Again, leverage was key. He could turn two hundred million into almost a billion on the right three companies.
He’d already started those options purchases as well, accumulating quietly. Once he accomplished his objective and made the upside, he’d sell call options and buy puts in those same companies. He’d start shorting them to crater the stock, making money as the price fell, too.
It was all about moving cash through the system, turning a few billion into tens of billions. They could then rinse and repeat on another half-dozen companies, chosen almost at random.
By the time anyone became suspicious of all the new dollars floating around, they’d have converted their holdings into Swiss francs, locking in their gains, and he’d be obscenely rich for his role in orchestrating it. He had chosen the companies, he had recommended the futures, and was instrumental in the success of the venture. He’d earned every penny of what he would make.
The plan was to keep pumping money into the system, possibly for years, using the evil U.S. ’s own markets to build wealth for the Myanmar state and satisfy their requirements for oil and other commodities.
Given that Myanmar ’s gross national product was in the thirty billion range, the addition of five to ten billion per year was a huge increase—and one that was required for the regime’s survival. While Myanmar hoped it would be damaging for America to have the currency supply diluted to this extreme, the truth was that ten more billion per year wouldn’t even move the needle. At some point, the U.S. would just quietly retool a new hundred-dollar note, and live with the increased float created. That was the most likely end-game.
Either way, he’d be a billionaire before it was over, and holding it in francs and yen and gold, not dollars.
The only hitch was the goddamn test run leaking out.
He stepped off the treadmill and walked towards the steam room of the ultra-exclusive club, thinking that perhaps a massage would work some of the kinks out. It was, after all, a day of rest.
And he’d been a hard worker all week long. He deserved a little pampering. A massage was just the thing.
Chapter 9
Tess was up at 6:15, coffee maker dripping away while she brushed her teeth and prepared for her day. Nick was still out cold, which wasn’t unusual, as he didn’t have to be at work until much later.
It was Monday, so she needed to take off a few hours to visit her father, check in to see how he was holding up. She always had mixed feelings about their visits; she loved him tremendously, but got irritated when he inevitably started in about her life. He could go on for hours about her needing to become responsible, stop what he referred to as “this bike idiocy,” and go back to a real career—in short, to behave “like an adult.” And don’t even get him started on her relationship choices and biological clock and the like.
Right now, she was not interested in complications; she liked the simplicity of living in the moment and not having to think about the future. Her life was distilled down to food, sleep, work, sex, fun. That was more than enough. She wasn’t in a hurry to grow up, especially after experiencing the joy of ten-hour days sitting in a cubicle. That wasn’t for her, and she had the emotional scars to prove it.
She got her first tattoo when she was nineteen and attending college, on a dare—the little yin-yang on her back, a big “fuck you” to all her years of being the good girl, straight A’s, always doing the right thing. She’d gotten the tongue piercing two years later, during her experimental phase, when she’d burned through a dozen boyfriends in six months. She’d done the whole drinking, drug thing her last two years of college, and discovered she liked her sex dirty and rough, but that she also was comfortably monogamous by nature.
As she was giving the middle finger to the planet in her personal life, she’d gravitated to computer science for her major. There was something about getting a string of code right that she really enjoyed—the concentration required, the focus, and the satisfaction of creation, the independence. It was all her own work, no one else involved, and that was gratifying.
She supposed a good therapist could have had a field day with it all. Hers had.
Angry chick acts out, defies conventional role models, chucks career, gets more tattoos, acts like a teenager, blows off anything smacking of tradition or responsibility.
The truth was, she really didn’t have a lot of reasons to be pissed at the world. Bad things happened to everyone else, but not her, not really—other than her depressive episode, which you could easily argue was self-inflicted (the big bad world hadn’t delivered on her every expectation, boo hoo). Daddy hadn’t touched her in the bad place, Mommy hadn’t been an alcoholic or beaten her, and life hadn’t been especially traumatic growing up. True, she hadn’t seen her sister in California for three years, and didn’t really like her much, but that hardly qualified as an emotional disaster. Tess had just never gotten along with her, and over the years, as the family calamities had piled up, she’d become more distant. They simply didn’t have much in common.
Tess had seen more than her fair share of family drama, but who hadn’t? All the catastrophes, both real and imagined, had taken their toll, but at the end of the day she remained pretty simple. She just needed some more time before she grew up.
Was that too much to ask?
She snuck into the bedroom and kissed Nick on the forehead, then carried her bike down to the street. It was 6:45 am, and the day was looking like another scorcher.
She hit the front door of the depot at 6:59 and clocked in. It would be a short morning shift for her, off by 9:45, and then back on from 12:00 to 5:00.
Frank waved her over. He was talking to some guy in a sports jacket—mid-thirties, brown hair, maybe six one, kind of cute in a conventional way. She approached and Frank introduced him as Detective Stanford, who wanted to have a word with her about Loca.
Her heart dropped and she went white. Why would the police want to talk to her about Loca unless something had happened?
She walked into the little lunchroom now serving as a mini–interview room, fearful of what she suspected would be the topic of discussion.
“Is Loca okay? What’s this all about?” Tess asked.
“Why don’t we start at the beginning? Let me ask a few questions?” Ron looked her over. What an amazingly beautiful girl. Excuse me—woman. No makeup, but a model-quality face and a rock-hard body—she hadn’t put her T-shirt on yet, and the tank top and shorts left little to the imagination. What the hell was she doing working as a bike messenger?
“Okay. But answer mine about Loca. Is she hurt? Dead?”
“Why would you think she was dead?” He’d be damned if he was going to lose control of the interview before it started.
“Gee, I don’t know. A detective is here before seven, when most cops are still asleep, setting up to interview the messengers about Loca.” She looked straight at him with startlingly green eyes, slightly slanted. A hint of Asian blood somewhere in the family tree? “This isn’t about a stolen bike or a few joints. Why don’t we cut to the chase so I can answer any questions you have? She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Loca—Angelina—was found dead last week. I’m sorry.” Ron watched her reaction: her eyes filled with tears like a valve had ruptured. Why did he have an overwhelming desire to hug her, tell her it was all going to be all right? Keep your mind on the game, Ron—dick stays in pants.
“How did it happen? Did she get hit by a car?” Tess was trying to process. Loca dead. So young, so funny, so much ahead of her.
“Look, I’m sorry about your friend, but I really have to ask you some questions. I told you what you wanted to know. How about helping me out here?” Ron appealed.
“All right. Shoot.” She blotted her eyes.
“Did she have anyone she was afraid of? Anyone who’d threatened her?” Ron asked.
“Loca? No way. Everyone loved her. She was funny, and she’d be the first one to help if you were in a jam. She never mentioned anyone sh
e was afraid of,” Tess responded.
“What about boyfriends? Was she seeing anyone in particular?”
“Loca didn’t really talk about that kind of thing. She wasn’t seeing anyone seriously, I know that. She was young, having fun in the city, you know? Didn’t want a steady.” Translation: Loca was fucking everything that moved.
“Was she seeing anyone from here?” This should be good, Ron thought.
“I think she had dated a few of the guys, but I’m not really clear about that. Again, she didn’t talk about it.” Tess suspected Duff had been more than just a buddy, but she didn’t know anything for sure.
The questions went on, predictably: about Loca’s apartment, who she knew, what her interests were, why she might have been in Spanish Harlem late on a Tuesday night. He wasn’t getting anything unexpected, so decided to wrap things up. Tess was still visibly upset. He found her very attractive, and could probably have spent all day talking to her—but that wasn’t part of the job, so he resolved to stay on track. He’d already said more than he should have.
“How did she die, Detective?” Tess asked.
“Let’s just say painlessly, but she was mutilated afterwards. We saw another like her on Friday, at a club near the Village. You might have seen a blurb in the paper this morning.” Ron explained.
“What club?”
“Avalon. It’s down on—” Ron started.
“I know where it is. We were all down there Friday night. Practically everyone was there.” She trailed off, thinking.
Holy shit. Now wasn’t that a cute coincidence? All the messengers at the same club as the other killing, on the same night. There was a link. Had to be.
“Who else do you remember being there? Exactly?” Ron asked.
She thought about it. “Let’s see. I know Pug was there with Sin City, Candy, Tab, Skid and Dirter, Paco, Tiny, Duff, Turbo, Snake, Angel, Luis… I think. That’s all I remember. There were probably a lot more, but I don’t really know most of the newbies,” Tess said.
“Will all of these nicknames mean something to the dispatchers?” He’d written them down, but they were gibberish to him.
“Yeah, ask for real names. They’ll have them all.”
“Any of the Red Cap group seem suspicious or dangerous?” Ron figured he might as well try.
“Ha. That’s a good one. Half the crew’s high, or living day-to-day. In case you didn’t notice, the messenger gig doesn’t attract the highest-end cross-section of humanity. I’d say most are dangerous at some level.” She looked at him again, eyes still moist. “That’s one of the things I like about it.”
He let that go.
“What about you? Why are you here? You seem smart; you’re attractive and capable… Why the messenger thing?” He was genuinely curious.
“It’s a long story. I got tired of software engineering and wanted a change, something physically challenging. This is where I wound up. It’s temporary,” Tess explained, sounding a little unconvinced herself.
“Says on your file you’ve been here over two years. That’s a lot of temporary.” Ron wondered what was really going on with her.
“I got burned out. This is fun most of the time. I can always write code. I’m working on figuring out my next move.” Tess looked at him. “What does this have to do with Loca?”
“Nothing. I was just wondering,” Ron answered.
She was overwhelmed by the news of Loca’s death, but was also a little interested in the good Detective. He was one of the only men who’d ever asked her in a forthright manner what she was doing and why. She felt a buzz of excitement, which was strange; maybe her hormones were going haywire from the shock. Still, for the first time since she’d been with Nick, she found herself wondering what another man might be like. A cop, no less.
What the hell was wrong with her?
Ron questioned Tess some more, but there wasn’t much she could add. He sensed something odd about their interview, and wondered if he was reading it wrong—he could have sworn she was sizing him up as a man, not as a cop. Wishful thinking, he was sure.
The questions finished, he gave her his card, told her to call if she thought of anything more.
“I will, Detective.”
“Ron. You can call me Ron. What’s your nickname, anyway, for the record?”
“Mega. As in mega-fast. I get around town faster than anyone else, usually deliver more packages. I got it my first month here.” She was still shaken but managed a wan smile.
“Thanks for helping out. Sorry about your friend.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
* * *
Tess told Frank she was going to take the day off after her morning runs. She had from 9:45 until 12:00 blocked out to see her father, and she was upset about Loca and didn’t feel motivated to bike all over the city today. Frank was understanding, although he was already inconvenienced because of the detective’s requirement to question all the messengers. Monday would be a money loser for Red Cap thanks to the NYPD.
Stu handed her the morning’s delivery schedule, and she did a quick scan. Six packages for the a.m. already in, and possibly more en route if she hustled. She wasn’t in a hustling mood. She saw Turbo approaching, talking to Duff; Duff seemed agitated.
That was odd.
Duff was never disturbed by anything. When you’d taken six nine-millimeter rounds in the back and were walking around to tell the story, you developed a different perspective. She was still amazed whenever she caught a glimpse of his torso when he changed his shirt.
She waved at them and they nonchalantly waved back.
It was going to be blazing out again. She went into the restroom and rinsed her face off, stared at herself in the cracked mirror. Loca was dead. Mutilated. A mystery as to who did it. Another girl killed at the Avalon, on the same night they’d all been there. She knew what the cop was thinking—what’s the connection? Good question. Did he think it was one of the messengers? Jesus.
She considered all the misfits working there and tried to imagine any of them being killers. Paco? No way. Duff? Impossible. Luis? He was a little odd, always talking to himself in Spanish… maybe schizophrenic? What about Turbo? He was redneck white trash, liked his methamphetamines, and the rumor was that he dealt on the side—but a killer? And Tiny, the pseudo-Jamaican big boy? He never seemed angry, but he did have a strange look in his eyes. Probably all the ganja. Or something else?
So many messengers were transitory, there was a never-ending supply of dangerous, drugged, misfit loners and street kids coming and going at Red Cap. It was essentially a flake’s job, and her circle was just the more dependable of the flakes. They were all outlaws who played by their own rules, at least that’s how many of them saw themselves.
Could one of them have crossed some line in his head and started thrill-killing, the ultimate outlaw move? None of it made sense. She couldn’t make the picture work.
Tess slung her bag over her shoulder with the first two deliveries in it and dropped her shades into place, then secured her helmet and double-checked to confirm her water bottle was snug. She’d calculated she could be at her first target in seven minutes. She swung her leg over her bike, a Trek hybrid that was light and fast, and propelled herself down the street.
The killer watched her go and decided she’d have to be one of his pretties, eventually. Or maybe not; he already had a brunette. But two couldn’t hurt.
Something to consider.
* * *
The taller Asian munched on an English muffin while they discussed the day’s agenda. It was pleasantly cool in the hotel lobby restaurant, and the two men took their time strategizing. They were in a hostile country where they barely spoke the language, and had no idea what to expect once other businesses were open by the shop. They agreed caution was the best approach.
The smaller one called their driver. He picked up on the second ring.
“How long will it take you to get us?”
“At least an hour. Tra
ffic into the city is very heavy during rush hour.”
“That’s all right. The shop doesn’t open until ten and I want to spend some time looking around before we go in. Call me when you’re downstairs.” He closed the little flip phone.
“How about taking a quick walk to Times Square? It’s only a few blocks up. I want to buy a camera.” Might as well scoop up a souvenir while they were here. He’d seen Times Square on television and was curious to see the circus in person, and they had time to kill.
* * *
Tess had finished her last delivery and was soaked with perspiration. She stopped at a corner store and bought a large bottle of Gatorade, chugging a third of it and refilling her bike container.
She was still deeply troubled, reflecting on how Loca had gone from the funny, sexy, vivacious, tough chick comic to a corpse on a slab; what set of circumstances had led to it? It seemed surreal. Just a week ago they’d been exchanging jokes and mocking their fellow city-dwellers over drinks. Loca had been happy; she’d been asked back after an open mic event, and told that if the crowd reacted well she’d get paid next time.
That was last Monday, and Tuesday night she’d been murdered. Was that how it really happened? One day you’re here, and the next you’re gone, no fanfare, no one noticing? It just seemed like there should have been more of a stop to everything, that her departure from the planet should have caused more of a reaction. Apparently not. No one cared. Life went on.
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