Ecstasy (30 page)

“Five after seven.”

“Then relax.”

“Fat chance.”

Ochoa squeezed some lemon juice onto a grape leaf and popped it into his mouth. “What are you so wound up about, anyway?”

“Christ, what do you think? Goddamn Gordon’s about to break some huge story, and we have no bloody idea what it is.”

“Sure we do,” Ochoa said with his mouth full, “Mohawk Associates.”

“Which is what?” They both turned their attention to their food. “See? We’re gonna get totally screwed here.”

“Okay,” Mad said. “Let’s think. What do we know about this thing?”

“You mean Mohawk Associates?”

“Yeah.”

“Not a whole hell of a lot.”

“But what
do
we know?”

“Okay,” I said, “we know that it’s probably being run by somebody at Melting Rock because they had the receipt for the P.O.
box. And since Jo said she—”

“Who?” This from Ochoa, still talking through his food.

“Jo Mingle. She runs Melting Rock, but she says she doesn’t have bupkis to do with the finances.”

“And you believe her?”

“Yeah, I kind of do. She doesn’t strike me as a liar.”

“So if not her, then who?”

“Her boyfriend, this guy named Trike Ford—”

“You mean the drummer from Stumpy?”

“Right. He’s her boyfriend, and she says he handles all the money stuff. I tried to talk to him when the story broke about
Melting Rock getting its ass sued off, but I guess he was away on tour.”

“Yeah, but they gotta be back by now. They’ve got a big show this weekend. Release party for their new album is Friday night.”

“All right, let’s try and get all this straight. For some reason, Deep Lake Cooling paid Mohawk Associates nearly fifty thousand
dollars in so-called ‘consulting’ fees. Meanwhile”—I picked up the pilfered binder and flipped it open—“a bunch of people
are apparently getting payoffs, and they’ve got the initials M.A. next to their names.”

“I can’t believe you guys actually lifted that thing,” Ochoa said.

“We were pretty ballsy,” Mad said.

“Actually,” I said, “we were pretty sloshed.”

“Are you gonna put it back?”

Mad shrugged. I shook my head. “Ain’t no way I’m goin’ in there sober,” I said.

“Okay,” Ochoa said, “so if these people have the initials next to—”

“Hold on a second,” Mad said. “Before we get into this, let me ask you guys something. Am I the only one who thinks this is
one hell of a coincidence? I mean, Bernier and I find that Mohawk Associates file one night, and by the next afternoon, Band
is over at the library digging through the Deep Lake papers and finding—
badda-bing!
—Mohawk Associates listed in the damn financials. Doesn’t that strike you as kinda weird?”

“Er…You’re right,” I said. “Guess I’m even more hungover than I thought.”

“So what’s the deal?”

“I don’t know. Let me ponder.” I reached for another dolmadakia, and Ochoa swatted my hand away. “Seems like what you’re saying
is…What? That our swiping the file somehow triggered Gordon’s trip to the library?”

Mad shrugged. “I guess.”

“But how?”

“Damned if I know.”

“All right,” Ochoa said, “let’s concentrate on what we’ve got in front of us, okay? So like I was saying before, if these
people have M.A. next to their names, it stands to reason that maybe they’re getting their money through this phantom company,
right?”

“Yeah,” I said, “but there’s something I don’t understand.”

“Which is?”

“It seems like …I don’t know, like a weird combination of being sneaky and being aboveboard.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, if you’re going to take a payoff, why not just take it in an envelope full of small, unmarked bills? Why go through
all the trouble of setting up some company? I mean, wouldn’t that make it more likely you’d get caught?”

Mad refilled his glass, having previously explained that there was nothing unmanly about drinking diet pink lemonade. “I’ve
been thinking about that,” he said, “and I’ve got two things for you. One’s a credit thing; the other’s a debit thing.”

Ochoa gave me a querying look, so I filled him in. “Mad went through this phase where he was sleeping with M.B.A. students,”
I said. “They generally fled once they got a look at his net worth.”

“Don’t knock it,” Mad said. “Those finance chicks are
wild.
”

“You were saying about credits and debits?”

“Okay. So in terms of payouts, Deep Lake Cooling has to balance its budget, right? A university project can’t just charge
off fifty grand to ‘miscellaneous expenses.’ It’d need a bona fide company to make a payment to.”

“A payment for what?”

“Damned if I know. I’m just talking about the system here, okay?”

“Okay. Was that the debit or the credit?”

“The… Oh, hell, I don’t know,” Mad said. “But now let’s look at it from the other side. Somebody, say that J-burg lady Rosemary
Hamill, wants to take a payoff. Maybe she’s getting bribed for something. She’s breaking the law, so she’s obviously not too
concerned with doing the right thing. But what’s the one bunch of people she doesn’t want to mess with?” Ochoa and I swapped
clueless glances. Mad looked like a teacher disappointed in his class’s abject stupidity. “The I.R.S.,” he said. “Get it?”

“No,” said Ochoa.

“Not even a little,” said I.

“Okay, look,” Mad said. “It’s one thing to make money you don’t deserve. Cheating on your taxes is a whole other ball game.
It’s like this hooker I knew once.” More gaping stares from me and Ochoa. “Hey, I’m a reporter, okay? I meet people. Once
when I was in college, I did this story on certain… ladies who earned their living by non-traditional means. And I remember
this one told me she reported all her income to the I.R.S. ’cause she didn’t want to get in trouble with the taxman—said it
was way worse than the vice squad. So she’d file it all on her taxes as ‘public relations.’ Clever, huh?”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You think these people took money, but they wanted it…”

“I think,” Ochoa said, “that the word you’re looking for is
laundered.
”

“Right,” I said. “And if there’s really that much money at stake—I mean, it looks like we could be talking about hundreds
of thousands of bucks over the years—then are we safe in assuming that maybe it has something to do with those boys getting
poisoned? Not to mention Axel getting dead?”

“Hell yeah,” Mad said. “I’d kill for half that much.”

“It’s like you were saying before,” Ochoa said. “Most murders are about money, right? So here we’ve got some money, and we’ve
definitely got some murders. What are the odds they aren’t connected somehow?”

“Okay,” I said, “then who had the most to gain? Or maybe I should say…to lose?”

“Top of the list,” Ochoa said as he flipped through the binder, “is our friend R.H.”

“Rosemary Hamill,” I said. “Owner of one very ugly and expensively restored B and B.”

Mad plucked the last grape leaf out of the aluminum take-out box. “So waddaya think?” he asked. “Can you picture her mixing
up some nasty-ass acid and offing those kids?”

“In a word…no.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. She’s just …way too prissy. But maybe I can picture her hiring somebody to do her dirty work for her.”

“Okay,” Ochoa said, “what about the rest of the people on the payoff list?”

“Good question,” I said. “Unfortunately, we have no idea who they are. We better copy them down and start comparing the initials
to… well, I guess to everybody who’s anybody in Jaspersburg.”

“You know who might be able to help us with this?” Mad asked. “Brad. It
is
in his beat, ya know. Maybe he’s—”

“That little moron?” I said. “No way.”

“He’s not so bad.”

“The hell you say. First off, he’s a total loose cannon, so God knows who he’d go drill. He’d probably blow the whole damn
story. Plus, J-burg is one of half a dozen towns he’s covering. He’s hardly been on the beat long enough to know his ass from
his elbow anyway.”

“Okay,” Mad said, “I’m getting that the answer is no.”

“
Hell
no,” I said. “And if you breathe a word to him about this, I’ll wring your neck.”

“Nobody’s wringing anything,” Ochoa said. “Let’s just concentrate, okay? What about this other list?” He held up the page
with the smaller amounts. “Any idea what’s up?”

I broke off a corner of their baklava in the interest of calming down. “It’s got the initials A.R. on it, which I figure has
to be Axel Robinette. It’s also got R.S., which is probably our buddy Sturdivant.”

“So what are they getting paid off for?” Ochoa mused. “And if they
are
getting paid off, why are they on a separate list?”

“And speaking of which,” Mad said, “why is Deep Lake paying fifty grand to Mohawk Associates in the first place?”

“The budget said ‘consulting fees,’ ” I said, “which could mean just about anything.”

“Yeah, but obviously Mohawk is in bed with the guys who run Melting Rock. What could they have to do with Deep Lake?”

“Specifically,” Ochoa said, “what could Deep Lake want from them that would be worth the fifty thousand clams?”

I looked at my watch again. It wasn’t even seven-thirty yet, and I was starving-hungry. “Okay,” I said, “let’s look at this
another way. Assuming this phony company is really laundering payoff money, how do we figure out who’s in charge of it? I
mean, doesn’t a company have to have officers or something?”

“I guess,” Ochoa said. “This isn’t really my beat.”

“Mine either,” I said. “I hate to say it, but this is the kind of crap that Gordon is goddamn great at.”

“So let’s ask ourselves,” Mad said, “what would Gordon do?”

“W.W.G.D.,” I said. “Not likely to appear on a bracelet anytime soon.” Mad raised an eyebrow at me. “It’s a Bible-thumping
thing. Never mind.”

“Fine,” Mad said, “so how would Band tackle this?”

“He’d dig through piles of documents. Probably dig up the articles of incorporation, or some damn thing.”

Ochoa tossed the binder on the coffee table. “And where do you find articles of incorporation?”

“How the hell do I know? Doesn’t that have to be filed with the state or something?” Four shoulders shrugged. “Wonderful.
So how are we gonna figure out what’s going on?”

We sat there pondering the question for a while. I answered first. “Christ, we’re reporters, aren’t we?” I said.

“Er…yeah,” Mad said. “So?”

“So,” I said, “let’s ask somebody.”

W
HILE THE GUYS SETTLED
in for an evening of watching extreme sports on ESPN-2, I went off to meet Cody at Delhi Delite, which is a lousy name for
a very good Indian restaurant. An hour of eating like pigs was followed by another of you-know-whatting like rabbits, after
which we fell asleep in the company of two dogs.

And just for the record…at no point was I even remotely tempted to tell him that my holiday weekend had included breaking
into Groovy Guitar, removing potentially valuable evidence, and stowing said evidence underneath Mad’s scuba fins.

I did, however, fill him in on what he’d missed by blowing off the union picnic; although he obviously knew about Axel’s body
washing up onshore, he’d missed the gory details. And although I’d expected him to get all concerned about my delicate sensibilities,
apparently he was starting to give me credit for being a fairly tough cookie—though frankly poor Axel had looked so gross
I could’ve used a little sympathy.

The next day, I followed my own advice and did some asking. But what I found out was something wholly unexpected.

Which is: Nearly dying of poisoned LSD turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to Norma Jean Kramer.

H
ow, you may ask, can this possibly be?

Well, her two-week coma proved to be something akin to a health spa. Her parents may have been scared silly, but when she
finally woke up, her weight was the lowest it had been since junior high.

Granted, this still put her over two hundred pounds. But for Norma Jean, it was a step in the right direction. After her brush
with death, she was determined to give up drugs, go to junior college, and get down to a size ten.

At least that’s what she told me.

I met Norma Jean three days after she awoke, by which time the American health-care system had already sent her home to the
two-bedroom bungalow she shared with her parents. And although I had plenty to worry about back home in Gabriel, when the
opportunity to talk to her suddenly manifested itself, I had no choice but to drive south with all deliberate speed.

The terminus of my six-hour trip was the Kramers’ house. It was located in a working-class section of Baltimore, with gray
aluminum siding on the walls and a Virgin Mary shrine on the front lawn. The family appeared to be nothing if not thrifty;
the shrine was made from an old bathtub, the planters alongside the driveway fashioned out of recycled tires spray-painted
silver. Next to the house was a postage-stamp garden, the tomato plants staked with sawed-off hockey sticks.

Now, you may be wondering why Norma Jean Kramer agreed to talk to me—why, in fact, I’d been invited to her family’s front
door. The answer is simple: Norma Jean was talking to everybody.

When she woke up, you see, Norma Jean found that not only was she slimmer, she was also a minor celebrity. Every news organization
east of the Rockies seemed to want an interview with her. Suddenly, the girl who couldn’t get a date to the senior prom was
that most elusive of things: She was
popular.

If we’d known all this beforehand, I might not have been the one to make the six-hour drive from Gabriel. Yes, Norma Jean
had agreed to meet with a reporter, but since we hadn’t yet seen the spate of stories in media from the
Baltimore Sun
to CNN, we had no idea just how chatty she’d be. The whole reason for sending me (rather than, say, Ochoa) was that, as the
possessor of my very own set of ovaries, I might make her more comfortable—and, therefore, more likely to spill her guts.
As it turned out, though, she was so talkative we might just as well have sent her a tape recorder via Federal Express.