Exit Strategy

by Charlton Pettus

  Most nights Kevin did his homework or watched videos on his laptop.

  During the day they had pretty girls working reception but at night there was no need to impress anybody; people just wanted to feel safe. And in this neighborhood they felt safer when the big black guy with the gun was on payroll.

  The cop came in around one in the morning. He was friendly enough. Brought a couple coffees, bag of donut holes. He was interested in the video system and how the backups were logged. He asked to see the overnights from the penthouse elevator camera for the past few weeks, and even though he didn’t have a warrant or anything, Kevin figured, what the fuck, more exciting than homework. And it made him feel important for a minute.

  The detective seemed particularly interested in one of Mr. Prenn’s overnight guests, a lady with a ponytail, brown hair. Mr. Prenn had a fair number of girlfriends and the pretty blonde one was there the most, but this one seemed special.

  Finally he asked Kevin to copy some of the files to a thumb drive. He slipped him a hundred bucks and left the sack of donut holes.

  * * *

  Stephanie checked her phone as soon as the class ended and the students started noisily filing out. She had heard it vibrate during the lecture and had subsequently found it difficult to concentrate on her subject, the inflationary model. The text was from Alex. It said, I have it.

  Can you meet me at Simon’s? she texted back.

  He replied immediately. sure. half an hour?

  See you there. You’re the best.

  Simon Perry ran the DNA sequencing facility in the Engineering Sciences Lab just across the street from Conant Hall on Oxford Street. He did the bulk of the sequencing for the literally hundreds of doctorate and postdoc projects that were happening at the university any given semester. He was also one of Stephanie’s closest friends on the faculty and had done some moonlighting for Genometry in the early days. He wore a pair of half-moon spectacles perched near the end of his refined, some thought disdainful, nose. He made Stephanie a cup of tea in an old stained mug commemorating the first Clinton campaign while they waited for Alex. After handing her the tea, he rinsed out the kettle and made a noisy show of tidying up the lab as if he could keep her sorrow and anxiety at bay with his own constant motion.

  Mercifully there was a gentle knock on the door and Alex let himself in. He nodded to Simon and placed the unmarked manila envelope on the counter.

  “Right,” Simon said to no one in particular. He opened the envelope and drew out the plastic bag. The seal was intact. He put on a new pair of latex gloves and carefully opened the bag to remove the swab. “Epithelial cells?” he asked, looking at Alex.

  “I assume so,” Alex replied.

  “Good.”

  Alex eased himself down to the floor where Stephanie sat with her back to the wall, arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Without looking up, Simon said, “You know there’s no point in your staying here. It’s going to be at least a couple of days before I know anything. I’m running the full CODIS, that’s thirteen different sites.”

  “I know,” Stephanie said quietly. “I just want to stay for a little while.”

  Alex delicately reached his arm around her and she allowed her head to rest on his shoulder. The only sound was the occasional scrape of Simon’s stool when he shifted his weight to reach across the counter.

  49

  LA VIE EN ROSE

  The grass was brown, dormant; a small group of desultory tourists was clustered around a towering modern sculpture in the middle of the park nestled between Avenue de Verdun and Boulevard Jean Jaurès. Nice in the off-season was a quiet town. Year-rounders went about their daily routines to the steady, measured tempo of beach towns in winter. Jordan felt as if he could have been in Hyannis or Down East except there were palm trees and carved marble where the scrub pines and bleached shingles should have been. The sculpture was an early Venet, a simple arc in black steel canted like the keel of a ship climbing a wave, fighting its way through punishing surf to reach the calmer seas beyond.

  Jordan cut through the formal gardens and past the Monument du Centenaire to the Promenade des Anglais, the main drag along the beach. Traffic was light, so he jaywalked across the street, scarcely pausing on the grassy median. The pedestrian promenade was easily as wide as a two-lane country road. In the summer it would be packed with sun worshippers from all over Europe jostling one another with their canvas beach bags, umbrellas and the ubiquitous rolled straw beach mats one could buy at every sandwich shop or from the African vendors who plied the promenade, but now it was nearly deserted. A cluster of light-blue-painted wooden chairs stood facing the sea, angled as though a group of restless ghosts had just pulled them up for a chin-wag.

  A stiff onshore breeze numbed Jordan’s left ear even as the low sun warmed his face. The Côte d’Azur lived up to its billing, the sea was a striking pale blue under a mostly cloud-filled sky with ribbons of a deeper blue glimpsed behind. The sun was just beginning to sink pinkly into a distant huddle of sullen clouds. The tawdry ball lights of the Casino Ruhl were already on. The casino occupied the ground floor of the Méridien Hotel. Its pink awning and dated decor seemed sad to Jordan, like a faded beauty with too much makeup caught in the daylight.

  He crossed at the crosswalk and walked purposefully into the sprawling casino. There was only the Ruhl and the Palais, so he’d leave tonight for the richer hunting grounds to the west—Cannes, Saint-Tropez and Aix-en-Provence. Inside the Ruhl, Jordan made straight for the cage. He walked up to the open window and pulled out his bank card.

  “Two thousand, please,” he said, sliding the card under the thick glass partition.

  “Yes, sir,” the cashier, a young man with bad skin and thin spiky hair, said, swiping the card. “How would you like it, Mr. Butler?”

  “Two five hundreds and ten hundreds, please.”

  “Yes, sir.” The cashier expertly stacked two piles of green chips with a muted click and swept them into the transfer box. Then he took two black chips from his drawer and slid them in, along with the bank card and a printed receipt. He sealed the box on his end, which unlocked the outer door. Jordan opened it and gathered up the contents.

  “Merci,” he said, nodding to the cashier.

  “Merci, monsieur,” the cashier replied, resetting the box.

  Jordan walked through the casino, eventually settling on a Vingt-et-un table whose primary virtues were the two dark-haired girls giggling and playing from a shared stack of chips, and the unobstructed view of the surveillance camera on the ceiling.

  When he sat at the table, his demeanor changed. He became animated and voluble. It took him three glasses of champagne and forty minutes to lose all of his green chips. He flirted artlessly and shamelessly with the two women. They turned out to be Italian, in Nice for a wedding. When he doubled down on an eleven with the dealer showing six and then lost his last green, he spread his hands as if to say, What can you do? and headed somewhat unsteadily back toward the cage. The black chips never left his pocket.

  After two and a half hours he had lost three thousand euros and had ten black chips in his pocket. He went back to the cage and cashed out, keeping his head down and his back to the ceiling camera. Five minutes later he was back on the boardwalk. The cold night air cleared his head. The clouds had passed and an impossibly large moon, days from full, hung just beyond the bobbing yachts anchored offshore. A gentle surf lapped at the smooth round stones that stood in for sand along this stretch of the Mediterranean. Jordan walked down another quarter mile to the Palais.

  The Palais was a grand white edifice, more in the modern Vegas mold than its faded cousin. The floor rang with the digital cacophony of the slot machines. There was no central cage; the sheer scale of the place seemed to ensure security. The cashiers were in a discreet row on the far side of the casino. Jordan went up to the first open window and bought five thousa
nd, all but a thousand in five-hundred-euro chips.

  He ordered a scotch and soda from one of the circulating waitresses and wandered through the casino. He had never understood gambling. From the pensioners at the slots slowly bleeding out their life savings, to the wild-eyed shooters at the craps table, to the tight-jawed poker players waiting for the cards to turn, Jordan had always felt a deep sympathy for gamblers. They struck him as addicts, no better than skid row drunks or junkies in a shooting gallery. They had that same hollow look; the vulgar luxury of the setting only seemed to highlight the despair.

  He squandered a few hundred at a crowded roulette table and actually won almost a thousand playing reckless Vingt-et-un. After a couple of hours he was basically even.

  Nonetheless he went back to the cashier for another five thousand. After swiping his card, the cashier looked at her screen and with an apologetic smile and said, “I am so sorry, Mr. Butler, the bank wishes to speak to you. Would you like to speak with them, or perhaps another card...?”

  She let the question hang. “No, I’d like to speak with them. I’m sure it’s fine,” he said.

  “Very good, sir, just a moment.” She dialed, and after a minute on hold, she spoke in quick efficient French for a moment, nodded and, cupping the mouthpiece, handed him the phone under the decorative bars of the window.

  It was a cordless handset so Jordan stepped away from the window. “Hello, this is Justin Butler,” he said.

  “How are you, Jordan?” said a dry, familiar voice. There was no delay; it sounded as if he were down the street. Sam. Jordan panicked for a second and looked around, expecting to see him leaning against a slot machine flanked by his thugs. He wasn’t. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a gambler,” Sam was saying.

  Jordan recovered quickly. “Clearly I’m not,” he said, making his voice sound as if he was tipsy but trying to hide it, channeling late-night adolescent returns to waiting parents. “I’ve been losing.” He laughed a little nervously.

  “I see that,” Sam said.

  “Not that much, though,” Jordan said. “A few thousand, maybe. I thought I had plenty of money. You said I did.”

  “You do, Jordan,” the patient voice went on, “but not infinite.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m just trying to have fun. Making friends, seeing the country.”

  “I see. All right, well, enjoy. Just make sure your travels don’t take you outside of the country, please.”

  “I know. I know the rules.” There was a moment’s silence. “You’re not here, are you?”

  “No, I’m not. Please pass me back to that lovely young lady, won’t you?”

  “O-okay, um, thank you,” Jordan stammered and passed the phone back. The cashier listened, nodded and clicked off.

  “You’re all set, Mr. Butler. What denominations, please?”

  50

  THE PALMS

  “Oh, I meant to call you, Officer Herron. I am so sorry.” She looked tired, rushing back to her office after class. Even so, she was striking; he’d forgotten how striking. Beautiful face, natural. She opened the door, balancing a stack of books, and Herron followed her into the cluttered office.

  “Please sit down,” she said, moving a stack of magazines off the chair and stepping behind her desk. “I did get your message, and it was very kind of you to follow up, but if I called you, it was completely unintentional. I do that all the time.” She took out her phone and put it on the desk. “I have no idea how but I somehow manage to routinely dial old numbers in my purse. I have one friend who won’t answer my calls anymore because of all the pocket dials.” She laughed, inviting him to see the humor.

  “Would that be Mr. Prenn, ma’am?” Herron said.

  She hadn’t expected that. She was thrown for a moment. Then she smiled. “Yes, it would actually. Of course you met Alex. That was a very difficult time.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it was,” Herron said. His face was sincere but there was something in his tone of voice, as if he was in on a private joke, that made her face feel hot. “I’m sure he has been a great support.”

  It was a statement but Herron’s inflection suggested it was more of a question. His eyebrows remained slightly arched, inviting Stephanie to elaborate.

  She knew she was on dangerous ground but the silence required some comment. “Yes, absolutely,” she said, trying to find a safe way forward. “I actually met Alex at the same time I met my husband. They were friends, from school.” Herron nodded politely.

  “Harvard actually.” She flushed as she heard herself; it sounded elitist and condescending somehow. She wondered where the detective had gone to school. Was there a university like West Point or Annapolis for cops? Of course not. Stephanie felt like she was going to laugh out loud. She felt reckless; the whole conversation seemed surreal, absurd. Raised voices from the students outside brought her back.

  “How would you describe your relationship with Mr. Prenn now?” Herron asked.

  “He is probably the nearest thing I have to a friend.” She paused for a moment, looking up at the dusty transom over her office door.

  “My husband was my confidant, my shoulder. We were a society of our own. Now that he’s gone Alex is my closest link to that society. He’s the only other person who knew Jordan like I did, so when I need someone I talk to him. Does that make any sense?”

  Herron nodded thoughtfully. “It must be nice to have someone to talk to.”

  Stephanie looked at him, her head tilted a little to one side. “Of course,” she said.

  * * *

  Follow the money. When Herron had first made detective, his partner had been a guy named Jimmy McKenna. He was a couple years from retirement and mostly shuffled around the station with his gut leading the way and his pants threatening to fall off because he had no ass to keep them up. He gestured with a hand that seemed to have a cup of coffee permanently attached, making weighty pronouncements for the benefit of the junior detectives. “Follow the money” had been a particular favorite trope.

  Genometry was a very small cap stock traded on the Hong Kong Exchange. Until the recent buyout talk with Pfizer, it was seldom traded at all. However, going back several years Herron saw a pattern of high-volume trades that seemed to anticipate significant moves in the share price.

  Surefire tell for insider trading. Bigger company, someone would have noticed. The biggest individual shareholders were Jordan Parrish and Alex Prenn. But they weren’t buying or selling. The bulk of the liquid stock was held by Viceroy Interests, a venture capital firm with a Boston address. Time to go to the lieutenant. He’d need subpoenas.

  * * *

  The kids were long asleep when the phone rang. Stephanie was lying in bed with an old issue of The Economist. She never seemed to catch up; every week another issue chock-full of no doubt timely and insightful reporting would arrive before she had cracked the last one. Her eyes were rescanning the same paragraph for the third time and she still had no idea what she’d read.

  She picked up the handset. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Stephanie. I hope it’s not too late to call. It’s Simon.”

  “No, it’s fine. I was just reading.”

  “I wanted to call as soon as I knew.” His voice seemed a long way away. “It’s a match.” Stephanie didn’t respond. She looked at the way the faded palm trees on the wallpaper visible through the bathroom door didn’t really line up where the seam was and wondered that she’d never noticed it before.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes, sorry, Simon. Thank you. You’re absolutely sure...of course you are, I’m sorry.”

  “I ran thirteen sites, three trillion to one against a false positive, and that’s allowing for twins. I also checked the fragmentation and it was consistent with the date of the accident. Listen, I’m really, really sorry—”

  She cut him off. “Please, S
i, don’t. I needed to be sure, that’s all. Thank you for indulging my craziness. You’re a prince. Go home, get some sleep.”

  “Are you okay?” So far away.

  “Yes, of course. I’m fine, it’s better, really. Good night, Simon.”

  “Good night, Stephanie.”

  If she were designing wallpaper, she would space the pattern so that the seam would always fall on the solid tone, not the print. It was maddening.

  51

  WILLIAM

  Jordan walked up Victor Hugo to La Rotonde, the massive fountain and roundabout just up the street from his hotel in Aix. He turned right onto the Cours Mirabeau, a wide pedestrian mall with a narrow street running down the middle. Two rows of plane trees lined the street. It was early so the Cours wasn’t terribly crowded yet. The cafés were serving the breakfast crowd and the retail shops were just throwing open their gates and having their walkways scrubbed clean. A couple of blocks ahead Jordan saw the green neon cross of the pharmacy.

  Jordan had prepared a list but the pharmacist, a solid woman in her early fifties with lustrous black hair pinned severely back and distinctly grandmotherly spectacles, was eager to improve on it. She suggested an herbal alternative to the antibiotic he ordered. He took both.

  Back at the Cézanne, he took an inventory of his purchases. He had a box of ten Miltex disposable scalpels, a box of suture needles and some gut suture, several boxes of gauze, disinfectant, both topical and oral antibiotics and their herbal counterparts, a box of latex gloves, a tincture of iodine, surgical tape, a large and small set of tweezers and an eyelash curler. The last item was an improvised replacement for the clamp he’d imagined but had been unable to find.

  Everything was spread out on the queen-size bed. The room was modern and stylish in that cheap way favored by so many post-Starck hotels. Jordan packed the medical supplies neatly into a black duffel that already contained thirty-five thousand euros in tightly wrapped bundles, cashed-out black chips. Money, hopefully, Sam didn’t know he had.