by David Lender
“Mom, I don’t have time to talk. I’m in a jam. I need your help.” Dani was still walking up Broadway, crouching over her BlackBerry, her left arm wrapped around her, as if to steady herself.
Mom paused. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ll have to explain later. It’s too complicated.” And surreal. The last thing she needed now was 20 minutes on the phone with Mom, telling her everything, making her worry when she couldn’t do anything about it.
“My goodness, what’s happened? You sound awful.” “I’ll explain later, but right now I really need your help.” Another pause from Mom, probably thinking about how to drag the story out of Dani, then log in her usual ten pounds of advice. It was always good advice, but right now Dani just needed her to handle Gabe, and then figure out what came next. “Are you alright?” Mom asked.
“Yes. Can you drive into town and pick up Gabe?”
“Is he alright?”
“Yes, he’s fine, but I need you to take him someplace—safe.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“Later? Is he in danger?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Then what’s this all—”
“Mom, I need your help.”
Then Mom, in her turn-off-that-TV-and-do-your-homework voice: “Danielle Therese Jackson, this is your mother you’re talking to. Now tell me what in God’s name is going on.”
Dani felt a tremor of anguish course through her. She slowed her pace, lowered her head and cupped her other hand in front of her mouth so no one could hear her speaking into the phone. “A man was killed today in my office.”
“Oh my God—”
“Right in front of me.” Dani felt her voice trembling as she went on, “I’ve just spent hours with the police”—she saw the killer in the cop uniform forcing his way into her apartment—”and I need to deal with it. And I won’t be home when Gabe gets there, so can you please pick him up?”
“Of course.”
“And I don’t want to tell him. I’m afraid it will upset him.”
“Okay, is he still in school?”
“Yes, at Mercer. But Francesca’s picking him up at three and taking him to an audition. Can you get him at school instead and bring him home to New Jersey?”
Dani could hear Mom’s wheels turning. Here it comes.
Mom said, “I don’t understand. Why can’t he go to his audition? And why bring him to New Jersey? And what did you mean before when you said ‘someplace safe’?”
“I’m scared, Mom.” Dani felt desperation, terror about that man coming after Gabe. It might not be so hard for him to trace Gabe back to Mom’s house in Hackensack. Better the lake house in Pennsylvania. “It would be even better if you could take him up to the lake for the weekend, and not tell anybody where you are.”
“Dani, what kind of trouble are you in? Are you in danger?”
Why is there no hiding from her? “I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure you’re in trouble, but you want me to take Gabe up to the lake in Milford where he’ll be safe.”
“I don’t want you to worry, Mom.”
“I’m your mother. That’s my job. Tell me. We’re wasting time.”
Dani’s neck was getting stiff from crouching over the phone. She stood up straight, arched her neck back to stretch it. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
Mom, right back at her, dead firm, “Try me.”
Dani, defeated, let out a long sigh. “The—killer—” she could barely bring herself to say the word, “who shot the man in my office came to my apartment about an hour ago. He tried to kill me and I got away.”
There was silence at the other end of the phone.
Dani went on, “And I think he might be a cop. At least he was dressed like a cop, but then I saw on the news that another cop was killed in my apartment—”
“Go to the police.”
“—and the news said the police are looking for me as a ‘person of interest.’”
“Go to the police, right now.”
“I’m not going to the police until I know it’s safe. I don’t know whether this killer is some rogue cop or whether somehow the police are involved—”
“Dani, for God’s sake—”
“—but there were some suspicious guys who showed up at my office before the cops got there calling themselves the FBI. They left when the cops arrived, but the cops didn’t seem to know anything about them. Something really awful is going on.”
“What are you involved in?”
“I don’t know. That’s the point. But I need to make sure Gabe is safe. And maybe when I figure this thing out I’ll be able to go to the police.”
“Who was this man who was killed?”
“Someone from one of the big drug companies. I was going to interview for him for my next documentary. He’s a friend of that whistleblower, John McCloskey, I interviewed a few months ago. And I think this man may have been trying to blow the whistle on his company, too.” Dani stopped herself from mentioning the USB flash drive he’d given her.
“Dani, this is unbelievable.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want you to worry.”
“If you don’t call the police, I’m going to.”
An image flashed into Dani’s mind: the killer grabbing Gabe by the hair, dragging him…“Mom, Mom, stop. Please! I’m afraid that may put me—and Gabe—in more danger than we are already.”
That seemed to stop her. After a moment she said, “First things first. I’m leaving now to come pick up Gabe.”
“And take him up to the lake?”
“Yes, and take him up to the lake.” Then she said, with that Cindy Jackson resolve in her voice, “And then I’m going to figure out what to do about you, Danielle.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Dani said, but Mom had already hung up on her.
The call with Mom had gone better than she might’ve expected, Dani realized. This, after agonizing for ten minutes about how badly it had gone. Now she mocked herself. Mom was a formidable presence. Even when Dad was alive, she took care of all the finances, paid the bills, ran the house, planned vacations, set the meal plan—actually wrote it out for the week—assigned her siblings and she their chores and dispensed allowances. Dani usually approached a problem with, “what would Mom do,” frequently calling her to vent about stresses in her life, then waiting for Mom’s counsel. So today, how could Dani really expect to give her only half the story and have her accept it. And yes, going to the cops was the logical answer, but Mom hadn’t looked that blue-eyed, acne-scarred man in the face who nonchalantly checked his gun while she was screaming for help, then got ready to point it at her. That man in a cop uniform; either a cop, or masquerading as one. But did killers masquerading as cops have squad cars parked outside with their partners in them?
A police car cruised by. She turned from the street, shielding her face, imagining that photo of her from the television on the digital screens in hundreds of NYPD cars in the city. She pulled her shoulder-length sandy hair into a ponytail and put a rubber band around it. Not much of a change, but it would have to do for now.
She fingered the USB flash drive, now in the pocket of her blazer. John McCloskey. Maybe he would have some answers. She checked her watch. It hadn’t been long since she’d seen her photograph on the television, but she knew from those goofy thriller movies that James watched that the cops could trace peoples’ cell phones. It was dangerous to use hers again. She knew McCloskey’s address, so she took a crosstown bus to the Upper East Side.
At his apartment building at 86th and 2nd Avenue, the concierge called upstairs, got McCloskey on the phone. “Who may I say is calling?” the concierge asked.
“Dani North.”
Grover Madsen sat in his office, waiting. CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, men who made 20 million bucks a year and got paid 250 thousand a pop for speeches to the likes of douchebag investmen
t bankers at their firm’s off-site annual conference, didn’t wait for anybody. So Madsen was pissed off. But there he sat, with a $7.99 prepaid cell phone in his hand, waiting for the contractor to call him.
“Enough of this shit,” he’d told Xavier an hour earlier after he learned the contractor had missed the girl in her apartment, “I need to deal direct.” The prepaid cell phone, completely anonymous, had arrived by messenger a half-hour later.
The prepaid cell phone rang. “What happened?” Madsen asked.
“You don’t wanna know, because it’s better for both of us if you don’t,” the contractor said. “I’m handling it.”
“Not well enough.” Madsen paused, waiting for an answer. He didn’t get one. He said, “How do you find the girl now?”
“Didn’t I just say I’m handling it?”
“That’s not good enough. I need you to put a team on this.”
The guy laughed. Laughed at him, Grover Madsen. “Team? You think I got a fucking team?”
Madsen thought for a second, not expecting this response. He said, “You mean you don’t have any backup?”
The guy laughed again. “Relax. I don’t get the other half of my fee unless I get you your package.”
“If it’s just you, it’ll never happen. I need you to put a team together, and fast.”
“I work solo. If you want a team, get your own. Even better, genius, you get your fucking team and feed me whatever information you dig up, ‘cause I want this little bitch out of my life forever.”
Madsen thought before speaking. This wasn’t going as planned. He said, “I guess if I can’t rely on you, I’ll have to set one up myself.”
“Good, and I’ll do the girl for nothing.” Then he hung up. The prick actually hung up on him. Him, Grover Madsen, the CEO of Pharma International. Madsen couldn’t believe it. No wonder Xavier always acted as intermediary. But this was the man Xavier said was one of his best, and who he’d put on Madsen’s last jobs. Madsen always thought that professional killers were cool-headed. Like the professionals he worked with. You do a merger deal, you have a team of a half-dozen investment bankers and lawyers all over you, kissing your ass for two, three months, whatever it takes. And they employed legions of drones who’d bang out memos and exhibits that detailed everything: bios of all the board members of the target company, their corporate affiliations, all that shit. The PI guys he hired dredged up the dirt. Mistresses. Ex-wives. Public divorce filings. Misdemeanors, any other police records. Even credit scores and their kids’ school and police records, whatever was in the public domain. It was all useful in the endgame. Body blows in the final negotiations.
Madsen stood up and walked the 25 feet across his office to his private bathroom. He took a long piss, then stood in front of the sink. He was wearing one of his Dunhill suits today, this one double-breasted, still buttoned, white pocket square neatly in place. He cinched up his tie and adjusted the dimple. He always carried himself with the formality and dignity of a commander-in-chief around the office, almost never taking his suit jacket off or unbuttoning it. None of this roll up your sleeves with the working stiffs. No drinks or dinners with his senior officers. The man in command needed to be just that, and not a buddy to his subordinates. He looked into his brown eyes in the mirror. Clarity. Seriousness of purpose. At 55 years old, his jaw was still muscular and firm, none of that paunchiness guys his age started to show. The streaks of gray in his dark brown hair at his temples were merely enough to show the sagacity of wisdom, not indicate one who was slipping past his prime.
He washed his hands and then walked to the bathroom doorway while he dried them. He took in his office. The walls were covered with photographs of himself on the covers of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times, Time, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Fortune and Forbes. His Humanitarian Award from the World Health Organization for his work on the measles vaccination program in Africa was prominent in the center of the cover photographs. Pictures of him shaking hands with various notables sat on the credenza, his coffee table, the end tables situated around the sofa and chairs in his conference area: Mayor Bloomberg, President Romney, and, before him, Presidents Obama and Bush. Senator Chuck Schumer, with whom he was on a first-name basis. He was a big guy in a big world. He walked back into the bathroom to drop the hand towel in the bin. He looked at his face in the mirror again and realized he was perspiring. That fucking prick contractor had disrespected him, rattled him, and now he felt like he needed to wash the stink of defeat off him. He splashed water on his face, dried himself.
What the hell was with this contractor? Who was he? Some ex-Navy seal? Special Forces? Or just a scumbag who’d been trained how to kill? Why couldn’t he respect Madsen’s wishes as the client, put together the stuff that Madsen always got for his corporate deals.
How would he go about it if he was working on a deal? He’d use Steve Stiles, his main man. He dialed the phone, and Stiles was in Madsen’s office within five minutes. Stiles looked like hell when he walked in: breathless, his face flushed, his unflappable CFO’s calm undone. “I just got a call from Morgan in Human Resources,” Stiles said. “One of our researchers was murdered in New York City this morning.” Stiles plunked down hard in a chair in front of Madsen’s desk. “One of our own.”
“I know,” Madsen said, pursing his lips for effect. He stood up and walked over to close his office door, milking it for drama. “I know all about it. Not only that, I think someone in the industry had him murdered.”
He got the reaction he wanted, Stiles exhaling, then distractedly fingering his bowtie.
“Maguire was working on vaccines, some under development in joint ventures with other industry players. Maguire’s friend, McCloskey, was the whistleblower on KellerDorne’s Myriad painkiller. Bolton in R&D noticed Maguire was acting increasingly withdrawn, even strange. So this morning, we think he had something in his hot little hand that seemed like dynamite he was ready to pass off to a girl who just won the award at the Tribeca Film Festival for best documentary, some shit about the impact of pharmaceutical drugs on our children. The same girl who interviewed McCloskey, the Myriad whistleblower.”
Stiles’ eyes regained some of his accountant composure, like he was scrutinizing a balance sheet Madsen had handed him to review. “How’d you find this out?”
“I told you. Bolton in R&D.”
Stiles didn’t look convinced. He now examined Madsen like he was a column of numbers. That blank-eyed stare was back. It looked to Madsen like he was about to ask, “How the hell’d he find all this out?” but he said, “Sounds like Maguire had something that was damaging to the industry.”
“We don’t know what he had, if he had anything at all, whether it was bogus, rigged, or for real. But it looks like somebody thought it was real and had him killed because of it. And now it seems this girl may have the data.”
“I think I know where this is going.”
“You got it. I need you to set up a war room. A full team of the appropriate experts, in this case heavy on the investigative guys you use for due diligence on deals. We’ll need a lot of feet pounding the pavement. And coordination with the NYPD, and whatever other police forces are involved.”
Stiles was shaking his head. “This is crazy. We aren’t cops. And what do we need to find her for? Where is she?”
“We don’t know. But the police think she killed a cop at her apartment who went there to pick up something from her a few hours after Maguire was killed. The police can’t find her and think she’s on the run.”
“So let the cops find her.”
“And what happens to Maguire’s data if they do? Or what happens to her, and that data, if whoever killed Maguire finds her first and kills her, too? Or if the cops do whatever they do to cop-killers.”
“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” Stiles said. “But if somebody from the industry killed Maguire to keep the data from getting out, and they kill her, too, then they’ll destroy
the data.”
“But how do we know who killed Maguire? Maybe it wasn’t somebody from the industry. I’m just speculating. I don’t know any more than you do. And maybe it was to get the data and make sure it got publicized. But one thing I do know is the Senate hearings on vaccines next week could be the tipping point for the pharmaceutical industry. All the noise about revoking the immunity Congress gave us from lawsuits about damaged kids from the national vaccination program? And some data, bogus or not, with bad facts for the industry getting plopped down in the middle of that? Congress strips our immunity and the plaintiff’s bar gets ahold of whatever this information is, and we could get hit with lawsuits that will make the tobacco industry’s seem like routine slip-and-fall cases.”
Stiles didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “Something stinks. One of our people, one of our own people gets murdered today. And we’re talking about butting our noses into police business because of our own industry self-interest. We should let the cops find the killer, and the girl, and the data, if it exists at all, and figure out what it means afterward. This is none of our business.”
Madsen reared up in his chair, his breath come into his lungs in a huge gasp. “None of our business?” he shouted. “How could it be any more our business? One of our researchers steals some research he either did with our R&D money, maybe even some of our joint-venture partners’ money, or fabricated—maybe a bunch of shit that could bring down our industry—then hands it over to some misguided do-gooder filmmaker bitch who now thinks she’s going to use it to win an Academy Award, and you’re saying it’s none of our business? I’m the CEO of this company, with a fiduciary obligation to protect it, its employees, customers and shareholders from the frivolous act of a dishonest employee. And you’re the CFO and I’m giving you a direct order to put this team together and find this fucking girl! Understand?”