Deal Gone Bad - A Thriller (Frank Morrison Thriller Series Book 1) (7 page)

Morrison hadn’t felt this
tired in a long time. It was probably a combination of the day’s events and his
big late dinner. You never ate that well in prison, even when you had
connections. To add to this, there were barely any cars left out on the road.
Nothing to keep him awake, except for the music and the prospect of crashing
soon into a comfortable bed.

He kept yawning and
stretching all the way to Mike’s house. When he got there, he saw only the cute
little BMW. The two other Navigators were out.

He parked and picked up
his shopping bags in the trunk. Then he entered the house and made his way up
the big creaky staircase. As he aimed for the doorknob of his blue room, he
heard footsteps draw closer behind the door opposite his across the corridor.
Then he heard it pop open. He turned around. It was Laura.

She looked different from
earlier that day. She had pulled her dark brown, wavy hair into a ponytail. But
her eyes were still the same. Full of worry.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said.

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

“You didn’t.” She pointed
at the room with her thumb. “I was putting Amanda back to sleep. She had a big
nightmare.”

Given the environment she
had to live in and her mother’s apparent constant worry, that didn’t surprise
Morrison. Although he knew nothing about children. That was a foreign world to
him.

“Went shopping?” she
asked.

Morrison looked down at
his bags. “Yeah. I needed some clothes.”

“So you’re gonna stick
around for a while then.”

“Possibly, yes.”

They lapsed into an
uncomfortable silence. Morrison soon broke it.

“Everyone’s out?” he
asked.

“Yes. They had to take
care of some business. I’m surprised you’re not with them.”

“How come?”

“I thought you were here
to help them.”

“Is that what Mike told
you?”

Her face became somber.

“Mike never tells me
anything. But they’ve been getting busier and busier lately. And now that—” She
interrupted herself. She seemed to have trouble coming to terms with the fact
that Mike had had the slicked-back hair guy killed. She seemed horrified by it,
actually. In any case, she certainly wasn’t going to refer to it directly, so
she simply alluded to it.

“Now that they’re short
one guy,” she said, “I thought you’d be taking his place.”

“I don’t know. Mike didn’t
tell me much either.”

“So you don’t know what
they’re doing?”

Morrison shook his head.
She looked disappointed. For sure, she would’ve tapped him, he thought. She
seemed anxious to know what exactly Mike was up to, even though that might prove
worrisome. But you also worried a lot when you didn’t know. Probably more in
fact.

She left it at that. Said
good-night. Then she headed down the hallway to the master bedroom.

Morrison pushed open the
door to his blue room and dropped his bags on the dresser. He crashed into the lowlying
chair facing the bed and removed his shoes. The spot where his toes rested on
the key felt sore. He peeled off his socks and turned the sole of his foot
upward in his hands. The skin was reddened but not to the point where it would
blister. Morrison pushed the shoes underneath the bed, got up, undressed and went
for a long shower. Then he jumped straight into bed.

His head had not yet
landed on the pillow. It was still hovering slightly above. But already, he was
sound asleep.

*

Morrison woke up past nine
o’clock in the morning. His head still buzzing from the deep sleep, he got up, foraged
the shopping bags and put on a brand new pair of jeans and a blue oxford shirt.
Then he put his shoes back on and left the room.

He had yet to tour the
house. So instead of aiming for the big winding staircase, he pushed his way through
the top floor hallway toward the back.

He counted five doors
including his room’s and the baby girl’s. Three on his side, two on the
opposite. The bigger rooms were the baby’s and, most certainly, Mike and Laura’s.
Judging from the space between the doors, the other rooms looked about the same
size as his blue room. But he couldn’t know for sure. He couldn’t peek inside. The
doors were all closed shut.

At the end of the hallway,
he reached an elbow that veered to the right. Four more doors appeared, a lot
closer together, which suggested the rooms were small and certainly did not
comprise a private bathroom. He pushed on. At the end was a narrow winding
staircase that led downstairs. He had seen a similar arrangement in the past. He
figured in the old days, that portion of the hallway must’ve been walled off at
the elbow. The cramped section would’ve been the servants’ quarters, and only
they would’ve used the winding staircase to go to and fro between their
sleeping quarters and the kitchen, where they would disperse throughout the
house to attend to their masters’ needs.

On the landing, a waft of freshly
brewed coffee confirmed his intuition. He went down the stairs. He had expected
them to be as creaky and noisy as the front ones, but he descended without a
sound. The rubbery lining that covered them did a great job of concealing any
squeak.

Mike and the blond guy stood
in the kitchen, butts leaning on the kitchen island. They were having coffee
while watching a small flatscreen TV nestled in a narrow countertop section bookended
by solid wood cabinets.

“I could have one of
these,” Morrison said.

They turned their heads. They
hadn’t heard him coming down.

“Help yourself,” Mike said.

Morrison picked up a black
mug on the counter and filled it. Mike turned his attention from the TV set to look
at him with piercing eyes.

“Sleepin’ in, Morrison?” he
said.

“You know me. I need my
beauty sleep,” Morrison said. He noticed the dark circles under Mike’s eyes.
Same for the blond guy. They must have stayed up pretty late. “Looks like you
could use some too.”

Mike waved his hand
dismissively.

“This ain’t prison anymore,”
he said. “You’re gonna have to get off your butt.”

Morrison sneered. “Don’t
worry about that,” he said. “Just make sure you leave me 20K before you go.”

Mike arched his eyebrow.

“So you’ve already gotten
yourself busy, then.”

“What did you expect?”

“You could’ve gone soft in
prison. It’s happened to others before.”

Morrison shrugged. “It
only happens if you allow it,” he said. He took his first sip of coffee. It was
strong and real hot.

For his part, Mike drained
the dregs of his cup and put it down in the sink. He nodded toward the TV and
said, “There was something on the news about the sheriff’s department seizing
ATM skimming equipment at half a dozen banks late last night. Do you know
anything about it?”

Morrison shrugged. “How
could I? I just got up,” he said.

“You have to admit it’s a
funny coincidence, isn’t it?”

“And you?”

“Me what?”

“Do you have anything to
do with these ATMs?”

“Nah.”

“Do you know who might?”

Mike shook his head. “No.
Probably just some newbies,” he said. “But I’ll ask around. Just in case.” He
motioned for the blond guy to dump his cup and follow him. The blond guy passed
in front of Morrison and gave him an arrogant stare. The guy would always be the
thug who had held him at gunpoint. Like it made him superior. Morrison had to
admit it kind of started their relationship on the wrong foot, but he didn’t
resent the blond guy’s arrogance. Quite the opposite. He knew he could use it
against him later on if he needed to.

“If you want breakfast,
help yourself,” Mike said. “There’s plenty of stuff in the fridge. Bob will
leave your money out on the credenza in the lobby. See you around.”

Morrison took another sip from
his mug and foraged in the fridge and the kitchen cabinets. Mike was right.
They were well stocked. But he wouldn’t have breakfast there. That morning, it
would come from Elena’s. He was dying to eat one of those cinnamon buns. And he
bet Johnson was too.

The two extra rolls of
money bulged in Morrison’s jacket pocket. Twenty thousand dollars. That was the
amount he had agreed upon with Johnson to get him started. He drove to town to
make his first payment. The Navigator had yet to merge on the county road. It
was still bouncing from one pothole to another on the property’s private road.

While he wrestled with the
wheel one-handed, Morrison called Johnson directly on his mobile phone. His
hacker friend picked up on the first ring.

“Good, you’re still up,” Morrison
said. “Mind if I drop by?”

“If you have my money,
please do,” Johnson said.

“I’ll do better than that.
I’ll pick up breakfast, or a late snack for you, on my way. I was thinking of cinnamon
buns from Elena’s. Good enough for you?”

“Bring ’em on. I sure
could use ’em.”

“Tough night?”

“You remember when you
went to school? The first day? How you felt all lost and out of place? That’s
how it’s been all night.”

“Don’t tell me it’s that
bad.”

“Three years is a long
time, Morrison. I’m wallowing in the dark, here.”

“But are you getting
somewhere?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve picked
up on a thing or two. But that’s a one-thousand-piece puzzle full of clear blue
sky. It’s not gonna be the work of a moment.”

“It’s all right. As long
as it doesn’t take too long either.”

Johnson scoffed. “No
pressure,” he said.

“I only put on the pressure
because I know you can deliver.”

“You know, during these
three years, I really didn’t miss you all that much, Morrison.”

“Wait till you see the
money.”

“Right. And don’t forget
the buns.”

Morrison flipped his phone
shut and slid it into his jacket.

Finally, after having
bounced around on that bad private road for a few minutes, he reached the
county road. What a relief. It was smooth as silk. He gunned down the engine
just for the fun of it, just for the pleasure of feeling the acceleration rush
push his backside deep into the leather seat on that perfect ribbon of
blacktop. He reached seventy miles an hour in the blink of an eye. Then eighty.
The big V8 engine rumbled and roared, loving it as much as he did. Then he came
back to his senses. It wasn’t a very smart thing to do. Last thing he needed
was a patrol car chasing him down full blinkers on. He looked up in the rear-view
mirror. There was a lone gray car, far behind. For a moment, he thought,
Shit,
that could be an unmarked car.
So he proceeded to slow down to the
prescribed fifty miles an hour and punched the cruise control button to lock
down that speed. He looked up to the mirror again. Noticed that the car behind had
kept the same gap relative to him. So it must have slowed down too.

Morrison went pensive.
Is
that guy tailing me?

The car was a light gray
Chevy Impala. Pretty anonymous. The kind that you could get at a rental car
counter. That an elderly couple could buy with their pension money. That a law
enforcement agency could source to accomplish surveillance work. It was really
a multipurpose vehicle, inconspicuous by virtue of its ubiquity. But then
again, perhaps it was just a car that happened to be passing by when he merged
on the road—the most likely occurrence. He peered back again. The Impala was
too far back for him to have a clear view of the driver. With the glare coming
off the windshield, he couldn’t even see if the driver was alone. Could’ve been
a man or a woman. He really had no way of telling.

Morrison continued on his
way. With the cruise control locked at fifty, he kept driving toward town as if
he were oblivious to his surroundings.

But a discreet inquiry was
definitely called for.

When he reached the outskirts
of Acton, he veered into the shopping center’s parking lot and stopped in an
empty spot in front of the wine store.

From the corner of his
eye, he saw the gray Impala nose its way into the parking lot as he covered the
few feet separating him from the store’s entrance.

He wanted to do this
anyway. Buy a good bottle or two. Of course, it hadn’t been his priority this morning,
but now that he had about fifteen minutes to kill, why not enjoy it?

Wine was relatively new
for him. A year before he was busted, he had worked on a deal with a Frenchman.
An old guy. Looked like an amiable retired civil servant. Nobody could have
guessed how he made his living in a million years. A real pro. Morrison had
struck up a friendship with him and in the course of their collaboration, the
Frenchman had introduced him to wine.

There was nothing snobbish
or uptight in his appreciation of it, just a deep, heartfelt love that he
communicated really well. Under his tutelage, Morrison got to know the different
varietals. Learned how
terroir
influenced their expression and taste.
For his part, he had fallen hard for a quintessentially American wine, California
Zinfandel. Red, of course. Not the bubble-gum syrup marketed under the label
White Zinfandel. The store had a good selection of them. Those he preferred
came from Lodi in the Central Valley. Old vines. They had that inimitable roasted
red pepper aroma that he liked so much. He grabbed a bottle of Herzog. Then he ran
his fingers over the surface of a dozen different ones before opting for a
bottle of bold Ravenswood. Since he had some time, he perused the aisles,
taking in all the beautiful labels. The austere Bordeaux. The refined
Bourgogne. The flamboyant Australians. When he was done, he brought his two
bottles to the counter and grabbed a cheap corkscrew with the store’s logo from
a display. He paid in cash and didn’t ask for a bag. He wanted his purchases to
be clearly visible when he left the store.

Back in the Navigator, he
dropped the two bottles on the passenger seat and got going again. Without
making a show of it, he paid close attention to his mirrors as he pulled out of
the parking lot. Sure enough, when he rejoined Acton Road, he saw the gray Impala
emerge from its own parking spot and inch carefully after him.

Earlier, that could’ve
been just another car heading from the countryside to Acton’s shopping center at
exactly the same time he was. Would have made a lot of sense. But the
probability of its driver then spending the exact same amount of time as Morrison
shopping and rejoining the road immediately after him was infinitesimal.

So he was really being
followed.

But the question was, who
exactly was being followed—him or the Navigator? Nobody knew he was staying at
Mike’s. It had come as a complete surprise even to him. And he knew he had not
been followed to or from Mike’s compound the previous night. So it meant that the
Navigator was being followed. The gray Impala must have been lying in wait by
the side of the county road, as far away from the mouth of Mike’s private road
as it could be without losing sight of it.

With the light morning
traffic, Morrison made his way downtown at a steady rhythm. The Impala kept
shadowing him from a fair distance.

Morrison wondered if Mike
knew his compound was under surveillance. If he did, his partner certainly
never mentioned it. And if he didn’t, well, that could be something to use against
him later. Morrison’s mind raced. He also wondered who was keeping a close eye
on Mike’s crew. Some representatives of law enforcement? Some rivals? Some untrusting
business associates? The previous night, Laura had mentioned that Mike and his
crew were getting busier and busier recently. Maybe that had something to do
with it?

Bottom line, Morrison
needed to know more about his follower. But he also needed to act like he
didn’t know he was being followed.

He could think of a few
ways to achieve that objective.

In the end, he settled for
the option that best suited his immediate taste. After all, he still wanted to
have cinnamon buns from Elena’s. So when he arrived downtown, he paid close
attention to the angled parking spots. Main Street was busy. Most of the spots
were taken. He passed at least twenty of them before he saw the first free one,
then he made sure he nosed into it, like any other motorist not believing his
luck would.

The choice of the first
free spot was deliberate.

It would force the Impala
to continue its way. There really was no place to stop on the side of the road.
Along a row of cars parked at an angle, the Impala would be far too conspicuous.
And the driver couldn’t make a U-turn either. That would be worse.

Morrison was able to time
his exit from the big SUV perfectly.

The gray Impala entered
his peripheral vision just as he stepped out of the car. The driver was alone. A
guy with brown hair, nothing immediately striking about him.

The car went past and
Morrison gave a casual glance in the general direction of traffic, like most
people did when they got out of their car. Nothing unusual about it. Only seemed
natural.

That enabled him to have a
clear view of the back of the gray Impala.

And to pick up its license
plate number.