Big Mango (9786167611037)

by Needham, Jake

  “Why would anybody who thought I might know where the money is send me those pictures?” Eddie asked as if Wuntz hadn’t spoken. “I don’t see the point.”

  “It’s not all that hard to figure out.” Wuntz sniffed half-heartedly at the air one more time and then sighed in resignation. “What would you do if you wanted to find out where something was and the guy who knew wasn’t about to tell you?”

  “I guess I’d get someone to slap the guy around a little. Beat it out of him.”

  Winnebago’s eyes went glassy and he reached for his cigarettes again.

  “Nah, that never works,” Wuntz shook his head firmly. “At least not if the guy has enough incentive to keep his mouth shut and just take the beating. And I think we can agree here that the whereabouts of $400,000,000 is a hell of an incentive.”

  “Then how would you get somebody to give up something like that?”

  “You’d have to get into some serious torture to have any chance at all. Metal pins under the fingernails, lighted cigarettes on the nuts, that kind of thing.”

  Winnebago broke out in a fit of coughing as he exhaled.

  “Then why send those photographs to put me on guard? Why not just drag me away somewhere and get on with it?”

  “Because they’re not going to torture you.”

  “I’m glad you’re sure of that.”

  “I am.”

  “Then what are they going to do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  Wuntz nodded solemnly. “Nothing.”

  “For Christ’s sakes, Wuntz, stop with the goddamned riddles. Just spell it out for me.”

  “They’re trying to spook you.”

  “Then they’re doing a hell of a good job so far.”

  “I’m not joking, Eddie.”

  Eddie raised his eyebrows skeptically. “You mean they think the pictures will scare me so badly that when they come around and ask where the money is I’ll just tell them?”

  “I thought you didn’t know where it is.”

  “I don’t.”

  Wuntz smiled one of those cop smiles that said he knew a liar when he heard one.

  “But they won’t just go away quietly when I tell them I don’t know anything, will they, Wuntz?”

  “Probably not, but I wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t think anyone’s planning to show up and ask you anything.”

  Eddie just waited for the rest of it this time and let Wuntz preen a little before he went on, spinning out his theory.

  “They’re trying to make you run.”

  Eddie obviously still didn’t get it, so Wuntz spelled it out, slowly. “Look, if you thought that after all these years somebody had finally put you together with the missing money and they were coming to put enough hurt on to make you give it up, what would you do?”

  “You mean, what would I do if I actually knew where the $400,000,000 was?”

  Wuntz shrugged. “Okay, we’ll play it your way.”

  “I’d grab as much as I could carry and find a nice warm beach in a country without any extradition treaties.”

  “Exactly.” Wuntz steepled his fingers, pursed his lips and tried to look professorial. “You’d run, Eddie. You’d run straight to the money.”

  “Give me a break, Wuntz. Even if I did know where the money was, it sure as hell wouldn’t be buried in a box in my backyard. We’re talking about maybe ten tons of gold and currency. It’d be in bank accounts, invested in stocks, bonds, and real estate. Stuff like that.”

  Wuntz looked unimpressed. “Doesn’t make any difference. The principle’s the same.”

  He held up his open hand when Eddie started to interrupt.

  “If you feel threatened enough, you’ll check the money to be sure it’s safe, whatever form it’s in. That’s human nature.”

  “And of course if I did that—”

  “You got it now,” Wuntz nodded vigorously. “Whoever is sending you these photographs would be right behind you. He’s probably got people watching you.”

  Winnebago glanced around quickly and rubbed at the side of his face. “Oh, Jesus.”

  “Maybe he even has a way of checking your bank accounts, seeing if you move money from one account to another, shit like that,” Wuntz went on. “He’s probably all over your ass right now and you don’t even know it.”

  “You think that’s it, huh? You think that’s what the pictures are all about?” Eddie mused.

  Wuntz clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth a couple of times. “That’s sure as shit the way I’d get to you. More effective than torture. Neater, too.”

  The more Eddie thought about Wuntz’s theory, the more sense it made; and the more sense it made, the better he felt.

  If Wuntz was right, all he really had to do was sit tight and this would all eventually go away. When he didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, whoever was behind the pictures would get sick of watching a garden-variety San Francisco lawyer go about his daily business, realize that Eddie didn’t know anything about the money, and give up.

  And what could the Secret Service do to him? After all, he didn’t know anything about Operation Voltaire and he couldn’t tell them where the money was no matter how many times they asked him. After a while they would have to give up, too.

  Yeah, Eddie decided, Wuntz was giving him good advice. All he had to do was keep his nose clean, go about his business, and in a few weeks this would all turn into nothing but a story he would someday tell some woman when he was trying to make his life sound interesting to her. Wuntz was a pretty savvy guy.

  Eddie kept thinking that for a long time after they left Washington Square that night and went their separate ways. In fact, he kept thinking that all through the rest of the weekend and all the way up until he walked into his office on Monday morning and saw the look on Joshua’s face.

  Joshua held Eddie’s eyes while he tilted his head slowly in the direction of the inner office’s closed door and pursed his lips into a long, silent whistle.

  ‘Secret Service?’ Eddie mouthed.

  Joshua replied by shaking his head and allowing his eyebrows to begin a slow migration toward the ceiling. All in a flash, Eddie saw something as clearly as he had ever seen anything in his entire life.

  Kelly Wuntz was about to turn out to be one really dumb son of a bitch after all.

  Seven

  “MR. Rupert, he said his name was,” Joshua stage whispered. “Marinus Rupert.”

  “And you believed that?”

  “No, but what do I care? How about that Chinese guy last week who insisted we call him O.J. Simpson?”

  “Do we at least know what this Mr. Marinus wants?” Eddie asked with a hint of irritation.

  “Mr. Rupert. Marinus is his first name.”

  “As long as he remembers. What does he want?”

  Joshua gave Eddie a tired look and went back to typing, so he took a deep breath and opened the door to his office.

  The man turned out to be not at all what Eddie had expected, although when he thought about it later, he realized he wasn’t sure what he had expected.

  Marinus Rupert could have passed for fifty, but Eddie guessed he was probably a lot older. He was a handsome man, trim and well dressed with a patrician face that made Eddie think of Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. as he had looked in the sixties. The man certainly didn’t strike Eddie as the kind who went around using a phony name. Maybe his name really was Marinus Rupert. Poor bastard.

  “Thank you for seeing me without an appointment, Mr. Dare.”

  Eddie offered his hand. “No problem.”

  The man’s voice was deep and smooth and had authority to it. His accent tagged him as English, but he could just as well have been a colonial of some kind.

  As they made small talk, Eddie looked Rupert over carefully. More than anything else, he looked rich: a suit that was obviously custom tailored; small gold links glinting against the cuffs of his snow-white shirt; a wristwatch so exclusive th
at Eddie couldn’t immediately identify the make; and expensively barbered dark hair, graying in perfect symmetry at both temples.

  “So what can I do for you, Mr. Rupert?” Eddie asked when he got bored with sizing the man up.

  “I’m sure you realize Rupert isn’t my real name, Mr. Dare, and I know you realize it or I wouldn’t be here.” The man looked mildly amused. “Nevertheless, why don’t we just continue to use it for a while. Just between us.”

  That was interesting, Eddie thought.

  “Okay,” he said. “And you can use the name Eddie Dare for me since that actually is my name.”

  The man smiled broadly as if he found Eddie’s response delightfully witty.

  “No, actually it’s not, sport. Rupert Edward Dare is your real name. Eddie is just the charmingly American diminutive you began using when you became a voice for the criminal classes. I’m sure your usual clientele likes it, but then I’m not your usual clientele, am I?”

  “I see,” Eddie said, but of course he didn’t see anything.

  “That’s why I selected Rupert as my surname for this meeting. I thought it might amuse you.”

  “I’m amused all to hell. What about the Marinus part?’

  “That was my mother’s maiden name.”

  “Really?”

  “No, of course not.”

  The man smiled again, an automatic-looking flicker of the corners of his mouth, and then briskly changed the subject.

  “I know quite a lot about you, Mr. Dare.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about you.”

  “And you won’t. Not unless I want you to. Not a thing.”

  Eddie looked at the man and waited for him to continue, but he seemed in no hurry. He just sat and flicked his smile on and off a few times.

  Finally Eddie leaned back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, propped his feet on the desk, and crossed his legs at the ankle.

  “Okay, buddy, I give up. You’ve got the floor.”

  Rupert nodded as if he were satisfied and rose from his chair. He walked to a window and stood there quietly looking down at Grant Street, his back to the room.

  “I need your help to collect some money, Eddie. I may call you Eddie, may I not?”

  Eddie said nothing.

  “Good.” The man spoke again without turning from the window. “It’s quite a lot of money actually.”

  Eddie wondered for a moment if the man was looking at anything in particular or if he was only letting his eyes drift generally over the throng of people down below surging along Grant. It was a crush that always made Eddie think of Hong Kong: a vast swarm of mostly elderly Chinese, pushing and shoving, filling the sidewalks and eventually the street, overwhelming with sheer numbers those motor vehicles foolish enough to challenge them.

  “Do you ever miss the old days at Wren & Simon, Eddie?”

  The question felt like a slap and Eddie immediately realized that was exactly how it had been intended.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “When you tried those two big money laundering cases back in…’87 was it?”

  “1988.”

  “It looked like you were really going places then.”

  “I did go places.”

  “So you did,” Rupert chuckled, looking around. “So you did, Eddie.”

  Briskly turning away from the window, he returned to the chair where he had been before. He settled himself again, taking his time about it, and then began to tap his right forefinger slowly against his cheek. It was a stagy gesture of a man who wanted to look like he was thinking and Eddie thought it appeared ridiculous.

  “They should never have kicked you out of the firm, you know.”

  “Why are we talking about this?”

  “You were doing the best you could to keep a very greedy and quite stupid banker out of jail. As I recall he worked for…who was it?”

  Eddie stayed silent. He knew the man didn’t expect him to answer.

  “It doesn’t really matter. Anyway, you did what good lawyers always do, didn’t you, Eddie? Good lawyers always represent their clients to the best of their ability. Everyone understands that. It’s just that sometimes they have to get their hands a little dirty to do it, don’t they?”

  “My hands didn’t get dirty.”

  “Some of your partners thought they did.”

  “They were wrong.”

  Eddie abruptly swung his feet back onto the floor and leaned toward the man, his forearms resting on the desk.

  “That’s all I’m saying about that. You can change the subject or get the hell out of here. I don’t really care which.”

  Rupert raised both hands in mock surrender. “Easy, Eddie. No offense. I’m on your side here.”

  “Then that makes two of us. Tell me what you want or take off.”

  “Whatever you say,” Rupert nodded pleasantly. “I’m here to become one of your clients.”

  “I’m not sure I want you for a client.”

  “Oh, I think you do. I’m really a very interesting guy when you get to know me.”

  Eddie searched the man’s eyes for some clue as to where this was going, but he found none. “Before we talk about anything like that,” he said, “there are still a few formalities to deal with. You know, little things like who the hell you are and what you want me to do.”

  “I already told you. I want you to help me collect some money. We’ll get to the rest of it later.”

  The man was putting on a performance that suggested he needed something a little less routine than foreclosing a mortgage on a strip mall he had sold to a bunch of proctologists in Palo Alto. Was he talking about hot money of some kind? The man didn’t look the sort for laundering drug money, but then Eddie wasn’t absolutely sure what ‘the sort’ looked like when you got up to what was obviously this guy’s level. Most of Eddie’s recent clients had been a lot lower down the food chain. Embezzlement maybe? Bribery? Arms smuggling?

  “The amount involved is roughly $400,000,000.”

  Some people believed in coincidence as a fundamental force in their lives, and some didn’t. Eddie had never thought much about it one way or the other. Until now.

  What was the possibility this was just a coincidence? What was the chance that two separate conversations in his office on two consecutive days were each about a different $400,000,000? Eddie did the math and easily came up with the right answer.

  Zero.

  He eyed the man for a while without saying anything. Rupert just smiled blandly.

  “I don’t know anything about the money you’re looking for,” Eddie finally said.

  “If you don’t know anything about it, how do you know what money I’m looking for?”

  “Because a Secret Service agent sitting right there on Friday was looking for $400,000,000, too. He even told me a little story about it. Just enough for me to be able to tell him the same thing I’m telling you. I don’t know anything about it, and I can’t help you.”

  Eddie thought he saw a quick flicker of uncertainty in the man’s eyes, and he pounced. “By the way, what was the point of sending me those photographs?”

  “Photographs?”

  Whatever Eddie thought he had seen before was gone now. The man’s voice was level and untroubled, if clearly puzzled.

  “What photographs are you talking about?”

  “Never mind.” Eddie mentally kicked himself for bringing up the pictures without thinking more carefully. His bewilderment was making him stupid. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Rupert nodded absentmindedly several times, apparently thinking of something else entirely, and then to Eddie’s relief let his mention of the photographs slip by without comment.

  “What exactly did you tell the Secret Service?” he asked instead.

  “That I couldn’t help them.”

  “Anything else?” The man seemed to be making an effort to remain casual.

  “I told them I was in Saigon in 1975 and my com
pany was assigned to support the evacuation, but I had nothing to do with the Bank of Vietnam or the money they’re looking for.”

  The man remained silent. Eddie noticed he had stopped smiling and wondered what that meant.

  “We rode shotgun on the last convoy out to Tan Son Nhut before the North Vietnamese started shelling it and flight operations were stopped,” Eddie added. “After that we helped with the helicopter evacuation from the embassy and were lifted out off the rooftop pad. I didn’t have any $400,000,000 with me when I went off that roof, and as far as I could tell neither did anyone else. That’s it. I just can’t help you.”

  The man began nodding slowly as if he were a teacher drilling an exceptionally dim pupil, one who simply needed some gentle encouragement to come up with the right answer.

  “We’ve looked into your background thoroughly, Eddie. We know you couldn’t possibly have what we’re looking for.”

  “If you already know I can’t help you, then what are you doing here?”

  “Because you can help us, Eddie. Just not the way you think.”

  “We? Us? Who the fuck are you talking about?”

  “This is our proposition.” Rupert bent forward and lowered his voice, although there was no particular reason for it. “We understand that you and your company commander were pretty close. We want you to talk to Captain Austin for us. That’s it really. Just talk to him.”

  Boy, is this guy in for a surprise, Eddie thought, but he said nothing.

  “We think Austin either has the money himself or he knows who does. We also think that most of the money is still intact.”

  “Why do you think that?” Eddie asked.

  “It’s impossible to get that much money into circulation quietly, unless of course you possess technical knowledge and means which we are confident Captain Austin couldn’t.”

  Eddie nodded, but he didn’t say anything.

  “That’s why we want you to offer Captain Austin a deal. We’ve established a completely legal structure for moving the entire sum very quickly into the international banking system without attracting any attention whatsoever, and we want to form a partnership with him for that purpose.”

  “What you’re saying is that you can launder $400,000,000.”