Payoff

by Douglas Corleone

  Chapter 19

  “I don’t understand,” Thomas Mylonas said, staring into his monitor as I stood looking over his shoulder. “The entire day is missing. Somehow it’s been erased.”

  “Has this ever happened before?”

  “I’ve been with the resort for fourteen years, and in that time we never failed to locate even a minute of footage from any one of our cameras, let alone an entire day from every camera in the resort.”

  I exhaled. In a strange way, this was more than I ever could have hoped for. This proved I was in the right part of the world, that I would be able to track down Olivia’s whereabouts if I could only piece together that missing day.

  I asked, “Were there any incident reports filed during those missing twenty-four hours?”

  “Let me check.” Mylonas tapped away at his keyboard and seemed relieved when the reports of that day appeared on the screen. “According to these records, there were three,” he said. “A slip-and-fall by an elderly American lady in the lobby. She claimed the floor was wet, but security checked the area and found it to be completely dry.”

  “Go on.”

  “The second incident occurred in the water. A very intoxicated man, also American, complained that he was stung on the foot by a jellyfish. Our staff pointed out the various signs warning swimmers of jellyfish. The man then pulled down his bathing suit, exposing himself, and proceeded to urinate on his own foot in front of twenty or so guests. Police were called to the scene.”

  “And the third?”

  “A fifty-one-year-old Frenchman suffered a heart attack in his room. His wife dialed the front desk. Medics were called to the scene. The man was taken via ambulance to George Town Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. There’s a note here that says that a bottle of Cialis found in his room may have contributed to his death.”

  “Okay,” I said, “I’m going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. I assume you have a record of every resort employee who worked at some point during those twenty-four hours.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I’ll need those names.”

  Mylonas allowed me the use of his office for the interviews. I began with the personnel presently on duty—security, housekeeping, doormen, the concierge, the front desk. That took me through the night and got me no further than I’d been when I boarded the plane at LAX.

  It seemed clear to me that it wasn’t only the security tapes that had been purposefully erased; someone, I ventured, had wiped a number of minds clean with Cayman currency.

  The question was who?

  Mylonas, who had been about to go home when I arrived, remained with me, aiding me whenever he could, calling down to room service to keep me high on espresso.

  “In a half hour, there will be a shift change,” Mylonas informed me as the sunrise began to creep through the blinds in his office.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Mind if I jump on your computer while I wait?”

  “Go right ahead, Mr. Bateman.”

  “And another favor,” I said. “Have someone gather for me the menus from every restaurant in this resort.”

  “The breakfast menus?”

  “No, no,” I said. “All of them. Please.”

  Once I was alone, I logged in to Olivia’s Twitter account. I rubbed my eyes and began scrolling down to the dates she was in Grand Cayman. Actually, I knew from a cursory scan earlier that Olivia didn’t tweet while she was here. Just when she returned. Two days after returning home, she tweeted silly things like, “Funniest Moment in Grand Cayman: When Bethany’s boob popped out of her swimsuit at Rum Point.”

  Olivia’s tweets would help me establish where the girls had been, if not when. The “when” I’d have to sort out for myself. It was possible that nothing from the missing twenty-four hours made it into Olivia’s tweets, but I had to explore every avenue.

  Mylonas returned with the menus and set them down on his desk in front of me. “There are five restaurants at the resort,” he said. “The morning shift has started to arrive. The doormen usually arrive first to change into their uniforms.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I returned to Olivia’s tweets.

  Best Name for a Village in Grand Cayman: Hell.

  Best Italian Food in Grand Cayman: Ristorante Ragazzi.

  Best Snorkeling Excursion: Stingray City (But Scary!).

  Best Lunch Entrée: Polenta (CI $24.00).

  I swung my chair around when I heard a rap at the door. A stocky young man entered the office and sat across from me. He was dressed in a Billabong T-shirt and board shorts, so I assumed he was a doorman who hadn’t yet changed into his uniform. He was deeply tanned, his light brown hair buzzed short, except for a few strands highlighted blond and standing at attention in the center of his forehead.

  He reached across the desk and offered his hand. “Jon Krusas.”

  “Patrick,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

  “What can I do for you, Patrick?”

  Krusas was incredibly cordial, and I supposed that came with a decade or so of opening doors and seeking tips. I liked him right off the bat.

  “How long have you been here, Jon?”

  “In Grand Cayman? About six months. I transferred here from the Ritz in Battery Park.”

  “You’re a New Yorker.”

  “Jersey boy, actually.” He smiled. “But I don’t advertise it.”

  I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the desk. “Let me get straight to the point, Jon. Two months ago, four teenage girls from Los Angeles flew down here for about a week. The night before last, four men broke into one of the girls’ homes and terrorized her and her mother, before kidnapping the girl.” I pulled Olivia’s picture out of a manila envelope. “Her name is Olivia Trenton. She’s fifteen years old.”

  I immediately caught the flash of recognition in his eyes.

  “You’ve seen her on television?” I said.

  “We don’t have a TV.”

  “We?”

  “My roommate and I.”

  “But you’ve seen this girl before?”

  He hesitated, stared at the picture some more while he considered his answer. “Sure, I remember her and her friends.”

  “Think carefully, Jon. Did you see these girls with anyone else while they were staying at this hotel?”

  “No, they pretty much stuck to themselves.”

  “They didn’t bring any guys back to their rooms?”

  “Not that I saw.” Krusas shifted his bulk in the chair, stared down at his hands, then looked at me.

  I reached into the manila folder and pulled out more pictures. “Do you recognize this nightclub?”

  “Sure, that’s the Next Level. It’s across from the Marriott.”

  “You go there?”

  “Sometimes. On Mondays. Monday is all-you-can-drink night.” The way he said it made me think Jon Krusas made sure he got his money’s worth.

  I showed him another picture. “Recognize any of the guys in this group shot?”

  The big man’s face sank. He parted his lips but then just blew out air. “No, I don’t think I’ve seen any of those guys before.”

  “No? Are you sure? They’re not locals?”

  “They could be. Like I said, though, I’ve only been here for six months.”

  “It’s a small island, though.”

  He nodded, looked at me with piercing blue eyes. “It is.”

  “All right, Jon. If you remember anything, you’ll be sure to get in touch with me through Tom Mylonas.”

  “Sure thing.” He pushed himself out of the chair, the energy he’d come in with suddenly drained.

  I made a note next to his name, memorized his home address.

  As he stepped out into the hall, Jon Krusas turned back and looked at me. “How old did you say that girl Olivia is?”

  “Fifteen,” I said.

  “She seemed older,” he said, shaking his head.

  Then he disappeared down t
he hallway.

  Chapter 20

  Following a brief nap in my room at the Grand Cayman Beach Suites, I headed downstairs with my manila folder, intending to return to the Ritz-Carlton to continue my interviews, which had thus far proved fruitless.

  Earlier I’d spoken to Edgar, who assured me that there had been no progress on their end. The kidnappers never contacted him again, and the FBI seemed more concerned with why he arranged to pay the abductors eight and a half million dollars instead of calling the feds. Agents were reinterviewing the Trentons’ staff and Olivia’s friends, but they too were running into dead ends. So far, no suspects or persons of interest had been named.

  Meanwhile, the clock continued ticking. The longer Olivia remained missing, the greater the chance she’d never be found.

  Downstairs, I checked my watch. It was that awkward time between breakfast and lunch, when no one seemed to be serving food. I wanted something simple, just a grilled ham and cheese sandwich I could eat on the run.

  There was an upscale restaurant on-site called Hemingways. I’d passed it yesterday and spotted a club sandwich on the menu. Thought maybe the chef could throw one together fast before they began serving lunch.

  I walked toward the restaurant and double-checked the lunch menu posted outside. A club sandwich cost ten Cayman Island bucks, which was roughly $12.20 American.

  I was about to head inside when something else on the menu caught my eye. While speaking to Olivia’s friends, I’d put together a list of all the restaurants they’d eaten at for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Hemingways wasn’t on the list, and this was the type of restaurant you’d remember. Maybe one of the girls could have forgotten, but certainly not all three.

  Yet there under the section titled Entrées was the dish Olivia had tweeted as her favorite lunch—polenta. The dish was marked with a green V for “vegetarian” and was priced at CI $24, just as Olivia had posted. The ingredients were tomato, onion, fennel, mushroom, spinach, and mozzarella.

  Which meant that Olivia had most likely visited Hemingways for lunch on that missing Tuesday. The girls said they’d eaten all their other meals together.

  I stepped into the restaurant, a bright and airy place with tables both inside and out. Cool trade winds blew gently in from the sea. Day or night, this restaurant gave off an air of true romance.

  A fifteen-year-old girl wouldn’t have come here alone.

  A young hostess smiled when she saw me approach. Her jet black hair was pulled back in a tight bun and she wore glasses with thick black frames, which made her look like the naughty librarian you saw in ads for LensCrafters.

  “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t open for lunch until eleven thirty.”

  “I realize. Actually, I was wondering if I might have a quick word with you and perhaps some of your colleagues.” I reached into the manila envelope and produced a picture of Olivia. “Do you recognize the girl in this photo? She would’ve been here for lunch on a Tuesday about two months ago.”

  “Yeah, I recognize her. In fact, the guy who waited on her just walked in behind you.”

  I turned and saw a man in his mid- to late twenties in black slacks and a white button-down hurrying toward the entrance to the kitchen.

  “Wait here,” the hostess said. “I’ll go grab him.”

  My stomach began to swell with excitement and I discovered I wasn’t hungry anymore. This could be just the break I was searching for.

  A couple minutes later, the waiter stepped out of the kitchen with the young hostess trailing him. She had a look on her face like she’d just been told her mother was dead.

  “Hello,” the waiter said, his eyes pinballing from me to the terrace to the entrance and back to me again. “My name’s Chuck.” He didn’t offer his hand. “How can I help you?”

  I held up the picture. Before he even looked at it, he was already shaking his head of curly brown hair.

  “You waited on this young lady a couple of months back,” I said. “It would have been a Tuesday in mid-December.”

  “No, I didn’t. I’ve never seen her before. Selma must have been mistaken.”

  I looked over his shoulder at Selma, the hostess, who immediately dropped her gaze to the floor.

  “All I need to know,” I said, “is who this girl was here with.”

  “I wish I could tell you,” Chuck said. “But she was never here.”

  “She was, though,” I said. “Two months ago, for lunch. She ordered the polenta.”

  “Then I must not have been working. I’ve never seen that girl before in my life.”

  “You work here full-time?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ve been working here awhile?”

  “Three years.”

  “You must have waited a lot of tables during that time.”

  “Sure.”

  “Is it possible you waited on this young lady and just don’t remember her?”

  “No, sir. I’ve never seen her before. She’s never been inside this restaurant.”

  “Well, which is it?” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’ve never seen her, or she’s never been here before.”

  Chuck took a deep breath. “If she’s been here, I didn’t see her, and I’ve certainly never waited on her before.”

  “Selma?” I said. “Who was this young woman with when you saw her?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “Like Chuck told you, I must have mistaken her for someone else.”

  I studied the waiter’s face and I saw fear in every feature; it seemed to ooze out of his pores. The question was why. Had he seen Olivia’s photo on television? Had he been threatened? Or was he in on the abduction?

  “I have a few more photos I’d like you to take a look at,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” Chuck said, “but we really need to get to work.”

  “You don’t open for lunch until eleven thirty.”

  “There’s a lot of prep work to be done.” He finally locked his eyes on mine. “Please, sir,” he said. “Try to understand.”

  The pleading in Chuck’s eyes seemed to answer my question.

  He hadn’t simply seen Olivia’s picture on television, but he wasn’t a part of the kidnapping plot either.

  Chuck had clearly been threatened.

  But by whom?

  “All right, then,” I said. “How about as a consolation prize you run into the kitchen and throw together a ham and cheese sandwich for me?”

  Chapter 21

  Heading back to the Ritz-Carlton, I decided to take the scenic route—along Seven Mile Beach. Heralded as one of the most perfect beaches in the Caribbean, Seven Mile was actually a five-and-a-half-mile stretch of golden powdery sand along the West Bay.

  Today, the beach was less crowded than I’d been told to expect, the fierce Caribbean sun and the presence of jellyfish combining to keep vacationers by the swimming pools or in the shade.

  I passed a few families, parents with their eyes locked on the water instead of on their paperbacks, hoping their children didn’t get stung. Lifeguards sat alert at their stations, and I considered stopping to chat with one. Maybe closer to the Ritz-Carlton, I’d have more luck, but unless Olivia had found herself in trouble in the water, I doubted a lifeguard would remember her.

  As I walked, favoring my right leg, I spotted a number of snorkelers, who apparently didn’t give a damn about the jellyfish. There were four or five kayaks out in the water, along with a couple bright yellow WaveRunners, which I’d seen available for rent at each of the large resorts.

  Nearing the resort, I nodded to a skinny old man wielding a metal detector. His flesh was brown and leathery, his white beard long and unkempt. He could have been a vagrant, but something about the way he carried himself told me no.

  “Any luck today?” I said.

  The old man stopped, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and said, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”

  “Is treasure
hunting just a hobby,” I inquired, “or could you use a few dollars for lunch?”

  He took a step forward as though he were about to take me into his confidence, and his unfortunate scent answered my question before he did. “No, I could use a couple bucks to eat,” he conceded.

  I reached for my wallet and dug out a twenty.

  “Wow, thanks,” he said with a slight lisp. “You a Brit?”

  “I’m an American.”

  “Oh, me too. You sound like a Brit.”

  “Good ears,” I said. “I was actually born in London, brought to the States by my father as a young boy. How about you?”

  He waved it off, said, “I’m from all over. I was in the U.S. Army. Lived in Germany, Japan, did stretches in Nam and Korea. Were you ever in the service?”

  I shook my head. “Law enforcement. Used to be a Marshal.”

  “Oh, you’re the guys who chase after fugitives.”

  On that last word, I saw that he had hardly any teeth.

  “That’s right.” I pointed to the metal detector. “Find much loot out here?”

  “Oh, yeah. Not bad. Small things, you know. Little bracelets, those thin little necklaces, maybe a tiny charm in the shape of a heart or a clover. But the price of gold being what it is, sometimes I make enough to eat.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  “Then I hit the street, ask folks for spare change. Sometimes, I get lucky, some guy wants to show off in front of his young lady, hands me some paper money. Usually though, it’s just coins. Once in a blue moon, someone offers to buy me a sandwich. Takes me over to the deli, buys it himself to make sure I don’t touch his money, spend it on booze.” He shrugged, offered a great smile—one for those rare magazine pieces on the plight of the homeless. “I don’t mind, though. I like to eat even more than I like to drink.”

  “What’s your poison?”

  “This is the Caribbean, chum. What do you think?”

  “So it’s rum,” I said.

  The old man seemed to salivate. “Rum.”

  I followed his gaze as he turned toward the sea.

  “You wanna talk about treasure,” he said, “you get yourself some diving gear and head out there.”