “Jesus....”r />
  “Bad news?”

  “Yeah. Hang on, I’ll call you right back.”

  “Make it quick. We’re boarding the ferry to St. Kitts.”

  Eugene P. Smith watched Madison stroll down the dock toward the ferry. Drop-dead good looks, shapely figure, thick brown hair, natural athletic poise. Very sexy lady. Nobody said he couldn’t mix pleasure with work.

  He tossed down the rest of his scotch, left money on the bar, and followed her. Two minutes later, his phone rang and he answered.

  “She needs to have the accident there. The sooner the better.”

  “Done.”

  Twenty Nine

  Back in St. Kitts, Madison strolled through Basseterre, reading bits of local history from a tourist leaflet she picked up on the Islander ferry. She learned that Christopher Columbus discovered the small island in 1493 on his second trip to the Americas. He’d sailed along the island’s southwest coast, right past where she was standing now. The Great Discoverer would have pointed up at the lush, emerald hills and towering volcano and been in awe, like she was.

  But old Chris would have missed seeing Kate’s Designs, the intriguing art store that she was walking into.

  Madison looked around at the colorful, multi-hued paintings of local inhabitants, who themselves, she noted, were also multi-hued. The artwork reflected their English, French, African and Indian cultures. One painting, Sugar Train, showed workers loading sugarcane onto railway boxcars. Another, that she really loved, showed chiseled, ebony-skinned men slashing cane in a field. She paid cash for it to avoid leaving a credit card trail, and had the painting shipped to her father’s apartment.

  Back outside, she stopped and looked out at the harbor where small tenders were ferrying passengers to and from the massive Sun Princess cruise ship, anchored in the water like a 14-story floating hotel. She looked over at the tall, Lord Berkeley Memorial Clock, which reminded her it was time to get back to Ottley’s Inn and phone the office. She wanted to update Kevin and also ask Alison Whitaker if she’d learned anything about who’d accused her father.

  But finding a taxi would be tough. Earlier, they’d all been stuffed with cruise ship passengers. She took a few steps and couldn’t believe it: An empty blue taxi was rolling toward her. Quickly, she flagged it over and got in.

  “Ottley’s Inn, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the driver. He wore a wide-rimmed straw hat, purple flowered island shirt and wraparound reflective sunglasses.

  As they drove up the winding road, she found her eyes drawn to the scarlet-red hibiscus surrounding many homes. Beside one home, young children played kickball in a field. She smiled at a beautiful, wide-eyed girl with pigtails who waved and smiled back. The girl was about six or seven.

  Madison swallowed, and thought back to her college abortion. The nurse had told her the fetus was female. Even today, the abortion, the lowest point of her life, saddened and haunted her.

  What about now? Would she ever have children? Would her new responsibilities allow her to give them the time they’d need? Would she repeat her father’s mistake?

  The driver headed up a road that wound through sprawling sugarcane fields. Above the fields, the land sloped upward to Mount Liamuiga. The slopes were dense with trees and soon she saw fewer tin-roof homes poking up through the green vegetation.

  Moments later she realized they were driving up a road she didn’t recall.

  “Is this a different route?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Banana truck tipped over, blockin’ the road to Ottley’s. We come from de back way in.” He adjusted his large sunglasses.

  His accent was odd, not quite East Indies, not quite English, not quite anything. And his skin was too pale, especially for a white man in such a sunny climate. Further up the mountain, they passed trailbikers coasting downhill.

  The rich, green scenery took her breath away and soon, so did the road. The taxi hit every rut as they bounced along, heading northwest according to the dashboard compass, away from Ottley’s Inn.

  “How much farther?” she asked.

  “Be there soon. Just over that hill we start back down toward Ottley’s.”

  Definitely not a St. Kitt’s accent, she realized.

  He steered down a narrow pathway, hitting even deeper ruts. The forest closed in on them and soon the trees hunched over the road, blocking out most daylight. He skirted along the edge of a deep ravine, rousting a flock of white egrets from their trees. The foliage was now too thick to see through and soon he slowed to less than five miles an hour. He’d obviously taken the wrong path.

  A few yards farther, the taxi crept to a stop.

  “Wrong turn?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  He smiled in the mirror.

  She froze as she recognized the small white teeth of the masked man in her apartment.

  Thirty

  Kevin checked his cell phone messages again. Still none from Madison. He was standing in the backyard of his Uncle Jakub Jowarski’s charming old Victorian home north of Albany. He walked past the squeaky red swing where he’d played as a kid, and the large blue birdbath where he’d watched robins splash in the water. For Kevin this backyard and the surrounding forest was his only summer camp.

  Uncle Jakub, a soft-spoken widower, had helped bring Kevin’s parents over from Poland thirty-eight years ago. He’d recently retired from the Albany Medical Center after four decades as a pediatric surgeon. He and Kevin’s mom were in the kitchen listening to Frankie Yankovic’s polka hits and laughing their way down memory lane with a little help from Chopin Wódka.

  Kevin walked out to the rear of the property and stared into the thick, evergreen forest. Even today, years later, the dark forest sent a cold shiver through him. He thought back to that day, back when he was six, standing in this same spot. He’d heard a woman’s high-pitched cry from deep in the forest. Frightened, he’d raced back to the house and told his aunt. She assured him it was only the Canada geese squawking on the nearby lake. But he’d been sure it was a woman, and that something bad had happened to her. The next day, he overheard his aunt whispering to a neighbor that a woman had been raped in the woods.

  Since then, he trusted his feelings.

  Like his feeling a few nights ago when a man almost killed Madison in her apartment. And the growing feeling right now that she might be in danger two thousand miles away in St. Kitts.

  After all, the armed man had promised to see her soon.

  And even though she’d worn a disguise to the airport and flown incognito, Kevin knew that any man who could circumvent her building’s sophisticated alarm system was a professional criminal. Pros knew how to find anyone, or knew people who could.

  And why hadn’t Madison called him as she promised to?

  He flipped open his cell phone and checked his office messages again. Still no calls from her. He phoned his home. No message there. Finally, he dialed her cell phone and was again bounced into voicemail. He left another voice message. He then called international information for St. Kitts and got the number for Ottley’s Inn. The operator dialed it for him.

  “Ottley’s Inn.”

  “Miss McKean’s room, please.”

  “Sorry, sir, we have no one listed under that name.”

  Then he remembered. “Oh, I meant Shae Stuart.”

  “Yes, she’s listed. Just a moment, sir.”

  The phone rang several times, then clicked into voicemail. He left a message asking her how things went at the bank, then switched back to the front desk manager.

  “Have you seen her today?”

  “Early this morning, sir. But not since.”

  “Please let her know I called.” He left his name and number, hung up and stared at the phone.

  Maybe she’s still at the bank....

  He called information again and they dialed the Caribe National Bank for him. He waited for the inevitable tape recorded greeting and was amazed when a
pleasant, living human being answered in a lilting East Indies accent.

  “Is Madison McKean still there?”

  “No sir. She left a few hours ago.”

  He hung up and stared into the dark forest. His concern for her grew. Thick dark charcoal clouds had muscled in from the west. Wind whipsawed the tall pines and carried the smell of rain.

  Where was she? Why hasn’t she called?

  Overhead, a flock of geese streaked toward the forest. Their shrieks sounded like human cries for help.

  Does Madison need help?

  Thirty One

  This isn’t happening, Madison kept telling herself.

  The gun in her back proved otherwise. The tall, armed man also carried a large shopping bag as he pushed her deeper into the jungle rainforest. She pushed through thick palm fronds and stringy vines that clung like cobwebs to her hair.

  He’s going to kill me, she knew.

  She searched for a possible escape route, but saw none. To her left, she heard water rushing through a ravine. To her right, monkeys screeched as though warning her. Cold sweat dampened every inch of her skin as they climbed up the rocky slope of the volcano.

  How had he tracked her to St. Kitts? Only Christine and Kevin knew her destination, and she’d traveled under an alias. Obviously, someone in the agency had informed him.

  “Walk faster!” He shoved her forward.

  She quickened her pace, weaving through foliage so dense she could see only a few feet ahead. As they walked around a large boulder, she glimpsed the red fender of a mountain bike behind some bushes. Was the rider nearby? If she screamed, would the rider hear her?

  Or would a bullet rip into her back?

  Soon the jungle grew thicker and more treacherous. She wriggled through some black, stringy vines that stuck to her sweaty face. She stepped onto a pile of dark gray rocks. One rock suddenly morphed into a lizard that crawled onto her ankle. Gasping, she shook it off and paused to catch her breath.

  The tall man shoved her forward.

  Everywhere she looked, the rainforest was teeming with life ... and death.

  Soon, the narrow path ended at a ten-foot wide clearing. She took a few more steps and saw she was standing on a cliff.