Deal Gone Bad - A Thriller (Frank Morrison Thriller Series Book 1) (14 page)

His email sent, the man
didn’t resume playing the movie. In fact, he completely forgot about it. Lost
all interest.

Now, he had a pressing
phone call to make.

But he couldn’t use his
mobile or even his home phone.

For this, he would have to
use a public pay phone.

After Morrison drove slowly
past the crash scene, it took him ten minutes to reach Mike’s house. Up on that
cleared plateau, the wind had picked up and was now blowing stronger than ever.
The Navigator shook violently on its wheels. There was still no sign of rain, just
damp air making its unruly way from the Deep South. Morrison pulled up
alongside the little white BMW X3 parked in front of the garage. It was the
only other car in the driveway. That meant Mike and his guys were still out
there somewhere.

Morrison got out of the
SUV and walked into the big house, shot across the hallway and headed straight
to the kitchen.

The sight of that accident
had shaken him. They said that the body had its own memory, different from the
mind’s. He knew that was right. The sight of all that debris had conjured up bad
ones that he had long forgotten. Right now, he really felt like having a drink.
He pulled a cold bottle of lager from the fridge, cracked it open and took a
long pull.

In his youth, he had been
one of these young punks who burned the road on their motorcycles. In his case,
a Honda CBR 1000—a frighteningly powerful racing machine. He had bought it at
eighteen with the proceeds of one of his first successful operations. His best
buddy had bought the same, and together they had spent the better part of a
summer crisscrossing the country roads of the Northeast at breakneck speeds, as
though they were Grand Prix drivers. The world was a good place for them at the
time. They were young, they had just made serious money together and they didn’t
have to hold on to steady jobs like most of the others did. So they had enjoyed
their bikes thoroughly. Until one late August afternoon when they were racing
down Crawford Notch Road toward Glen in New Hampshire. A moose had emerged from
the forest. In a swift show of reflexes, Morrison had pushed hard on the left
handle, making his Honda lean aggressively, barely missing the animal. Unfortunately,
his buddy had had no such luck. He had been riding to his right, and he smashed
head on into the moose, killing himself and the animal on the spot. Morrison
could still hear the enormous thump, like some gigantic blow into a punching
bag. After that accident, his taste for motorcycles had vanished and he had
stuck to cars ever since.

Morrison thought back to
the accident he had just seen. Sheriff Sanford had been very lucky. If the bike
had hit her car three feet further to the right, she would’ve vaporized. Morrison
took another swig. He wondered how the accident had happened. Judging from her
position, Sanford had emerged from the mouth of a dirt road in her patrol car. Had
she, upon the arrival of the motorcycle, suddenly lurched forward to block its
path? Or had she already positioned her car there before the bike stormed in at
full speed? And what about the wind? Had it played some part in that horrific
crash? Had a sudden gust pushed the biker into the patrol car as it was
attempting to skirt it?

While he reflected on
these items, Morrison heard careful muted steps behind him. He turned around.
They came from the staircase leading down into the kitchen. It was Laura making
her way down the last few steps. She was wearing a white nightgown. Her hair
was slightly disheveled. And her eyes were still full of worry.

“I’m sorry,” Morrison said.
“I didn’t want to wake you up.”

The woman flashed a brief
smile.

“Oh, you didn’t,” she
said. “I just put my girl back to sleep.” She nodded toward the fridge. “I
wanted to drink something before I went back to bed.”

Morrison nodded. “Kid has
trouble sleeping?”

Laura pulled a carton of skim
milk from the fridge and poured herself a small glass. Then she looked at him
and said, “She’s already woken up twice tonight. It’s the wind. Makes the
windows rattle. It scares her.”

From the look on her face,
Morrison would have guessed it scared her too. He took another pull of beer. She
didn’t touch her glass. Didn’t drink any of it. Not a drop.

They lapsed into silence.
Her presence there was no accident. Somehow, she had wanted to talk with him, but
she didn’t seem to know where to begin. Morrison finished off his bottle and
clicked it on the counter. That seemed to prompt her into saying something.

“You’ve been with a woman,
right?” she said.

Morrison frowned. “Yeah,” he
said.

“I could tell. There’s a
hint of perfume around you. Kind of intimate.”

“You really have a sharp
nose. Mike better be careful.”

She flashed a brief smile but
turned serious again. “Does that mean you weren’t with Mike and his guys today?”

“That’s right. I’ve been
to a friend’s place.”

She nodded. Stayed silent.
Still didn’t touch her glass of milk. She was not forthcoming at all. Her eyes avoided
his. She stared at the floor tiles with a tense expression on her face. Morrison
felt that Mike’s brusqueness was probably responsible for this. Made her keep a
tight lid on whatever she felt. Morrison was sorry for her. She was obviously
not in a happy place.

“I hear you don’t carry a
gun?” she said.

Morrison squinted. “Did
Mike tell you that?”

“No. Well, not directly. I
kind of overheard it.”

She was so nervous. She
was biting the inside of her cheek.

“That’s true,” he said.
“I’ve got no time for guns. Or for weapons of any kind.”

She seemed relieved. “So
you’re not really like them, then,” she said. “Not like that crazy blond
maniac.”

Morrison frowned. “Has he
been bad to you?”

“Not to me.”

“To your daughter?”

She shook her head. “No,
Mike would kill him on the spot if he ever laid his hand on her.”

“Then what?”

She squirmed. “Not too
long ago, there was a guy—” She interrupted herself and sighed. Shook her head
again. “It was horrible.”

“It’s all right,” Morrison
said, “take your time.”

The poor woman struggled. Like
she hadn’t confided in anyone in a long time. Like she had lost that essential faith
in others that you needed to open up. Morrison tried to help her as best he
could, but this wasn’t familiar territory to him. He said, “So there was a guy …”

She took a deep breath, raised
her head and mustered the courage to follow his lead.

“Yeah. A young guy. Early
twenties, I guess. They brought him here two weeks ago.” She hesitated. “Well,
not in here.” She tilted her head toward the front of the house. “Out there in
the shed, next to the garage.”

Morrison nodded. He knew
what that meant.

“They locked me in there
too yesterday,” he said, “for a couple of hours.”

“Well, that was the first
time they did this. Mike had just had the shed built. I kept asking why he was
bothering with it since there’s plenty of room in the garage, but he kept
telling me to mind my own business. They locked the young guy in there. It
looks like a regular shed but in reality, it’s a prison. Nothing less than a
prison.”

“Did you see Mike bring
him here?”

“No. The guy was already
locked up in there one afternoon when I came back from town. It was a big
shock. Mike hadn’t told me anything. When I got out of my car, I heard the guy
banging on the door. Banging on the door real hard, pleading for help. My
… my daughter heard him too. She asked me what was wrong and I
quickly ran inside with her. Even left all my stuff in the car. I was
terrified. Totally terrified.”

“What did Mike say after
that?”

“Nothing much. I insisted
he tell me what that was all about. But he clammed up.
Don’t worry about it.
It’s just a business thing. The guy’s not gonna be there for long anyway.
In the meantime, he asked me to prepare something to eat for the guy.”

“Is that when you first saw
him?”

“No. I prepared a sandwich
for him but the blond guy brought it out.”

“Then how do you know he
was a young guy?”

“By his voice, when I
heard him through the door. He sounded really fragile, really lost. Almost like
a little boy, you know? And then I saw him two days after, when it happened …”

She paused for a moment to
recollect her thoughts. Morrison could sense what was coming. No wonder she was
so shaken up. He waited in silence until she was ready to resume her story.

“Two days after, Mike was
out,” she said. “I was alone at home with my daughter and the blond guy. At
noon, I made another sandwich for the prisoner, added some veggies on the side,
you know, so he would have a good meal. Then the blond guy brought it to him,
and I returned to my room with my baby. I was trying not to think about that
poor kid, but then I heard some shouts. I went to the window. From up there,
you can see the front of the shed. When the blond guy opened the door, the kid
must have tried something because the plate I had just prepared was lying on
the ground, broken in two pieces, with the food messed up all around. And they
were fighting. Not with their fists, you know, more like a body-to-body thing. More
like struggling. They went one way and the other. Then the blond guy had the
upper hand. He tripped the kid and pinned his back to the ground. He must have stunned
him a bit because the kid seemed to lose it. He still tried to defend himself,
but you could see he was no match anymore. He could only give these half-hearted
punches with the side of his fists. The blond guy didn’t care. He just kept his
hands locked on his throat and strangled him to death. Just like that.”

The kitchen was bathed in
complete silence. Morrison shook his head. What a horrible, completely dreadful
thing.

“Christ,” he said, “why
don’t you just go away?”

Her face teared up. “I can’t.
I just can’t,” she said. “If I do that, Mike will find me and he will kill me.
Then who’s going to take care of my baby?”

Morrison heard a low
rumble coming from the front of the house. Not from the wind. More like the deep
hum of big V8 engines, at least two of them. That didn’t last long. It stopped
with the screeching of worn brake discs and the squealing of tires biting into
the pavement. Then a couple of sharp quick bangs followed, like doors opening
and shutting in a hurry.

Laura heard it too. She turned
her head toward the front of the house. She swiveled back to him, her eyes exploding
with worry. More than ever. One short step shy of panic.

“It’s Mike,” she said.
“It’s Mike.”

She put her glass of milk down
on the counter and quickly aimed for the staircase. She paused briefly. “We
haven’t talked, OK? We haven’t talked,” she said, and then she scurried up the
stairs like a scared mouse.

The front door slammed into
the jamb with a heavy bang. Then there was the urgent clatter of boots on the hardwood
floorboards. Two guys. Moving fast. Not happy at all. Their hurried pace already
said as much. But they also verbalized it loud and clear.

“Goddamn bitch …” Morrison
heard coming crystal clear from the hallway. “Goddamn bitch …”

A second later, the boots were
with him in the kitchen. Mike and the blond guy. Upset. Agitated. Sweaty.

“That goddamn bitch! I’m
gonna plug her some day! I swear I will!” Mike said to no one in particular,
like he just needed to get this off his chest.

Both men took in
Morrison’s presence but they didn’t say anything. Mike went straight to the
fridge and plucked two bottles of beer. Threw one at the blond guy, who caught
it one-handed. Cracked one open for himself. Upstairs, the wail of a crying baby
erupted and made its way down the dark service staircase. A piercing, shrieking
sound. Twinges of acute and inconsolable pain, endlessly repeated. Mike looked
up at the ceiling with a face that meant,
Oh Christ, please make this stop …

Morrison stared at them. With
their worn jeans and their print T-shirts, both men seemed out of place in the richly
appointed kitchen, full of polished granite, deep wooden tones and high-end European
appliances. Like they were hired hands that had just snuck in for a surreptitious
visit while their masters were away.

“Rough night?” Morrison
said.

Mike took a long pull from
his bottle. At his side, the blond guy stayed silent. Like he deferred to Mike
in all circumstances, including when a strange kind of colleague he felt vastly
superior to made an inquiry. Morrison saw it in his face that the blond guy
resented him. Deeply. And that he should expect no gift from him. Mike let out
a long sigh of frustration, then he said, “The bitch has killed one of my men.”

Morrison frowned. “What
bitch?” he said. “What man?”

“Sanford,” Mike said. “Your
good friend, Sheriff Sanford.”

Morrison’s eyes widened.
“That motorcycle, that’s one of your guys?” he said.

Mike nodded. “So you saw
the crash.”

Morrison nodded too. “I
did. I drove through the scene on my way here a half-hour ago. Pretty nasty.
Looked more like a plane crash to me.”

“Well, it was a bike crash
all right,” Mike said. He took another pull from his bottle.

“Who was riding?” Morrison
asked.

Mike told him. Turned out the
rider was a foot soldier they had used on their operation three years before, one
of the guys who had made the rounds and collected the two million dollars from
Chelfington Bank’s ATMs with the forged debit cards. A simple soldier. Had done
what he was told to do. Had not asked questions, complained or bitched about
anything. A good, steady soldier: the kind you’re always looking for but rarely
find. Morrison understood why Mike was gutted. You never had enough of these
guys.

Morrison still had no idea
what Mike and the blond guy were up to these days. He figured that now was the
perfect time to try to pry something away from them. “Why was he running away?”
he asked. “Was he just speeding?”

Mike shook his head.

“Anything to do with last
night’s ATM bust?” Morrison asked.

“No,” Mike said. “I already
told you. I’ve no idea who set up that ATM job, but it’s not me.”

“What was he up to, then?”

Mike took another long drag
from his bottle. Suddenly, he no longer seemed interested in sharing anything
about his dead employee. He just clammed up tight and drained the remainder of
his beer in silence while the blond guy did the same.

Morrison was not ready to give
up. But he knew if he was to achieve anything, he would have to try from another
angle.

“You said Sanford killed
your guy,” he said. “Don’t you think it was an accident?”

Mike put the empty bottle
down on the counter and leaned his butt on the drawers behind him.

“I’m sure Sanford knew who
was coming on that bike. He was known in these parts. During the chase, she
must’ve been in contact with her deputy. Let’s put it this way: I’m pretty sure
she didn’t make much of an effort to get out of the way when he came rushing up
to her.”

“Anything they find on him
that can put you in trouble? Anything special the guy was carrying?” Morrison
asked.

Mike and the blond guy exchanged
a quick sideways glance, then Mike waved the question off with his hand. “Christ,
for that, they’ll have to get to his body first,” he said. “He must’ve flown
two hundred feet in the air. They probably haven’t found him yet.”

They hadn’t thought this through
properly yet. Morrison figured that’s why they had rushed to the house so fast.
A lot of question marks were hanging above their heads after the rider’s death,
and they needed to make some sense of it. They needed a quiet place to ponder
all this. Evaluate the threat to their operation, whatever it was. And they
also needed to come by the house to grab anything that might be helpful if they
were to leave for a while, to avoid some heat.

Morrison continued his
probe.

“Sheriff Sanford looked
pretty shaken at the scene,” he said. “Obviously not in a state to start investigating
on the spot. And her workforce is tiny, not very sophisticated. Deputies who
can take care of barroom brawls and give away speeding tickets, yes. But not
investigators. Not thinking men. So I wouldn’t worry too much about the coming
hours.”

Mike made a face like he
already knew all of that, but it didn’t look convincing to Morrison.

“Of course, if you’re not
just worried by Sanford, then it’s a different ball game,” Morrison said.

He sensed that he had
touched a raw nerve. Mike had enemies. There was a link between them and his
guy’s death, he felt. If that wasn’t the case, they wouldn’t be so edgy.

As if to prove Morrison’s
point, Mike emerged from his self-imposed silence and barked an order to the blond
guy. “You’ll be on watch tonight,” he said. “Go block the driveway. I want you
to keep your eyes open, at least until sunrise.”

This didn’t please the blond
guy. Not at all. “All night?” he said. Then he nodded toward Morrison. “Couldn’t
we use him too? Let him have his turn.”

Mike shook his head. “No,
you take care of it. Go take up your position, but before you do, make sure the
Jeep is ready in the back. In case we have to get out through the backwoods
tonight.”

The blond guy frowned, left
his empty beer bottle on the counter and rushed out of the kitchen, a mean
sneer stamped on his face.

As Morrison watched that
sorry excuse for a human being leave the room, questions began popping up in
his head. The young man that this blond bastard had strangled with his bare
hands, where did he fit into all this? Was this the cause of their current
trouble? Was the rider chased down as a form of retribution for the young guy’s
death? Only to then be spotted and chased by the sheriff’s deputies? Those were
questions worth digging into, Morrison thought. He even thought about fishing
around the subject with Mike, but he quickly decided against it. Laura was the
one who had told him about the young guy in the shed. He didn’t want to risk
exposing her. He would have to come back at it later from a different angle.

Mike pushed himself up
from his leaning position, ready to leave the kitchen. But just as he took a
first step toward the hallway, he stopped dead in his tracks and gazed at the
counter next to Morrison.

The glass.

He had just noticed it.

Morrison saw a flash of
anger pass through Mike’s eyes. It was oh so brief, but it was there.

Mike nodded toward the
glass. “What’s with you, Morrison? Drinking milk now?”

That was Laura’s glass.
Her excuse to come talk to him.

“Yeah, it’s good for my
stomach,” Morrison lied. “Had plenty of that in prison.”

Then Morrison picked up
the glass and started drinking.

While he did, Mike looked
at him. His eyes were cold. Expressionless. His face a rigid mask. But beyond the
façade, Morrison could see the man was seething. Morrison knew him well enough for
that. His whole demeanor said he didn’t believe him. Not one second.

Upstairs, the baby had
calmed down somewhat. She was no longer crying her heart out. Instead, she was letting
out these big sobs unevenly, like the crisis was nearing its end. Like Laura,
her mother, had finally succeeded in prying her away from the throes of fear
and anguish. While she herself remained their uneasy captive.

Morrison drained the remainder
of the milk under Mike’s impassive gaze. After the empty glass clicked on the
hard granite surface, Mike finally came out of his silence with a barely
visible smirk on his face.

“Yeah, I’m sure you have,
Morrison,” he said. “I’m sure you have …”

*

Inside the big house, all
was quiet again.

The baby had gone back to
sleep. Mike had slowly climbed up the service staircase to join Laura in the
master bedroom. And Morrison was all alone in his blue room.

Initially, he had feared
Mike would give Laura some trouble. As he himself had made his way up the stairs,
he had half expected sparks and fireworks to erupt from his hosts’ room. But then
again he had seen Mike’s face when the baby had burst out crying. Mike wouldn’t
risk causing a riot that would wake the baby up again. He’d rather walk on
burning coals than subject himself to that torture again. At least for the
night.

Morrison opened up one of
his Zinfandel bottles with the cheap one-buck corkscrew he had bought that
morning at the wine store. He didn’t bother with a glass but drank straight
from the bottle.

It was just a twenty-dollar
wine but it tasted like a rare and precious vintage. Unbelievably good. Especially
after the milk, which he rarely drank by itself. He stood by the window. Outside,
the blond guy had parked his big SUV sideways two hundred feet down the
driveway to block the access. The asshole sat there all alone, keeping watch
from his perch up on the cleared plateau. An excellent position. No one could
approach the black Navigator without giving at least a thirty-or forty-second
notice. Morrison raised his bottle to him.
Here’s to you, poor sucker, stuck
out there for the night. Enjoy.

Morrison then sat on the
bed, on top of the sheets. He kept taking small sips of wine, enjoying it.
Savoring it for the rare and precious treat that it was. He had missed it so
much during the last three years.

His thoughts came back to
Mike. His partner hadn’t bothered to ask him if he had made progress during the
day. Understandable given the circumstances of the night. But he would come
back at it sooner rather than later. Which was fine. Morrison had to get
another roll of money from him to keep Johnson busy. Anyway, he had been
prepared to tell him all about Chelfington Bank, the first bank. That his audit
proved nothing had happened there after their crew had extracted the two
million dollars as planned. He had been willing to feed Mike this nugget to
prevent him from asking about the others. Because Morrison was not willing to
share anything yet on the four other banks, even if he now knew that First
Collins had been hit for two million dollars. Especially because he knew that
First Collins had been hit. He wanted to know about the remaining four banks
before he shared anything.

His mobile buzzed on the nightstand.
He had put it on mute. Laura’s baby didn’t need any excuse to wake up. He reached
for it.

“Am I catching you at a
bad time?”

It was Johnson.

“It’s always the right
time when you call me,” Morrison said.

“Very touching. I’ll
remember that,” Johnson said.

“What have you got for
me?”

“Candela Bank. My guy has just
finished briefing me about it.”

Morrison put the wine
bottle down on the nightstand.

“Go ahead,” he said. “I’m
listening.”

His hacker told him
everything his sidekick had discovered. It sounded familiar. Really familiar.
Candela Bank had been hit the day after First Collins Bank, on day four after
Morrison’s arrest. As with First Collins, the full two million dollars had been
withdrawn exactly as planned. Four hundred accounts had been hit for the precise
amounts, down to the last dollar. And as with First Collins, Candela Bank was
hit through a series of ATMs during a three-hour stint in New York City. The
only difference was the location of these ATMs. Instead of midtown, the
withdrawals had all happened within a few blocks in the Upper West Side. Other
than that, it was the exact same modus operandi. A small army of foot soldiers—between
eight and ten in all likelihood—had been fed his carefully hatched plan and had
then milked the cow in a flash mob before receding into darkness, totally
unnoticed, their pockets overflowing with cash.

“Somebody saw right
through your plans, Morrison,” Johnson said when he was finished with his
recap.