Wolf in the Shadows (11 page)

“What were the terms?”

“Merely upon presentation of the L.C.”

I said to Renshaw, “I’d like a copy of the L.C.”

“I’ll fax one to you in San Diego.”

I looked back at Diane Mourning, studying her more carefully. Was she actually as cold as she came across, or had she put
her emotions on hold? Was she focused on the financial issue to the exclusion of the larger, human issue, or had she used
it to divert her attention from the probability that her husband had suffered a horrible death?

Mourning was also studying me, her gaze skimming over my face as if she were speed-reading it. After a moment she leaned forward,
cupping her hands in front of her; her fingernails were bitten to the quick and made her look vulnerable, but I wondered if
the cause of the biting had been fear for her husband or for her company.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said to me. “I know how I must sound. Timothy’s kidnapping is a personal tragedy, but there’s
nothing I can do about it. All I can do is prevent it from becoming a tragedy for the labs as well. In a way, that’s the only
thing I
can
do for Timothy—protect the company he built. I can’t let all his years of sacrifice go for nothing.”

Renshaw snorted derisively.

Mourning turned to him, suddenly furious. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Gage?”

“Pardon me for saying so, but you and Tim live a little high to support this self-sacrificial rhetoric. You may have given
up the condo in the city and the beach house, but this place isn’t exactly chopped liver.”

“For your information, this house, along with everything in it, is borrowed from one of our venture capitalists who chooses
to live elsewhere. The cars? They’re leased by the company. If you want you can examine the labels in my clothes—they came
from the Emporium. Frankly, Gage, we lost everything when the speculative bubble burst. We don’t have a pot to pee in.”

He held up his hands in a placating gesture.

Quickly I said, “Let’s talk about the kidnappers for a moment. You’re reasonably convinced they were members of a radical
animal-rights group?”

She nodded, but not before she gave Renshaw a last hard look. “Eco-terrorists, your Mr. Ripinsky called them—before he took
off with our letter of credit.”

“It couldn’t have been someone using the environmental issue as a cover? A disgruntled employee, for instance?”

“As far as I know, our people are happy. For the most part they’re young, very challenged, and learning as they go. There’s
a critical shortage of skilled workers for the biotech industry in the Bay Area, so Phoenix has hired and trained promising
college graduates.”

“What about personal enemies?”

“I’ve been over all this with Gage. Timothy and I have none.”

“Well, that about does it.” I checked my watch. “It’s time I got back to the city.”

Renshaw stood, looking glad to get out of there. “She’ll report to me periodically, Diane, and I’ll keep you informed.”

Mourning nodded, still angry. Her nod to me was only a shade more cordial. As we left the room, she curled in a corner of
the couch again—poised to strike, should she find a suitable target.

Renshaw said, “She’s full of shit, you know.”

We were in the driveway of the Mourning house, leaning against his car—a green Ford that was as disreputable as his tie.
I said, “People have different ways of handling their grief.”

“I’m not talking about whether she’s hurting or not. That’s her business. But this crap about Tim being self-sacrificing …
I knew Mourning fairly well. The guy loved to spend. They didn’t lose their money when the biotech market went flat; Tim piddled
it away on boats, cars, an expensive wine cellar.”

“So maybe Diane’s trying to sanitize his memory.”

Renshaw brushed his white forelock off his brow and glared at me. “You know, you have a very naive streak.”

“I call it an open mind.”

“Whatever.”

“I want to ask you about something you mentioned earlier today. There was some speculation before the kidnappers made contact
that Mourning planned his disappearance?”

“Right.”

“On whose part?”

“Mine. Kessell’s.”

“Why?”

He looked around before speaking in a lowered voice. “Mourning is one of those people who always have to be on the cutting
edge. You know the type: If this was the old days, he’d be an explorer on the western frontier. If it was the sixties, he’d
be beating down the door to get into the space program. In the eighties, there was biotech—tailor-made for Tim. But biotech’s
practically establishment now; as Diane said, the bubble’s burst, and Tim’s looking at years and years of hard work. From
talks I had with him, I got the feeling he was ready to move on to some other frontier, but I didn’t get the feeling he’d
be taking Diane with him.”

“The marriage was in trouble?”

“They didn’t spend a lot of time together, they didn’t have much in common, and Tim always spoke of ‘I,’ rather than ‘we.’
”

“You think he might have set the kidnapping up?”

“It’s a possibility, one way he could get away with plenty of cash.”

“But you saw the photo the kidnappers sent—Mourning was one terrified man, and he wasn’t acting, either.”

“So something went wrong. His co-conspirators turned on him.”

“That doesn’t explain Ripinsky being missing. Or the L.C. not being drawn on.”

“I tell you Ripinsky’s got it and is holding off, figuring we’ll eventually ease up on our surveillance and he can slip it
through.”

“You really think he’s that stupid?”

Renshaw folded his arms across his chest and stared up at the trees for a moment. “If I look at it logically, no, but … You
strike me as someone who works on instinct. Your impressions of the people you’re dealing with meld with the facts you’re
presented. Sometimes your conclusions aren’t strictly logical, but they feel right. And nine times out of ten they turn out
to
be
right.”

“And the tenth time they’re wrong because you’ve shaped them to fit what you want to believe.”

“Playing devil’s advocate, are we? Well, this is
not
the tenth time. Mourning’s dead, Ripinsky’s got the L.C., and you’re going to find him for me.”

So much for instinct, I thought.

Renshaw asked, “When did you say you plan to fly down to San Diego?”

“I’ve got a reservation on USAir’s eight o’clock flight. If I don’t make it, there’s another every hour.”

“Well, I’ll fax you a copy of the L.C. in time so you get it when you check into the Bali Kai. You renting a car down there?”

“Avis.”

“Have a safe flight. Success.” He gave me a mock-military salute and went back to the house.

As I started the MG I smiled wryly. God, Renshaw could be transparent. He didn’t fully trust me, and I was willing to bet
that he was on the phone right now, arranging for surveillance on me all the way from my house to San Diego’s Hotel Circle.

Well, that was okay. When I wanted to shake them, I knew how to do it.

*    *    *

I was packing my weekend bag when the doorbell rang. At first I ignored it, but when it rang again I realized it was obvious
I was home because my car sat in the driveway. Dammit, I thought, I’ll never make my flight at this rate! Then I went to answer
it.

Mike Tobias, clutching a fistful of pink carnations. Now, what on earth? Surely Rae hadn’t already begun to spread the rumor
I’d come down sick.

“A present,” Mike said, “to make up for my remarks at the meeting yesterday.” He thrust the flowers into my hands.

First Gloria, now him. Part of the same scheme that had brought her to my office earlier, or a contingency plan because she
had failed to win me over? Who would they decide to send next? Not Hank—he couldn’t fool me, and they knew it. Larry, to
soothe me with herbal tea? Pam, to enlist me in the name of sisterhood? Why not summon Jack Stuart back from whatever wilderness
he’d fled to to lick his wounds? Surely he was carrying around enough psychic pain to make my heart bleed.

I didn’t have time to waste on this nonsense, though, so I decided to play into Mike’s scenario and get rid of him. “Mike,
thanks. You didn’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I did. I treated you shabbily. Please say you’ll accept the promotion; All Souls wouldn’t be the same without you.”

Gloria’s failure notwithstanding, they were holding to the take-it-or-leave-it policy. “As I told you all at the partners’
meeting, I’ll consider the offer very seriously.” It was obvious he was waiting for an invitation to come inside, so I added,
“Look, we’ll talk more, but right now I’ve got somebody …” and motioned at the hall behind me.

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt your evening. Anyway, you keep thinking on it.”

“I will, Mike. And thanks again for the flowers.”

He nodded and went down the steps, stuffing his hands deep in the pockets of his 49ers jacket.

I took the carnations to the kitchen and put them in a vase, taped a note to it telling Rae to take them home and enjoy them.
Then I hurried to the bedroom and finished packing my bag and a big oversized purse that I seldom used. It was seven-oh-seven.
Maybe, just maybe, I’d make my eight o’clock flight.

*    *    *

The flight was crowded, and my bag didn’t want to go into the overhead bin. Finally I squeezed it between two others that
were well over the regulation size for carryons, nearly falling into the laps of the two people who occupied the window and
center seats next to mine. Mumbling my apologies, I sat down. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and let the familiar predeparture
bustle lull me.

I’d seen no evidence of surveillance on me at the airport, but that didn’t mean much. RKI’s people would be good, very difficult
to spot. Or the surveillance might not begin until San Diego. Renshaw didn’t trust me, but he’d probably assume I’d play straight
with them until I had a concrete lead to Hy. His people would keep their distance until I made a move.

God, I thought, the world that people like Renshaw operated in was a strange one—full of paranoia, suspicion, distrust. I’d
come up against a fair amount of duplicity in my own world, but in his it seemed the accepted norm. Could he ever distinguish
his friends from his enemies? Probably not; this afternoon he and his own client had been at each other’s throats. Was he
ever able to let down his guard and confide in anyone? Perhaps his partner, Dan Kessell, but nobody else. And this was the
world that Hy had connections to, somewhere in that nine-year void….

It occurred to me now that my former boss, Bob Stern, could very well have been right: I might be playing with people who
were out of my league. If I made a mistake, it could prove fatal. But I had no choice—had I?

No, not if I cared for Hy. And I did care—more than I’d allowed myself to admit. Hard to commit your deepest feelings to
a man who wouldn’t entrust you with knowledge of his past. Hard to give of yourself when you feared you’d receive nothing
in return. Yet here I was—how had Bob put it?—riding to the rescue. No turning back now.

The plane lifted off, then began its southward turn over the Pacific. I reached under the seat in front of me and pulled the
file on the biotech industry that Renshaw had given me from my oversized purse. Leafed through it until I found a copy of
an
Image
magazine profile on the Mournings, and began to read.

They were originally from the Midwest—she, Wisconsin; he, Minnesota. They’d met and married while students at the University
of Wisconsin, then come to the Bay Area; she’d entered Stanford’s prestigious M.B.A. program, he’d gone to work as a biochemist
at Syntex, the pharmaceuticals giant. There had been lean times, when she was still in school and he and a partner left Syntex
to tinker with biotechnology. There had been in-between times, when she trained in finance under a high-powered San Francisco
venture capitalist—later one of the major investors in Phoenix Labs—and he began to get the infant firm off the ground.
There had been glitzy, high-flying times, when—so the article implied—they had dipped into the venture capital for personal
use; they’d owned a condo on Russian Hill, a beach house down south, a half ownership in a boutique winery in Alexander Valley.
And there had been lots and lots of lovers.

Both Mournings had been frank with the reporter about their earlier extramarital escapades. Too frank, I thought, and not
just because I was a private person where such matters were concerned. The reporter seemed to share my view; it came across
in the sneering undertone of his prose. Neither Diane nor Tim would have noticed that, I was sure. They struck me as narcissistic,
extroverted, certain that nothing they did could possibly be wrong or even in bad taste. A touch of the sociopathic personality
to this couple: if it feels good, I do it; if you don’t like it or if I hurt you, tough. As I held out my cup to the flight
attendant for more coffee, I felt vaguely uncomfortable. I set the cup down, rubbed my hands together as if brushing off dirt;
touching the copy of the article had made them feel unclean.

There were other puff pieces:
Fortune
magazine had named Timothy Mourning one of a hundred bright young individuals who had made a difference; Diane Mourning had
been profiled in the
Wall Street Journal
; they’d both been interviewed by
People
. The color photo in
People
showed them posed on the balcony of the Russian Hill condo they’d occupied until fourteen months ago, a typical trite cityscape
in the background. Diane wore a black caftan that was as severe as her facial expression, an elaborate hammered-silver and
turquoise necklace gleaming against the dark fabric. Tim wore jeans, a sweater, and the grin of a kid who is being photographed
by the small-town paper for raising the biggest pumpkin at the county fair. Again I marveled at what an unlikely pair they
were.

The flight attendants came along, collecting cups and glasses. The plane began its steep descent directly over the city of
San Diego to Lindbergh Field. I leaned forward, looked across my seatmates to the window, and saw the lights of home.