Midas

by Russell Andrews

  He was also afraid of the city. He had lost his wife and child there. Had endured excruciating pain there. Had gone through years of an unfriendly and hurtful separation from his parents.

  Providence was not simple for him.

  He had reconciled with Jonathan and Lizbeth Westwood about a year before, and that was a big step forward. It made him feel welcome again, not just in his childhood home but in his city. They had embraced him back into the family and he welcomed that embrace warmly. But both sides were still wary. Family ties were always capable of unraveling, he knew. For now, however, the bonds were strong. His mother and father were anxious to make amends and to try to heal old wounds. Justin suspected that some wounds could never completely heal but he was willing to play the comforted patient to help ease his parents’ guilt. And he had to admit that Jonathan and Lizbeth were capable of making things very comfortable.

  He got a warm hug from his mother when he stepped inside the front door of the house. As always, he marveled at the splendor of the place in which he’d spent his youth. The cathedral-like ceilings, the enormous spiraling staircase, the exquisite detailing in the maple and cherry woodwork throughout the expansive mansion. Lizbeth followed him into the den, where his father gave him a warm pat on the back, the closest to a hug he could manage. They shared a glass of superb burgundy as they asked appropriate questions and revealed appropriate details about the past several months of their lives. His mother was saddened by the end of his relationship with Deena, but did no more than give a quick shake of her head when told it had ended for good. His father was mixed about the news of Justin’s promotion: proud of the reward yet still bothered that he’d chosen police work as his profession instead of something more substantial—which, in his father’s eyes, meant more profitable. Justin told them a little bit about why he was there, enough to pique their interest and get some valuable insight from his banker father. Jonathan Westwood said, when Justin had finished summarizing the stories of both the plane crash and Chuck Billings’s observations of the bombing, “Always look for the money.”

  When Justin asked him what he meant, Jonathan cleared his throat and said, “I’ve spent my whole life as a businessman. My whole life around wealthy, powerful people. And if that experience has taught me anything, it’s that there are two reasons for all human behavior: passion and money. I don’t know anything about your line of business, Jay, but I wouldn’t imagine that criminal behavior is all that different from what I deal with in the business world. Somewhere, somehow, someone is making money. Find out who that is and you’ll find out what’s going on.”

  “I don’t know if everything in life can be made that simple,” Justin said.

  “Life is simple,” his father told him, finishing his last sip of wine. “It’s what happens while you’re living it that some people make so damn hard.” And then he said it again: “Find the money.”

  Wanda Chinkle arrived at eight o’clock and Justin was amused to see that she’d dressed for the occasion. It was usually hard to get Wanda into anything but a pair of pants and an open-neck shirt, but tonight she was wearing a dress and a short-sleeved cashmere sweater. With pearls. And stockings. Justin had never seen her in a pair of stockings before—in fact, he thought, he might never have actually seen her legs before—and she scowled when she saw him staring and grinning.

  Wanda passed on the superb red wine, had a Diet Coke instead, much to Jonathan Westwood’s horror, and then they sat down to a delicious dinner of rare roast beef, broiled new potatoes, and string beans, prepared by the Westwoods’ longtime chef, Sidney. The dinner table talk veered between professional and personal, but nothing substantive was broached between Justin and Wanda until, after coffee and a dessert of key lime pie, they settled into the den, alone, and closed the door behind them.

  “You don’t seem quite as angry as you were over the phone,” Justin said.

  “Don’t let appearances deceive you,” Wanda responded. “Just because I want to pistol-whip you doesn’t mean I can’t be polite in front of your parents.”

  “Okay, as long as I know the affection’s still there.”

  “Let’s skip the wiseass stuff, okay?” she said. “I want to know what’s going on.”

  “A lot more stuff than the other day,” he said. And first he ran down everything he’d put together about the plane crash. He told her the circumstances of the crash and about Martin Heffernan’s behavior at the crash site. He said he was fairly certain that the FAA representative stole the pilot’s ID. He told her about the fake ambulance spiriting the body away and he told her, again, how he’d been denied access to the fingerprint identification. He recounted his session with the airport manager Ray Lockhardt, told her Ray’s take on how the plane was tampered with and the pressure Ray was getting from Heffernan about the accident report, clearly an attempt to circumvent any investigation. Justin gave a blow-by-blow account of his conversation on the phone with the ditzy Cherry Flynn, trying to trace the ownership of the plane through the tail number. And then he told her he was convinced that someone at the FAA knew in advance that the plane would be sabotaged, because the files were pulled prior to the crash.

  When he paused to take a deep breath, Wanda said, “Are you done?”

  “I’m done with the crash,” he told her.

  “What else is there?” she asked.

  “You have a meeting scheduled with Chuck Billings.”

  She didn’t exactly do a double take. But it was close. “Jesus, does everybody know everything that goes on in my office?”

  Thinking of Bruno Pecozzi, but deciding to keep Bruno’s awareness of FBI activities quiet for the moment, Justin said, “More than you might think.”

  Wanda shook her head. “I’m meeting with Chuck tomorrow morning.”

  “Do you know what it’s about?”

  She stared at him, undecided about how to answer. Finally she decided to go with the truth. “No. I mean, I assume it has something to do with the Harper’s bombing. He was very mysterious, didn’t want to talk on the phone. Just said it was urgent.”

  “It is.”

  “You know, it’s starting to piss me off, Jay, that you know everything before I do.”

  “I’m happy to share my info, Wanda. Although Chuck’s going to have a lot more details than I have.”

  “Let’s hear what you got.”

  So he told her about his disturbing conversation with Billings that morning. How Chuck felt that the FBI was not just hiding something, they were actively preventing any attempts to get to the truth behind the attack.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” she said when he was finished.

  “I know. But he’s very convincing.”

  “What possible reason would we have for hurting the investigation?” When Justin shook his head, she furrowed her brow and rested her chin on the palm of her left hand and said, “You think the two events are connected?”

  “The plane crash and the bombing?” Justin threw his hands up. “I don’t see any connection. Nothing logical jumps out at me. But suddenly we have two . . . events . . . and we’re not talkin’ New York City here, East End Harbor is not exactly the center of international intrigue . . . and the FBI, along with God knows who else, seems to be doing their damnedest to make sure neither of them gets investigated properly.”

  “Look, your crash is one thing. Who knows why they want this hushed up, but I could come up with reasons. Maybe the pilot’s an ex-agent, maybe the guy’s wife is best friends with the director’s wife. Who knows? But Harper’s . . . I don’t believe it. It’s fucking terrorists, for Christ’s sake, Jay. This is what we live for. It doesn’t jibe. I think Chuck’s being paranoid.”

  “Maybe. You’re probably right.”

  “Don’t condescend to me, you asshole. I want to know what you really think.”

  “I think,” Justin said, “that I came up here to get some specific information to help me along in what I think is a murder investigation. And I think tha
t’s as involved as I want to be with anything. Why don’t I just let you and Chuck handle this other matter. But I do think you should hear him out, although I’ll be surprised if he shows up in the morning.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was supposed to fly up with me and he stood me up. My guess is he’s entangled in a whole lot of shit with your pals back in New York.”

  “As long as you remember that they are my pals,” she said. “That’s who I work with. That’s who I work for. I’m not here for the sole purpose of giving you or Chuck Billings inside information.”

  “I know you’re not,” Justin said. And then he said, “So do you have the pilot’s name?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

  After another long silence, Justin just said, “Wanda?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know why the information’s being blocked. But keeping it secret has been labeled top priority. Something nasty is going on here and I can’t figure out what it is.”

  “It’s not your job to figure it out, is it?”

  “No,” she said. “But it is yours.”

  He nodded.

  “The pilot’s name is . . . was . . . Hutchinson Cooke. People called him Hutch.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “No, no, please don’t thank me for risking my job to give this to you.”

  “Thank you. Is there anything else I should know?”

  “He was an Air Force pilot.”

  “When he died? He was in the Air Force?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He was definitely Air Force. And there’s no record that he was discharged.”

  “So he was still in.”

  “There’s also no record that he served anywhere. At least for the past eighteen months.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because we have access to records of all military personnel and where they’re stationed. And he hasn’t been stationed anywhere for the last year and a half. He just seems to have disappeared.”

  “Was he still drawing a salary?”

  “Air Force? Yes.”

  “Okay, what aren’t you telling me here?”

  “Christ, Jay, don’t you believe in doing any work on your own?”

  “Wanda, I have a feeling there’s going to be plenty of work to do here after you give me everything you can.”

  She sighed. “Two strange bits of info. He flew government officials.”

  “What do you mean, government officials?”

  “I couldn’t get his log. It was frozen. All I can tell you is he didn’t get as high as Air Force One. That log I could check. But that seems to have been his assignment for years, piloting whoever needed piloting to and from D.C. Other than that you’re on your own.”

  “All right. What’s the second thing?”

  “He was still receiving his Air Force salary, right? But he was also getting paid by someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “A company called Midas.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Don’t know. I didn’t have time to dig that deep. And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t particularly want to.”

  “It’s not illegal to be getting a civilian salary while you’re in the Air Force, is it? I mean, I imagine it happens all the time when rich guys go into the service. If any rich guys ever actually go into the service.”

  “No. It’s not illegal. It’s just that . . . this guy was a lifer, Jay. That’s what his records show. He wasn’t rich. And he wasn’t getting paid by Midas until eighteen months ago. Right at the time he seemed to disappear from the Air Force.” She cocked her head to the right and narrowed her eyes. “What the hell is going on here, Jay?”

  Before Justin could respond, there was a firm knock on the den door. Both Justin and Wanda jumped a bit at the noise.

  “Jay,” Justin’s mother called in. “Billy’s on the phone for you. He says it’s important.”

  “Billy DiPezio?” Wanda asked, and for some reason she asked it in a whisper.

  Justin nodded, leaned over to the other side of the couch, and grabbed the phone. “Billy,” he said. “What’s up? It’s too late for a free dinner, if that’s why you’re calling.”

  “That’s not why I’m calling,” the Providence police chief said. “I’m over at Chuck Billings’s house.”

  “Give him a message for me, please,” Justin said. “Tell him he’s an asshole. He’ll understand.”

  “I can’t give him the message, Jay. I’m with his wife.”

  “Well tell her to give him the message, please. I’d appreciate it.”

  “Chuck’s dead,” Billy DiPezio said.

  “What?” Justin found himself stammering. “When? . . . How . . .”

  “Late this afternoon. He was driving up here, got off the I-95 for some reason, probably to find something to eat, and his car spun out of control, hit an oncoming car. Both cars were totaled.”

  “What do you mean, he was driving up?”

  “I mean he was driving from Long Island back home. He was supposed to get in tonight.”

  “No, he wasn’t. He—”

  “Jay, what the hell’s your problem with this? I spoke to him this morning, he was driving up. The local cops called me, said it looks like he fell asleep at the wheel. What the fuck are you arguing about this with me for?”

  Justin heard Billy’s muffled voice—he must have put his hand over the speaker in the phone—apologizing to Chuck Billings’s wife for his language.

  “Jay,” Billy said, quieter and calmer, “I’m calling you because when I spoke to him, Chuck said he was going to see you this morning. It means you were the last one to see him alive. The last one of us. I thought you might want to come see Katy, that’s Chuck’s wife. Thought there might be something you could tell her about your conversation.”

  “Of course,” Justin said. “I don’t have much to report, but I’ll come in the morning. I’ll do whatever I can.”

  He took down Katy Billings’s address, told Billy he’d talk to him in a few days, and hung up the phone.

  He turned to Wanda Chinkle, told her about the conversation he’d just had with Billy. He realized his own nails were digging hard into his palm, causing the skin to turn a blotchy red and white. “It doesn’t look like Chuck was being paranoid.”

  “Billy said it was an accident,” Wanda said slowly. “Don’t go off half-cocked, Jay.”

  “He wasn’t going to drive. He was flying up with me.”

  “Maybe he changed his mind.”

  “Or somebody changed it for him.”

  “Jay . . .”

  “Be careful, Wanda,” he said.

  “Careful of what?”

  “I’m not sure,” Justin Westwood said. “But right now, just to be on the safe side, be careful of everything.”

  12

  Muaffak Abbas was not afraid. He was, however, angry.

  He felt that the man who had paid him so much money didn’t really trust him. Wouldn’t let him do the job he was being paid to do. Abbas felt some shame in this fact. And dishonor. But by the time he reached his destination, he realized that shame and dishonor in this world were of no importance. Soon he would be covered in glory. He would never feel worthless again for he would be meeting his God and spending eternity bathed in His light.

  The feeling made him lightheaded. He felt as if God were already nearby, gently pulling him toward His eternal reward.

  Thinking about his place in heaven, even Muaffak’s anger dissipated. When he walked into the small Italian restaurant on West 22nd Street in the evil city of New York, in the sinful borough of Manhattan, he felt nothing but peace.

  His mother had received the money. Fifty thousand dollars. Money that would be spent feeding the poor and caring for the sick. The money was nice. But he was not doing this for money. Neither he nor his mother cared about physical rewards. They cared about their people. An
d the purity of their own souls.

  She was proud of him, he knew. Proud that he was about to become a martyr for Allah. A martyr to help rid the world of sin and evil and Jews and Americans. How could a mother not be proud?

  Muaffak Abbas looked at his watch, waited for the second hand to tick off thirty more seconds, then he walked into the restaurant. Went straight past the hostess without so much as a nod or acknowledgment of her existence. He did not acknowledge insignificant, godless insects. He walked right up to the man at the table, the man whose picture he had studied. The man who sat alone at a table for two, waiting for his luncheon partner. Waiting for someone who would never arrive.

  Abbas stood in front of the man, who looked up, confused. The man’s eyes narrowed when Abbas threw his hands out, a grand gesture to God, welcoming Him as he would soon be welcomed in return.

  He screamed out the words, realized that he was in America, that these people would not know what he was saying, and he wanted them to know, wanted them to understand. A final moment of vanity. So he screamed the words out again, this time in English: “I am ready!”

  It took another few seconds. Abbas stood there, arms outstretched, the man at the table staring up at him, the restaurant silent.

  He wished they had let him do this himself. He wished they had trusted his strength. And then he wished for nothing more.

  Because that’s when his cell phone rang.

  And Muaffak Abbas was, at last, bathed in light and glory.

  And flesh and blood and bone and devastation and death.

  He had received his reward.

  Somewhere his mother was smiling and her heart was glad.

  13

  The morning after his dinner with Wanda Chinkle, Justin’s chartered plane left the Providence airport at nine-thirty. At eight o’clock, he’d gone to pay his respects to Katy Billings and tell her of his final conversation with her husband. He didn’t feel as if he was much comfort. He told her that he and Chuck had spoken about work, about the bomb at Harper’s. He recounted the gist of the conversation—she did not seem very interested in the details—and then he told a small lie. He said that Chuck told him he was happy he was leaving East End Harbor earlier than expected because he’d be so happy to see his wife. He couldn’t tell if Katy believed him. He hoped so. By the time he left, he was certain that she did. If there was one thing he knew from his years of talking to witnesses and to victims, it was that people ultimately believed what they wanted to be true.