by Davis Bunn
“You’ll be staying at his place.” Audrey slipped her keys off the counter. “Safer for us all.”
Arthur went on, “I won’t have this turned into a vendetta against my son.”
“Pop, please.”
“This is about saving the livelihoods of hundreds of good men and women. People I have worked and lived with for years. People who trust me. I can’t let them down. But I will not be party to a lynching of my firstborn.”
Audrey slipped by Val without actually looking his way. “We’ve been all through this.”
Arthur waved that away. “Mind what I say. This can’t be about attacking Terrance. No matter what he’s done. Two wrongs have never been known to make a right.”
THE NEXT MORNING’S HIGHWAY WAS A SWIFT-RUNNING TRENCH six lanes wide. The weather made no difference to British driving patterns. The Bentley kept to the middle lane and drilled through the dismal day at a steady eighty-five kilometers per hour. The spray formed sheets higher than the car. The car behind them was less than five feet back. The Bentley was even closer to the one ahead. Trucks hemmed them to the left, a Porsche hammered past on their right. Inside the Bentley, it was so quiet Terrance could hear the clock ticking in the distant front dash, the chunking sound of the wipers, the quiet hum of the bar’s refrigerator.
Terrance knew he should be highly worried about this turn of events. But he could not get beyond his sense that he was seated by a true professional. Loupe’s features were mottled with age spots, but he handled himself like a prince. His voice was as solicitous as it had been the previous day. Loupe inquired if Terrance was hungry, if there was anything further that might be done for his comfort. Terrance knew he was on the receiving end of a charm offensive. And did not mind in the least. Wally remained stonelike in the front seat. Terrance did not mind this either. He was in control now. Let her play the dutiful servant until her skills were required.
Portsmouth struck Terrance as the epitome of all that was wrong with England’s towns. The highway clogged as it fed into a frenetic ring road. The rain was blowing in hard off the sea now, dissolving colors and turning the town a shade of industrial grey. The driver’s phone chirped as he maneuvered through a traffic-snarled roundabout. He raised his voice to announce, “They might have found something, Boss.”
“Ah, a welcome gift for our arrival. Don’t you agree?” He flashed the chalky teeth. “Take us there.”
The street was a weary Victorian hedge against the tides of upward mobility. The houses marched down either side of a narrow lane, each with a front garden the size of a welcome mat. The houses were all brick, all leaning tightly against one another, with cars crammed down the road almost as firmly as the homes. A pair of hardfaced professionals left their sentry duty by the front door of a bed-and-breakfast. They stepped forward and did homage to Joe Loupe, giving little bows and deferential murmurs. Wally rose from her car seat but did not move forward with the others. She stared at nothing, was recognized by no one. Just a hard-faced woman standing at the edge of the action.
An older woman appeared in the bed-and-breakfast’s doorway. She greeted all this commotion with a raspy cough and fished in her sweater for a cigarette. “Any you gents spare a light?”
The driver flicked open a gold lighter and held it for her. She thanked him with another cough. Ashes formed intricate grey swirls on the front of her cardigan, surrounding a multitude of burn holes. The woman was greasy and unkempt. Up close, Terrance could see the pink bald skin beneath hair of woven glass. “Like I told the gents, your honor, I didn’t see a thing.”
“But surely you must recognize one of your own guests.”
“The blokes that come here, they ain’t after being recognized. They want a stroll to the bar, a quiet kip, a slap-up breakfast, and they’re off.” She dragged in about a third of her cigarette. “The less I ask, the more they’ll come back. That’s the way it is these days, your honor.”
“Of course, my dear lady. You do what you must.”
“The only reason I noticed him at all is on account of how he’s taken a room and dusted off already. Didn’t take no breakfast.”
The muscle confirmed, “His room’s empty.”
Loupe lifted one hand. Instantly the muscle passed over a photograph. “Just have one more look at this, would you please?”
She reluctantly glanced over. “Like I told your blokes, they come, they go. It mighta been him.”
“I find a bit of cash can do marvels for the memory. A veritable wonder drug, don’t you agree?” He pressed the photo closer still. “Say, a hundred pounds?”
The woman had clearly been waiting for this. “Said his name was Adams. The bloke sounded American.”
“Did he, now? How very splendid.” He motioned to his driver. “Pay the dear lady. Now then, you see? We have established a line of communication. Might there be anything else you could share with us?”
“For another hundred knicker?”
“I pay for what I receive, dear lady. You bear witness to that.”
“He made a call.”
“From your own line?”
“Separate. Got it set up in the front parlor for my guests.”
“A pay phone, is it? And you receive a list of all calls made, don’t you?”
She pretended a casual shrug. “I suppose I could print you out a page.”
“How very splendid. Michael?”
When the money was handed over, she extracted a well-creased page from a pocket big as a pouch. She pointed with a yellow-stained finger. “That’s the one. Down there at the bottom. Last call but one going out.”
Terrance craned forward, though he already knew what he would find. One glance was enough. “That’s our man.” He turned and stamped away. A dozen paces beyond the Bentley, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed.
Don came instantly on the line. “What?”
“It’s me.”
“And?”
“Val is still on the loose.”
Don huffed quietly. Again. Then, “This cannot be happening.”
“He took the boat to Jersey. They had two hit men stalking him. Val got away. He hid on the boat, didn’t get off at all, and returned to England.”
Don’s voice kept to a light musicality. Despite the late hour, Don must have already been on public display. “Let me get this straight. We’re down here spreading out all our evidence, which they are all taking as solid gospel, let me tell you. We’re claiming Val Haines has managed to slip away with $422 million. Boom. He’s gone. They are raking through this with electron microscopes and SEC sniffer hounds, looking for some way to tie us in and drop us in the pit.”
“The inspectors are with you now?”
“Inspectors, auditors, external counsel, we have an army of suits in here. The entire office building is smelling blood. Their own. So my job is to walk around pretending that everything is just fine. Which they know is absolute fabrication.” His breaths were tight little wisps. But his words kept coming out light as air. Terrance could imagine the rictus grin he was wearing. “We’re spinning our tales and they’re swallowing our bait. I’m singing and I’m dancing and I’m lying with every breath. And everything depends on this one thing going down. Everything. Our lives, our futures, our money. And you’re telling me this guy is on the loose?”
“I know where he is.”
“So tell.”
“Hastings.”
“You mean, he’s headed for our plant in Hastings?”
“That would be my guess.”
“What for?”
“He’ll try to access the company system. Break into our own files. See what’s up.”
“Can he do that?”
“Maybe.”
“This is not the answer I need to hear.”
“He oversaw installation of the system related to the pension department. People have always liked Val, you know that as well as I do. It’s possible our in-house nerds told him about a backdoor.”
“A
what?”
“Software engineers often insert hidden entries into their systems. They’re called backdoors. Supposedly they can be used for ongoing repairs. Often it’s just to show how smart they are. If Val was told about one, he could use it to access our data no matter what firewalls I insert around the standard entry-points.”
“That cannot happen.”
“You need to have our IT people cut Hastings off entirely. The computer system needs to be completely disengaged. No interoffice traffic in any guise.”
Don’s pause was microseconds long. “Done. Now what are you going to do about the crisis?”
“I’m on it.”
“Hastings is a town, right? There’s a lot of places where he can hide in a town.”
Terrance pushed a fist into his gut, trying to still the churning nausea. “I know where he’s headed.”
“You’re sure?”
“He’s had a thing with my sister.”
“If we weren’t talking about our collective futures, I’d be laughing out loud.” Don paused a long moment, then, “What I need to know right here, right now, is this. Can you handle what needs handling?”
“And I’m telling you I am on top of this.”
“What if he gets to the bank? Can he access the funds?”
“His, yes. But not ours.”
“You’re sure of that? Absolutely certain? I’m asking, you know, on account of my neck is on the chopping block here.”
“You have a set of access codes. I have the other. Yours are in your bank’s safety deposit box. Mine are in the microcomputer in my briefcase. Those are the only sets. Nobody else has any connection whatsoever. So that is not the problem here. That is not what we have to be focusing on.”
“Val.”
“If he shows up at the bank, Syntec will inform New York, New York will go ballistic, and we are dead. Josef has two men stationed permanently on the island to see that doesn’t happen.”
“Who?”
“Our ally over here. Never mind.”
“This the same ally who didn’t get him like he was supposed to when he arrived? This is a reason to trust him?”
Terrance cut the connection and stalked back to the car. The rain was so light as to drift in the air, settling on nothing, drenching everything. Josef stood smiling slightly and smoking a cigar. He waved it in Terrance’s direction. “Would you care for a panatela?”
“No. Thanks.” He panted from the strain. Don’s frantic state had seeped through the phone like a viscous acid. Terrance hated this day. This place. This seedy district of weary houses and rain too disdainful to even fall correctly. People with worn-down faces. Air that smelled of sea and industry and dense hopelessness. Terrance wiped the moisture from his face. “You just better not fail again.”
Wally was leaning on the Bentley’s front end. She rolled her eyes at Terrance, shook her head, and slid into the seat. Taking up the position again, eyes front, seeing nothing.
The boss casually rolled his cigar’s glowing end around his fingernail. Terrance saw how the repeated act had charred a slender half-moon, staining it like a blooded talon. Josef asked, “Shouldn’t there be an ‘or else’ after that little statement?”
“I need this job done.”
“Of course you do. But it seems a bit odd, a gentleman like yourself taking such a tone with the only man in England who’s able to offer a helping hand.” Loupe gave Terrance a look, his eyes holding nothing at all. Just dead air.
Terrance sensed something behind him, like an unseen furnace door had opened. He knew without turning that the driver had stalked up with a predator’s silence, moving in tight. He resisted the urge to glance back. “I need this man to vanish immediately.”
“That’s why we’re all here together, now, isn’t it? To make sure I live up to my part of the bargain.” The man dropped his half-finished cigar to the road, where it sizzled and died, and reached for Terrance’s arm. “Shall we continue with our little journey?”
Terrance let Josef steer him around. To his astonishment, the driver was by the car, holding open the door, giving him that same blank mask. Only now there was a different face to the day, as though he could peel away the soft, rich facade and hear a faint scream. At least it was Val’s pain he was hearing. He was fairly certain of that.
AN HOUR AFTER RISING WITH THE DAWN, VAL KNEW HIS PLAN WAS futile. Even so, he remained where he was, isolated in his host’s home office, listening to the house come alive around him. Gerald was a production engineer working the line at Insignia. Like most engineers, his home computer was hardwired into the company system. Even so, Val did not have a chance to even try his backdoors. The UK computer system had effectively been frozen out.
Sunlight pierced the house with an unfamiliar tone. Val took his empty mug back to the kitchen. Three men sat at the table, their morning chatter silenced by his appearance. The atmosphere was stale as the overcooked coffee. Val poured himself a mug and retreated to the office.
He stood by the side window and sipped at coffee stewed to its bitter dregs. He watched as Audrey’s dilapidated Rover pulled up to the curb. Val found himself unable to walk out and greet her. Instead, he touched Audrey’s letter through the fabric of his shirt, as he would a talisman.
When the doorbell rang, a burly middle-aged man emerged from the kitchen. He opened the front door and greeted her with, “All right, love?”
“Hello, Bert.” Audrey’s voice held to a comfortable burr. “Everyone behaving themselves?”
The big man liked that in the manner of old friends. “Looks like we should be asking you that one.”
Gerald walked down the hall from the kitchen. He gave Val a single glance through the open office doorway, then bussed Audrey on the cheek. Gerald was lean and taut in build, with hair one shade off blond. He had pianist’s hands, long and supple and very strong looking. He wore a button-down Oxford shirt of pale blue and had three pens in his breast pocket. Everything about him shouted engineer.
Audrey said quietly, “Thank you, Gerald.”
“Glad to help,” he said, but he cut Val another look that suggested something else.
“Have you discussed things yet?”
“We decided it was best to wait for you.”
“All right.” Audrey finally acknowledged Val, but showed him nothing. “Did you sleep well?”
“Fine, thanks.”
“Perhaps we should get started.”
Val felt Gerald’s gaze steady and hard on him as he followed the others into the front parlor. A third man entered through the kitchen. Dillon was younger than the others but bore the same scarred rigidity as Bert. Val stationed himself by the doorway, giving himself an out in case the natives turned hostile.
Gerald’s home was a bachelor’s sort of place—monochrome carpet, bare walls, functional furniture. A pair of mismatched sofas were permanently reshaped by the bodies lodged there. Pastel drapes framed windows pleading dustily for a good cleaning. Val saw a lot of his own dwelling space in how Gerald lived.
Gerald selected a hard-backed chair by the empty fireplace and asked, “Is it true what they say, that they’re closing us down?”
Audrey replied, “I don’t have anything definite. But the rumors seem pretty conclusive.”
“What about our pensions?” Evidently Gerald was their appointed spokesman. “Is that true?”
“Yes. I’m afraid it is.”
“Someone has stolen from them?”
Audrey gave Val the resigned expression of one knowing it had to come out. Val said, “Not someone. Terrance d’Arcy.”
Gerald asked Audrey, “Your brother has tapped into our pension fund?”
She nodded at Val, who replied for her, “Not tapped. Drained. Terrance has effectively stolen it all. Or enough so that everything else will go to the company’s creditors.”
“What about us?”
“There are always other liens and priority claims on a pension fund. Legally, pension holders are the
last in line. They have no secured interest. It’s wrong, but that’s the way it is.”
“You’re telling me that Insignia is going to shut us down and we won’t have any pension to tide us over?”
“That pretty much sums it up.”
Audrey nodded at him once more. Val took a very hard breath and added, “I stole from the fund as well.”
Gerald looked at Audrey again. His voice was perplexed. “You’ve been keeping the torch for a thief?”
“Val isn’t a thief.”
“Excuse me, love, but you heard him the same as I.”
“I know what he said.” Audrey met Val with an unwavering gaze. “But Val Haines is not a thief.”
Gerald crossed his arms across his chest. Holding himself back bunched his shoulders and corded the muscles in his neck.
The large man seated on the sofa asked Val, “What’d you do that for, mate?”
“I don’t remember.”
Gerald snorted. A quiet puff of sound, there and gone. Like a coiled spring wound tight for far too long.
“I had an accident. I suffer from amnesia. I remember parts now. But not everything. I know I stole from the fund. Maybe it was just to get away. I remember telling someone that. But it doesn’t fit. I can’t figure out why I’d go against everything just to . . .”
The gazes around the room and the struggle to remember felt like fists squeezing his head. Val knew the reason was there. He could almost fit the pieces together. He pushed at his temples with the palms of both hands, adding to the external force. He lifted his gaze. It wasn’t coming. He said, “I’m sorry.”
Gerald snorted again. He jerked his chin at Val. “This is the best we’ve got?”
“He’s our only hope,” Audrey replied.
Gerald kicked at the wall behind him with one heel. Softly. Just releasing a bit of the excess steam.
Bert said from his place on the sofa, “Well, all right, then.”
Gerald wasn’t ready to let it go just yet. “What chance do we have of getting back what’s owed us?”
“Slim to none.” Val was not going to lie. Not anymore. “But I think we should try.”