The Chairman

by Stephen Frey

  “Just keep QS on the payroll.”

  Gillette shook his head. “No, I want you on the payroll.”

  “I have a business to run, Christian. Uh, Chris. People who depend on me.”

  “What do you take out of the business a year?”

  Stiles shifted uncomfortably behind the wheel. “None of your business.”

  “Come on.”

  “No.”

  “What’s the big secret?” Gillette was accustomed to being direct—and having people answer his questions. Nothing important could be accomplished without straight talk. “Do you take a million out a year?”

  “No.”

  “Half a million?”

  “Look,” Stiles said, exasperated, “I’ve mostly been putting money into the business. It’s growing, so it needs cash.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Gillette said, satisfied. “How about this? We hire someone to take over for you at the company. Everest invests a little bit so you don’t have to put any more cash in, and you come to be my head of security. You still own, let’s say, 80 percent of the stock. So you control it. But somebody else deals with all the headaches.”

  “That’s great, but—”

  “And I’ll pay you a million a year to be head of Everest security.”

  “Jesus,” Stiles whispered.

  “Now, aren’t you glad you kept listening?”

  Stiles glanced at the interstate stretching out in front of them. “So, what made that woman tell you where her daughter was?”

  Gillette smiled over at Stiles. “My eyes,” he said, pointing at his face. “Women just can’t resist them.”

  Stiles laughed loudly. “You’re delusional, you know that?”

  Gillette’s smile grew wider. It was the first time he’d ever heard Stiles really laugh.

  The phone rang once more, then finally the voice mail message kicked in. Again. No one had seen Vince at the office all day. He hadn’t come in and he hadn’t called.

  Tom McGuire checked his watch. Five o’clock. Vince did this sometimes when he was stressed. Just went away without telling anyone.

  He let out a long, frustrated breath. Something told him this wasn’t one of those times.

  He picked up his cell phone and tried to call Faith. But it was just like with Vince. Voice mail.

  “Damn it!”

  “This is it.” Stiles pointed to the left at a dented metal mailbox illuminated by the car’s high beams. It was affixed to the top of a peeling white post at the end of the first driveway they’d seen in half a mile.

  “Forty-seven, Route 12,” Stiles continued. That was the address the woman gave you, right?” he asked, pointing at the black numbers on the box.

  “Yup.”

  It was almost one in the morning. They’d driven straight through from Pittsburgh, stopping only twice for gas and food.

  Gillette swung the car onto the dirt driveway and cut the lights, his heart beginning to race. “What’s the plan?” he asked, making sure his voice didn’t give away his uneasiness.

  “First,” Stiles answered, reaching beneath his seat, “you need to take this.” He pulled out another Glock 40, the same type of pistol he carried. “Here,” he said, handing the weapon to Gillette. “Do you know how to use it?”

  Gillette took the gun, suddenly feeling more secure. “I thought with Glocks you basically pointed and pulled,” he said.

  “You’ve got to chamber the first round,” Stiles said, reaching for the gun.

  “I know.” Gillette slid the top half the gun back, then let it go. Metal on metal made a grinding noise as it snapped back into place. “Bullet chambered.”

  Stiles handed him an extra fifteen-round clip. “Be careful. Will you?”

  “Sure, sure.” Gillette took the extra clip and shoved it in his pocket, then looked out the window into the dark woods. This was the very southwestern corner of Mississippi. Between two tiny towns called Centreville and Gloster. Just across the border from Louisiana. “Pretty grim around here, huh?”

  Stiles grinned. “You telling me that, white boy?”

  Gillette opened the car door and climbed out, slipping the barrel of the pistol between his jeans and his belt at the small of his back. Then he closed the door softly behind him and jogged back toward the mailbox.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Stiles hissed, getting out of the car, too.

  Gillette heard him call but didn’t answer. He reached the mailbox in seconds, pulled it open, and reached inside. Not expecting to find anything. But there was junk mail—a few flyers and envelopes. He pulled out two pieces and headed back to the car.

  “What you got?”

  “Hopefully a name,” Gillette muttered, opening the door and holding one of the envelopes down into the car so he could see it in the light. It was exactly as he’d expected. Marcie hadn’t been lying. At least, not about being the one who’d known Troy Mason was in the basement with Kathy Hays at the funeral reception. It was clear to Gillette now that she really hadn’t known anything about that.

  “What’s the name?” Stiles asked.

  Gillette shut the car door, dousing the interior light. “Michael Lefors.”

  Stiles moved around the front of the car to where Gillette was standing. “Lefors?”

  Gillette looked up. “Yeah. Michael Lefors. As in Kyle’s father.”

  “You gotta to be kidding. I thought they lived in a Louisiana trailer park.”

  “They did. They must have moved here. Maybe Kyle helped them after he made some bucks in New York. Anyway, it’s only about forty miles from here to where they used to live in Louisiana.”

  “So Kyle’s involved.”

  “Obviously,” Gillette agreed. Marcie hadn’t sent the e-mail to Kathy Hays. It had been Lefors. He’d snuck into her office to send it from her computer to frame her. “Lefors made this place available to Kathy Hays after she set up Troy Mason. So no one would find her.”

  “So no one could figure out who’s really pulling the strings,” Stiles added. “I mean, whoever that is must have paid her, right? Why else would she do it? Why would she set up somebody, then quit her job?”

  “Maybe they had something on her,” Gillette speculated, replaying Stiles’s words in his head. Who’s really pulling the strings. Whoever was backing McGuire, that was who.

  “I think she did it for money,” Stiles said firmly, shaking his head. “Still, the whole thing is kind of confusing.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought you told me that Troy Mason went to work for Paul Strazzi at Apex after you fired him.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Then Strazzi must have paid Kathy Hays off. He wanted Mason out of Everest so he could get information on the portfolio companies, so he could scare the widow. A woman he made a widow with Tom McGuire’s help. So, like you said before, Strazzi had to be McGuire’s backer.” Stiles paused. “But Strazzi’s dead and McGuire still called you to talk about buying the company. Makes no sense.”

  “Ben Cohen knows,” Gillette said quietly. The little bastard. Cohen never could have been chairman—even for thirty days—without an angel. So he’d sold himself out. Playing the part of the puppet in exchange for a chance to run Everest. In exchange for selling Laurel Energy for billions less than what it was really worth. The fraudulent tapes had indicated that there was no oil in the option fields when there really was. Gillette was certain now that the new seismic tests would show vast reserves beneath the surface of the properties.

  McGuire was the muscle, Cohen the brains. But who was the dark angel? Maybe it was someone else at Apex. Maybe Strazzi had been double-crossed by Stockman, and Stockman was working with someone else there. Or maybe it was Cohen and Faraday working with another group. Faraday had uncountable connections to the insurance companies and the pension funds. Maybe he and Cohen were working together and had agreed to sell Laurel to someone for a rock-bottom price in exchange for having their own fund. Gillette glanced ahead into the glo
om. The answer had to be at the other end of this driveway.

  He motioned to Stiles. “Let’s go,” he urged, opening the car door.

  Stiles shook his head and closed the door again. “We go on foot,” he said quietly. “We don’t want anyone up at the house to see us coming.”

  As they moved cautiously up the driveway a light rain began to fall, rustling the leaves. The thick clouds made the night very dark, and they were forced to move slowly, picking their way carefully along the rutted dirt road as they headed toward the house.

  “I hope there aren’t any damn snakes lying on the road,” Stiles muttered. “You know, they come out at night.”

  Gillette stopped abruptly and pulled the pistol from his belt. “What kind of snakes do they have down here?” he asked, pointing the gun down and ahead.

  “All kinds.”

  “The poisonous ones, Quentin,” Gillette said, starting to move forward again slowly. “What kind of poisonous snakes do they have down here?”

  “Copperheads and some rattlers. But the ones you have to worry about are the cottonmouths. I’ve got buddies from down here who tell me stories about cottonmouths actually coming into boats after people.”

  “Great.”

  A quarter of a mile farther on they reached the house—a quaint cabin set in the middle of a clearing. Tall trees soared a hundred feet above it. The cabin was completely dark except for a porch light. There was a compact car parked in the circle in front of the raised porch.

  “Now what?” Gillette asked.

  “We go in.”

  “What if the door’s locked?”

  “I can take care of that,” Stiles said, patting his shirt pocket. “I brought a set of picks. I can get into anything.”

  “That’s breaking and entering.”

  “This from a kidnapper?”

  Gillette wiped moisture from his forehead. The rain was coming down harder. “Are we going right through the front door?” For all they knew, there were people in the cabin guarding Kathy Hays. People who probably had guns, too.

  “Not if we can avoid it. Let’s check around back and see if there’s another door. I don’t like how open that porch is. We’d be sitting ducks up there, especially with the light on.” Stiles waved. “Follow me.”

  Gillette trailed Stiles as he moved across the lawn and around the back, shading his eyes from the chilling rain. “This thing still work if it gets wet?” he asked warily as they pulled up by a large oak tree.

  “The gun?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’ll work. Don’t worry. By the way, if you aim at somebody, aim to kill, not to wound. Do you understand?”

  “Absolutely.” He’d be more than happy to put whoever he was shooting at down for good.

  Stiles pointed at the cabin through the dim light. “There’s the back door. Probably leads into a mud room or the kitchen or something. I say we try to get into the house that way.”

  Gillette nodded. “Let’s do it.” He sprinted to the door, following Stiles across the lawn. They leaned their backs against the house when they reached it. Stiles tried the door—it was locked—then pulled a small case from his shirt pocket, opened it, selected a pick, and went to work.

  “Bingo,” Stiles whispered, stowing the case back in his pocket when the lock popped. “Ready?”

  Gillette clasped the gun tightly. Beads of perspiration were seeping into his eyes, stinging like hell. “Yeah.”

  “If an alarm goes off, we’re out of here,” Stiles said. “Back into the woods that way.” He pointed. “Then we wait and see what happens. Got it?”

  “Yup.”

  Stiles reached for the knob and turned it slowly.

  Gillette braced for the scream of an alarm, but it never came. There was a gentle click and the door swung open.

  Stiles glanced over his shoulder. “Come on,” he whispered.

  The inside of the cabin was dominated by a musty smell and it was pitch-black. He could barely make out Stiles’s shape only a few feet ahead.

  They stole through the kitchen into a large living room, then down a hallway, checking the bedrooms as they went. All empty—until they came to the last one at the end of the corridor. Stiles put a finger to his lips and pointed, then nodded, indicating that there was someone in the bed.

  The two men moved stealthily through the cabin’s back door—the one Gillette and Stiles had just entered—guns drawn.

  Stiles slipped into the bedroom, leaned over the bed, and pressed his huge palm to Kathy Hays’s mouth.

  Her eyes flew open instantly and she tried to scream, but Stiles’s hand stifled the sound. She grabbed his wrist with both hands, trying to pry it from her face, but it was no use. He was much too powerful. She made a move to strike his face, but he pointed the gun straight down at her.

  “I’m your friend,” he hissed. “Stop.”

  When she saw the gun, she went still and tears welled in her eyes.

  “I’m going to take my hand away, Kathy,” Stiles said softly. “We’re not going to hurt you,” he assured her as Gillette sat down on the other side of the bed. “We just need to ask you a few questions. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, her eyes wide open.

  “You aren’t going to scream, are you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Good. Here we go.” Slowly Stiles slid his hand from her mouth.

  She gasped and pulled the covers to her neck. “What do you want?” she asked, her voice shaking. “Please don’t kill me,” she pleaded.

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” Gillette said quietly. “Like Quentin said, I just need to ask you a few questions. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she answered hesitantly.

  “Do you recognize me?” Gillette asked, leaning down close so that she could see his face in the faint light.

  “No.”

  “I’m the one who came into the room in the basement at Bill Donovan’s funeral reception. When you were in bed with Troy Mason.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” she said, bringing her hands to her face. “You’re Christian Gillette.”

  “That’s right.”

  She tried to struggle away, but Stiles held her down.

  “Stop it,” he demanded. “Don’t move until I tell you to.”

  “It’s all right,” Gillette said soothingly, trying to calm her down. “As soon as you’ve answered my questions, we’ll leave.”

  “What do you want to know?” she asked, her voice shaking even more violently. A tear slid down one side of her face.

  “Were you paid to set up Troy so I’d fire him?”

  She swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes.”

  Of course, Gillette thought to himself. It was an easy way for whoever was behind all this to get Troy out of Everest without having to resort to murder. Whoever was behind it wanted Cohen to be chairman so they could get the Laurel deal done with Coyote. They’d probably realized that the investors would never elect Faraday, so it came down to Mason and him. Mason could be eliminated using Kathy Hays. Then there would only have to be one murder. His. It was all becoming clear.

  Now it was time for the money question. The whole reason he and Stiles had made this trip. And the key to everything. Gillette could feel his palms sweating. “Who approached you to set Mason up?”

  Kathy gazed up at Gillette for several moments without answering. The sound of her breathing filled the room.

  “Tell me,” Gillette demanded “Now.”

  Kathy swallowed again. “A man named Miles Whitman,” she whispered.

  Everything stopped and the world disappeared for a moment. Miles Whitman. Miles Whitman was the one behind the murder attempts, the one behind the McGuire brothers’ bid to buy the company, the one who was trying to buy Laurel Energy so cheaply. Gillette fought to breathe. Miles Whitman was the dark angel.

  Gillette’s mind reeled back to the day last week he’d met with Whitman and Cohen in his office. The day he’d found out that the widow was going to
sell her stake in Everest to Strazzi. When Whitman had pushed to learn whether or not Cohen was officially the chief operating officer yet. How Cohen had reacted so oddly. The reason was apparent now. Cohen had been swimming in paranoia, worried that Gillette would somehow figure out that Whitman was the puppet master—and Cohen the puppet.

  But what was Whitman’s motivation in all of this? He was already one of the most powerful people in the financial world.

  Another thought struck Gillette like a hammer. Whitman had said on the phone that he and Strazzi had talked about how Strazzi loved to jog in Central Park in the mornings. Whitman would have known Strazzi’s schedule. Whitman had had Strazzi hit because if Strazzi got the widow’s stake in Everest, Whitman wouldn’t have been able to buy Laurel.

  The bullet slammed into Stiles’s side, below his left arm, sending him flying onto the bed beside Kathy as the report of the pistol exploded in their ears. She screamed a bloodcurdling scream as she tore the covers back and rolled toward Gillette.

  Gillette dropped to one knee and began firing at the bedroom doorway over Stiles’s prone body. Stiles was grabbing at the wound. There was a groan and a heavy thud as someone tumbled to the floor in the hallway outside the bedroom, then there was more gunfire. But the shooter’s aim was high, and both Stiles and Gillette emptied their clips at the door.

  As he fired the last bullet and the sound of the explosion faded, Gillette heard footsteps moving swiftly away down the hall. “Stiles!” he yelled, reaching into his pocket for the second clip. Popping the empty one and inserting the new one holding fifteen precious rounds. “You all right?”

  Stiles groaned, dropping down to the floor and crawling toward the door. “Never . . . taken one in the lung,” he said.

  Gillette heard someone moaning outside the bedroom door, then the sound of voices outside the house. Three, maybe four men yelling to one another. He crawled over the bed, moved to the door, and peered into the hallway.

  A man lay on his side, clutching his stomach, a pistol on the floor by his head barely visible in the darkness. Gillette burst into the hallway and grabbed the gun, then hurried back into the bedroom and knelt beside Stiles. The big man had dropped his gun and was sitting back against the wall, blood pumping from the wound in his chest, the blood making an ever-widening circle on his shirt.