The Trophy Wife (18 page)

A cop, Mike thought. He could smell a cop as soon as one entered the room. So, Walter Childs had decided to play games. Well, he had a few games of his own.

Andrew drove back down to the city and went straight to Helen's office where they put their heads together over a pencil sketch of the roadhouse layout. Helen agreed immediately that the place would be simple to cover and she nodded while Hogan indicated where her men should be posted. “The guy is crazy,” Helen said, agreeing with Andrew's conclusion that there was no way the kidnapper could escape after he had taken the briefcase from the car. “He's just one more amateur.”

She folded the sketch and got two bottles of mineral water from the refrigerator while she explained the arrangements that had been made in the Cayman Islands. “You can buy a lot for a little down there. Folonari's cashier only cost us five hundred bucks.”

“What's he going to do for us?” Andrew asked.

“He'll tip us off when someone comes to pick up that account. We told him to handle it just as he always does. All he has to do is nod to our guy in the lobby. He'll follow the courier outside. That will give us two men in the street and one in a parked car.”

“Suppose the courier tries to phone someone from inside the bank?”

“If he tries to use a cell phone, the cashier will stop him with some bull about fouling up the bank wireless system and offer him the desk phone. If he uses it, or any other internal phone, we'll have the number that he calls before he leaves the building.”

Andrew leaned back in his chair, his hands joined behind his head.

“Sounds like you've covered all the angles.”

“All the ones that we know about,” Helen said. “But there's always the angle that we haven't though of. Like maybe we have this thing totally wrong. Maybe the most obvious suspect is one of the people in your department who spends all his time trying to figure out how to rob the bank. Maybe one of your spooks is the kidnapper.”

“Or maybe it's me,” Andrew offered. He waited a second enjoying the poor job she was doing of feigning shock.

“Andrew, for God's sake,” she protested.

He laughed. “What pisses me off is that you didn't assign your best man to me. What is it? Do you think I'm slipping? That beauty school queen you have following me couldn't be more obvious.”

Helen tried to control her expression, but her face cracked and she exploded into laughter. “What am I supposed to do? You know all my best people. Half of them came with your recommendation.”

Hogan agreed. Then he asked, “So what do you think? Am I guilty?”

“I think you wish to hell this was your play. I think nothing would give you greater joy than to take down all those stuffed shirts at InterBank.”

“And if I was behind it, would you turn me in?”

“Absolutely,” Helen answered. “Unless you let me in on the action. I wouldn't mind taking them down a peg or two myself.”

“What's wrong with us?” Andrew asked.

“I think maybe we both feel that we've missed out on a lot of the fun.”

“Why? We both wanted to be cops. We're both doing exactly what we wanted to do.”

Helen agreed. “When I was younger, I wanted to fix the world. Now, I just want to live in it. Does that make any sense?”

“I don't remember that I ever wanted to fix the world.”

She laughed and took a long drink from the bottled water.

“What's so funny?” Hogan demanded. “You think I was idealistic?”

She nodded. “Oh, yeah. Somewhere, I still have the draft of the speech you gave at my graduation. Public service was the highest calling and there was no greater service than assuring the public safety.”

“Did I really say that?

“You certainly did. But lots of people
say
it. You
believed
it.”

He paused, remembering his own words. “What an ass I must have been.”

“No, I thought it was the most noble ambition. Until you put it ahead of me.”

He patted the back of her damaged hand. “I was an ass.”

The phone rang with a call for Helen. She had it patched into the conference room and was about to speak when she was overwhelmed by a torrent of words from the caller. As she listened, she mouthed “Amanda Childs” to Andrew.

“Amanda, are you sure?” Helen asked at her first opportunity. She listened patiently, rolling her eyes in Andrew's direction. “I don't think you should jump to conclusions. You can't be sure what any of this means.” More talk came from the other end of the line. “Amanda, why don't you leave this up to me. I'm sure I can get answers much more quickly than you can. And you can keep going through your mother's records. That way, we won't be duplicating our efforts.” She nodded several times at the voice on the other end and then concluded with, “Okay, I'll get back to you tonight.”

“What's happening?” Hogan asked as soon as Helen was able to disconnect from the telephone.

“Amanda found some of her mother's correspondence. She says that Bill Leary, her mother's tennis coach, was blackmailing her mother. She claims her mother told Leary she was done paying only a month ago.”

“Now that's a new wrinkle. But it's possible. No one knew better than Leary that Emily was cheating on her husband. He would have assumed that she would have paid quite a bit to keep her husband from finding out.”

Helen agreed, adding, “What he wouldn't have realized is that Emily already had the goods on her husband. She didn't have to worry about blackmail.”

“She did if she had plans of taking all of the adulterous husband's money.” Andrew reminded her. “Innocent wives get more than the ones who are cheating themselves. What do you think? Do you believe her?”

Helen shrugged. “I haven't seen the correspondence. But Amanda certainly believes it. She was on her way to confront
the great sportsman. I think I convinced her that wasn't a very good idea.”

Angela Hilliard was in Boca Raton, sitting in a circle of men that surrounded the huge desk of one of her more important clients. He was a Cuban who had fled Castro more than forty years ago, taking $30 million out of the country. InterBank had helped him turn the loot into a company that manufactured communications equipment.

Most of the discussion had been between Angela and the gray-haired patriarch. The other men, all younger and a generation removed from their homeland, had sat in respectful silence, speaking only when spoken to.

Angela tapped the results of the meeting into her computer, which was connected to a high-speed data port at the back of her host's telephone. Instantly, a new and larger line of credit was established in InterBank's central files, along with authorization for her client to issue offshore letters of credit against the line. Then she scheduled a visit by the bank's economists to provide a briefing on economic changes occurring in Central America. Finally, she booked Broadway theater tickets for her client's upcoming visit to New York. By the time she disconnected, there were smiles all around the room.

She took her time packing her things, allowing each of the younger men to find a reason to withdraw from the meeting. When she was alone with the president, Angela got down to the most important part of her agenda.

“Roberto, could I possibly enlist your help on a personal matter?” He spread his hands in a gesture of openness. She had only to ask. “One of my associates,” she went on, “has a rather substantial loan opportunity with a company in the Caymans. I'm afraid that he may be getting himself into an embarrassing position.”

The suntanned face broke into a wide smile. “And you want me to investigate?”

“No, actually I'd like to look into it myself. But I don't want it to appear that anyone at the bank is concerned about
this deal. I've allowed myself a few days and I was hoping that you might know an inconspicuous way for me to get into Grand Cayman.”

Roberto's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but they danced with the laughter that was already showing in his smile. “Bank business?” he asked, and then with a lecturing wave of his finger, “Or monkey business?”

She joined his laughter. “Strictly bank business, I'm sorry to say.”

He was immediately serious. “There's a charter flight company that we use …”

“Oh, no! That would be expensive.”

He waved away the suggestion that anything could be too expensive. “My car will take you over to the executive airport. The plane will be waiting for you.” Then he added cautiously, “Do you need documents … a passport… ?”

“No, nothing like that. It's just that if I'm correct, someone could be watching the airport.”

“Where will you stay?” he asked as he picked up his phone to make the arrangements. Her embarrassed look told him that she was hoping for help in that area, as well. “So,” he announced decisively, “you will be staying at the West Beach town houses. We keep an apartment there.”

Angela pretended to be overwhelmed. But she had been counting on the private plane and the anonymous rooms at the town houses. She knew they existed. Long before the meeting, she had found the expenses for both of them in her client's books.

When she pulled out of the office complex in the dark-windowed limousine, she caught a glimpse of the man in the wire-rimmed glasses who had followed her to the airport and into the first-class compartment. He was sitting in a sweltering taxi, fanning himself with a newspaper as he waited for a cab to carry her out through the gate. Angela smiled at his inevitable confusion when the building shut down for the night with her apparently still inside.

As Roberto had promised, the twin-engine turboprop was
starting its engines when the limo pulled alongside. Five minutes later, she was climbing out over the coastline.

Mike hovered over Emily, his ivory smile only inches from her face. “Your husband must figure he can do a lot better than you,” he tormented. “Because he went to the police. I set a little trap for him at a place where I couldn't miss him. And guess what? He had the place crawlin' with cops.”

She tried not to look into his eyes, nor to notice the scissors that he held close to her face. She settled for his unshaven chin, and for the lips that he curled into a snarl at the end of every sentence. The guy was madly in love with himself. She knew that the only thing saving her was that he felt he had played her husband for a fool and was milking his moment of triumph.

She had spent the day working to free the handcuffs from the headboard, frustrated that it was taking her so long. She knew that she could shatter the wooden framework if she could just slide the bed close to the stairs and then bang it against the wall. Be she had to work secretly, so she had been limited to rocking the crossbar back and forth, waiting for the joints to wear out. It was exhausting work. As the day went on, her work periods became shorter as her need for rest grew greater.

She had just cleaned up the film of yellow sawdust and had been stretching her shoulders in the bed when she had heard the bolt snap open. Rita, she had thought, until she heard the footsteps. It was Mike and he was coming down quickly. Emily had been thankful that he hadn't caught her working behind the bed. But when she had seen the sick smile, and recognized the scissors in his hand, she knew that there was little reason for thanks.

“I told him what was going to happen if he tried anything funny. I told him I was going to sell you into a drug dealer's whorehouse. And you know what? He didn't care. Am I right, Emily? Would he rather have you turnin' tricks for an army of wetbacks than part with a little of his money?”

She had been lulled by his calm, pleasant voice, so she
was shocked when he was suddenly screaming into her face. “Am I right? Answer me, bitch? Does he care more for his money than he does for your ass?”

“No,” she said weakly. She couldn't hide her fright with the scissors now pressed to her throat.

His temper seemed to settle. “Then you figure he'll pay me?” he asked.

“Yes, yes,” she promised him. “He'll pay you. He'll do whatever you say.”

Mike seemed satisfied with the answer. He nodded thoughtfully, then stood and walked away from the bed. But after a few steps, he turned back toward her. “You know what? I don't think he's takin' me serious. I'll bet the bastard figures that he's dealin' with some low-life punk who's just blowin' air.”

Emily was confused. She didn't know where he was leading.

“So I have to figure out some way to get it across to him. I have to convince him that I can get pretty nasty when people cross me. What I need you to do is help me send him some-thin' that will prove I really mean business. Will you help me do that, Emily?”

She could only stare at him. She was too frightened to speak, her tongue too dry to make a sound.

Mike snipped the scissors in midair. “How about lendin' me one of your ears? Or maybe your nose. When it falls out of the envelope and lands in his lap, I'll bet he starts takin' me seriously.”

Emily shook her head violently. Her eyes were nearly insane.

He snipped the scissors a few more times. “No? Well, what else? Maybe a finger. Or a coupla toes?”

“Please,” Emily managed in a cracking voice. “Don't hurt me?”

“I know,” he said. “Somethin' he'll certainly recognize.” He stepped quickly back to the bed, lifted one of the buttons from the nightgown, and cut it off. He reached for the second button. Her scream was piercing.

Mike's smile spread wide on one side of his face. “Hey, wouldn't it be great if he could hear you screamin' while I'm cuttin' you up. Then he'd really have to pay attention, wouldn't he.”

“Oh, God, please don't hurt me.”

Mike stood up and made a show out of closing the scissors. “Tell you what. We'll let your bastard of a husband play his little game tonight. Then, tomorrow, we'll make a new tape for him. Somethin' he can listen to while he's examinin' pieces of you.”