”I mean ... I know there are things men like. If you'll show me how, I'll try to do them for you.”
“Are you serious?”
”I tried to tell you. This has never been my sport.”
“I've got news. You're a natural.”
“You're a liar but you're sweet.”
“Okay, you want the truth?”
“Kind of.”
“You're only good with me. With anyone else, you might as well be a haddock.”
She laughed aloud. She laughed each time she thought of it.
“Back to your offer, You're saying you'll do my favorite thing. No matter how weird?”
“Ah . . . how weird is weird?”
“You holding my hand. Me falling asleep with you holding my hand. That's my favorite thing.”
That made a tear well up. But she wasn't sad this time. This was going to be okay.
Chapter 20
Fat Julie was getting worried.
He had still heard nothing from Moon. Nor, he thought, had Doyle. But Doyle was so pissed off at him—for setting Moon off—that he probably won't call if he does.
Julie had known about the fire within hours. Some friends of friends, from the docks at Port Everglades, had flown up to check out the house for him. That night, they faxed him the clippings from the morning paper. There, on page one, was a helicopter shot. The house was gutted. An inset showed the dead man, as yet unidentified. Just a smashed-up lump, framed by a metal lounge chair whose plastic had melted out from under him.
Two days later they faxed him the police report. The corpse had been tentatively identified as one Ayub Ras-poor Ghentner, a.k.a. Walter Ghentner, a guard in the employ of a private security firm.
From the way Moon worked him over, Julie had to assume that Moon now knew everything that Walter could tell him. And that Moon now had a hit list.
This in itself troubled him. Moon was no killer. He might have no problem turning the guy who killed Jake into a pot roast, and then whomever gave the order. But, knowing Moon, Julie felt he would try not to hurt anyone else who might get in the way. That's a dangerous attitude.
Say a woman, for example, turned out to be involved in this. Moon might have a problem with doing a woman. But say it's a man, which it is. Moon will want to look him in the eye. He'll want to be sure the guy knows why he's dying. A real killer wouldn't give a fuck.
It gets worse. If Moon has a hit list, the Parker guy and Michael's old boss are at the top. And they'd realize that by now. Moon will turn up in New York before long and they'll be waiting for him. A real killer doesn't let you know he's coming.
What bothered Julie's conscience a little is that all this is what he'd been banking on. Setting Moon loose, waiting while he stirs up the nest, watching where the pieces fall. Which is what Doyle suspected. Which is why Doyle is so pissed.
But it was Moon's own fault. All Moon had to do was answer some questions. If he had, Julie would have made one phone call to his friends in Florida and Moon would have had all the shooters he needed.
Because there's money here. There's a mountain of it. The trick, however, is to find a way in. You don't just say, “Hey, this looks like a good business. Let's hire a few pharmacists and set up a factory, maybe on one of our ships.” You have to know how to move what you've made and who you have to grease. You have to have either knocked off the competition or made some kind of deal with them. Having friends in the FDA couldn't hurt either but, even there, you have to know who to buy.
Yahya, on the other hand, says the selling part's easy.
“How easy?”
“Go to any distributor. Show him your sample. Tell him the price is one third off wholesale.”
“Won't he know right away it's bogus?”
“Of course. At such a price, it is either bogus or stolen.”
“Stolen happens too?”
“Of course.”
“Okay . . . say the guy's honest.”
Yahya knew what he was asking. “He will want no part of it. But he will not call the police.”
“Why not?”
A shrug. “Why should he make enemies? It is enough to politely decline.”
Fat Julie made a doubtful face. “Well . . .say he doesn't. Say he bites.”
“He will ask for your documents.”
“Yeah, but where do I get them? And how do I know what he wants?”
“He will show you. He will show you exactly.”
To hear Yahya tell it, this distributor then goes to his files and pulls out samples of the documentation he needs. Invoices, bills of lading, licensing agreements, and letters on the maker's corporate letterhead certifying their point of origin and giving batch numbers and production dates. He's saying, “This is what I need to protect my ass,” but not out loud in case this is a sting. He leaves them on his desk while he goes to take a piss. He's saying, “I'll lend you these. Take them when I'm not looking and make me a set just as nice.”
Could it really be as simple as that?
Johnny G. had one good idea. He said let's send Yahya up to the Bronx, up around University Avenue, which was Mohammed Mizda's neighborhood and where half the Pakistanis in New York seem to live. Yahya must have friends up there, right? They know he did time for dealing pills and got early release on probation. Probation has expired so now he can bag his crummy job on the docks and start looking for a new connection. We get lucky, Yahya will get steered to AdChem, which will give us someone inside.
It seemed worth a shot. Johnny G. sat down with Mohammed Yahya and explained the job, dangled some very nice financial incentives, but he also outlined the new Giordano brothers termination policy—two Brooklyn rats under a heated pasta bowl—in case he should be tempted to fuck with them. Yahya jumped at the deal.
So we wait.
Waiting, thought Julie, was basically what Johnny had in mind because Johnny was beginning to have second thoughts about grabbing a piece of this bogus pill thing.
“We promised Pop,” was what he said. “We swore to God we wouldn't.”
“Yeah, but that was about drugs. This stuff is medicine.”
“It's all medicine, Julie. That's where all the street shit started. When Pop was a kid, you could buy it off the shelves.”
“Johnny . . . what's bothering you?”
But he only shrugged and looked away.
“Okay, I said it wrong. This isn't just medicine. This is health care for the masses.”
“Say what?”
“Come on, Johnny. You can't turn on the TV without hearing about health care. You hear about old ladies going without food because they have to spend the money on medicine because, for years now, the big drug companies have been ripping them off.”
His brother closed one eye. “We'd be doing this for old ladies? Is that what you're telling me, Julie?”
No, smart-ass, we wouldn't.
But they'd benefit, right? They'd benefit from managed competition which everyone says is good. And it's us who'd do the managing.
Julie had been reading up on this. Even if they passed national health insurance, all the drugs under patent will still be expensive. Of the others, maybe you need more than they'll give you. Or maybe it's a drug you can't get at all because it isn't approved in this country.
Even when patents run out and you can buy generic versions of drugs, you still need a prescription. There can also be a big difference between one batch of generics and the next. They said that on TV too. On “60 Minutes,” he thought it was.
Quality control. That's what we'd give them. Any pill they want, from any country, guaranteed as good or better than the original and at a price they can live with. The only catch is it can't be too cheap, people have to need it every day, and they have to need it forever. As long as the pill works, how is this wrong? Would Pop say this is wrong?
“And very little risk, Johnny. You said so yourself.”
“Tell that to Jake Fallon.”
Goddamn it.
“Johnny ... are
you going to tell me what put a bug up your ass?”
“I'm not sure.”
“Two weeks ago, I never seen you so excited. What's the matter, it's too big? Villanova didn't teach you to think big?”
“No. Big is what's good about it.”
“Well, what? That it's a crime? Because I got news for you, Johnny. You've been a fucking criminal since—”
”I want to talk to Moon. Or at least to Michael.”
“Wait a minute. What for?”
“Because if AdChem was doing this, and Jake or Michael found out, what if that's what got Jake killed?”
“It probably was.”
“So? What'll you say to Moon? ‘Sorry about Jake, Moon, but those guys had a good idea. Too bad about Bronwyn, Michael, but we see a way to score here.”
“Johnny, it's not the same.”
”I want Moon to tell me that. Moon or Michael.”
Twice in the past several nights, Doyle's home phone had rung and there was silence when he answered. He had stayed up each time for a couple of hours, sitting in the dark with a gun at his side.
He suspected, however, that the caller was Moon. He felt that Moon had just wanted to hear his voice so he'd know there had been no reprisal for that business in Palm Beach. But Moon could also be dead for all he knew. Thanks to goddamned Julie.
He could be dead at the hands of Parker and his bunch or dead in some hotel room from another stroke. Or, God forbid,, Parker might have him.
But the last did not seem likely.
He would have heard by now because someone would have approached him with a deal. The deal would be, “You want Moon back? More or less in one piece? Then drop Michael's lawsuit, withdraw the subpoena of Lehman-Stone's files, and we'll call it a draw.”
But Doyle had heard nothing. Not even an offer from their lawyers to settle for a couple of hundred grand or so just to get rid of this thing. On the contrary, their lawyers were spending a lot of time in court trying to stonewall him on the discovery process. This struck Doyle as dumb. It's the same as admitting either that Michael has a case or that Lehman-Stone has something much bigger to hide.
Doyle had never intended to drop this suit. He'd made noises to Michael that it wasn't worth pursuing but that was to keep him away from it. If he'd found what he hoped to find, he didn't want Michael looking over his shoulder. But so far he'd come up empty. He had even dug out that AdChem annual report, the one Jake had in his pocket, and read it again word by word. If it held some clue to what they and Hobbs were up to, Doyle had failed to find it.
Hobbs, on the other hand, doesn't know that. Perhaps, therefore, it's time to get his attention. How does ten million dollars sound?
That, he decided, would be the new price tag for defaming Michael Fallon as part of an elaborate cover-up of a longstanding pattern of securities fraud that has recently been uncovered by our investigators.
What investigators?
None, unless you'd count Arnie, but they don't know that either.
What fraud?
We don't know but they do. Let them sweat it.
And, as long as we're tossing bombs, let's name AdChem in the complaint. We didn't do so at first because AdChem had no relevance to an action over wrongful dismissal and slander. It doesn't now either, not so far as we can prove, but what the hell.
And ... if we really want to shake the bastards up, why not name Armin Rasmussen? If we're wrong, what's the worst that could happen? They'll say who the hell is Rasmussen, right?
Yeah, thought Doyle. What the hell.
First thing tomorrow, he would draw up an amended complaint. File it after lunch, ruin a few dinners. But on second thought, why wait? Let's pick up the phone, call their lawyers, let them know it's coming.
Better idea.
Securities fraud is federal. Call whatzizname . . . Bellows. Their hotshot Washington lawyer. Professional courtesy, right?
Chapter 21
Michael still knew almost nothing about her, not even her last name.
He had picked up a few things, of course. He gathered that she'd crewed once or twice on long expeditions out of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, which was within walking distance of her slip. Whether she went as researcher, navigator, diver, or cook, or whether that was her means of support, he had no idea. Whenever his questions got too specific, or too personal, he would suddenly find himself alone. Megan's body might still be there but the rest of her might as well have beamed up to the mother ship for all that he'd get out of her. .
But not all personal subjects were off-limits. She mentioned, for example, that she once did a solo sail around the world. Seven months. Mostly to be alone with herself . . . find out who she is ... listen to herself. Had a long talk with a dolphin who stayed with her for three days.
“You can talk to dolphins?”
“Michael . . . get a grip.”
“But you just said . . .”
“Have you ever talked to a dog?”
“Um . . . sure.”
“‘Did that dog wag his tail or did he start quoting Chaucer? Did he say now that we've broken the ice, let's discuss global warming?”
“Oh.”
“See that? You talk to animals and no one gives it a thought. I do it and they start genuflecting.”
Oh, and Megan loved to dance.
He wasn't sure why that surprised him but it did. She was graceful and fluid and she liked to cut loose. For his part, he loved to go dancing with her because that was the only time she ever wore a dress and put on serious makeup and wore jewelry. She was a beautiful woman when she wanted to be. And at most other times she was becoming a regular, happy, more or less normal girl.
Woman.
No ... girl.
At times it was as if she had never grown up. She was still in the wonder years. She could be chatty, happy, wide-eyed, and spontaneous. See some kid walking a puppy and she'll cross a busy street to play with it. She likes pizza with the most revolting combinations. Anchovies and pineapple was one. She likes playground swings, maple walnut ice cream, and any movie with Robin Williams in it. One day, she got him to climb a tree with her. She promised she'd respect him in the morning.
It was barely two weeks since that night by his fireplace. Two weeks filled with a hundred small delights.
The psychic thing seldom came up anymore. The listening became less frequent. But he had come to accept that she really did have some sort of gift. If he misplaced something, for example, she would chew her lip like she does and then tell him where to look. Unless she caught him watching her, or decided that he was testing her. In that case, the thing would stay lost.
Okay, knowing where his car keys are is not so big a deal. But one time she touched a shirt that he was wearing and she knew that Bronwyn had bought it for him. And she knew that a pair of gaudy gold cuff links had belonged to Uncle Jake. Things like that.
Megan says, ' ‘Michael . . . half the women in the world can do that. It's called taste. It's called knowing what aman would buy for himself versus what someone must have given him.”
Well, maybe. But so far she's batting a thousand.
As for the sex thing, the frigidity thing, it was getting better all the time. He didn't flatter himself that he had worked some kind of miracle. It was largely a matter of learning what she was comfortable with and helping her to feel okay about herself. For example, Megan did not especially like to make love at bedtime. At bedtime, she liked to get all warm and snug. By herself. In fact, she really didn't like to be touched at bedtime and she liked it even less after she'd fallen asleep. But she would reach to touch him, just to know he was there. Then she'd smile and drift off to sleep.
Mornings were another story. In the morning, she liked having him cuddle up with her, hold her. As long as he didn't rush it, she liked making love in the morning. But even then, she would want to take a shower first. She needed to feel clean for some reason. You would think, if anything, that she'd want to shower afterward.
>
She could also be spontaneous about sex, however. Especially during bad weather. They could be out in the middle of a squall, she'd be soaked to the skin, and suddenly she'd drop the sails, toss a sea anchor off the stern, and start peeling off her clothes right out there on deck. Whether this was related to her thing about showers, he didn't know. He was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
He had managed to convince her, he hoped, that there was nothing in the world wrong with any of this. He was a morning person himself. And she smelled so great fresh out of a shower. It was fine. Everything was fine. Except Pink Floyd. Next time she pulls out that tape it's going over the side.
The only problem was, and perhaps had always been, in this gift of hers. Imagine being a woman, having sex with some guy, and knowing, virtually on contact, things you'd just as soon not know. Who wouldn't freeze up? But with him, apparently, there wasn't that much left to learn.
He had asked her again about all that death she saw. She said it might not have been real. Psychics, she told him, have imaginations too. She was lying. Megan is good at a lot of things but lying isn't one of them. He pressed her. She listened for a long moment. She said whatever it is, whatever it meant, it was fading. It was getting farther away. The relief on her face was no lie.
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