A Cadgers Curse

by Diane Gilbert Madsen

  "Because Ken was stupid. He gave some bills to that grasping female trainee," Sparky said as we stopped to get our breath. "I warned him that someday his skirt-chasing would be the end of him."

  "So the `Safecracker' program was used to make the counterfeit money?" I asked.

  Jeffrey smiled. He handed the gun to Sparky and said, "The Safecracker software program produces almost flawless counterfeit bills. It was Ken who thought of it during one of our brainstorm sessions. Our reasoning was, quite simply, that we should not hesitate to take advantage of our ingenious software, along with the latest generation of high quality, ninety-four million color digital image copier. Stop and think about all the great unwashed out there, Miss McGil. People no better than animals who are using these color copiers to generate second-rate counterfeit gift certificates, coupons, transcripts, forged checks, passes, and tickets." He paused to put on his coat, then added, "Why shouldn't HI-Data benefit? No one else was to be involved. The bills were to be used strictly to save HI-Data"

  We shoveled Norman on top of Harry Marley in the elevator and Jeffrey got in, too. With the five of us, it was a tight fit, and Sparky had to kick Harry Marley's shoe clear of the elevator door.

  Jeffrey pressed the elevator button. "My scheme was beautiful, if you're smart enough to comprehend it. I used the money we created to start up a dummy, offshore finance corporation. Then we set out to buy up all HI-Data's debt before Steinmetz A.G. could get more than a fifty percent hold. A win-win situation for me personally. HI-Data continues to pay back my dummy corporation, so I'll make money there. And I keep control of HI-Data and all its assets as well."

  "What I don't understand," I said, "is why Ken wanted me to do the trainee investigations."

  "Don't be foolish, Miss McGil," Jeffrey said. "Ken didn't make that request. I did."

  "You? Why?"

  "When I realized we had to get rid of Ken," Jeffrey said, "you had to be brought in. Getting rid of you is not a spur of the moment decision. Your body will never be found. Norman and that Treasury agent were unexpected, but we've been planning your demise very carefully. You see, you're going to take all the blame because you had the motive to kill Ken."

  The elevator doors opened with a blast of cold air.

  Me?

  Jeffrey pulled up his collar. "Ken became a partner in this company some years ago when he invested a huge sum of money. That money, I believe, came from his father's estate. Fighting this takeover, however, took a lot more money. Ken went to Frank to borrow it, but Frank turned him down. Ken had no choice. He needed that money, so he pushed Frank off the balcony." Jeffrey smiled at me. "Bingo. HI-Data got the cash infusion it needed to stay alive from Frank's estate."

  In that moment I felt nothing but rage. I leaped at Jeffrey and grabbed his throat with both hands, squeezing with all my strength.

  I heard Sparky curse, and then my world went dark.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  I WOKE TO COLD and blackness. The cold was welcome. It helped numb the pain in my head. I tried to sit up but couldn't. I realized I was locked in a dark embrace with Norman's corpse. Panic flared through me like a bonfire in a high wind. I screamed and pushed and kicked against his dead coldness, desperate to distance myself. Eventually I stopped screaming and forced myself to take some deep breaths and calm down.

  Painfully, I wedged myself away from Norman. We were in the trunk of a car. I turned my head every which way and spotted my purse with the Burns treasures half tucked under Norman. It must be Sparky's car. This was the second time today I was riding in her trunk.

  My wrists were clamped in front of me with a plastic zip-tie restraint, the kind the cops use for mass arrests. I heard there was a way you could break them, but I wasn't having any success.

  Whenever we slowed or stopped, Norman's corpse shifted and rolled against me, pushing me into the sharp edges of the spare tire holder. I could only silently plead with the gods to keep the Burns artifacts from being broken into teeny fragments under this treatment.

  Tears froze on my cheeks in the deepening cold, and the panic rose again. I used all my Scots' courage to hold on. If they were going to dump the car into one of the retention ponds, I was finished. The thought jolted me into action. I gingerly reached around inside the dark trunk, stretching over Norman's body to locate the trunk lock mechanism. I found it, but it was completely enclosed, which was no help.

  I lay still, listening to traffic and hoping they'd commit a traffic violation and get stopped by the cops. We were now traveling at a good pace and hadn't stopped for some time, so I guessed we were on an expressway. But going where?

  I thought about Frank, treasuring the fact that he hadn't killed himself. My rage and horror at his murder were now directed at the two living accomplices, Jeffrey and Sparky.

  The cold was so numbing that my own flesh began to feel like Norman's. But every time the car slowed, G-forces slammed me to one side of the trunk, and Norman rolled on top of me. If by some miracle I did get out of here alive, I was going to be one big mass of black and blue, and the pain from the slashes on my neck would be nothing in comparison.

  I could now hear more traffic sounds, and soon the engine was turned off. We had stopped for good. I gritted my teeth and waited. Sweat trickled coldly down my armpits. What would they do when they opened the trunk? Would I get a chance to escape?

  After a long interval, I heard a noise. It was the automatic trunk opener performing its duty.

  "Get out," Sparky ordered in her efficient HI-Data voice. "Now."

  Sparky didn't make the mistake of approaching the trunk directly. The trunk light was on, and Sparky could see me, but I couldn't see her. I wasn't ready to die right now. First I had to get even.

  I crawled out slowly and painfully. My legs and arms were cramped. Sharp pains shot through my shoulder blades. I ached all over, and my head and neck were pounding.

  Sparky's breath rose in the night air as she pointed the gun straight at my gut.

  I looked around. Jeffrey was sitting in his Lincoln Town Car, parked next to Sparky's Cadillac. I didn't see Harry Marley, but I did see my battered desk and old office chair.

  I shook my head to clear it. We were at Consolidated Bank, standing on the deserted street at the rear entrance to the Tower. The old furniture I'd left when I moved had been tossed out to the curb to be picked up by the junkman.

  What were we doing here at my old office building? My head was spinning.

  This quiet, deserted backwater where I'd so often watched the garbage pick-ups now seemed a world away from civilization. The entire area for a two-block radius was cordoned off as a safety precaution for tonight's demolition. All the action at the midnight Big Bang party would take place on the other end of the building across from Consolidated's main entrance.

  Sparky's cold voice interrupted my thoughts. "Discovering you're not so smart after all?" She shoved the gun at my stomach.

  "Now pull him out or I'll shoot. It's your choice."

  I grabbed Norman by his lapels and pulled him out of the trunk, ripping his expensive suit in the process. I nearly passed out dragging him to the elevator. Harry Marley's body was already there. They must have moved him before opening Sparky's trunk.

  Jeffrey kept his distance from me. Perhaps I'd injured him at least a little when I attacked him in the elevator.

  As they walked me to the elevator, I looked for tiny cameras on the walls, but didn't see any. I wondered what they were going to do when they found out that the elevator wouldn't work. Surely Michael Drake's team had already cut off the power supply. But to my dismay, when Sparky pressed the button, it shuddered and started. The makeshift electricity was still running. I listened for signs of Michael or other workmen, but heard nothing except the elevator's usual creaks and groans.

  They led me to what used to be my old office. The wrecking crew had been in to weaken the support columns and wrap them with chain-link fence and wire fabric to contain flying debris. Most of the drywa
ll had been gouged out and removed.

  My heart sank when I saw the blasting caps already in place on the columns. Then I saw the neat pile of fire mortar canisters and sticks of explosive in the center of what used to be my office floor.

  Sparky said, "You're going to be blown to bits with your two victims. Your body will never be found and nothing will be connected to HI-Data. It'll be just like the Twin Towers except no one will be sifting through the rubble looking for your body." She dragged me to my old closet and pushed me to my knees, tossing my purse in with me.

  Suddenly I understood exactly what Auntie's Nine of Diamonds and her black vision of my closet had presaged. Only it wasn't just me in danger, it was Auntie's precious Burns objects, too.

  "No one will believe I was involved," I yelled at Sparky.

  "There's a dead body in your apartment. That's a good enough reason in and of itself for you to disappear. What's so funny though, is that you don't even know what's going on in your own bank account," Sparky said. "I guess you're not such a great investigator after all."

  "My bank account?" There'd been $431.42 in my account last I looked before Christmas. Since then, I hadn't bothered to check exact pennies, knowing I wasn't going to overdraw.

  "Fifty thousand dollars was deposited in your account the day you found Ken's body." Sparky looked like a she-devil in the dusky shadows of the dim emergency lighting. "You've been the perfect scapegoat"

  "Fifty thousand dollars?" I never have that much money. Now even Scotty might believe I was involved. "Real money," I questioned, "or the make-believe kind?"

  "A totally legitimate transaction, completely untraceable from the bank's point of view. A small enough price for HI-Data to pay for what it needed.

  "The police will believe you were in on this from the beginning. I will testify that Ken asked for you in particular to do the comprehensive checks on our trainees because he wanted to ensure Marcie got the stamp of approval to access HI-Data's top secret research, thereby allowing her to steal the latest developments in digitizing and scanning technology."

  "Hurry up, Sparks," Jeffrey called, suddenly appearing from the stairwell.

  I felt myself come unglued. I had made what my Social Studies 101 instructor Mr. Bolos used to call a "fundamental attribution error" in not guessing the true nature of either Sparky or Jeffrey.

  "The police will conclude you killed Ken because you wanted more money. And you threatened Marcie with blackmail, so she killed herself. Remember, there's no evidence to suggest she was murdered."

  Sparky was enjoying the effect her fictionalized account had on me. It sounded so plausible, I knew she'd be believed. The odds of getting away with murder were a staggering two to one. The odds of being murdered, however, were eighteen thousand to one. Although those raw number odds seemed somewhat in my favor, I realized that my chances of getting out of this tonight were fading by the second.

  "Poor Norman found evidence linking you to Ken's murder, but he never got a chance to tell Jeffrey what it was. He's disappeared, Mr. Marley has disappeared, and you've disappeared. If your bodies are ever found, which is highly unlikely because you'll be dust in the rubble, then it will be obvious you killed them both and didn't get out in time before the building blew. Cops are eager to clear these things off their books, and neither Jeff nor I will ever be involved."

  "What about the counterfeiting?" I asked, fascinated how they'd tied up all the loose ends except that. "The Feds know something is up at HI-Data."

  "Miss McGil," Jeffrey said, coming closer, "We won't get caught. But even if we do, in this country, all you have to do is say you're sorry, and they let you off with a slap on the wrist. We'll take our chances."

  This was no white collar crime where he'd get a slap on the wrist. They'd left corpses strewn all over. Jeffrey was a complete megalomaniac who couldn't conceive of any of his plans going awry. But Sparky had a point. There was a good chance they would never be connected with any of this.

  "We have no time to waste, Sparky. Let's go."

  I waited for the shot, wondering if I'd hear it before dying. Suddenly I saw red, and sharp pain accompanied me into welling blackness.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  I OPENED MY EYES. I was face down. My head was on Harry Marley's legs. Muffled voices swam somewhere in the background. Everything hurt. Was I alive? What had happened? Were they still here?

  I tried to sit up, but now my ankles were bound with a plastic zip tie, and I fell back down. I maneuvered around and sat on Harry Marley's shoulder. My head was clearing, and the voices were more distinct. They didn't sound like Sparky and Jeffrey.

  Elated, I screamed. Nothing came out but a muted rasp. I was gagged. I rapidly considered my options. I might not get another chance.

  The voices faded in and out. I strained to hear what they were saying about moving charges closer to the support columns and the final timing of the charges and how the structure should collapse.

  My life, it now appeared, was in the hands of Michael Drake and his demolition team. I tried again to scream. The gag was so tight that the strangled sounds that came out were almost inaudi ble, even to me. The voices trailed off into the distance until everything was again quiet.

  I crawled over Norman and Harry until I reached the wall. I pounded on it until my arms ached and my knuckles bled. No one came. Too late.

  I didn't know what time it was. Or how much time I had left.

  "Four hundred sticks of explosives," Michael Drake had told me that day the deadly stuff was unloaded. "Almost two hundred pounds," he'd said, "and the ensuing chain reaction will implode Consolidated onto itself in about seven seconds."

  Like Mary, Queen of Scots, awaiting the executioner, I churned over all the other details I could remember. The hundred fire mortars which would be set off about ten seconds before midnight; the final computer systems check; Michael personally pressing the detonator at midnight. Then the entire building reduced to a twenty foot pile of rubble in the time it took to blink your eyes. It had all the elements of good drama, including the fact that Michael Drake himself would kill me. They do say that nine out of ten times, you know your own killer. Nice to know that at the end, statistics would be on my side.

  My end would come quickly, but waiting in this dark closet was terrifying. I already felt dead and gone. I wondered if being blown apart was going to be any less painful than being crushed by the rubble. According to a recent public health survey the number one fear most people have is public speaking. My number one fear is dying, with explosions under Subset A.

  I thought about Frank. If I died today, maybe I'd see him again. I thought about Scotty, Tom, Cavalier, my mother, Auntie and the twins. And the Burns Artifacts. Auntie was never going to forgive me. Somehow I knew she'd haunt me through whatever eternity awaited me to take her Scot's vengeance.

  I'd long since stopped trying to find a position where I wasn't putting my heel into Harry Marley's face or my elbow into Norman's stomach. I sank down onto the bodies and thought about what Michael had said about that final computer check. It was supposed to happen just before the plunger was pressed. If I could break a wire connection to the detonator, the faulty connection would show up on the computer check. One light would still flash, signaling a broken connection. Maybe, just maybe, Michael would see the flashing light and save me. But would they stop the detonation and the show for one flashing light? I didn't know, but I had to try.

  I had absolutely no idea which wire to cut. If I picked the wrong one, I might send myself to another dimension ahead of schedule. At least having a plan made me feel alive again. I wanted to-needed to-avenge Frank and keep the treasures safe.

  I slipped off my left shoe and had to twist like a pretzel to grab hold of it. That was the easy part. Then I pulled myself up to a standing position and balanced on Harry's torso. My legs shook unsteadily as I reached up and felt for the wires.

  I chose one at random and pounded it with the heel of my shoe to break the connectio
n. I hit it again and again, but it wouldn't break. My coat was hampering my ability to hit, but I couldn't take it off.

  My arms ached. My whole body was shaking. I couldn't stand up anymore. How much time was left?

  I tried again, but lost my footing. I sank down, stabbing myself as I landed on the sharp end of one of Harry's hundred dollar bill cuff links.

  I grabbed Harry's arm and pulled off one of the cuff links, cutting my finger in the process. If this razor-edged cuff link couldn't sever the connection, nothing would.

  I stood up again. Racing against an unknown time clock, I balanced on unsteady tip toes on the two bodies. The wire was just out of reach. Stretching till I ached, I succeeded only in nearly wrenching my arms out of their sockets.

  I was ready to give up when, without warning, red and orange lights streaked into the murky darkness. Loud booms made me flinch like a bird on the wing ducking shots. These were the fire mortars being exploded for the crowd. If I correctly remembered Michael's timetable, I had ten seconds left.

  I tried one more time to cut the wire with Harry's cuff link. I stretched and strained, knowing the end was coming any second. Suddenly Harry Marley's corpse moaned, and I distinctly felt it move under my feet. I screamed and jumped. The jolt propelled me that extra millimeter, and I felt the cuff link slice through the wire.

  The adrenaline boost dissipated as quickly as it had come. I sank back down on top of Harry and Norman.

  The corpse moaned again.

  I screamed into the gag. How long could ten seconds be? Was Harry really alive, or were we already dead, and I just didn't know it yet, like in the Topper movies?

  Harry moaned, louder this time. I felt his warm breath on my arm. I sobbed softly through my gag and tried to call his name, but I doubted he could hear. We were both alive, and he and I and Auntie's Burns treasures were headed for eternity together.

  FIFTY-NINE