by Jack Getze
“You know Tommy Ragsdale so well, smarty pants, tell me why he put a bug in my Vic’s office if he was already in cahoots with Mallory?”
“You have it wrong,” I say. “Rags heard everything on his listening device, but Mallory figured him out, followed him and was outside Patricia’s when Rags shot Vic. Mallory muscled in on Rags with all that info. And it was Mallory who knew Patricia Willis from way back.”
“Every man in Seaside County knew her.”
“So where did you catch Rags tonight?” I ask.
“Gianni chased him outside, in the back. Rags has some kinda machine gun. They’re still out there, by the loading dock. He’s finally out of ammo.”
A sound comes back to me, the clinks as Mama Bones opened the dough mixer. The second or third one reminded me of a wrench, or maybe hail, dropping on a tin roof.
“Let me ask you, Mama Bones, am I inside a mixer near the back of the building? Maybe close to an open back window?”
“Yeah? How you know that, huh?”
“I think I know where your ruby is.”
THIRTY-ONE
While she and Gianni check out my suggested location, Mama Bones is nice enough to leave the big dough-mixer’s lid up so I can keep a close eye on these knobby, geared blades. The way the edges fit together, I figure death wouldn’t be quite instantaneous. Just enough ripping action to make hellish pain my last taste of earth.
Sure hope they find the ruby, or spinel. I know Mama Bones said she was going to let me out of here, but I’d like that to happen as soon as possible. Sooner even. You never know with Mama Bones.
Mama Bones walks a shuffle I’ve known for years, ever since I started dialing for dollars at the old Shore Securities with her son, Mr. Vic. The grated mesh floor changes the tone, but I hear that familiar scuffle rhythm now, like I did when she used to visit the office.
“Well, what do you know, smarty pants,” Mama Bones says. “You were right. Gianni got a ladder, picked up the ruby and the glass fake on his first pass over the loading dock roof.”
“That’s wonderful, Mama Bones,” I say. “Fantastic. Can I get out of here?”
“They were both right where you said.”
“Yup, tin roofs make sounds like no other. So that’s a big score for you and Gianni. Let’s go celebrate. I’ll buy. Come on, get me out of here and we’ll—”
“I no think so.”
My stomach fills with lead. “Why not? You promised. And then I found the ruby.”
“Lies are part of my nature,” she says. “I think of them as business exaggerations.”
Blood drains from my face. “I can keep my mouth shut. About everything, honest.”
“I no think so.”
“Mama Bones, please. Remember how much you liked my kids when you met them at Luis’?”
“Sure. Beautiful. And I really owe you big time for the tip on the ruby. Saved us hours. But I think you got this coming, Austin Carr. My son says you swiped his business and stole his girl.”
“Jeez, Mama Bones, how many women does one man need. He’s married. Oh, Mama Bones, you’re kidding me, right? This is another joke?”
She cackles. “Yeah, I’m sorry. But maybe you could do me one more favor, huh? I just thought of something besides not telling Vic and the redhead about me finding the ruby. One more little promise before I get Gianni to pull you out of there.”
“A promise?”
“Sure. A little one. A promise and a favor. Maybe two. Then you’re all set.”
No one in Branchtown asks me what happened, how I got the scar on my face, or the double vision which will slowly go away weeks later. No one asks me why my name is coming down off the front of my business. No one asks because everyone knows.
“All right, this stockholders meeting is officially called to order,” I say.
“How come you don’t try my coffee, mister smarty pants big shot?”
I ignore Mama Bones. She knows very well why I will never consume another drop of any food or beverage she prepares. “I’ve already handed out the minutes from the last meeting, and today’s agenda,” I say. “Are there any questions or old items before we discuss today’s new business?”
“Yeah, I gotta question,” Mama Bones says. “How come a guy like you—investigated by the Federal police, an inside trader, involved in the assault of a Federal officer—how come a guy like you is our chairman, huh?”
I give Mama Bones a cold stare. “It’s about the stock, Mama Bones. My percentage of the company versus your son’s? Fifty-one-percent means whatever we vote on, I win. Do you want to vote on who’s chairman?”
Arnold Casey and I both got lucky. We not only survived, but came through our battle with Rags largely intact. Tom Ragsdale has pleaded guilty to three attempted murders and will spend years in prison. Jim Mallory must have left town. No one has seen him since that night on Sandy Hook. Thanks to his ever present bullet-proof vest, Santo Vargas is sore but unharmed, back in Las Vegas. And sadly, Patricia Willis and I have parted ways. Real love or fake love, we were there for a while, but something snapped for both of us not long after that last night as Luis’.
“I gotta ask another question,” Mama Bones says. “How come our new black and gold electric sign out front with Vic’s name isn’t as big as the last one, the sign with your name, huh?”
I should explain. I’m not President, Chairman of the Board and majority owner of Carr Securities anymore. I’m President, Chairman of the Board, and majority owner of V. Bonacelli Investment Corp.—this in honor of my friend, junior partner, the soon-to-be-recovered Mr. Vic. As another favor I promised Mama Bones—to keep from being ground into hamburger—I’ve agreed to sell Mr. Vic ten ownership points of my current fifty-one, effectively giving Vic control again. This is set to happen one year from now.
“It’s a new city zoning regulation,” I say. “Branchtown’s city fathers want smaller signs. They’re going for up-market shoppers now.”
Thanks to Mr. Vic, who handed out his power of attorney for representation on our board to his mother, looks like I’ll have a meddlesome new voice hawking me at these stockholders meetings while I finish up as chairman.
“Zoning regulations, my butt,” Mama Bones says. “Mayor what’s-his-name is a friend of mine. I’m gonna have a talk with him Sunday at church.”
At least I own controlling interest for another year, and maybe we can make enough money during that time to educate my children. Most importantly, thanks to Mama Bones not throwing the switch on the dough machine, at least I am above ground and in one piece.
I might stay this way if I don’t drink her coffee.
Six-thirty sharp the next Monday, Randall Zimmer, Esquire picks me up at my condo in a chauffeured black Lincoln limousine. Inside the plush carriage, there’s Starbucks coffee, pastries, juice, and muffins, but Mr. Z warns me to save room for a “more substantial” breakfast in the city.
Barring extra-bad traffic on the way to Manhattan, he says, we’re doing The Plaza coffee shop with our hot shot gunslinger from Washington. This newest member of the Austin Carr Defense Team, an expert in securities cases, Thomas Britain, “is the man to have with us today,” Mr. Z assures me, an “old pro who’s won dozens of major insider trading cases” and has a “special personal interest.”
After I am coaxed into an enthusiastic response, and post-facto agreement, Mr. Z informs me that Thomas Britain charges eight hundred dollars per hour, and Britain’s clock started last night when his wife drove him to Dulles International Airport.
“Sure we need him?” I say.
In the back seat of our black limo, headed for my doomsday interview with the U.S. District Attorney for New York, Mr. Zimmer peels the paper off a banana-walnut muffin. “Do you want to go to jail?”
“Uh...no.” I hate banana anything. In fact, I don’t care for muffins period. They’re too healthy. Give me lots of sugar, butter, and animal fat on my breakfast menu.
“Do you want to lose your company
and your Series Seven securities license?”
“Hell, no. I’ll end up selling used cars.”
“Do you want to pay a fine of, say double the quarter-million-plus profit made in your account?”
“Silly question, Mr. Z.”
Zimmer breaks the muffin in half. He’s about to give me his final word on the subject.
“Then don’t worry about the hourly rate on Britain. Be glad we know Thomas Britain. Be glad he’s available.”
I nod. “Okay. If you say so. I bow to your superior intellect and specific knowledge of all things legal.”
“Good. Then we’ll go over your story again at breakfast with Britain, confirm the specific information you’ll need to work into your answers.”
By story, Mr. Z means my new story. The truth about Mr. Vic hacking my account would land me in jail.
My lawyer says, “I’ll pick up the tab for breakfast.”
THIRTY-TWO
In the U.S. District Attorney’s conference room, Thomas Britain, Mr. Z and I line up on one side of an oblong table the length of a Carnival Cruise liner. Across from us are; one, a very young-looking District Attorney, John something; two, his blond female assistant; and three, a couple of Securities and Exchange Commission officials, Humpty and Dumpty. One SEC investigator is a male, the other a woman, but they both wear dull brown suits over tall frames, and both wear tortoise shell glasses.
An unpadded steel chair grinds against my butt and shoulders. The U.S. District Attorney for New York rests in soft leather. Silence has filled the room for two or three full minutes while he read. When the D.A. glances up from his papers and stares at me, drops of sweat roll down my flanks.
“Hi, Tom,” the D.A says. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
Not Humpty, Dumpty or yours truly have a clue to whom the D.A. is talking. Does he have my name mixed up? Who’s Tom, I’m thinking. When the D.A. shifts his eyes to my newly acquired, high-priced mouthpiece from Washington, I remember. Oh, yeah. Thomas Britain.
Tom says, “Haven’t seen you since last Christmas, I think it was, John. I know it was just before your dad and I went fishing in Venezuela last January.”
John the D.A. nods, apparently remembering with fondness his Christmas with my parachute attorney from Washington. John the handsome D.A. can’t be out of law school more than a year or three. He looks Irish Catholic with the dark hair and green eyes. Probably a name like O’Connor or Fennell. I wasn’t listening. My palms are too sweaty.
“Your dad told me to say hi, by the way,” my attorney Thomas Britain says to John the D.A. “I talked to him yesterday about a charity dinner we’re putting together.”
“Something to do with Harvard, no doubt,” the D.A. says.
“A new sports facility.”
Silence once more grips the conference room. I might not be the only one unnerved by this cozy relationship. Slowly, the young D.A. gazes at each of us, even the SEC team on his side of the table. He’s poised and authoritative, unusually so for his youth. I can see why John the D.A. is going places in politics. Well, that and rich friends like my attorney, Thomas Britain.
“Tom and my father went to school together,” the D.A. announces.
Duh. I have to say Mr. Eight-Hundred-An-Hour, Mr. Harvard Graduate, Mr. Right Man For The Job, Sir Thomas Britain, certainly earned his fee here. Does Mr. Z know how to hire consultants, or what? Be glad he’s available, Mr. Z said. Wow, talk about your Old Boy Network...fishing in Venezuela with the D.A.’s father...I think I’m going to be sick.
After I stand up and cheer.
“All right, Mr. Carr,” the D.A. says. “Why don’t we begin by you telling us a little about yourself...your background...schools. How you became a stockbroker.”
I start with a full-boat grin.
At breakfast, Mr. Z assured me Thomas Ragsdale was not now, nor ever had been on the D.A.’s radar, so I shouldn’t worry about the D.A. owning a tape of Patricia’s story and my following conversations. Not that it would matter, because I stick to the truth, right through the part where Patricia mentions her brother, what he did for a living, and how he knew the merger was coming. I tell them everything.
At this point—rather convincingly, I think—I explain to the young D.A., his even younger and prettier blond assistant and the two SEC officials, that I considered Patricia Willis’s story merely a tip, not inside information. I didn’t believe her attorney brother would ever divulge such details to anyone.
I back up this assertion with several important facts.
“I’m a stockbroker,” I say. “If I knew this Fishman Corp. was a sure thing, why didn’t I score points with my biggest clients, put them all in the stock? I didn’t. Not one. And why didn’t I cash in my two kids’ college funds. They’re small amounts, but another nine thousand dollars would have bought a lot of options.”
These are the points Zimmer and Britain told me to make while we ate breakfast at The Plaza this morning. As instructed, I wait for the right moment and slip these facts into the conversation, not in a prearranged speech.
I never say a word about Mr. Vic being the one to load up my account. If that’s lying, or misdirection, I don’t care. I truly did nothing wrong.
Later in the Lincoln limo, after we’ve packed off Sir Thomas Britain for the airport and driven back to Jersey, my attorney and I take a minute at my condo’s curb to make our goodbyes.
“Unless they turn up something new,” Mr. Z says, “I believe you’re off the hook.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You weren’t the target before, and you gave them no reason today to change their minds. The Fed’s civil and criminal investigations are both focused on Las Vegas, even more so after today. The Vegas people are the ones who made the big money.”
“Think I’ll keep my firm and my license?”
“It certainly looks like it.”
“And the illegal three hundred grand profit in my account...should I make out the check to the SEC, or the U.S. Treasury?”
“Hang on. Let me make everything perfectly clear,” he says.
Mr. Z reaches between us, taps a series of numbers on a keypad in the backseat console. “I’ve been worried since you had me draw up those change in ownership papers for Carr Securities.”
The console splits and a secret side compartment opens. “The Bonacellis have a history of small business failures, fraud, bad dealing and worse,” he says. “So as a precaution, I used that Limited Power of Attorney you signed to close your account with them.”
“But that’s my firm.”
“Yes, but you’ve agreed to sell controlling interest. I thought it best to move your assets, especially since Mr. Bonacelli might think he deserves a share.”
“A share of what?”
From the secret compartment, Mr. Z pulls a plain white envelope. I swear my attorney wears a full-boat grin. “I don’t think you understand, Austin. You’re off the hook. The D.A. and the SEC are done with the Austin Carr portion of this investigation.”
“You mean...”
“The trades and profit in your account are not illegal. You’ll be allowed to keep every single penny—less short-term capital gains and state income taxes, of course. And here it is, ready for you to deposit in a new account somewhere.”
Mr. Z hands me a cashier’s check for three hundred forty-two thousand six hundred fifty-one dollars and forty-seven cents.
Looks like Beth and Ryan will be going to any school they want.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Former Los Angeles Times reporter Jack Getze is Fiction Editor for Anthony nominated Spinetingler Magazine. Through the Los Angeles Times/Washington Post News Syndicate, his news and feature stories have been published in over five-hundred newspapers and periodicals worldwide. His screwball mysteries, BIG NUMBERS and BIG MONEY, were first published by Hilliard Harris in 2007 and 2008. His short stories have appeared in A Twist of Noir and Beat to a Pulp. He is an Active Member of Mys
tery Writers of America’s New York Chapter.
http://austincarrscrimediary.blogspot.com/
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