by A. W. Gray
SHARES
A. W. GRAY
Copyright © 1996 by A. W. Gray
First ebook copyright © 2014 by Blackstone Audio, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Trade: 978-1-4829-7215-3
Library: 978-1-4829-7211-5
Acknowledgements
Folks contribute. If they don't, a writer's out in the cold.
Michael Korda and Chuck Adams edited this book. They cut, and then cut the cuts, and both reader and writer are better off for their efforts.
Dominick Abel's my agent, the guy responsible for selling my manuscripts. Without him no one would have seen my work save for my wife, kids, and four cocker spaniels.
Sergeant Benny Newsome of the California Highway Patrol gave me earthquake information. He was on duty that fateful day, and I don't envy him for it.
Officials of the Dallas Theater Center gave me a tour, and so did the staff at Hockaday School. While I made use of these tours in physical descriptions, fictional employees of the Theater Center, and of the fictional girls' school depicted herein, are by no means based on actual persons, living or dead.
As always, my beloved wife, Martha, kept my nose to the grindstone. Without her, I doubt I would have finished.
All of the above, and many others, enhanced the quality of the book. Any shortcomings you note are the author's fault and his alone.
For Gregory William Gray
Littlest Injun
Not the leastest by a longshot
Part I
Planning
“And when you saw these people, what were they doing?”
“Just standin’ around at first. Then they drew in close together an’ went to whisperin’.”
“Could you hear what they were saying?”
“Oh, no, sir. They was bein’ real quiet an’ hush-hush about everything.”
“Their manner was, they didn’t want anyone to know what they were discussing?”
“I’d say so, sir. Wasn’t nothin’ about the way they were standin’, or the way they were lookin’ around, exactly. But I could tell them people was up to no good.”
—from trial transcript,
State of Texas v. Gilbert Wayne Arrington
and Ronnie Louis Ward
1
“We’ve got, as I see it,” Randolph Money said, “four shares. Here, I’ll show you.” He stood and leaned over the table, reaching to the unoccupied place setting for the silverware: a bread knife, a salad and a dinner fork, one spoon. “The guy doing it, that’s one.” He laid the knife in front of his plate with the blade pointing away from him, then paralleled the dinner fork six inches to the right of the knife. “And that’s two,” he said. “The second share, that’s, what we’ll call our holder. The guy keeping the merchandise. Then there’s”—now lining up the spoon, a handbreadth more to the right—”the planner, that’s me”—finally plunking down the salad fork—”and our outside connect. A deal I’ve made. Guy we’ve got to have.”
Darla Bern poked lettuce and one piece of green pepper into her mouth, lifted her napkin from her bare thigh and patted her lips, then sipped ice water from a goblet. “Are you leaving me out?” She wore dark, purple-rimmed L.A. Eyeworks with the emblem etched into the right lens. “I’m no guy, in case you didn’t notice.”
“Figure of speech, babe,” Money said, leaning back with his chin propped on his lightly clenched fist. “Anybody can see that.” He was in his fifties, stomach hanging over his charcoal gray swimming trunks, matching shirt unbuttoned and draped around his hips.
“I’m not into feminism,” Darla said. “I just want an understanding who we’re talking about. The main problem I’ve got is with the first share. I thought we were talking two people doing it.”
“At least you’ve been paying attention.” Money raised one finger, making a point. “And why doesn’t it surprise me that’s the share you’re interested in? Hold on.” He reached over and relieved Basil Gershwin’s place setting of its spoon.
Basil’s mouth opened partway, revealing masticated ham. “How’m I going to eat my dessert?”
Money placed Basil’s spoon alongside the knife, arranging the two utensils so that their handles touched. He sat back. “There. As I see it now, two people doing it.” He had skinny white legs and wore leather sandals, one foot forward, the other under his chair and resting on its toes.
“You’re putting them close together,” Darla said, “to show it’s still just one share, right?” A white bandanna held her shoulder-length auburn hair in place. A towel was draped around her shoulders, revealing taut bare midriff, a strip of purple bikini across her chest. Her voice was a husky Lauren Bacall alto, melting-pot accent straight from Southern Cal.
Money smiled. He had wide-gapped teeth with silver fillings. “That’s the way it is. We’re talking Share Number One as you. You get somebody else, babe, what you pay them is between the two of you, as I see it.” Slightly nasal New York manner of rolling his syllables, wavy gray hair parted on the right, combed straight back from his forehead.
“I thought you said an even split,” Basil Gershwin said. He stabbed the ham in place with his fork, sawed with his knife, then poked the severed bite into his mouth left-handed with the prongs pointing down.
“I did, but there are limits,” Money said. “Everybody’s got their own share to worry about. Like running a hot-dog stand or anything else. You take in a half million and blow six hundred thou, hey, don’t come running to me about it. For my part I’m dealing with three people, you two plus the outside connect. Everybody’s got the same share regardless. What you spend out of yours—well, hey.” He spread his hands, palms up.
“I can’t spend shit right now,” Basil said. “I got no money.” A white San Diego Marina cap squashed down his hair, tufts protruding over the tops of his ears. His baggy flowered bathing trunks were Fab Five style, down to his knees.
“We’ve talked about that,” Money said. “I’m fronting you traveling money. Nobody but me in a bind up front, okay? It’s just, once the profits are in, yours are yours and mine are mine. How we account for our money is our business. And turn that fork over.”
Basil froze with a bite an inch from his mouth. “Huh?”
Money snatched Basil’s fork, turned up the prongs with a hunk of ham impaled. He carefully placed the handle in Basil’s right hand, curling the thumb and forefinger around, Miss Manners fashion. “That way,” Money said.
Bushy eyebrows moved closer together. “The fuck you doing?” Basil was shirtless, curly hairs around meaty brown nipples. His arms were thick, as were his calves and ankles
Darla spread her fingers across her forehead, shading her eyes. She looked toward the pool, her expression like, Oh God.
Money said to Basil, “I’m not getting on you about your manners just for the hell of it.”
“The fuck’s wrong with the way I eat?” Basil looked at his fork, now with the handle balanced on his curled middle digit.
“What we don’t want, what none of us want, is for anybody to remember us. It’s a posh neighborhood where we’re going to be operating, at least as uptown as this place.” Money gestured around at waiters hustling to and fro from the poolside bar, at women in French-cut one-piece suits, men in boxer trunks and even one guy on a chaise longue wearing bikini briefs. The sign beyond the low brick wall read, “Newporter Inn Club.” Visible on the horizon, catamaran and schooner sails puffed out in the Southern California breeze. A man wearing spotless white deck pants came out of the hotel, checked his watch, then went back inside. “What you want to do,” Money said, “is dress and act so you’re part of the scenery. Your clothes are an easy knockoff, that nat. And believe me, you go to these
places eating as if you’re from Dogpatch, shoveling it in, these waiters will remember you. You’ve got to blend in.”
“I can do all that if I have to,” Basil said. “But this is just us.”
“Meaning, we’re not due any respect?” Money pointed a manicured finger toward Darla, who raised one foot up onto her chair, a tanned knee pointing up.
“You need to get in the habit,” Money said. “This isn’t any West L.A. down here, my friend. Newport Beach people notice a person, his eating habits. It’ll be the same in Texas. How do you stand with the parole people?”
Basil laid down his fork and folded his arms. “Same as you, I guess. We got out the same day.”
“Yes, but I’ve never had to report to anybody. Just mail in a form every month giving my whereabouts. Seems I remember you had to check in with a parole officer every week. If we’re going to be traveling, you can’t report to anybody. We don’t need the parole officer out looking for you, as I see it.”
“That not reporting, I figured that for a snitch deal. Guys that cooperated.” Basil had a wide humped nose, broken several times. His nostrils flared.
Money thoughtfully took a bite of crisply fried calamari and chased it with a sip of Perrier. “Tell you what. Let’s keep things in perspective and you off the defensive. Nobody’s knocking you. And I’m certainly no informant, a lot of men, coast to coast, still working in the banking business can testify to that. But you’ve got no idea why you and I might be different as far as the Parole Board’s concerned? I don’t have any history of violence, reported to Pleasanton directly off the street to do my time. Same as our actress friend.” Darla smiled acknowledgment and struck a Jacqueline Onassis pose, the refined lady lunching poolside at the upscale hotel and yacht club.
“You, on the other hand,” Money said to Basil, “graduated up to Pleasanton through the system. You did time where? Marion, Illinois, toughest joint in the country. Then on to Leavenworth, right? So you were a good boy in those places, and as a reward they let you finish your time in a camp. That’s the difference. Let’s face it, my friend. You are one violent guy. Which is exactly what we need with what we’re planning to do here, as I see it. But gives you problems the rest of us don’t have. Such as, how close are they watching you?”
“I don’t report no more,” Basil said. “Same as you. I mail in a form every month.”
“Now, that’s some progress. Your parole is finished when?”
Basil raised his fork to his mouth, prongs down, half the impaled bite hanging by a rind of fat. He paused, switched hands and turned the prongs up. Darla nodded approval. Basil looked proud of himself. “Two thousand eight,” he said. “Done ten inside, been on the street six. Total of thirty years.” He poked the ham in his mouth and chewed with his mouth closed, watching Darla from the corner of his eye.
“Fourteen more to go,” Money said. “But they’re not keeping tabs on you?”
“Nah. They don’t know shit about what I’m doing.” Basil peered at the lined-up silverware. “While we’re on it, I got a question.”
Money smiled board-of-directors fashion. “Of course. This is our last little get-together, we need to iron things out.”
“You’re saying four shares, right?”
Money watched him.
Basil frowned. “Well, that part’s okay, but…I’m the holder guy, right?”
“Yeah, the one keeping the merchandise in cold storage. You’ve got a better name for it, let me have it.”
“So how come,” Basil said, “I need you to help me out?”
“We talked about that. You’d go nuts in isolation day and night. You need to go downtown, take in a movie or something. So I’ll spell you with the baby-sitting.”
“Yeah, okay. But that means I’m supposed to give you part of my money?”
“That goes without saying, babe. I mean, we’re talking simple economics here. You use me, you pay me, as I see it. You want to use somebody else, as long as it’s someone we can check out…hey, you’d have to pay them same as you would me. What, you want me to help you out for free?”
“So you’re going to get one full share,” Basil said, fingering the spoon, “and I got to pay you on top of that? Sounds like horseshit to me, pal.”
“It would be the same if I had to get, say, Darla here, to help me with the planning. I’d have to split with her.”
“Yeah, but you already got the fucking thing planned.”
“Basil. Basil, Basil. Let’s don’t get bogged down in bullshit here, not at this meeting. We’re here to discuss the big picture. The little things you and I will hash out in private. Keep focused on our overall goal, babes.”
Darla blinked and leaned forward. “Which is what for us and what for you?”
“Same identical thing.” Money smirked and waved a hand as if batting mosquitoes. “I just believe in being real. What, you want me to pretend everyone’s some kind of team player? I’m not, you’re not. This is a me-first world, babes.
“Look around you,” Money said. “Right now, three days after New Year’s, we’re basking in eighty degrees. The forecast for the playoff game in Buffalo is something like four below, minus thirty windchill. That’s where I come from, people freezing their asses off and pretending they like it. Where would you like to be the rest of your lives? Aside from one delectable piece of ass, I’ve left nothing in Buffalo, babes, and you think there’s not plenty more of that in California? Now cut this personal crap. Hey, think six months ahead. You want to, cutes, you can produce your own picture and be a star. Basil wants, he can be king of the Eighth Street rummies, I care? The point is, after this we can do what we want. Now, if there’s anything else that’s important…nothing irrelevant, now.”
Darla tossed her napkin onto her plate and pushed her half-eaten salad toward the center of the table. “I’ve got a little picky to talk about,” she said. Basil pulled the remnants of her meal over alongside his own cured ham and scalloped potatoes.
Money intertwined his fingers behind his head. “We’ve already okayed the guy you’re using, cutes. So what else is on your mind?”
She grimaced slightly at the expression “cutes.” She removed her sunglasses and used one corner of her towel to clean the lenses. Darla’s eyes were ice blue, lashes long, the barest trace of shadow on her lids. “It’s about this fringe person.” Her shoulders were the color of light rum.
Money’s gaze roamed over the silverware. “Oh? The outside connect, right? Why am I not surprised you’re wondering about that?”
“We don’t know who this is or what they’re supposed to be doing.”
Money folded his arms. “Yeah, okay. I’ll buy that.”
“I mean, all this organizing and joint decisions you’re talking don’t seem to go both ways. I’ve been in this from the start, so how come we’ve got this new somebody-or-other involved?”
“You had a germ of an idea, babe,” Money said, “that I’ve turned into a plan. Just because you happened to be in a coed prison with a guy doesn’t mean you’re inspired. I won’t tell who the outside connect is, but I will tell you why we’ve got to have him. That’s going to have to satisfy you, as I see it.”
Darla looked at her lap. “It’s still something I brought you.”
“I’m not running that down. But in any organization there’s got to be a leader, and certain things, for security reasons, only that guy can know about.” Money pointed a finger. “And while we’re talking whose idea was what, let’s don’t forget my connections in this, coincidental though they may be. So happens you had a thing in prison with a guy that’s suddenly got something to do with people I know way off in Dallas, Texas. Small world, and thank the lucky stars for that.”
“Still my original thought.”
“So it was, cutes, I’ll concede. If you’re looking for someone to play one-up with you, you’ve got the wr
ong guy.”
Basil swallowed a bite of potato. “How we know this fringe asshole ain’t something you’re making up, so’s you can get another share?”
“You don’t. You won’t. Like everything else I do, I’ve studied this proposition from A to Z, which is the main reason I’m living in Newport Beach and you’re up on Eighth Street with half the world’s wino population.”
Basil scowled and laid down his fork.
“If that hurts your feelings,” Money said, “it does. Feelings don’t matter in an organization. Now listen up. Anything like what we’re planning, if the people go along and pay up, don’t come dragging in the FBI, we’re home free. Under those conditions any jackass can do a kidnapping, right?”
Darla and Basil exchanged a look.
“But suppose they do call in the feds,” Money said. “What’s the main problem with that?”
“They’re going to arrest your ass,” Basil said. “What are we, stupid?”
“That’s a good question, babe. Come on, think. Why does it screw up the deal when the FBI comes in?”
“Because,” Darla said, “you can’t get the money delivered without them seeing whoever picks it up.”
Money pointed a finger at her. “Now that’s worth an ‘A’. I’ve studied cases. Big one, down in Georgia and Florida, two people buried a girl in a box, gave her food and air to last a few days, had the money delivered out on a pier. Absolutely impossible for them to get the money without being seen, right? Once the girl’s family called in the feds, the jig was up. That’s what’s going with our fringe guy. A fail-safe, so that even with the bloodhounds on the trail we can get paid. The odds are three to one that our people will call in the law, so we’ve got to get ready for the worst.”
“How’re you planning to do this?” Darla said. “Like, we’re just supposed to trust you, right?”