Hard Stop (27 page)

“Eddie Van Halen, superstar,” said Amanda.

“He’s going to be insufferable.”

She thought it was my turn to get examined, but I felt fine except for a little soreness in my neck and the upper part of my back, which only bothered me when I took a breath. She pressed the issue until I was forced to propose a compromise.

“If we stop at the bar on Main Street and have a few drinks, will that satisfy you?”

I was still a little nervous about leaving Eddie alone in the car, but he seemed happy enough curled up in the back. It was almost closing time, though I knew bars well enough to know you could always linger through the cleanup. They usually like having a few people sitting there, talking quietly, while winding down the night. It makes me feel like a kind of mascot.

“You’re an impossible man,” said Amanda to kick off the conversation.

“Thank you, dear.”

“If you die of internal bleeding, it’s not on my conscience.”

“Just don’t get distracted by it. I need your concentration.”

“You think there’s a connection between the dead Japanese girl and what just happened?” Amanda asked.

“What do you think?”

“I think there is.”

“So do I.”

In an effort to ward off Amanda’s near-frantic look of concern over my physical state, I got us talking about the good old days at Con Globe.

As I remembered, Iku’s task was basic strategic planning, helping the corporation balance its portfolio of products and services—deciding which to invest in, which to milk, which to jettison. It’s a good consultant’s gig, to analyze the situation presumably free of biases, preconceptions or vested interests.

All she cared about was her report—a clinical analysis of the corporation’s financial and organizational health.

As long as she had the support of top management, she didn’t have to care if anyone liked her or endorsed her methodologies. She didn’t have to joke with colleagues, jolly along administrators or wish anyone a happy birthday. She didn’t care if you held the door for her or checked out her ass when you passed her in the hall. The job titles, perks and prerogatives, career ambitions, petty politics, personal dreams and paranoid fantasies of the company’s employees were no more important to her than the mindless behavior of a swarm of ants engulfing an orange peel on the sidewalk.

“Angel was interested in Con Globe,” said Amanda. “That’s the overlap.”

“A bold and trenchant analysis,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“No less so for my having considered it already.”

“Certainly not.”

“But Con Globe ain’t nobody’s target. The corporate charter won’t allow it.”

“Piffle,” she said.

“That’s Burton’s word.”

“Used advisedly. Burton would tell you that corporate charters are as substantial as cheesecloth, and not nearly so aromatic.”

“That’s because he doesn’t know Arlis Cuthright.”

“Who?” she asked.

“Donovan’s wife. Her family owns the largest block of Con Globe voting stock. Not enough to control, but enough to wreak havoc. She doesn’t care about the subtleties of corporate law. All she knows is Daddy wanted the company to stay intact in perpetuity, and bolstered by her interests in half a dozen other companies, she wouldn’t hesitate to tear Con Globe to pieces to preserve its independence. Most people think these big corporate decisions are based on calculation
and greed. In fact, it’s mostly heart and soul. Raw emotion.”

“And greed,” said Amanda.

“And greed. Which is sort of my point. Marve Judson said some of the board members thought Donovan was trying to unravel the corporate charter. But why would he do that? What financial benefit could possibly justify a direct confrontation with most of the board, the executive committee and the controlling shareholders, who are controlled by his own wife? To say nothing of the legal implications and all the lousy press. Who in their right mind would do that?”

“Who said he was in his right mind? He was, after all, screwing his management consultant.”

“You say Donovan’s a fool in love, but does he have to be a fool?”

She took a sip of her pinot to help her readjust from scold to honored adviser.

“No,” she said. “He could string her along with delusions of financial conquest, if that was her game. Men have been known to do that sort of thing.”

“Can’t accuse me of that.”

“No, dear. Certainly not.”

“Or Donovan’s brain had simply migrated to his dick, just like any other poor idiot.”

“Rich idiot.”

I wondered, was that it? Was it that easy? Angel and Iku make a run at Donovan with a standard honey trap. They think they’ll be able to seduce, manipulate or extort him into breaking the charter, then set up a sale, before which Angel would have Phillip Craig take a big position, and subsequently they’d turn a gigantic profit. The ultimate special opportunity, and one that perfectly fit his modus operandi. Not just calling the play, but making it happen.

Iku’s angle? Money. Plain old money. And the rush of
victory, like one she probably got from the oil deal. It’s impossible to overestimate how good something that big feels when you’re on the winning side.

Although she probably felt less victorious than Angel, at least financially. All she got from the deal was a paycheck, albeit a fat one, for her trouble. Nothing else would be possible without huge exposure to insider trading.

Was the Con Globe gambit a chance to make good on all that?

I shared all these thoughts with Amanda, whose focus had shifted toward a more fundamental question.

“What does all that have to do with people trying to kill you?”

Until that night, no one had ever tried to run me off the road and shoot me. At least not at the same time. It didn’t seem like much of a coincidence.

“I don’t know,” I said.

They finally threw us out of the joint, politely enough. Eddie was still alive when we got back to the car—and filled with his usual élan. I let him bark and run back and forth between the two lowered back windows all the way to Oak Point. Amanda held her thick hair to the nape of her neck and rode along in a fugue state of resigned indulgence.

I drove past my cottage and directly to Amanda’s house, bypassing anyone who might be waiting for me with a gun. I just wasn’t in the mood.

I walked Eddie around Amanda’s yard on the end of a rope, and after a foolishly tense search of her house, settled us in for the night.

Only Amanda and Eddie got fully settled. I stayed up and killed a dusty half-full bottle of Maker’s Mark from her sadly under-stocked liquor cabinet and brooded in front of the fireplace.

Ordinarily I’d attribute the wakefulness to nerves. But despite the fearful carnage of the evening, I was more angry than frightened. I’m always offended by the arrogance of people who think killing other people is a legitimate undertaking. I wonder, how do you get up in the morning and think to yourself, “Gotta do some errands, wash the car, and if I can fit it in, permanently snuff the lights out of someone’s beloved husband, brother, mother, sister, son”? I’ve never considered myself more deserving of life than the next guy, probably less, but at least take a second to think about it.

Altruism didn’t come naturally to me, but it was easier to apply this line of reasoning to Iku Kinjo than to myself. No willful murder is justified, but hers felt less an act of butchery than a surgical elimination. A tactical execution.

Maybe that’s all it was, a simple transaction. A line item on the profit and loss statement. Case closed. Meeting over. The ultimate hard stop.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
my case for avoiding a physical exam was compromised by my inability to move without wincing or crying out in pain.

It was those damn ribs, pre-softened by Angel Valero.

So the first part of the day was spent in the tender care of a house-sized Jamaican trauma doctor named Markham Fairchild, whose bedside charm barely compensated for an obvious lack of sympathy.

“I tell you no more bangs to de head, and what do you do?” he said, looking down at me as they slid me into a thumping MRI.

“I didn’t bang my head. Just the rest of me.”

“Let me and dis machine be the judge of that.”

A few hours later I was back with Amanda in her pickup with a bellyful of lectures and a pocketful of prescription painkillers, none of which I intended to use.

“Can’t take the side effects. Rather have the pain.”

“Then give them to me,” said Amanda. “Fair compensation for all the chauffeuring.”

Our next stop was the Southampton Town Police, who were politely withholding the APB in anticipation of my prompt arrival.

Officer Orlovsky was way off her regular game. She called Ross without an argument and said please when she asked us to wait in the reception area. I whispered my amazement into Amanda’s ear.

“She’s got a crush on you, obviously,” she whispered back. “Doesn’t want to let on to me.”

The thought made me want to run back to the car and eat a handful of Markham’s pills.

Ross called for me the moment Jackie came through the door. She nodded at Amanda and glowered at me.

“Would you ask Ross if I can have a couple private moments with my client before we sit down?” she asked Orlovsky. “We haven’t had a chance to talk.”

“Sure thing, hon,” said Orlovsky, smiling graciously at Jackie, assuming common cause. “Take the interview room, down the hall, second right. I’ll tell the Chief.”

She buzzed us through the door, leaving Amanda out in reception with the public safety posters and dog-eared copies of
Cop Station Quarterly
.

Jackie wore black stretchy slacks, an iridescent green silk blouse opened one button too many and a camel hair sport coat that I swear had tails like an antique tux. I wanted to chase down the sadist who sold it to her and get her money back.

“Looking good, Jackie,” I said, as we pulled chairs up to a small conference table.

“You’re supposed to call me at the moment of catastrophe, not the next morning.”

“You’d only just yell at me for waking you up.”

“I’m yelling at you now.”

“Here’s the headline: Two guys tried to run me off the road and shoot me. Instead, they ran into the back of the Grand Prix and killed themselves. I recovered the gun and at least one of the bullets, which I gave to Joe Sullivan. There are no witnesses I know of, and yes, I’d been drinking heavily, but I always drink heavily, and no, I wasn’t drunk.”

“Breathalyzer?”

“Nope. Joe got there in time,” I said.

“Anything else you want to tell me?”

I told her everything I’d done in the last twenty-four hours, as thoroughly as my memory would allow. She huffed through the entire thing.

“I was going to brief you as soon as I had a chance,” I said. “I didn’t think we’d have to work against a deadline.”

“Deadline. Nice choice of words,” said Jackie.

“What matters is what I think now. I think it’s all connected to the maneuverings over Con Globe. I think all sorts of interested parties, including Angel Valero and nominally Phillip Craig, Eisler, Johnson, and insiders like Marve Judson and Mason Thigpen, are licking their greedy chops over the possibilities. An aberration in George Donovan’s behavior lit the fuse. Uninteresting to the casual observer, shocking, or inviting, to the insider. And somewhere in all the fog and fury some bastard thought killing Iku Kinjo was a good idea.”

“So it’s all connected,” said Jackie.

I huffed this time.

“Of course it’s connected. Occam’s razor. The most obvious interpretation is almost always the right one.”

“Almost.”

I huffed some more.

“Okay. I used the word ‘almost.’ A concession to relativism. A polite qualification meant to dress up a naked absolute.
What do you want, a philosophical debate or an assessment of the situation? Either one’s okay with me.”

“How about a quieter voice?”

I realized I’d reared up off my chair and was half pitched across the table. Nerves.

“Sorry,” I said, settling back down.

“I’m on your side,” said Jackie.

“I know you are.”

“I would be even if you didn’t pay me.”

“And what have I paid you so far?” I asked.

“A dollar. I’ve invested it wisely.”

“Keep up the good work. There’re more dollars where that came from.”

“I’ll inform my broker.”

“I can’t let this stand,” I said.

“Our compensation arrangement?”

“Iku’s murder. There’s an assumption in the air that it’ll never get solved. You can smell it. The stink of inevitability. They’ve already conceded defeat with barely a fight.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Jackie asked.

“The collective ‘they.’ Cops, associates, reporters, friends—ostensibly—prosecutors. I’ve seen it before. Iku Kinjo becomes a casualty of war. An unidentified soldier in the battle between the difficult and the expedient.”

“Not Joe Sullivan.”

“No. Not Joe,” I said.

“And I think it’s a little early to start judging.”

“Probably is. We allowed to smoke in here?”

She made that face that was part grin, part smirk.

“You haven’t asked me about my trip to Princeton,” she said.

“You went there?”

“I assume all this condemnation doesn’t apply to me. The person who drove all the way to the middle of New Jersey in
response to a single harebrained request from a guy who the next second forgot all about it.”

“I didn’t forget. I thought you forgot.”

She milked her triumph. I waited it out.

“Okay,” I said. “What did you find out.”

“Princeton is a beautiful place. People are always pissing on New Jersey, but parts of it are like paradise.”

“I feel that way about the Bronx.”

“Harder sell.”

“You learned some things at Princeton,” I said.

“I did. I don’t know how much bearing it’ll have on our chat with Ross,” she said.

“Give me a headline.”

“Your group renters were a bunch of art majors.”

“Iku?”

She laughed.

“Hell, no. Double major in economics and political science. Magna cum laude. No sports, no sororities, no clubs. Her extracurriculars were all curricula.”