The deep, modulated voice said, “Use the man’s debauchery against him.” Gadreel continued with his counsel and Moriarty took note.
“What about Ruger?” Moriarty asked once Gadreel had finished outlining Clarence Short’s demise.
“We have a special fate for him,” the demon said. “Wait.”
Chapter 64
Two days later, Moriarty watched as Clarence Short approached the platform for his morning commuter train. Through his covert network of contacts, Moriarty had arranged for certain people and events to come together. It was time to clean up the debris associated with his various initiatives.
Short had arrived alone as was his custom. Today a man whom he knew waved at him. Moriarty knew that Short would be embarrassed at this meeting, but that made it all the more delicious. Given Clarence Short’s many indiscretions, Moriarty had no issues with making him uncomfortable.
With a tentative wave, Short turned away, but the other man rapidly closed the gap between them. There were numerous other people on the platform waiting as the 7:32 train rushed toward them, thirty seconds out. Moriarty listened to the conversation on the bug that had been planted on Short’s friend.
Man: “Clarence! Hey, I haven’t seen you for ages.”
Short: “Uh, yeah. Been pretty busy.”
The man whispered in Short’s ear, “We had some good times, didn’t we?”
Short: “Sure, I guess. Well, here comes the train. You’ll excuse me; I’ve got work to do this morning.”
The man inserted his arm in the crook of Short’s elbow. “Why don’t we plan a date?”
Short attempted to disengage and said, “It’s just not convenient for—”
The roar of the engine consumed the rest of Short’s words. It bore down upon the waiting crowd, which jostled behind the platform’s yellow line.
Suddenly, both men launched outward onto the tracks into the path of the onrushing train. The brakes squealed. The train bucked. Onlookers’ voices rose in horror. The two men disappeared beneath the wheels of the behemoth.
Moriarty caught a glimpse of the assassin as he strolled toward the parking lot.
Later, Moriarty heard the news account. It seemed that two men, engaged in a homosexual relationship, had agreed to a suicide pact.
As a result of the terrible incident, a two-and-a-half-hour delay kept commuters from reaching their workplaces on time.
Chapter 65
Exhausted after the evening he’d met with Clarence Short, Jason took a room in a cheap motel and drove back to North Carolina the next morning. At Lizzy’s house, following an extended welcoming hug, he inserted the USB drive into his laptop computer.
Short had quickly explained the previous night all that he saved onto the device for Jason, but he needed time to process what he’d been given.
“I have to share this with Nancy,” Jason said after an hour perusing the information. “This’ll make all the difference in the world for our investigation.”
Lizzy gave him a sweet, enigmatic smile, and he said, “What?”
“You don’t have an official investigation. Remember?”
Jason dropped his head. “Oh, you’re right. What am I thinking? But Nancy still needs this data.”
“Of course. It’s just a matter of what you do with it.”
“You have a couple hours to hash this out?”
Lizzy sat on Jason’s lap and gave him a smooch. “We have many things to discuss.”
Chapter 66
It was a busy day for Lee Mossberg, head of Gaiatic Charities. He’d heard earlier about the awful accident involving Clarence Short and knew that meant a personnel search for someone to replace him. It saddened him about Short. For all his, Ha-ha, shortcomings, Mossberg thought, the man had a lot on the ball. However, it didn’t surprise him that Short’s demise had something to do with his lifestyle. It wasn’t as if people with that sexual orientation lived long healthy lives to any great extent. Mossberg pumped his fist elatedly. All employees of Gaiatic had CHOLI insurance just like their many donors. It meant that Short didn’t die in vain.
Mossberg busied himself with his work, forgetting about Clarence Short, until his secretary buzzed him. “Stephen Moriarty is here to see—uh, excuse me, sir, you have to wait until—”
Moriarty pushed his way into the office and closed the door behind him.
Mossberg rose with outstretched hand. “Stephen! What a surprise. I was just—"
“Stuff it.” His visitor ignored the offered handshake.
Mossberg’s heart started beating so hard he heard its valves opening and closing in its laborious efforts. He began to sweat.
He’d liberally applied deodorant this morning as he did every day, but there were many complicating factors that arose to break down the protective barrier between his flesh and his propensity to smell when he perspired. Moriarty’s unexpected appearance triggered his problem, and immediately he recognized the unpleasant odor he emitted in such times.
Moriarty’s nose twitched, and he made a face that alerted Mossberg to the projection of his stench.
“Um, what can I do for you, Stephen?”
“You can tell me why you hired a traitor.”
For some reason, Mossberg had trouble swallowing. “Traitor?” The word came out high pitched and wavery, as though he were a boy in puberty.
“You heard me.”
“I’m…not sure I know what you mean.”
“Your boy, Clarence Short, gave an IRS agent incriminating information about your financial operations.”
Short. An awful thought struck Mossberg at the same time that he felt a twinge of pain in his chest. Is there more to Clarence’s death than a homosexual suicide pact? “What did you hear?”
“What I said. Listen, that agent is currently neutered. He’s inactive right now. But that doesn’t mean he’s not working toward your demise on his own.”
“What did Short give him?”
Moriarty’s mouth twisted in a smirk. “You tell me. What did he know about the extent of your operations?”
Mossberg pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to avoid the implications of what Clarence Short might have divulged. He rubbed his chest. “From what you’re telling me, it doesn’t sound like there’s much I can do at this point.” Mossberg gathered his courage for his next question. “Are you responsible for his death?”
Another smirk, but he replied with a wounded tone. “Seriously, Lee? You really think I had something to do with that? I’m shocked you would think that.”
To anyone listening, Moriarty’s statement would have sounded sincere. Knowing the man as Lee Mossberg unfortunately did, he knew better.
“What should I do?” He removed a soggy handkerchief and wiped his forehead.
“Make sure your ship is in order. If that IRS agent breaks free from the handcuffs that have restrained him, Gaiatic Charities may have significant problems in the future. As the head of this operation, the buck stops with you. Wherever the problems originate.”
The implied threat caused Mossberg an additional shortness of breath. He felt like he’d just run a hundred-yard dash, although the last time he’d attempted such a thing was in middle school as a seventh grader.
“Yes, sir, um…Mr. Moriarty. I know your advice is good.
Stephen Moriarty didn’t give a backward glance as he strode from Mossberg’s office.
***
It took an hour for Mossberg’s heart rate to return to normal. He went into the personal and well-appointed bathroom adjacent to his office, where he showered and donned a fresh set of clothes, which he always kept available.
Finally feeling somewhat normal again, he settled back at his desk. After no more than five minutes, his secretary knocked on his door.
“There are two men here who’d like to see you.”
‘Who are they?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never seen them before. They’re large, wearing dark suits, and sunglasses.”
> It felt like a boulder entered the pit of Mossberg’s impressive stomach and was bouncing around in it.
“Show them in.”
Mossberg didn’t recognize them, but as soon as the spokesman opened his mouth, his sinking suspicions were confirmed.
“Da boss wants to see you.”
“Now?”
The speaker simply raised his eyebrows. That little gesture, which showed above his glasses, told Mossberg he had no choice.
Within the hour he stood before Giuseppe Gianelli, head of the Gianelli crime syndicate. He wore a black striped silk suit with a solid green tie. His gray hair was swept back in a dramatic wave. The trappings of his office oozed understated wealth. Nothing cheesy about his presentation of power and authority.
The elder Gianelli was flanked by his two sons, both of whom sported bulges under the arms of their suits, similar to his escorts, Mossberg now realized. They remained motionless and without expression.
On the way over, sitting between the two men in black as another drove, Lee Mossberg had realized the pressures of his precarious position weren’t helping his health any.
He was obese and had recently been diagnosed with diabetes. His doctor had preached to him at his last visit that he must reduce his cholesterol and that his heart had irregular rhythms. A-Fib his doctor had called it, short for atrial fibrillation. Mossberg was on more medications than he liked to count. In other words, he was a physical wreck. And now he was afraid that more brimstone was about to pour out on him.
It didn’t take long for Mossberg’s clothes to once again become soggy as he waited for the silent Italian mob boss to speak. When he did, it was what Mossberg would have prayed that he not say, if he’d been a praying man.
In a heavily accented voice, Giuseppe Gianelli said, “You been cheating us.”
“That’s not possible, sir!” But Mossberg’s denial sounded as lame in his own ears as it likely did to Gianelli.
“You think we are fools? That I am a fool?”
“Of course not. I just believe you may be mistaken.”
Mossberg’s heart skipped several beats; his blasted A-Fib. He rubbed his chest where the pain was spreading.
“No one does this to Giuseppe Gianelli.” His face hardened like stone; his lips were a thin line beneath his mustache. “We know the discrepancies in your books, what you’ve been personally stashing away, all the while cheating on our agreement.”
The world seemed to be closing in on Lee Mossberg.
“How could you possibly know this?”
“You think you can run an operation like this without our having someone on the inside? You are more than a fool, Lee Mossberg.”
“But…but who?” Was it Clarence Short who sold them out to the IRS?
“I will tell you because you will not leave this office on your own two feet. The woman you rely on so much: Sandra Bullfinch, your Finance Director, has been quite forthcoming.”
The direct threat to his life didn’t escape Mossberg. He blinked as the light around his eyes darkened.
“Sandra?” he croaked. “I trusted her.”
“As I depended on you, Lee Mossberg,” Gianelli said. “Only I verify my trust. It is never blind.”
Short was a traitor. Bullfinch was a traitor. I was a traitor.
The irony didn’t escape him as an steel fist squeezed his heart. On the scale of one to ten that doctors used for the amount of pain a patient experienced, Lee Mossberg’s last thought was that the scale didn’t go high enough.
Chapter 67
Jason and Lizzy’s discussion, when they finally had the opportunity to hash out all that had recently happened took many hours. Most of the conversation occurred before they knew what had transpired with both Clarence Short and Lee Mossberg. It also allowed for Jason to post some of his thoughts on his blog in order for him to keep it up to date.
Jason thought Lizzy’s first agenda item had been settled for the time being, but as he found out, it was far from that in Lizzy’s mind. It reminded him how little men and women understood each other.
“Jason, where are we in this relationship?”
He had had enough love affairs in his life that when a woman asked that question, he knew it was trouble. Somewhat warily, he replied, “I think we’re doing well.”
“That’s it? Just well?”
His hand came up to inadvertently rub his jaw. “No, actually, more than well.”
“Tell me again why we’re not sleeping together?”
Jason had thought about this more than he cared to remember. “I thought we settled this.” Then, to be honest with himself and her, he said, “It’s kind of a God thing, but actually I’m not completely sure.”
“Ookaay.” Lizzy drew out the word. “What does that mean?”
“I think I told you before that there’s a wrongness to it.” He gestured helplessly. “In a moral sense. I can’t completely explain it.”
“So, you want to go to bed with me, but you have some kind of moral inhibition? And you don’t have any idea how God ultimately plays into this?”
“Exactly!” He reached for her to give her a kiss, but she drew slightly away. His hands fell empty.
“There’s nobody else, right?” she said.
“Nobody.”
Lizzy crossed her arms. “Then I don’t see the problem—morally. I remember when we were first together, that day that Moriarty struck the deer, you were pretty frisky. Didn’t seem like you had any inhibitions then.”
Picturing that day in his mind’s eye, he said, “I didn’t.”
“But you do now?”
He felt his resolve weakening. What is the reason I’m holding back? As he struggled with the dilemma, the restrictions he’d put upon himself oozed away. Lizzy was beautiful, desirable, and wanting more. What was his problem? Why not?
“Lizzy, I think I’ve been silly.”
“You and me both.”
Several hours later, as good as both felt about this new aspect of their relationship, niggling doubts about its rightness wouldn’t go away. He rationalized that it was some vestige of a puritan ancestor making its hang-ups known. For the time being, he put this concern as far from his conscious mind as he could in order to concentrate again on the case that had been uppermost in his mind for many months.
He sat at his computer with Lizzy nearby. It was difficult for him to concentrate with her so close. He shook his head to clear it.
“Clarence Short gave me everything he’d been collecting on his computer for the last couple years. He never intended to use it against Gaiatic; he said it just gave him a means to feel in control.”
“It sounds like he was a complicated man.” Lizzy brushed back a stray hair from her face.
Jason caught her wrist. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Probably not,” she said with a hint of a smile, giving his knuckles the barest peck from her lips.
He straightened and rubbed his hands together. “Right. Where was I?”
“Clarence Short.”
“Oh my gosh! Look at this.” Jason had been scrolling through the files on the USB drive and clicked on one.
After perusing it for a minute, Lizzy said, “Universal Children’s Day. That’s when they plan to bring it all together.”
“The kids. Playing suicide. The hatred of all-things corporate because they’re among the so-called worst polluters of the planet, yet it’s the corporations that are involved in celebrating UCD.”
Then another thought struck Jason. “Marcy and her kids. They’ve been rehearsing for this. They’re right in the middle of what these loonies have planned!”
***
Nancy Evans was glad to hear once more from Jason. “It’s been crazy around here. Steve Drennan is looking over everyone’s shoulder. He’s issuing commands like a man backed into a corner. You should see him.” After a pause, she said, “No, never mind. That’s the last thing any of us need.”
“What do you think’s going on wit
h him?”
“Hold on for a minute. I’d rather not talk about this in the office. I’ll call you back.”
Ten minutes later, Evan’s number rang on Jason’s phone.
“Okay, I’m back. I’m standing in the shelter of a bus stop on a beautiful Chicago day. The way things are with Drennan and in the office, I’ve gotten paranoid about saying anything in there that doesn’t toe the line.”
“You think he’s bugging the office?”
“Him or somebody who pulls his strings. He’s almost as paranoid as me, but obviously for a whole different reason.”
“How about your cell phone or mine?”
“Then that’s a problem. I hope not,” Evans said.
They chatted for another minute about the office situation until Evans said, “Have you heard the latest in our non-case?”
“Gaiatic? No, what’s up?”
“This is big. Clarence Short committed suicide and Lee Mossberg had a fatal heart attack.”
Stunned, Jason didn’t know how to reply.
After a lengthy silence, Evans said, “Jason, are you still there?”
“Yeah, sorry. I’m trying to process this, especially about Short. Mossberg was a heart attack waiting to happen. The timing is suspicious. Other than that, his death doesn’t surprise me. I wonder who will run Gaiatic Charities now that he’s gone? But Clarence Short…”. Jason broke off as Lizzy, who was sitting next to him listening to the call, squeezed his hand.
He continued, “When did Short die?”
She told him.
After returning to North Carolina, with the new intimacy between him and Lizzy, and the data he’d extracted from the USB drive, he’d neglected to inform Evans about his recent excursion. “Nancy, I drove up to D.C. and saw him two nights before that. He gave me a thumb drive filled with incriminating information. I can tell you one thing about that night. He was frightened for his life in giving me that info. He said he wasn’t ready to die. I said I could protect him, and failed. There’s no chance he committed suicide, I don’t care what the authorities are saying.”
Green Dreams Page 25