by Steve Gannon
Afterward he made his way to an adjacent bathroom. Dripping sweat, he stripped, reached into the bathroom’s black granite shower, turned the water on cold, and stepped beneath the icy spray. Gasping at the cold, he forced himself to remain under the frigid stream for several minutes, the ice-cold needles stinging his skin, a near-painful sensation of numbness creeping through his limbs. When he could endure no more, he stepped out. Grabbing a towel from a nearby hook, he inspected himself in a full-length mirror on the opposite wall.
A fraction under six feet tall, the image in the glass looked hard and lean, the powerful upper body bearing the mark of years of weight training. Dense black hair coursed from chest to groin, matching a wiry thicket on his forearms and shoulders. The face in the mirror appeared bland: thin lips, a broad triangular nose, close-cropped hair, and small, well-formed ears tucked flat against the skull.
As he began drying himself, Carns stepped closer, peering at his reflection. The eyes staring back were dark brown, almost black, as hard and symmetrical as marbles. Carns grinned at his image, then crossed to a clothes closet and
selected a fresh pair of sweats. After pulling them on, he checked the clock on the weight room wall: 4:45 AM.
Whistling contentedly, Carns returned to the living room and took a corridor to the right, passing an unused banquet room with seating for thirty, a granite-countered kitchen with a huge central island, and a darkened stairway leading to the subterranean level of his estate. Continuing, he reached the most lived-in portion of his house, and the area, with the exception of a small room in the basement, in which he derived his most pleasure.
He paused in the doorway, enjoying the anticipation that always gripped him before entering. The glow from a bank of computer screens bathed the room’s interior in greens and reds and blues, creating an illusion of festivity. Carns hesitated a moment more, then touched a switch near the door. Banks of hidden fluorescents flooded the chamber with light.
Like spokes of a wheel, a configuration of desks, counters, and shoulder-high partitions divided the space into three areas. Most prominent, a central, U-shaped desk dominated the assembly, its surface ringed by twenty-seven-inch computer monitors, along with a multiple-line phone terminal that he used to access the options trading floors of Chicago and New York. Two lesser workstations jutted from the main desk. The left branch, Carns’s “weather station,” harbored a computer terminal capable of serving up global weather forecasts, pest and crop reports, an AP wire feed, and an assortment of agricultural newsletters. The right wing, which served as a research center, contained a combination copier, scanner, and fax machine, a bookcase, and two additional computer screens-both displaying programs that Carns used for technical analysis.
Long ago, when he’d first begun futures trading, Carns had realized that up-to-the-minute information provided an immeasurable edge over the field. As a result he spent over a hundred thousand dollars yearly on fundamental data, information that included regular reports from certain feed-yard employees in Kansas, Texas, and southern Nebraska-some of it illegal. Recently his expenditure in this latter category had more than proved its worth.
Before starting his workday, Carns stepped into an auxiliary kitchen off the main office and poured a mug of black coffee from a pot preset to brew at 4:40 AM. Next he toasted an English muffin and ate it with a glass of tomato juice, precisely as he did every weekday morning. Coffee in hand, he moved to the Data Transmission Network weather screen and pulled up precipitation forecasts for various regions of crop production, checking the current six-to-ten-day forecast for each locale. That done, he crossed to the research station for a review of overnight currency moves, also spending time studying commodity reports he had requested on Friday.
Forty-five minutes later, following a regimented schedule, Carns shifted to a review of crop charts, concentrating on recent moves in soybeans. But as he studied the graphs, his mind drifted to the cattle market, the area in which he presently held his biggest position. Unable to concentrate on other matters, he allowed his thoughts to turn to the disastrous slide cattle futures had suffered over previous weeks. Although the market still showed signs of heading even lower, he had begun closing out his “short” contracts last Thursday. The remainder would take days to unload, but if nothing went awry, he stood to make money. A lot of money.
At 5:19 AM, Carns moved to his trading desk. Sixty seconds later he began his day, concentrating on the markets as they opened in turn: bonds, currency, and metals during the first hour, stock-index futures at six-thirty, cattle and hogs a half hour later, then finally grains. Working straight through the morning, he spent considerable time on the telephone conversing with industry sources and representatives on the trading floors, his demeanor curt and concise, revealing nothing of the man behind the voice.
During this time Carns also placed occasional orders, meticulously stamping a trade ticket for each. For the most part, however, his attention remained riveted on five computer monitors perched like oracles atop his desk, serving up a tick-by-tick spreadsheet of his positions, as well as market overviews, position quotes, and real-time pricing information on selected commodities, stock indexes, and foreign exchange futures. On one of the screens he occasionally watched CNN and CNBC to keep himself apprised of breaking financial news, and partway through the morning something on one of the news stations caught his eye. As he turned to the screen, a map of Southern California flashed up behind the news anchor’s desk. The display abruptly zoomed in on Los Angeles, with Pacific Palisades delineated in blood-red letters. Carns turned up the sound.
“… similar to the murder of a family last month in the Orange County community of Mission Viejo. Although members of the Los Angeles police have not yet officially linked the two crimes, Channel Two Action News has learned that authorities fear a serial killer may be at large in the Southern California area. Here with more from Pacific Palisades is Lauren Van Owen.”
The scene switched to a police-choked residential street. Carns listened as a self-assured female reporter embarked on a somber description of Saturday night’s murders. Partway through her report, she stopped. The camera lurched, then followed as she hurried after a large man who had exited the house. Despite Van Owen’s prodding, the man, later identified as Detective Daniel Kane, refused to comment. Initially Carns dismissed the rough-looking investigator as another muscle bound Irish cop. But something about him-a flinty gleam of intelligence in his pale-blue eyes, the unforgiving lines around his mouth-prompted Carns to take a closer look.
The clip ended with the detective promising, “Sooner or later, we’ll get this maggot.”
Carns flipped to CNBC, then ran through the other channels, searching without success for further coverage on the killings. As he was about to switch back to CNN, a call came in on his trading line.
“Carns,” he said, lifting the receiver.
“Good morning, Victor,” a male voice replied.
Carns recognized the clipped diction of John Hall, the CEO of United Western Packers, an Omaha meat packing conglomerate that routinely purchased over thirty-five percent of all cattle sold in the United States. As Carns started to respond, he heard a telltale beep on the line. He checked the recorder switch on his phone terminal.
Off.
Without a word, he hung up.
The phone rang thirty seconds later. Hall again. “Victor?”
Carns waited before replying, making sure that this time Hall had called on an unrecorded line. At last he spoke. “Don’t ever do that again,” he said softly.
“Of course not.” Though Hall replied pleasantly, Carns detected something in his tone that sounded as hard as steel. An alarm went off in Carns’s mind. In his day-to-day transactions, Hall had no reason to be using a recorded trading line. So why had he called on one?
An accident?
Unlikely.
In the event of any suspected impropriety, the National Futures Association and the USDA routinely scrutinized record
ed transactions. Carns knew that if brought to light, his association with Hall and their ingenious but extremely illegal market manipulation involving cattle futures would, at minimum, garner them both speedy trials, gigantic fines, and adjoining cells in the nearest federal prison. Hall knew it, too.
“Victor? Are you still there?”
“Yes. Why are you calling?”
“Two things,” Hall answered, his voice brusque and businesslike. “First, United Western Packers has been out of the market for five weeks now, and our captive supply is running short. In order to keep our plants running efficiently, UWP will need to start buying soon.”
“I anticipated that,” snapped Carns. An understatement. In truth, he had thought of almost nothing else over the past weeks. In futures trading, especially with a position as heavily leveraged as Carns’s, the specter of financial collapse always loomed on the horizon. Of course, if that happened Hall would lose his share of the profits as well, but it was Carns’s money at risk. And more than anything, Carns hated being in someone else’s power.
“How much time do you need?” Hall demanded.
Carns glanced at the cattle chart. All red for the past five weeks and still falling. “Two or three days,” he answered, deciding not to reveal that he’d already begun closing out his contracts. The more time he had to scale out, the less probability of causing a price jump.
“I can hold off for two additional days. No more.”
“Fine. You indicated that you had another reason for calling?”
“I did a little investigating, Victor. I was astounded to learn that you took a larger position than we originally discussed. A much larger portion.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do. Does five thousand contracts ring a bell?”
Carns said nothing, realizing that Hall’s sources at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and contacts with various brokers on the floor must be far more extensive than he had thought.
“You’ve substantially increased our risk,” Hall continued, his tone hardening. “As a result, my cut just got bigger. More risk; more reward. I want half. And that’s on all five thousand contracts.”
“I don’t believe I heard you correctly.”
“I think you did.”
Carns paused, remembering the recorded line on which Hall had first called.
A warning? Had Hall recorded other conversations as well?
“Half, Victor. That’s nonnegotiable.”
“Or else what?”
“You don’t want to know the answer to that. Be here in two weeks with my share.” Without another word, Hall broke the connection.
Furious, Carns replaced the receiver and pressed his thumbs to his temples, attempting to relieve the crippling throb that had begun pounding behind his left eye. Groaning, he rose and crossed to the kitchen. He took a small vial from the cupboard, shook out two tablets, and swallowed them. From experience he knew that the prescription drug wouldn’t eliminate the pain, but he hoped it would take off the edge until he could get to something that might.
Carns returned to his desk. Referring to the cattle-futures chart on his center screen, he checked the market one last time. Satisfied, he activated his trade-line recorder, lifted the phone, and contacted his representative in the cattle pit. Speaking quietly, he placed buy orders to cover his “short” position, spreading them out over the next two days.
After time-stamping his trade tickets, Carns again let his thoughts drift. Over the past several weeks, with every downward tick in the market, he’d done the math. Nonetheless, he did it again, manipulating the numbers in his head. Even with the inevitable upward jog that closing out his contracts would precipitate, he would average at least an eleven-and-a-half-point move on five thousand contracts, times four hundred dollars per point per contract.
Twenty-three million dollars.
Less commissions, of course.
And Hall’s cut.
Abruptly, Carns rose from his desk and left the office. Near the end of the corridor he took a stairway down to a large basement, stopping at the foot of the stairs. To his right lay a pistol firing range; to his left, the blank metal surfaces of two fireproof doors. The room behind one housed a state-of-the-art darkroom, little used now with the advent of digital cameras. With the exception of Carns, no one had ever viewed the interior of the other room. Carns hesitated, then turned on his heel and walked to the firing range.
Years before, during early months of construction, Carns had hatched the idea of installing a private shooting facility beneath his house. Subsequently he’d had the foundation contractor lay seventy-five yards of large concrete drainage pipe, burying it under the hillside between the mansion’s basement and the northern property line of the estate. Complete with lights and an overhead pulley system with orange track markers, the four-foot-diameter underground shaft allowed Carns to run targets out to preset distances, all the way to a pile of sand in a vault at the far end. It was simple, effective, and soundproof.
Carns entered his shooting room and moved to a gun cabinet against the back wall. After sliding out a middle drawer, he selected two handguns-a. 22-caliber High Standard ISU Olympic target pistol, and a. 45-caliber Colt Combat Elite MK IV automatic-grabbing boxes of ammunition for each. Next he stepped to the maw of the waist-high tunnel. Smelling a must of earth and mildew wafting from the interior, he placed his pistols on a sighting bench, donned ear protection, and cranked a human-shaped Alco paper target out to the twenty-five-foot marker.
For the next twenty minutes Carns shot steadily from a two-handed combat stance, firing two rounds to the body, one to the head-alternating pistols and distances, replacing targets as necessary. He got “good paper” on most, at twenty-five feet clustering all his rapid-fire shots within the black inner-target partitions, most shots at fifty feet, and over sixty percent at seventy-five. After finishing, he returned his pistols to the cabinet. Although his high-tech ear protection had all but blocked the sound of his firing, his headache was worse. He realized that he needed something else to help him relax, and it wasn’t shooting.
Carns exited the gun range and walked to the opposite end of the hall. There he ducked into the darkroom and opened a cabinet beneath one of the stainless-steel sinks. Groping the inside surface of the cabinet face, his fingers closed on a key. Key in hand, he returned to the hallway and inserted the key into the deadbolt lock on the second door. The metal-clad portal swung inward.
With mounting anticipation, Carns stepped inside, the soothing darkness of his secret room enveloping him like a blanket. He fumbled with a switch on the wall. A single lamp came on across the chamber.
Carns glanced around the windowless space, his heart now beginning to race with excitement. Black soundproofing panels covered nearly every visible inch of wall and ceiling, lending the twelve-by-twenty-foot enclosure a surreal, cavelike appearance. On the right, facing a gigantic TV screen flanked by twin bookcases, sat a leather chair. Beside it was a wooden table with sound and viewing remote-control units, along with a carousel slide projector. Above, a rolled up projection screen lay within a ceiling recess, bracketed by a number of surround-sound speakers. Straight ahead, at the far end of the room, the doors of a mirrored closet shimmered like quicksilver.
Carns moved to the nearest bookcase. Its middle shelves held a stereo, tape deck, VCR, and DVD player. The upper and lower levels contained hundreds of video and audio tapes from the past-relics he’d hadn’t yet transferred to digital-each labeled in Carns’s crabbed cursive. He started to select an ancient videocassette, one of his favorites, then changed his mind. After moving to the other bookshelf, he perused racks of chronologically arranged slide carousels and DVD discs. Still not finding what he wanted, he trailed his index finger over a library of audiocassettes, finally selecting one from the top shelf.
Smiling, Carns flipped on the stereo, slipped the tape into the playback slot, and pushed the rewind button. As a soft whi
rring emanated from the unit, he glanced toward the closet.
Costume party?
No. Today, only sound, he decided.
The simplest pleasures are often the most satisfying.
Carns dimmed the lights and delivered himself to the cool embrace of his armchair. As he waited for the tape to rewind, he mentally revisited Hall’s call earlier that afternoon, realizing his association with the CEO of United Western Packers had become tiresome. Today, for the first time in their relationship, Carns had sensed more than avarice in Hall’s voice. Something furtive had been there as well, something dangerous.
More to the point, half of twenty-three million was a lot of money.
A soft snick sounded as the rewind motor clicked to a stop. Carns lifted the remote control, feeling the throb in his temple finally beginning to abate. Gratefully, he closed his eyes, savoring what was to come. Able to wait no longer, he touched the play button.
A moment later the screaming began.
7
I kept telling Banowski that the bet wasn’t how wide…” Detective Paul Deluca paused for dramatic emphasis. “… it was how long!”
Having heard the story before, I smiled as I crossed the West Los Angeles Division squad room, approaching a knot of men gathered around Deluca’s desk. Deluca’s tale involved a contest years back between then considerably younger Detectives Deluca and Banowski. In the competition, which had followed a boisterous retirement party at the Police Academy, each contestant was challenged to urinate a continuous and relatively unbroken line as he walked-more like stumbled-forward, with the longest trail winning. By the time of the assigned piss-off, however, Banowski-having during the preceding hours prepared for the match by judiciously consuming as much beer as possible-had long since passed the stumbling stage and required the assistance of friends simply to make it to the field of battle.