Thief (8 page)

“I don't know what I'd do to deserve that,” Robin choked. “Balance.”

She took the boy's left hand in hers, saying, “It doesn't matter what you deserve at this moment. You just have to be willing to try to head down the right path. If you do, I promise you that God will show you the way.”

*   *   *

At one point during that long night, Monarch roused and saw Sister Rachel there sleeping in the chair by his bed. The sight of her keeping watch over him was enough to eliminate any anxiety on his part, and he'd fallen back into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When he awoke again it was broad daylight, and he was surprised to see that Sister Rachel had left and Gloria Barnett had taken her place in the chair.

“You're an early bird,” he said.

“I just wanted to say Merry Christmas before I left,” Barnett said. “I promised my brother I'd make an appearance this year.”

“Have fun,” Monarch said, feeling the cobwebs clear. “That crazy aunt of yours going to be there?”

“I've been assured Aunt Lilly is banned from the time zone,” Barnett said.

Monarch reached over and pressed the bed control to raise him more upright. He still felt weak, but also cleaner somehow, as if the poisons had drained during the night.

“What exotic locale will I be calling after you leave your brother's place?” he asked.

“I'm thinking Fiji,” Barnett said.

Barnett had a condo in Boston, but was rarely there; she preferred to spend her time off at luxury spas in lush tropical settings.

“Enjoy,” he said when she got up.

“As much as one can in Mobile, Alabama.”

“Drink heavily.”

Barnett laughed as she moved toward the door, said, “That's a thought.”

When she'd gone, Monarch was left to the silence. He gingerly palpated the area around his wound, and was relieved to find that the pain had ebbed to a low throb. He
was
healing.

Sister Rachel came in then and fussed around him, checking his vitals.

“You're getting stronger,” she said. “And no sign of infection now.”

“That's good.”

“It is good,” she said, and then put her hand on his arm. “I have a present for you.”

“Isn't that supposed to be tomorrow?”

“I tried to have them wait until then, but they insisted.”

“They?”

The missionary doctor lifted her head, called out, “You can come in now.”

Monarch was surprised when fifteen of the orphans came trooping into his room, and formed a semicircle around the foot of his bed. He recognized two of the kids right off, Juan and Antonio, boys he'd brought to Sister Rachel nearly two years before. Both of them had grown several inches and put on twenty pounds. They grinned at him.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Your Christmas concert, Senor Robin,” Juan said.

The orphans broke into “Feliz Navidad” and made Monarch beam with delight. Their version of “Silent Night” nearly broke his heart. And when they finished with “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in Spanish he laughed so hard he thought he was going to bust a stitch.

“You like it, Robin?” Antonio asked as Monarch clapped.

He looked at Sister Rachel and then back at the children, said, “I think that may be the best Christmas present I've ever gotten.”

 

11

TWELVE OAKS

NORTH OF NEW ORLEANS

CHRISTMAS EVE MORNING CAME
cold and clear. A steady northerly breeze was blowing when seven mallard ducks set their wings and floated in through the canopy of the flooded oaks on the backside of Beau Arsenault's sprawling plantation. The mogul crouched in the water against the base of a big tree, his black Labrador, Malthus, beside him shivering with anticipation.

“Take 'em now,” he growled.

Arsenault's son-in-law and his eleven-year-old grandson raised their shotguns and fired. His son-in-law missed twice. The boy dropped one mallard drake and missed the second.

The billionaire threw his Benelli autoloader to his shoulder, thought about the goddamned thief who ripped him off for twenty million to give to fucking poor orphans, and imagined the man was each and every one of the other ducks. He blew three out of the sky with three shots. The birds plummeted, splashed out in the decoys.

“Malthus, fetch,” Arsenault said, satisfied. “Fetch 'em up.”

The dog exploded off the stand and swam toward the fallen birds.

“Nice shooting, Beau,” his son-in-law said.

“Nothing you couldn't do with a little more practice, Peter. I'm thinking your boy there is a better shot than you.”

Peter was in his mid-thirties and shot his father-in-law a withering glance, muttered, “Always something.”

“We limit out, Big Beau?” asked his grandson, who was shivering.

“You cold, Little Beau?”

“My toes some,” the boy admitted.

“Yeah, you and I are done,” he said. “Your daddy's still got three left.”

“I'll wait,” his grandson said.

“Nonsense,” the mogul said. “I'll take you in, and your daddy can come back in with Cecil and Hank. Get you some of Big Mama's hot, spiced cider. That good with you, Peter?”

“I'm done,” his son-in-law said.

“Nonsense,” Arsenault said. “You finish up. Hear?”

Peter's jaw set, as if he were going to argue, but the mogul beat him to the punch, saying, “I'll leave you another box of fours in case you run out.”

He turned to end the discussion, glanced at the two African American men in hunting gear sitting in one of two green johnboats floating back there behind them forty yards. “Cecil, you call for Mr. Peter, here? When he's limited out, you pull the set, make sure Malthus is dried and fed, and then you go looking for a place we can hunt day after tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Beau,” Cecil said.

“When you get back, you come up to the house, Miss Louisa's got something for you and your families for Christmas.”

Both men smiled, and Cecil climbed out of the boat to help Arsenault and his grandson case their guns. Then the mogul hoisted Little Beau into the other johnboat, and climbed in after him. He pulled the anchor, started the outboard, and swung them away toward the slough bottom and the bayou. As he did, the bow crossed the image of his son-in-law glaring at him.

Arsenault nodded to him, thinking,
It'll do the little Jewish prick some good to understand he's still just a pussy.

Peter Solomon was everything the billionaire didn't like in a man. He was liberal, an academic, and the outdoors made him uncomfortable. Worse, his income was a joke. He made a little over sixty grand a year as a history professor at Northwestern, far from enough to support his oldest daughter and his oldest grandson in the style an Arsenault should expect.

But Sophia loved Peter, so the mogul had set up a trust that kicked them an extra three hundred K a year. Funny how feeding a man, clothing a man, putting a roof over a man's head day after day, year after year makes him beholden, submissive, willing to stand in freezing cold water for hours on end if his benefactor says so.

Arsenault chuckled.

Then he thought about his interlude with Cassie Knox the afternoon before, how her cocoa buns had looked when he'd been behind her and—

“Big Beau?” his grandson yelled over the drone of the outboard. He was sitting up front, looking back. They'd reached the bayou's main channel.

“What's that?” Arsenault replied, turning them south.

“Santa coming tonight?”

“You know he is. Packing his sleigh right now.”

Little Beau looked concerned. “I can't figure out how he lands that sleigh of his down south with no snow.”

Understanding he was now navigating tricky waters, Arsenault hesitated before saying, “Teflon runners. They're nonskid. Land and slide on anything.”

“Oh,” his grandson said, before turning to face the front.

The mogul smiled as he rounded a bend in the bayou and saw the plantation home he and Louisa had built after Katrina destroyed the old one. Though barely two years old, Twelve Oaks looked like it had been put together in the mid-eighteen hundreds, with a long low veranda facing the water and upper balconies with iron railings that wrapped the entire second floor of the mansion. In the windows, Christmas lights and candles glowed. Louisa loved the holidays and spared no expense decorating. Ever.

He pulled up to the dock, threw the lines to Little Beau, and made sure his knots were sound. Then he carried the guns and walked with the boy up the slight grade to a smaller structure known as the “shooting house.”

“You keep practicing, Grandpa will take you down to Argentina next year,” Arsenault said. “See ducks by the thousands.”

“That true?” Little Beau said.

“Swear on my mama's grave,” the mogul said.

“Dad come?”

Arsenault hesitated, but then thought of his son-in-law forced to be outside in a duck blind for six or seven days, and said, “Sure, he can come if he can get away from the classroom.”

They went into the shooting house and sat before lockers just off the main room that featured trophies Arsenault had taken over a lifetime of hunting around the world. He and his grandson stripped out of the heavy jackets and muddy waders, set them out for Cecil and Hank to scrub and dry, and put the guns in the rack for Cecil and Hank to clean and oil. They took hot showers and got dressed in dry clothes, and walked together across the lawn to the main house.

There was a small army of cooks working in the kitchen under the watchful eye of his wife who was drinking coffee with their daughter, Sophia.

“Mom, I limited out!” Little Beau cried.

Arsenault's daughter smiled and threw her arms wide. Sophia had his wife's dark, timeless beauty, the kind that could
easily
have attracted a man with much deeper pockets. But the mogul threw away that thought and said, “You'd a been proud of how the boy handled that gun, sight better than his daddy.”

His daughter held Little Beau, asked, “Where is Dad?”

“Still out in the timber,” her son said.

“Wanted to fill his limit,” Arsenault said. “Be back with Cecil and Hank.”

“You're cruel, you know that, Dad?” Sophia said.

“What are you talking about?” the mogul said, suppressing a smile. “Peter only gets out once or twice a year.”

“Big Beau said I keep practicing he'll take me to Argentina next year,” his grandson said. “Dad, too.”

“Oh, Dad'll love that,” Sophia said, rolling her eyes.

Wanting to change the subject, Arsenault looked to his wife, said, “I think Little Beau's got his heart set on some of your hot spiced cider, Big Mama.”

His wife looked to one of the cooks, who nodded.

“When's everybody else getting in?” the mogul asked.

“Saunders called. He's on his way from the airport,” Louisa said. “Everyone else is still flying, figuring to be here midafternoon or so.”

“I've got a few things to finish up in my office before then.”

His wife hardened. “It's Christmas Eve, Ebenezer.”

“Just got to finish up a few things in the counting house,” he replied.

Arsenault started out of the kitchen, but stopped close to Louisa, leaned over, and said quietly, “Cecil and Hank are coming up for their Christmas bonus. You put a thousand in a card for each of them? Throw in a spiral ham?”

“That too much?” she asked.

“Those boys work hard,” he said. “Put us on a great hunt this morning.”

She shrugged. “Your money.”

“Yeah, it is,” he said. “Tell Saunders to come straight up to see me soon as he gets in?”

His wife nodded, but she was watching the cook set a piping mug before her grandson.

“There,” Louisa said. “Big Mama's spiced cider. Just like you like it.”

Arsenault left the kitchen, wandered through the gorgeously decorated house, wondering how his wife had managed to pull it all off in such short order. Then again that woman was a force of nature.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor, went to his home office, and shut the door. Going to his computer, the mogul called up an e-mail account, and a file marked “Future Ideas.”

Arsenault believed that the smart man never rested on his laurels, and therefore never got fat and lazy. To that end, he had a slew of sources, some paid in cash, others in favors, who pushed the billionaire the most up-to-date information possible about every conceivable investment opportunity. He read through the file nearly every day, evaluating the latest private intelligence reports, the most recent secret corporate developments, and other insider tips he could use to improve his bottom line. Sadly, there weren't many new e-mails in the file today, and all of them sounded like shitty deals to him.

He was closing down his computer when a knock came at the door. Billy Saunders, his security chief, came in, said, “Merry Christmas, Beau. You want your present now or in the morning?”

Arsenault grinned. “You got him?”

“That's why I flew down. I wanted to talk to you about this face-to-face.”

Arsenault sobered, focused.

Saunders said, “I didn't get much, but I know who he is. Or who he used to be anyway. Army Special Forces, then CIA for eight years, black ops, stealing state secrets, that kind of stuff. But he resigned and disappeared three years ago. His name is—”

“Robin Monarch,” the billionaire said in shock.

Saunders's head retreated. “You know him?”

“I know
of
him,” Arsenault said, becoming angry with himself.

“How?”

The mogul didn't tell his security man everything. That just wouldn't do. There were certain actions he kept to himself, and would continue to keep secret. He gave Saunders the heavily edited version.