by Jean Martino
Linda opened her purse and took out the key chain with Cindy’s car keys on it and handed it to him. “Perhaps one of these keys is a spare that belongs to the Camaro,” she said.
Scott burst out laughing, wondering what next she would do to surprise him. He took the keys back to the car and sure enough one of them fitted. By the time he drove it to the gate Linda had paid the fees and was waiting for him. Getting out, he held open the door for her. “You drive this one, I’ll follow in my rental,” he said.
As Scott followed Linda in the Camaro along Pacific Coast Highway heading for the freeway, his mind was turning over some things that were making him feel more and more uncomfortable. Whatever Cindy and Michael were running from, it would not be safe for Linda or him to be driving the Camaro and as soon as they got back to the house he would try to explain that to Linda. Cindy and Michael wouldn’t have abandoned the car unless they were afraid of someone tailing them, and regardless of that clue that Linda was determined was a message from Cindy, something seemed seriously wrong. Perhaps right now someone was watching the house even. He would somehow have to convince her that living there might be more dangerous for her than she realized, that Cindy and Michael’s cars should be kept in the garage for now and not seen in public.
* *
He followed the white Camaro into the driveway at the Newport Beach house and parked behind it as Linda got out, her face showing momentary relief thinking Cindy and Michael had to be alright wherever they were. It broke his heart to have to take that away from her, but her safety was his major concern right now.
CHAPTER 8
Anthony Wainwright fidgeted nervously on the tan leather couch in Roger McLean’s office in the house in Beverly Hills. He had been there several times before but mostly for staff parties that McLean threw once a year, usually after Christmas when the firm had had a good year. The house was like a goddamn museum, he thought, staring around him at the priceless paintings covering the walls, the expensive artifacts lining the built in shelves, next to books that looked like leather bound first editions that had probably never even been opened. On the far side of the room there was the largest mahogany desk he had ever seen, sitting right in front of French doors draped in heavy dark green brocade that was tied back now to allow the sunlight to stream into the room. All around the room were more leather couches and deep armchairs and mahogany coffee tables and in the far corner a built in bar with more sparkling glasses than he could count, and a bar counter containing crystal glass bowls filled with nuts and pretzels.
He could hear laughter coming from the back of the house where he knew the pool area was, complete with change rooms and surrounded by chaise lounge chairs and sweeping lawns. The house itself, including this room, was like something out of a movie set; an old movie set where movie stars walked down wide staircases and butlers rushed to serve their every need. No matter how much money he would ever make, and he knew it would be but a drop in the ocean to what the owner of this mansion had, he could never live like this. He liked the simpler American style type of home with a barbecue out the back and no gardener messing up his carefully laid lawn out front.
The door suddenly opened causing Wainwright to jump up, expecting the tall, officious looking Roger McLean to appear with attendants fluttering around him. Instead, McLean came hurrying in wearing a pair of knee length kaki shorts, a white short sleeved shirt opened to expose his well tanned and hairy chest, and his bare feet in tan sandals. He was in his late forties, a man who had made his fortune and didn’t need to parade it to the world. His brown hair, thinning in the front, was wet from having been in the pool swimming with his grandchildren, and combed back now to expose his square shaped face, from which alert brown eyes that bored into everyone like laser beams belied the seemingly friendly smile exposing perfectly capped white teeth.
“Wainwright,” he said, walking over to him and extending his hand. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Sit down. Care for a drink?”
Wainwright sure needed one at that moment but instead he said, “No, thanks Roger, I never drink and drive.”
“Commendable,” McLean shot back at him pouring himself a neat scotch. Carrying it over to the chair, across from where Wainwright had once more perched stiffly on the edge of the couch, he said. “Now, what was so urgent couldn’t wait till next month at the Board meeting?”
Wainwright had always been curious as to how Roger McLean had managed, after taking over and incorporating his father’s investment company in Newport Beach, to continue to hold fifty one percent of the stock. Even with putting twenty one percent of it into his wife and children’s names and the remaining thirty percent into his own name, thus giving him the majority vote in any and all decisions, it still smacked to him of manipulation somehow. But he had long ago realized that his was not to question why; some things did not do to dwell on. The other forty nine percent, snapped up by eager investors on the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange; had poured millions back into the firm. Most of it had been used to build their own building on MacArthur Boulevard in Newport Beach; a trend other big corporations soon followed until Newport Beach had corporate offices springing up all over. He knew also the building was a prestige thing more than a necessity; it had given Roger a foothold in the investment community that Wainwright knew he hoped one day would bring them into serious competition with the likes of Merrill Lynch.
“It’s about Michael Brampton,” said Wainwright, eyeing McLean’s drink and feeling the need for one.
“Michael? How is our star producer?” asked McLean, his eyes lighting. “Haven’t seen him for a few months now, not since that last shindig we had here for the end of year celebrations.”
Not one to beat around the bush, Wainwright said, “He seems to have disappeared on us.”
The ice in McLean’s drink crashed noisily against the sides of his glass as he sat up straighter and leaned forward, his eyes boring into the uncomfortable Wainwright. “What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?” he said.
“He came to me a week ago now, said there was an emergency situation in his family and he had to leave for two weeks to settle it and asked if he could have an immediate leave of absence.”
“And? So?”
“His wife, Cindy---“
“Nothing’s happened to her has it?” McLean snapped quickly. Beautiful intelligent Cindy, he envied Michael having her for his wife.
“No, well for now we don’t know. Her mother came to the office this morning with a detective and said Cindy was supposed to have flown to Australia, where her mother now lives, a week ago, but never arrived. The mother, Mrs. Rossi, who happens to be one of Michael’s major accounts, has been unable to contact Cindy or Michael. So she flew over to find out what had happened. And,” he spread his hands palms upward, “she has been unable to find them and wanted to find out if anyone at the firm knew where they were.”
“Good God!” cried McLean, leaping to his feet and staring accusingly at Wainwright who cowered on the couch. “You’re telling me Michael told you he was going off somewhere for two weeks and you let him without asking where he could be contacted? Didn’t it occur to you that some of his clients are the most important clients we have in the company and his being gone two weeks could throw their investments into chaos?”
Wainwright stared glumly back at McLean. “When he said a family situation I presumed he meant his parents in Arizona. He said he would be taking his laptop with him to keep on top of things and his cell phone, which number is on his business cards that his clients all have. After Mrs. Rossi, Cindy’s mother, and the detective left this morning I tried calling his cell phone but no one answered, so I called his parents and asked if he was there and they said no, they hadn’t heard from him for over a month.”
McLean walked slowly back to the bar and poured himself another straight scotch, turning back to face Wainwright as he leaned on the counter his eyes narrowing. “I feel there’s more you aren’t telling me,” he said. “It doesn’t sound li
ke just a simple case of an employee going off for a two week leave of absence. Spit it out, man. Tell me everything.”
“Mrs. Rossi has filed a Missing Person Report with the Newport Beach Police Department on Michael and his wife. And they told me Michael’s Camaro has been found abandoned in a parking lot in San Diego, with no evidence of where Cindy and Michael are.”
To Wainwright, the blood seemed to have drained from McLean’s face.
“Have you been into Michael’s accounts?” McLean asked, seeming suddenly nervous about something.
“I don’t have the password to Michael’s data base,” he admitted waiting for the thunderbolt. When it didn’t come, he continued. “I have notified Buddy Bremerton, one of our computer analysts, to try to break the code this morning. I believe he was having some difficulty with it but when I left this afternoon he said he was almost there with it. Once that is done the accountants will take over and check the files and accounts and see if everything is in order.”
McLean exploded, slamming down his glass, sending its contents splashing all over the counter. “Damn it!” he yelled. “Those accounts are confidential. I don’t want accountants going through them.” He marched over to his desk and pushed a button on the speaker phone and Wainwright heard the receptionist at the Newport Beach office answer in her sing song voice.
“Good afternoon. McLean’s Investments Inc. May I help you?”
“This is Roger McLean,” he said fiercely. “Put me through to Joseph Waters immediately.”
“Certainly,” said the receptionist, her voice suddenly shaky.
McLean turned and stared through the French doors as Wainwright sat nervously on the couch, rivulets of perspiration running down the sides of his face, which he tried to brush away with his fingers but only forced the salty fluid into his eyes. Taking off his glasses he rubbed his eyes with a handkerchief and returned it to his pocket and replaced his glasses.
“Hello Mr. McLean,” came the Chief Accountant’s voice. “How are you?”
Ignoring the greeting, McLean almost yelled. “I want you to immediately stop your team going through Michael Brampton’s computer accounts. Right now! Understood?”
“Yes sir,” said Waters.
“Do it right now and get back to me. I will be waiting for your call.”
McLean pressed the button and the room went quiet again. Wainwright was afraid to speak. Better he let McLean speak first, he decided. Obviously this was going worse than he had expected. The seconds stretched out into minutes and finally the phone rang. McLean turned from the window, his face a mask as he pressed the button and said. “Yes!”
Water’s voice came over the speaker. “I have done as you said, sir. Fortunately they hadn’t really gotten into the accounts yet. The computer analyst, Buddy, had gotten into the data base where Brampton keeps his clients data, but then we had some computer problems that made everything crash. At this point nothing in Brampton’s files has been checked or looked at.”
“Good,” said McLean. “Now put Buddy on.”
A few minutes later the timid voice of Buddy Bremerton came through the speaker. “Hello Mr. McLean,” he said. “Buddy Bremerton here.”
Immediately McLean picked up the phone and Wainwright was unable to hear what Buddy said to him.
“I need to know Michael’s password and user name,” he said. Then he wrote something down on a pad and said, “Is that all I need to access the files from here?” Another second of silence. “Good, now how do I change the password and prevent anyone, even you, from breaking the code to it?” He wrote something else down, then thanked Buddy and hung up.
He pressed another button and in seconds the door opened and the butler appeared.
“I want you to wait in the foyer for me, Wainwright,” he said. “Charles here will get you some refreshments if you want them.”
Wainwright was no fool. He knew the minute the door closed behind him, McLean would open up his computer, gain access to Michael’s files, and then try to change the password so no one at the office could see what was in there and, from what he had heard him ask Buddy, no one would be able to break the code as Buddy had done today. But he knew also it would not be that simple. Obviously Michael had done something known as password protection but a computer expert like Buddy could break that code, so what Roger hoped to achieve by changing the password was beyond him. Whatever Buddy had told him was just a smoke screen to get him off his back for now. When he got back to the office he would confront Buddy and find out just what he had done to access the files.
Charles led him to the end of the marble floored foyer that Wainwright felt he could have fitted his whole living room and more into, to where a leather couch and two lounge chairs sat with a marble topped table between them. It was almost five pm and he was starved and could really use that scotch right now despite having to travel two hours on the freeway to get home again.
“What would you like, sir?” asked Charles.
“A large scotch, on the rocks,” said Wainwright, forgetting himself for a moment. “And a sandwich... beef if you have it.”
“Certainly sir,” said Charles, turning and walking away.
Goddamit! Why hadn’t he taken the time to find out what the hell Michael was involved in? He’d been so busy with run of the mill stuff that he had spent little time with the brokers, believing they could handle what they needed to without him looking over their shoulders. And from the profits they were all creating he had not been overly curious as to their methods. But something about the way Michael dealt directly with Roger had always irked him. He felt he, as the president of the company, should at least have been consulted or informed of what Michael was involved in.
He’d had no idea, either, of the secrecy that shrouded the company and certain people like Michael when he had been approached to take the job as the president of McLean’s Investments Inc. His position then as one of the five vice presidents of accounts at Pacific Investments had been going nowhere. The heavy competition from the ambitious younger men and women pouring into that company had stalled his own chances of moving upwards. It was hard for him to believe it had been five years ago when he had been chosen for this prestigious, but sadly lacking in ethics, position at McLean’s. It had happened all too fast. He remembered the call he had gotten from that head hunter in Newport Beach asking him to come in for an appointment. Still pondering why he, of all people, had been asked to present himself as a candidate for president of a fast growing company like McLean’s, his curiosity had gotten the better of him.
He recalled the shock he had gotten when he discovered the head hunter, a brassy voiced man in his twenties named Chalders, had created a data base for any and all types of career people, his name being in the category of upper management at stock brokerage houses. He was even shown the statistical report on himself.
“Hard worker, keeps his nose to the grindstone, respected by employees, excellent knowledge of stocks and bonds, not a nine to five man... works however long it takes to get the job done.”
He felt flattered by the description but alarmed all the same that he was being tracked electronically like he was a commodity to be examined and taken apart. It even gave all his personal statistics, his wife’s name, his kids, their ages, the schools they attended, his financial situation, the cost of his home and much more.
“I’m surprised you do this,” he told Chalders, pushing the page back across the desk at him. “It seems like an invasion of privacy.”
Chalders laughed loudly. “This is the age of electronics, Wainwright. You’d be amazed if you really knew how many data bases you were on. Collecting information on people has become big business. We are no different. Saves a lot of footwork too. Now, regarding this offer. Mr. McLean’s company is public, to a point. He has maintained 51 percent of the stock in his family’s name which gives him the right to veto anything he doesn’t approve of. He has hired me to discuss your replacing the current president who is retiring a
nd offer you the following. One hundred thousand a year to start, with increases every two years to be approved by the board members, and a two percent of net profits annual bonus plus stock options. There are 30 brokers working in the Newport Beach offices now, some of them working from their homes but all computerized into the main offices and the other staff making up another 20 people. You’ll be given two weeks vacation the first five years, then three weeks until the tenth year and then a month each year. You will be expected to work around the clock if necessary. McLean does not want a nine-to-five president. There will be some travel but not much... McLean runs a tight ship. The competition is enormous and he needs someone who will be available 24 hours a day if necessary and not flying off around the country on superfluous trips.”
Wainwright’s head had been spinning. The money was good but it was the two percent of profits that excited him. It was the chance of a lifetime and he no longer cared why he had been chosen, because he had and he would do whatever it took to get and keep the job. It was his last chance. He was in his forties now and the young men and women coming into the brokerage businesses now were like sharks swimming around him, attempting to hunt him down and destroy him at Pacific Investments that was a close rival to Merrill Lynch.