by Bill Eidson
He went up to Geoff’s apartment door quietly, took the sledgehammer out from under his coat, and swung it right over the doorknob.
Forty seconds, in and out, and then he pulled on the mask and strode down the stairs, past a man with gray hair who stood at the bottom saying, “You can’t do this, you can’t do this.”
Forty seconds. That’s all it took to see Lisa wasn’t there, and that the apartment was empty except for an ungodly amount of sports equipment and photos of Geoff on the wall.
* * *
Steve found Alex’s salvage boat an hour later, docked in Salem.
“What in God’s sake am I seeing?” Alex said, coming out of his wheelhouse. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the helm of corporate America around this time?” His grin faded as Steve got closer.
Steve said, “I’ve got problems, Alex. Are you alone on the boat?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Alex said.
Steve followed him back into the wheelhouse, spoke low and fast. “It’s about Lisa.”
“What about her?”
“He’s taken her. Geoff Mann.” Steve told Alex what had happened. He watched his friend’s face go through the same stages he had felt: surprise, disbelief, explosive anger.
“That son of a bitch! You’ve got to get the police in on this. Let them put electrodes on his balls or whatever they do these days.”
“No.” Steve shook his head firmly. “He’s … detached from reality. Saying he’s crazy doesn’t quite explain it. He really did have a bullet in the gun when he put it to his head. All the police can do is arrest him and try to intimidate him. And he’s not going to scare, not in the time that it would take to save Lisa. He would just sit there laughing while someplace she drowned.”
“Well the fact he’s not hiding his identity doesn’t sound too good either. Seems to me he’s planning on killing you anyhow.”
Steve nodded shortly. “I’d say so.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“What I’d do with any negotiation. Try to make him happy, but on my terms.” Steve took out the list Geoff had given him. “He’s given me three vendor names here. Consultants for Jansten Enterprises. Bogus ones, I assume, but with real vendor codes. I’m guessing that he’s been embezzling for years, and now he wants me to pay off by wiring money to these accounts. Soon as the money hits these accounts, I expect the money vaporizes to offshore accounts that only Geoff can tap into.”
“You do that and you’ve got no way of making sure Lisa comes home.”
Steve started to say something and then his voice caught. He wiped his face and said, “You’re right.”
“How are you holding up?” Alex asked.
Steve’s face was gray. “Just about like you’d think.”
“There’s no way you could’ve known.”
Steve shook his head, holding the rail tight. “I knew something was coming from him. I told her that … but I thought it’d be a lawsuit, or something directly at me.”
The pain was so naked on Steve’s face that Alex wanted to look away. But he didn’t.
Steve said, “I left her alone so much.…”
Then he regained himself with visible effort, closing his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he said, hoarsely, “Let’s get back to it.”
Alex nodded. “How much does he want?”
“A hundred and fifty thousand.”
“Huh. Doesn’t sound like as much as you’d think.”
“Geoff’s got the company figured to a T. Until I formally take the president and CEO role, that’s the amount that I can authorize and still get out the door on short notice without much in the way of procedures.”
“Why does he want it so fast?”
“He didn’t confide. But it’s clear that playing with me is a good part of his motivation. Getting me back for screwing him out of the job, the way he sees it.”
Alex shook his head. “Fucking nut.”
“So I’ve got to play him right. If I just send the money to his accounts, he’ll fade away. If I have the money in hand, he has to deal with me. And if he wants the money, he’s going to have to give me Lisa.”
“Okay …” Alex looked Steve in the eye. “I’m in.” He opened the locker behind him and pulled out a rifle with a scope. “Shooting sharks is part of the job. Got a revolver in there, too.”
“Good. It may come to that.”
“Where else do I come in? You’re welcome to all the cash I’ve got, but it’s not going to be more than about ten thousand.”
“You’ll be worth a lot more than that soon. At least another hundred thousand.”
Alex lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
Steve’s new secretary, Monica, was ready with coffee and her checklist when he came in. Already their routine was established, and Steve forced himself to go through part of it, to keep some appearance of normalcy. She checked through a number of meeting requests, budget requests, and other agenda items.
“Basically, everyone wants to be your friend,” she said, smiling. “Virtually every division head has called within the past few days looking to have some one-on-one time with you.”
“Keep them at bay for the next week or so. And I’ll have to assign someone to take over the day-to-day on Blue Water, but I’ll hold on to it until we find the right person.”
Steve listened to himself answering Monica. His decisions sounded reasonable, his voice, calm and unhurried. Inside, his chest hurt and he felt short of breath, thinking of Lisa, cramped in some box while he was free to drink coffee and talk to his secretary. Free to steal money. He watched Monica as she continued on, knowing he had to use her and others, knowing that there was a wall Geoff had forced between Steve and the people around him. He was certain that was part of what Geoff wanted.
For a moment, Steve was so overcome with rage he couldn’t trust himself to speak. He felt, quite literally, like he might explode. That he might just sweep off everything on his desk, tear apart the big office that he had once wanted so much.
The big office and position that had put Lisa in Geoff’s sights.
Lisa was Steve’s anchor. He had done just fine by himself before they met. But once they had, everything changed. He couldn’t envision life without her, simply couldn’t see it. Wouldn’t see it.
He exhaled carefully, telling himself, This is an indulgence Lisa can’t afford.
Embezzlement required a cool head.
“Steve?” Monica said. “Are you all right?”
“Uh-huh. Fine.” Steve sipped his coffee. “Listen, let’s talk about Blue Water for a bit.”
“Sure.” She flipped to another page in her notebook.
“I’m hiring a salvage consultant I met up here to do some design recommendations on the twenty-five-footer, and I need you to do a wire transfer to get him going immediately. He’s going to rip up the decks of the one I’ve got at my marina and rebuild a prototype of a commercial dive boat from the hull up, including putting in an inboard/outboard configuration. We’ve estimated he’ll need a hundred and twenty thousand.” He gave her Alex’s name and bank account number.
“Okay …” She looked a little concerned. “Still designing boats yourself, are you? They’re going to kick back at the factory. We still need to reschedule that conference call on the design budget, and I presume this comes out of that budget?”
“Yes.”
“Who from down there should be coordinating with Mr. Martin?”
“No one. I want to see fresh ideas.”
“I expect you’ll get a call from J.C.”
Steve smiled, as he knew the situation required. “I expect I will.” J.C. was his head boat designer and would have no compunction about kicking and screaming about having his budget pulled away for an anonymous freelancer.
Steve said, “It’s important this be done today. This morning.”
She looked doubtful. “Well, I’ll talk with Accounts Payable right away … but if this Alex Martin Salvage doesn’t have a vendo
r code with us, then it might take a little time to set up some of the paperwork. Are you sure you want to simply transfer him the money? Wouldn’t a purchase order be acceptable? Then he can just bill us. That would be a little more standard in—”
Steve leaned in so she felt the weight of his eyes. “Monica,” he said, gently. “If you’re to stay on with me as I run this corporation I can’t have you questioning me on such explicit instructions.”
Her face blanched. “It’s just that an advance like this is somewhat irregular and I will be asked—”
“Wire-transfer him the money,” Steve said. “Do it now so he has it by the end of the day. Is that clear?”
“That’s clear,” she said and headed for the door. She looked back over her shoulder and smiled quickly, a frightened smile meant to regain herself a little face.
The sort of smile Harrison used to give Geoff.
Chapter 20
You should’ve let me make the threat to this Steve guy,” Jammer said that night. “It’s nuts, you going to meet him like that.”
“I kept my mask on the whole time,” Geoff lied. They were at the door of an after-hours bar in Roxbury.
“I don’t know what the frigging rush is. Raul’s gonna be pissed, with us coming in with only fifty. But it’s way too much to lose, man.” The pimp looked nervous, as well he should with fifty thousand of his own money in a bag over his shoulder.
“Say what I told you.”
Jammer didn’t hide his nervousness well, Geoff thought, as he pounded on the door. A young black kid opened the door, stared at them.
“Hey, it’s me, Jammer,” the pimp said.
“Hey, it’s me, the guy who don’t give a shit,” the kid said, but he backed away, letting them in.
Jammer laughed, a hollow, scared sound. He called out and waved to some of the young black men in the bar. Geoff was amused to see that none of them even responded.
At the bar, Jammer started whispering to Geoff again about Steve. “Still, the guy might have recognized your voice. How good do you know this guy?”
“Not that well.”
“We’re gonna have to do that chick, you know,” Jammer said. “Before we do, I’m gonna put it to her once. Classy chick like that, if you could turn her, put her on the call girl circuit, she could make you rich.”
“I think she’d be a tad difficult to convince,” Geoff said. The pimp’s pretensions toward business were laughable.
“Oh, yeah, sure. And she knows you. I can’t take the chance on the cops finding their way back to you.”
“You think I’d talk?” Geoff kept his voice low too. Conversation had stopped around the room. Geoff felt his heart start beating faster. He felt the tangible animosity with something close to pleasure. But he didn’t want to start anything, exciting as it might be.
Jammer said, “I think my mother would give me up for more food stamps.”
Geoff didn’t admire Jammer, but he did find him amusing, the way the guy was scared of him, but kept trying to bluster along. Geoff knew Jammer would stab him in the back any chance he got. It added to the tension of the day, kept Geoff’s adrenaline flowing.
He wondered how Steve was dealing with his day.
Lisa sure wasn’t dealing too well. That morning, Geoff had unlocked the freezer to find her covered with blood from her hands. Apparently, she had tried to undo the nuts on the hasp bolt, then broken the juice bottle. She had cried and begged him to let her go to the bathroom. He let Carly bring her in to use the toilet, and then he watched her himself while Carly cleaned out the old freezer like it was a dirty hamster cage.
Maybe he was wrong about Lisa’s strength. She had fooled him the way she had come on strong the night before. But in the morning, sitting on the edge of the tub, she kept crying about how she had almost peed in her pants and that if he had to lock her up, why couldn’t he let her out more often?
He had grown bored with her. He left Carly with the key and strict instructions to let her out no more than once every four hours, and to keep the gun on her at all times.
To Jammer, he said, “Just keep your hands off Lisa until I say so. The second Steve thinks she’s dead, he’ll call the police. I’ve got to keep those tapes going.”
“What’s to keep him from calling the cops anyhow?”
“I’ve convinced him.” Geoff told about using the threat of the water pump to convince Steve.
Jammer looked worried. “That was a lot of talking. You sure he didn’t recognize your voice?”
“Positive.”
“Think he’ll come through?”
“I’ll see if the money has hit the accounts tomorrow.”
“ ‘The accounts?’ ” Jammer’s brow furrowed. “What’s that mean?”
Geoff hadn’t told him about the delivery system. He moved closer. “Now keep your voice down. The money will be wired to some accounts I’ve got set up. And then it’s going to travel around the world a few times, including the Cayman Islands and Swiss accounts. It’s going to come back laundered through a guy I know in San Francisco who owes me a big favor.”
Bob Guston at TerrPac had clearly been frightened when Geoff called him. “Where are you?” was the first thing he had asked.
“Lucky for you, on the opposite coast,” Geoff had said. “Now shut up and listen how you’re going to start to recoup this mess you got me into.”
Guston had blathered at some length about how he couldn’t do it, but in the end, he agreed he could.
Now Jammer was pissed, though. He leaned close to Geoff, his voice a harsh whisper. “Listen, partner, you talk to me before you do all this complicated shit and cut somebody else in. I thought we were just gonna go get the cash from this Steve guy, pop him, then come back and pop the chick. Now you’re telling me we’re getting paid with a check, for christsakes.”
“It’s safer this way. Picking up the cash is where we’re vulnerable, where Steve could nail us if he does bring in the cops.” It was the truth. It was also the truth that Geoff wanted Steve to feel what it was like to be a liar and a cheat. Feel what it was like to be an embezzler. Probably make a Boy Scout like him puke.
Jammer sighed. “Okay, I guess this makes some sense. But I don’t get why you’re so hot to see Raul now. Why don’t we just wait until we’ve got the full amount?”
Geoff let his pale blue eyes rest on Jammer. “Because I want to know who I’m dealing with before I walk in with all the cash. And I want him to know the same.”
Jammer shook his head and then took a deep swallow of his drink. He signaled to the bartender, a bald, heavily muscled black man with a large belly. He ignored them for a good minute or two, and then walked over, his face impassive. “What?”
“Raul,” Jammer said, handing the man a rolled fifty-dollar bill. “Get word to him that Jammer and a friend want to meet with him tonight.”
The man stared at him. “Don’t know no Raul.”
“Sure you don’t. That’s because I didn’t explain myself.” He handed the man a hundred. “The fifty is to get the message out. The hundred is to remember to ask for safe passage.”
The man walked behind the curtain.
Jammer began to whistle between his teeth. He said quietly to Geoff, “Raul might be busy. Might tell us to try another night.”
The bartender came back. The smallest of smiles touched his face. “Buy everybody a drink while you wait.”
Jammer put another hundred down. The bartender began serving and around the room, Geoff felt the animosity go up a few degrees. The drinks were left alone. After a moment, the bartender came back.
“Guess you boys ain’t too popular,” he said, in a southern sheriff drawl.
Jammer laughed it up with everyone else, acting like he was in on the joke instead of the butt. Geoff smiled pleasantly.
A half hour later, a young man came in. He wore black denim jeans, a two-inch fade haircut, and a black leather jacket. On his left hand he wore a gold ring with raised letters spell
ing “Nike” flanked by two guns. Even though he appeared to be only about twenty, he held himself erect, looked at Jammer and Geoff with open contempt, and said, “Jammer, don’t you know the fuckin’ sixties gone, man? When you gonna cut your hair, walk like a man?”
“Hey, Strike,” Jammer said, fawning. “You ain’t reading your fashion mags. All the models are wearing their hair long now.”
“Your faggot mags,” the kid said. He jerked his head at Geoff. “Who the fuck is he?”
“I’m the guy that’s banking Jammer.”
“Uh-huh. You two homeslices wouldn’t be wasting the man’s time, right? You got what he told you?”
“Yeah.”
“Awright. This is what we be doing. We go out to my Baby Benz. I like what you show me, we go. I’m not happy, I put Lee on your case.”
Inside the little Mercedes a few minutes later, Jammer opened the pouch, let them see the loosely stacked bills.
Lee, a huge black wearing gym warm-ups that barely contained his massive chest and arms, leaned forward and said, “Uh-uh, Strike.”
“That the amount?” Strike said.
“That’s a lot of money, and we’re ready to give it to Raul.”
Strike ignored him. “I said, is that the amount, Jammer? It looks way light to me.”
“It’s fifty. We’ll bring the rest in a day or two.”
“That ain’t what the man told you. I heard him.”
“I know.” Jammer looked at Geoff. “But I got a new partner.”
“And before I hand over the balance I want to know who I’m dealing with,” said Geoff.
Strike rolled his eyes. “What you think, Lee?”
“Maybe they figure Raul’s an insurance man, huh?” The big man’s voice was a deep rumble. “Wants to meet him. New partner. Shit.”
Strike nodded as he started the car. He headed off in the direction of the Southeast Expressway. “Okay, man, you want to meet an insurance agent, you’ll meet him.” He grinned back at Lee. “Maybe we’re gonna rewrite these dudes’ life insurance, hey?”