Last Track, The (24 page)

His agents might be rich, struggling, male or female, athletic, or sloths. From junkies to brokers—some were both, poor creatures—every demographic served up a few. They usually did not know they were being recruited for an important task. Nor did they realize they had no choice in the matter.

They also had a similar and tragic flaw about them. Before Crotty approached them with an offer, they exhibited such a thorough disinterest in their surroundings, they rarely noticed him watching them purposefully. And if they were aware, they continued on as if they were wandering the aisles of a supermarket on a Sunday evening, oblivious.

Case in point that day: Regani, a banker, who parked his Lexus in a handicapped spot when he clearly was not handicapped. How very special Regani must have believed he was. Crotty disliked him for another reason; they had a business relationship.

Crotty had followed Regani’s Lexus from the highway, right to this station. Out of range of the surveillance cameras on the building near the bathroom, Crotty lingered in his sedan, patient.

Bounding from the car, Regani moved so fast the toes of his polished shoes thudded against the door. Regani grunted. Crotty saw it for what it was: another Suit in a hurry. How precious. How typical.

A hasp fastened the bathroom door to the frame after seven each evening, when the station closed. At that moment, the hasp wanted for a padlock.

Crotty steadied himself and slithered behind Regani into the restroom.

11:59:37 AM

As she promised, Jessica delivered the news about Shad’s report before lunch. “The password worked exactly like you thought, and everything is in here,” she said. “Names for almost all the numbers. And there are a bunch of calls to your phone last night and this morning from a number I don’t recognize.”

“Fantastic. Whose number is it?” Mike asked.

“Let me read you the note from Shad about that: Mike, the reverse lookups don’t show a name for the number 555-9937 because there is no name associated with the account. The calls were made on a prepaid disposable cell phone. Phones like these are untraceable if the buyer initially pays in cash and never purchases more minutes.”

“That’s not good,” Mike said. He made no effort to conceal his frustration.

“Hang on,” Jessica said. “Shad also says: However, I contacted the manufacturer and found out what store the phone was sold from. The same credit card was used to purchase this phone and a dozen others roughly a week ago in a store in Michigan. They gave me the phone numbers for the other phones, which are also in this file. The name on the corporate Amex is Better Days, LLC.”

“Not what I hoped,” Mike said, “but it’s a start.”

“You’re not kidding,” Jessica said. “A quick search on the Internet shows at least five business with that name in the US. That’s going to take some time to run down.”

“Can you figure out the right one and get a name?” Mike asked.

“Don’t worry,” Jessica said. “I can get us there.”

12:02:21 PM

Commercial-grade cleaners saturated the room with the scent of disinfectant. A dispenser released the solution on a timer. The floor tiles leading to the urinal were sticky, and Crotty’s shoes made a crinkling sound as he stepped across them.

Regani, the banker, occupied the solitary toilet. The stall was handicapped-accessible. Wider than normal, the door opened outward. Above a pair of black socks and below the stall, a sliver of pasty white calves showed—Regani’s.

While relieving himself at the urinal, Crotty lingered in silence. Then he spoke. “How’s my favorite banker?”

“Why must we meet in places like this?” Regani asked, finally.

“Because you’re under surveillance. In fact, that’s what I want to talk to you about. The heat is coming down real soon. Be ready.”

“Jesus. How far down?” Regani asked.

“All the way,” Crotty said. “Serious enough that I can’t protect you any longer.”

“What? Why now?”

“You ask why now? You are not exactly Mother Theresa, Regani. Your bank is a front for a host of money-laundering operations. The state attorney general investigated you three times, and the Feds are two days from a sealed indictment. This is not news. The newsflash is that the check is due now.” Here Crotty banged the stall a few times with a closed fist. “By the way, is this distracting?”

“You were supposed to be on top of this. Heading off the investigations early,” Regani said, shifting uncomfortably. “What happened?”

Crotty spoke. “I have. And I am on your side. But you have a lot of my money, and you’re about to be indicted. Once that happens, every asset you ever thought of will be frozen. Unfortunately, even if you wanted to, you can no longer return what’s mine. Transactions with your name attached mean scrutiny. I can’t afford attention like that. So you and I are going to work out a barter.”

“Why should I even deal with you anymore?” Regani asked. “You betrayed me! You weren’t looking out for my interests like you promised.”

“We’ve already covered that. You would’ve been in jail four years ago if not for me. Now consider the bigger picture. The future. What are you going to do when this indictment hits? What about your pretty wife and her plastic surgery habit? You like being comfortable? Well prison is not so comfortable. Maybe for some felons there’s a nice federal trip with golf courses, but you’re from the wrong zip code, Regani. You consorted with people whose last names end in vowels. Your daddy went to a state school, not Yale. Racketeering, money laundering, that’s serious business. I know you’re hearing me, so listen close. Your only get-out-of-jail-free card is going to be to turn state’s evidence. And you’re going to pray no one caps you before the Feds sell the attorney general on the witness protection program.”

“What do you want me to do?” Regani asked.

“The right thing, of course. Cooperate. And when the Feds raid your place, you’ll have one extra box of records in the house.” Crotty smiled as he thought of his special box of records behind his bookshelf, the cooked books from the business. As far as Crotty knew, the Partner had no idea about the second set. Crotty needed it that way, too. “Keep it in your garage, to the left of your wife’s Jaguar. Throw a sheet over it so it doesn’t look obvious. Then act pissed off when it’s discovered.”

“And what does your business partner think about these revelations?”

“There won’t be a partner much longer,” Crotty said. “Everything in those records points at them. Before the Partner figures out what happened, they’ll be in a cell just like you.”

“I have to say, Crotty, you are the coldest excuse for a human being I’ve ever met.”

“I do what needs to be done.” He removed a chain of rosary beads from his pocket. Crotty rubbed the two largest beads together. The smaller plastic spheres clicked as they slipped around in his hand.

“What if I say no?” said Regani.

“That’s your right,” Crotty said. “This is America, after all. Every choice has a price. Keep in mind that an attractive woman like your wife commands a healthy sum on the open market. Four hundred a fuck works for me. Maybe more if she gets that second face-lift she saw her surgeon about last week. See, that way, no matter what happens to you, the debts are paid. Of course, it might take years. Hope she earns out soon. I just might have to enlist your daughters, too, when they’re old enough.”

Surprise resonated in Regani’s voice. Obviously beaten, he asked, “How do I get these records?”

“An associate has already placed the box inside your trunk. In your haste, you left the car unlocked. Forget about pulling over and tossing those files. You’re being followed. Drive straight home, and leave the garage open as you unload it.”

Regani grumbled about his shabby treatment, but the deal was done.

That was how Crotty did business. On his terms, in his way. Poor Regani never got a pawn on the board.

Everything he had done, including killing David St. John, brought Crotty closer to his dream. He was taking the company to the next level. He was closer to getting away with his girlfriend. Leaving Regani to squirm in the stall, and the Partner poised for jail, the question now was whether Mike Brody was ready.

And Crotty rather hoped Mike was. Crotty had arranged a special offer for him.

12:03:31 PM

Jessica typed briskly in the room so she would not miss lunch. She suspected Andy wanted food much more than he wanted to watch her work. Sensitive to his pleas, she bribed him with a brand-new video game, kept hidden until just such occasions.

As Mike had asked, she forwarded a copy of Shad’s call-activity report to his business e-mail account. Calls about Better Days, LLC she tabled until after the meal, before the afternoon ride. She owed Lisbeth a picture analysis first; it would only take a minute.

She saved the photos of the dead man to her hard drive, composing a new message to her contact at NASA, rather than forwarding the existing one. No sense in unintentionally introducing two strangers.

Jessica only mentioned that the work could prove crucial to a developing investigation. She digitally signed the e-mail so the receiver would know it was really her, and sent off the images.

To court and encourage sources, she flattered them in print. People liked looking good. She had no qualms about doing this. However, some sources could not reveal themselves publicly. So where they preferred to remain anonymous, she honored their wishes. But Jessica never concealed sources through ambiguous titles like a “senior administration official” or “an investigator close to the case.” Facts and sources went on record or they were reported as rumors and allegations, if at all. She would not be a pawn in some backroom game. Too often inside tips came from people with hidden agendas.

So for those sources that refused to be named, she treated the information as an attorney considered privileged discussions. Details gathered in confidence remained private, and never appeared in print.

A knock at the door. She shut the laptop lid, which suspended all functions and locked the machine. Reviving the computer from its hibernation state took a password.

Chappy waited outside with a handcart, a sealed envelope, and a yellow rose. Two cases of water balanced on the base of the handcart. “Erich said to bring this to you ASAP.”

“Thanks. And don’t worry,” Jessica said, “I won’t miss lunch.”

Chappy stacked the water cases next to her bureau. “I have to get back to the kitchen. I’ll keep a plate warm for you two.”

The small card inside the envelope read:

Jessica,

May you never thirst at the Pine Woods Ranch.

Erich

Red roses suggested passion, white ones, purity. Now a yellow rose, that was clever. That said just what she could handle: friendship. Nothing untoward about that sentiment. And the gift of water made her laugh. Erich broke through her defenses without being pushy. For Jessica, such subtlety was a lost art.

At the front desk she requested a slender vase. They did not have one, so she used a water bottle. A quick clip with her pocketknife made the stem the proper length. She added an inch of water and placed the rose at the corner of the makeshift desk.

“Why did he send you flowers anyway?” Andy asked.

“He just wanted to be nice,” Jessica said.

“Dad is nice.” Andy sounded defensive, almost hostile.

“Ready for lunch?”

Since she planned on tackling the Better Days, LLC situation before the afternoon ride, she decided to leave the laptop in the room instead of walking it back to the main building and storing it in the safe. After all, the machine was useless without her password and she would only be gone thirty minutes.

Jessica locked the door.

She checked it twice.

01:13:26 PM

A man could learn much about survival and self-reliance from a few days in the desert. That’s what Mike thought about as he and Dagget trudged to the crest, watching for the sign. Given a choice between warm and cold-weather searches, Mike preferred winter. Tracking was simpler over a layer of fine, fresh snow. White powder made spotting marks easier, and a shallow dusting supported cutting the tracks over great distances. Also, during winter the lines dividing a day became less pronounced. With the right combination of moonlight and snow, searchers might continue from dusk through dawn, uninterrupted by the cycling of the sun. Mike relished rundowns like that.

There were technical advantages to the cold, too. Thermal-imaging equipment, like FLIR, functioned best in searches where gaps between body heat and the temperature of whatever surrounded that body existed. The more pronounced the gap, the more striking the image appeared on the screen, and the easier identifying an out-of-place heat source became.

And he believed in one more advantage of the winter without a doubt: low temperatures boosted his visual acuity. Though he could not prove it, Mike was certain that in the cold, he saw farther, clearer.

Yes, the summer had definite benefits to others: vacations, beaches, and glistening hard bodies in the sun—all pleasures unknown to Mike. The lion’s share of his sports-outfitting business landed squarely in the summer. Thanks to a stable North American and Western European customer base, the priciest and most sought-after packages launched in July. While others vacationed, he worked.

A sudden shift in the wind unsettled him.

The choppy breeze hinted of a possible storm. A thin ring around the moon toward the latter half of the last evening was another warning. That might have meant nothing at all, but the old superstition about a ringed moon forecasting bad weather was often true. What the phenomena proved to Mike was the existence of ice in the atmosphere. A patch of ice crystals at great elevations refracted the light in a similar way, and produced the illusion of a thin circle around the moon. He was moved neither by the legend nor by the armchair interpretation. Regardless, the shift in the wind held his attention. He decided to keep an eye out for cirrus clouds. The thin and wispy streaks often signaled an approaching storm front.