Two Jakes

by Lawrence de Maria

“Make sure you see Arachne with more than a flash drive in your hand.”

  Scarne looked at his friend.

  “What?” Mack said. “You think you’re the only one who can come up with lines from The Godfather?”

  CHAPTER 32 – FISH FOOD

  “The website said this was one of their newer resorts,” Sobok said. The cab had just pulled up to the front entrance of the Paradise Island Beach Resort after passing what appeared to be a huge industrial complex alive with dump trucks kicking up dust. The air had a decidedly non-tropical smell. “Might have even said newest.” The entrance looked tired and worn. Even given the short shelf life of tropical properties, this one looked at least a decade old.

  “Company bought the property a few months ago,” the cab driver said. He was a grizzled black man wearing a watch cap. “Means they can say it’s one of their newer properties. Not lying, but not exactly the truth.” He saw the look of resignation on Sobok’s face. “But it ain’t bad. Right on the ocean. Maybe even closer, what with the storm coming.” Bahamian humor. Violet, a late November Tropical Storm churning in the Atlantic was threatening to ruin the weekend plans of thousands of tourists. I’ll be long gone by the time it gets here, Sobok thought, after really ruining someone’s vacation.

  “What was that big facility we just passed?”

  “Laundry for the Atlantis resort. Behind it is a sewage treatment plant.”

  Wonderful, Sobok thought. Then he decided to enjoy himself. He’d stayed in much worse accommodations earlier in his career. Even the ride in the ancient puddle-jumper prop plane from Fort Lauderdale to Nassau had been nostalgic. It had been a long time since he had watched a mechanic pour oil out of a quart can into an exhaust-scarred engine just before takeoff. It reminded him of some flights in Africa years earlier when he assumed, given the propensity of African aircraft to fall out of the sky, he was probably in just as much danger as his intended targets at the time.

  After paying the driver and politely refusing his offer to be a tour guide for his stay, Sobok walked into the lobby, which had all the ambiance of a Salvation Army consignment shop, right down to the decrepit furniture. There were three women sitting behind the reception counter. Two didn’t even bother to look up, but the youngest of the three stood and smiled pleasantly.

  “Can I help you?”

  Sobok figured she was new and still bright eyed and bushy tailed. He gave her his reservation number and credit card for “incidentals,” which included a $50 “energy fee.”

  “What time do you schedule your electrocutions,” he asked.

  “Sir?”

  Apparently Bahamian humor went only so far. Sobok was given a faded “VI” card which allowed him to charge things to his room; he assumed the “P” had rubbed off. The nice young girl gave him a small map of the property and circled his apartment. He walked out a side door past a small pool where several squealing children were hurtling down plastic slides. He entered a breezeway. On his left was a small sundries shop and on the right what appeared to be a café. Several people in bathing suits were sitting in the breezeway, either having coffee or working on laptops. A woman on one of the computers saw him looking at her.

  “Wireless,” she said. “This is the only hotspot in the whole place. Or you can use the computers off the lobby for $5 an hour.”

  Sobok’s apartment, on the second floor of a building just past the main pool and Tiki bar, was about as expected. Two bedrooms, platform kitchen with attached dining alcove, living room with a TV on a counter (the battery compartment in the remote was taped closed) and a small terrace overlooking the pool and Tiki hut. Nice view of the ocean about 75 yards away. Everything looked clean, in a dirty sort of way. Cracked tile, old paint, no shampoo or other amenities in the bathrooms except some bars of generic looking soap.

  There was no TV in the master bedroom, although one was listed on the sheet near the refrigerator that catalogued the apartment’s contents. Sobok went into the smaller of the two bedrooms. He spotted something on the far wall by the window. He walked over. It was either a brown vine or the strangest looking mold he’d ever seen. About three feet long, it snaked down from the top corner of the window. The last few inches were powdery. Maybe it was dying. It reminded Sobok of one of the tentacles coming out of the pod in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He decided to sleep in the other bedroom. Sobok threw his bag on one of the twin beds in the bedroom furthest from the alien-looking vine changed into a bathing suit and golf shirt, and headed to the beach.

  The choppy surf was feeling the effects of Violet, even though the storm was hundreds of miles away. But there was only a slight breeze and Sobok enjoyed his quick swim. Then he walked back to the hotel pool where just about every lounge chair was occupied. Sobok dropped his towel and shirt on a chair and dove into the pool. He was surprised by the chill. He swam over to the Tiki bar and sat on one of the concrete stools that allowed patrons to sit in the water and have a drink. He ordered a Planters Punch from the woman tending the hut . The Tiki hut was octagonal and small clear plastic bags half filled with water hung from the ceiling on the outside. When his drink came, he asked the server about the bags.

  “Keeps the flies away.” More Bahamian humor? She saw the look on his face. “They reflect the sunlight.” She sounded bored. He wasn’t the first one to ask. “Flies see their reflection much bigger and it scares them away.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “See any flies?”

  Sobok was about to reply that maybe the flies were avoiding her Planter’s Punch, which was terrible. Too sweet, with an undercurrent of coconut that didn’t belong. But he didn’t want to push his luck. Place wasn’t all that bad. Usually he stayed at the world-famous Dune Club when on Paradise Island, but this was going to be a quick job and his rundown hotel was within walking distance of the Atlantis, the huge resort and casino complex where Nathan Bimm was staying.

  ***

  One of the singular attractions in the Atlantis resort complex was its famous 2.7 million-gallon saltwater Ruins Lagoon, a huge open-air aquarium home to 20,000 reef and pelagic fish, and other marine life. The “Ruins” referred to the fake artifacts and crumbling buildings strewn throughout the bottom of the lagoon, which were supposed to represent the lost city for which the resort was named.

  The Great Hall of Waters in the hotel’s Royal Tower offered a faux sea-level view of the aquarium and its denizens to diners in its café. Protected by a two-story high wall of glass, they could eat their seafood while 12-foot hammerheads and six-foot barracudas glided by, some of whom would have been delighted to return the compliment.

  The café was sparsely occupied at 8 A.M., which gave Doris and Michael Fassbinder and their three children the chance to grab the table nearest the aquarium glass.

  “Wow! Look at that!”

  Patrick was only five, young enough to still be impressed by the Volkswagen-sized sea turtle that cruised by with seemingly little effort from its massive flippers. The boy had his face planted against the glass, having barely touched his pancakes since they’d arrived. His parents were glad the waitress had suggested the pancakes. The breakfast buffet would have been wasted on him. They could always slip him some eggs, sausages and French toast from their mounds of food.

  “The glass makes it look bigger than it is, Trickster,” Lisa said. She and her twin sister, Kate, both 12, had also skipped the hot buffet and were picking at their yogurt and fruit plates. Conscious of their bodies even now, they were on a health kick. They had both looked at their father’s heaping plate with disdain. They were always on his case about cholesterol, fish oil and whole grains. They were right, of course, Fassbinder knew. But what the hell? This is a vacation getaway. He looked out at one of the Delphic columns in the aquarium. Some poor schlep in the real Atlantis was probably eating a healthy meal when the ancient volcano exploded. What good did it do him?

  “I don’t think it magnifies them all that much,” his wife said. The aquarium back home in Nor
walk, CT, had concave glass that made a striped bass look like a dirigible. “That’s pretty close to life size.”

  “Oh, wow! Look at that. Come here!”

  The two girls rolled their eyes at each other but they went to join their little brother. A late addition to the Fassbinder clan, he was their pet. Their parents smiled at each other and, with no disapproving almost-teenage eyes looking at them, dug into their sinful breakfast.

  “What is that?” It was Kate. “Someone swimming in there? Isn’t it dangerous? Hey guys, you should check this out.”

  Michael Fassbinder was spearing a sausage from his wife’s plate.

  “Probably one of the staff,” he said to no one in particular. “They know what they’re doing. The fish are well fed. It’s perfectly safe.”

  “Speaking of well fed,” his wife said, “go easy on the sausage.”

  “I think it’s a manatee,” Lisa said. “One of the sharks is eating it.”

  “I didn’t think they had manatees in the lagoon,” his wife said.

  “Gross,” Kate said.

  Fassbinder was playfully going for another sausage when he saw the funny look on his wife’s face.

  “What is that,” she said, starting to rise.

  He followed her to the glass to see what the kids were looking at. Patrick had started to cry. He was always sensitive.

  “Don’t look, Trickster,” Kate said protectively as the boy dug his face into her hip.

  There was a huge hammerhead shark slamming into something that was not quite manatee-sized but pretty damn big. Too white for a manatee, Fassbinder thought. A couple of barracuda were circling the object, occasionally darting in to tear out a chunk of the animal. Well, so much for being well-fed. Law of the jungle and all that, but this is probably something the kids shouldn’t watch. There was a dark cloud beginning to surround the poor creature, which was being nudged closer to the glass. Other, smaller fish, jacks, drums and snappers, which normally swam by in platoons at a leisurely, disciplined pace, were now darting about haphazardly in a panicked frenzy.

  “OK, everyone, back to the table,” Fassbinder said. “Show’s over. It’s time to .…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence as his wife and daughters started screaming simultaneously. A busboy walking past said, “holy shit,” and dropped a tray loaded with dirty dishes and glasses, adding to the clamor.

  Fassbinder stood transfixed as the body of a huge naked man bumped up against the glass, minus an arm, which the hammerhead was shaking back and forth like a terrier with a bone.

  Nathan Bimm’s eyes were agape and his fat, blubbery lifeless lips kissed the glass. As the shocked father hurried his family away, alarms began sounding throughout the hotel.

  CHAPTER 33 – DRESSED TO KILL

  Scarne spent the next day in his office working on the files from Bimm’s computer. It was Saturday and Evelyn was off.

  He downloaded the flash drive to his laptop and started going through the documents. The legal and real estate mumbo jumbo was just as mind-numbing in the light of day as it had been the night before. But because even the most innocent-looking jargon might, in the right prosecutorial hands, become proof of an illegal conspiracy, he didn’t delete anything. He knew, of course, that there was a problem with the material’s provenance. Judges tended to look askance at information obtained in the course of a burglary. But he was less interested in proof that would hold up in court than in putting together a roadmap that an enterprising journalist or rule-bending cop could use to piece together a story or case. He would let others worry about getting convictions. He would just give them some ammunition.

  Of course, he might not need anything if Dudley Mack was able to persuade Bimm to spill his guts and implicate Arachne. Dudley’s powers of persuasion were legendary. Scarne had a momentary vision of the blubbering Bimm strapped to one of the Mack-Sambuca embalming tables as Dudley and Bobo filled syringes or whatever went on one of the family mortuary rooms. He smiled, knowing that it wouldn’t quite be that way. But since whatever Bimm said under duress also probably had procedural ramifications, Scarne was determined to piece together a workable narrative. And he knew just who would get the first draft.

  The work was excruciating, and even with the help of the Internet and several legal databases to which he subscribed, Scarne was having trouble crafting a coherent presentation. He finally broke for lunch, treating himself to a bacon cheeseburger in Bill’s Bar and Burger in Rockefeller Center. Much as he wanted a beer, he settled on black coffee, believing that combining alcohol and his reading matter might cause fatal somnolence. He brought another coffee back to his office and called Donald Tierney. The high-profile Wall Street lawyer had been involved in several of Scarne’s previous cases. His referral in the most recent had almost gotten Scarne killed, a fact Scarne reminded him of frequently.

  “Don’t you know it’s Saturday,” Tierney said when he answered his cell phone.

  “How soon they forget,” Scarne said. “Where are you, on the golf course?”

  “Have you looked outside? It’s freakin’ forty degrees. Barbara has me cleaning out the garage. What do you need?”

  “I’m wading through some files that have words in them that should be banned by the Geneva Convention. Do you mind if I run a few by you? And maybe read some of the documents to you?”

  “Sure, why not. It can’t be worse than what I’m doing. Hold on, let me get a beer.” Scarne heard a refrigerator door open and shut and then Tierney was back. “Might as well clean out the fridge while I’m at it. Go ahead, shoot.”

  Scarne began by reading from a list of legal terms he’d written down. As Tierney translated, he took notes. When he finished, he said, “Human beings actually talk like this?”

  “Who said anything about humans?”

  Scarne then read a sampling of the various property deals. Three beers later, Tierney said, “I was wrong about it not being worse than cleaning out the garage. I made the right decision not going into real estate law.”

  “Thanks, Don. I think I can take it from here. It’s like the Rosetta Stone. Once you understand a few words the others fall into place.”

  “I assume whoever is behind those deals doesn’t want anyone noticing he’s behind them. Are we talking illegality here?”

  “On the real estate deals? I don’t know. They may be legit. But they are also a motive for a murder and I’m trying to piece together a scenario. It will have more impact if it’s in English.”

  “Why don’t you just turn over all the documents to the authorities and have them figure it all out?”

  “Gee, Don, why didn’t I think of that.”

  Tierney caught on almost immediately.

  “Forget I said that. In fact, forget we had this entire conversation.”

  ***

  It was almost 7 PM when Scarne finally finished the 12-page WORD document that combined all the intelligible material he had gleaned from Bimm’s files. Absolutely none of it could be proven without corroboration, but any reporter or cop who read it would salivate. If he had to, he’d leak it to the tabloids, which would have a field day: a young girl’s murder, the mob, an assassin dressed as a priest, NASCAR, hidden real estate deals, tunnels under New York Harbor, a billionaire mastermind. But it wouldn’t come to that. Emma Shields would know what to do with the information.

  Scarne printed out two copies of the report. He put one in an envelope with the flash drive and left it on Evelyn’s desk with a note for her to save everything on her computer. The other he took with him when he left. He wanted a shower, followed by a steak and martini dinner at Knickerbocker’s.

  On the cab ride downtown Scarne wondered how Emma would take it. She was fond of Arachne. Then the thought occurred to him that Arachne probably had ulterior motives for his relationship with her. He also wondered how far that relationship had progressed. Did having the code to a man’s elevator indicate that she was sleeping with him. Suddenly what had previously only nettled Scar
ne became more ominous. The sooner she knew the better.

  He dialed Emma’s cell number. Got her voicemail. It was Saturday night. A busy time in the Shields world. Perhaps she was on the yacht hosting one of the company parties. Or at some charity or art function.

  Or perhaps she was with Arachne.

  He dialed her apartment. The babysitter answered. Ms. Shields had just left. A car picked her up. No, I don’t know where she was going. You could try her cell phone. Yes, I’ll have her call you when she checks in on Becky.

  Back in his own apartment Scarne called the corporate offices of Shields Inc. Got a recording. He managed to track down the number of the Shields compound in Connecticut. Some sort of houseman answered. Emma wasn’t there and Randolph Shields was traveling. Would he or her brothers know where Emma was? The man didn’t know and while he would not give out any cell phone numbers, he would call them and tell them to call Scarne. Would that be sufficient? Scarne said yes and then tried Emma’s cell again. This time he left a more urgent message.

  “Emma. Call me as soon as you get this. And stay away from Arachne. He lied about knowing Bimm and I have information tying him to Elizabeth Pearsall’s murder.”

  Scarne then took a quick shower. Wearing only a towel, he was mixing himself a drink when his phone buzzed. He saw the name. It was Emma.

  “Emma, I know this is a shock about Arachne, but we’d better meet.”

  Only it wasn’t Emma.

  “I couldn’t agree more, Jake.”

  Arachne. Son of a bitch.

  “Where’s Emma?”

  “I’m afraid she is indisposed. But not as much as she will be if you don’t come to my apartment, immediately and alone.”

  “What have you done to her?”

  “Nothing yet. I gave her something to make her more compliant. It was just taking effect when she got your message. The drug made her incautious. Acted like a truth serum, I guess. Anyway, she told me what you said. Then conveniently passed out. So, here we are.”