A Spill of Blood Ch. 05

"Okay, it's got the blue-on-gold style of plates, but I can't make out the number from here ... and now she's pulling away."

I abandoned my destination. If she was headed north, it was probably along the FDR. I scooted through a yellow and stayed on 96th, heading for it myself. I ducked through the underpass and onto the ramp leading up. Now I had the first part of a problem. There's no shoulder on the FDR. I couldn't just pull over, wait for her to pass, and pull out behind her. I got in the right lane and kept it as slow as I could, ignoring the glares from those swinging out around me.

The second part of the problem was that I was on a clock. There were two logical routes toward Albany and then on to the Adirondacks. You could cross the George Washington and head up through Jersey and back into New York. That's marginally the fastest. Or you could get on the Taconic and stay on the east side of the Hudson the whole way up. That's more scenic. I had half a mile to that decision point.

Fate did not smile. No silver Mercedes two-seater sped past me. I gambled on fastest. Ten miles past the bridge, toodling along Route 17 at fifty-five and still none. Nobody drives fifty-five on that road. She'd gone the other way. I called Murray. I got his voicemail ... because of course I did.

"It's gotta be today. Nikki's bolted and she has Beck's passports. I still don't want this official because maybe Beck gets a call warning him."

I kept going north, pushing it up to Jersey-normal eighty.

This was the gun guy, and the place was certainly filled with them. Them and a lot of animal parts stuck on the walls and keeping bare feet off cold floors. I'd expected him to be more dangerous than he was.

Maybe he was used to setting his sights on things that weren't hunting back. Yeah, a tiger or a cougar had claws and teeth, and in a stand-up fight, you'd come out as the in-the-wild version of a bowl of Meow Mix. But maybe Bwana Beck was the type who hunted from a protected blind or the back of a jeep. Or maybe from the back of a fucking elephant like some kind of maharajah with beaters and dogs.

Maybe he wasn't used to stepping outside for another carrier-full of logs to keep the wood stove going through the evening and turning back to the sight of a gun barrel leveled at him.

I hadn't driven up the road to his place. It was a quarter mile and sound carried. I'd hoofed it through the woods, moving slowly so that my ribs didn't complain. I'd watched through the window from the tree line until he'd gone to take a leak. He'd shut the door to do it. That was a mistake. There was no one there to have their modesty offended, and it was enough time for me to cross the yard and take up residence outside the mudroom. The little ell it formed with the house made a pocket invisible to those inside unless they craned out a window, and nobody was doing that on a chill October evening. Hunting from a blind.

"Don't," I said conversationally as his hand strayed toward the zipper of his coat. "I won't miss from this distance. Ask Gibson." He thought better of it. "Inside. It's chilly out here."

We stepped into the kitchen. I saw the shotgun resting beside the door, another visible through the arch, leaning against the arm of a couch.

"Over there." He moved. I picked up the nearer shotgun, intending to rack it empty one-handed, but my ribs disabused me of that notion. "Kneel and face the fridge." I could see his anxiety skyrocket. "Don't worry, I'm not going to shoot you in the back unless you move. Just do it!"

Setting my pistol within easy reach, I emptied the shotgun into the sink. Keeping him covered—and letting him see that so he didn't make a mistake—I moved into the living room and grabbed the other one, giving it the same treatment. Then I grabbed a wooden chair from the dining table and set it well away from any other furniture. You never know what is tucked into cushions.

I tossed one of those zip-tie disposable handcuffs at him. "Sit backwards. Hands through the back of the chair around the slat. Put that on and pull it tight with your teeth. If it's not tight when I come over there, I'm going to shoot you in the kneecap."

He did what I asked, moving slowly.

"Nice place," I said, taking in the big picture window that looked out over the darkening valley. I was doubly glad that, not only had I not driven up, I'd cut my lights a half mile back on the county road, partway up the driveway of what I guess passed for a neighbor out here. If I hadn't, he might have seen them winding along in the gathering darkness.

"So, Larry, we have a couple of things to talk about." He still hadn't said a word. I decided to start the conversation for him. "I know you're planning to take Nikki and run off to ... where exactly? We found the Rome itinerary. Is that where you were planning to camp out?"

He kept his mouth shut. I sighed.

"Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is I ask questions and you answer. The hard way is that I give you some of what you paid your guys to give me, and then I ask questions and you answer." My face was still rainbow colored. I saw him eye it. "Let's start with easy ones, ones that don't matter. Where were you running to?"

"Rome then the Balkans. Probably Montenegro."

"Sounds nice. I'm hazy on my geography. That have a nice coastline like Croatia?"

He nodded.

"Use your words, Larry."

"Yes."

"Ever been there?"

"Yes."

"Nice. Where's Nikki? I lost her on the way here."

He clammed up again.

"Come on, Larry. I don't have any interest in her. We're just making conversation for practice so that you get used to answering. Where's Nikki?"

His expression eased a fraction. "She's not here yet. She wanted something from her parents' house so she went there first."

I debated asking where that was, but I'd been telling the truth: I wasn't interested in Nikki right now.

"Well, hopefully, she'll take her time and not interrupt our little tête-à-tête. Enough chitchat. I have two questions. Where's the cash, and what's the account information for the rest of it?"

Our friendly banter took a nosedive.

"Fuck you."

"No, fuck you. You had those two fuckers beat me. You almost succeeded in having me killed. Any guesses on how I feel about you right now? 'Cause I'm not playing here. I gave Brady part of what he gave me. And when he didn't let that go, I put a bullet through his skull. I'd'a done the same to Santiago, but someone else got there first. Gibson, well, he'll have trouble running from anyone inside who wants him for a girlfriend."

I leaned a little closer, let him see the not-kidding dripping off my face.

"They were peons. You were the cause. So, your choice. Think about how much I can hurt you until you talk. And for what? Is money worth being a cripple? Hell, I bet if I search this place, I'll find the cash anyway."

The flicker told me I was right.

"I'll split it with you. You'd be a rich man," he said. "Half a million in cash and I can move more cryptocurrency from that computer right over there."

I sighed. Maybe Murray was wearing off on me.

"I don't think you understand my position. Yeah, it's a lot of money. But taking it just makes me a target like you are. And unfortunately for me, there're people who are hostages to Regan and that nutjob, Mitchell. I care about the people I care about. Would you abandon Nikki to them?"

I could see the answer was no. He might be a murderer but he truly was obsessed with her. She must have found exactly the right lever into his psyche. Somewhere between the helpless doe-eyes and the paddle, she'd hooked him good. Good cop–bad cop all in one person.

"So," I asked again, reasonably nicely given how much I wanted to beat on this guy, "where's the cash, and what are the account codes?"

He could read the tea leaves. He nodded toward the side of the room, to a red carry-on bag. I hefted it with my free hand. My body complained a little.

Just like I laugh at Hollywood showing bullets either flinging people across the room or getting stopped by a quarter inch of plaster sandwiched in paper, I cackle at someone handing over a ten-million-dollar ransom in a briefcase. Using the largest bill the U.S. government prints, a million dollars weighs twenty-two pounds. Those movies should have shown hand trucks for delivering ten times that.

I took a look inside. A mixture of fifties and hundreds, both dollars and euros. Thirty-ish pounds of dead weight to lug. My side wasn't going to like humping that, not if I wanted to keep one hand free for a gun.

"You got a small backpack somewhere?"

"Leave me enough to get away."

"Not a chance."

The look turned cagey. "You're under Regan's thumb? How 'bout I give you something on him?"

I didn't expect that. It took me a whole second to debate it. "No. For thirty-two million, he'll just tell Mitchell to kill me. He's in some kind of bind about that money himself, and thirty-two plus six zeros is a powerful number. Whatever you got to tell me won't be fast enough to stop him."

He shook his head. "I get a hundred thousand of the cash and two million of the crypto. You tell him I spent it before you got to me. Tell him I bought a place down in Honduras or something and that money's gone. I know what bind he's in. Trust me. He gets thirty of it back, he's gonna be okay."

He had me thinking. Regan wasn't my only concern at the moment. If I gave him his money, it probably bought me a temporary respite until he figured out the next thing he wanted his pet investigator to do.

But Gibson had described Richard Bertram as "the boss." Boss of what, I wasn't sure, but it was something that couldn't stand the light of day. If Gibson was smart, he'd keep his mouth shut about admitting anything to me and just give Bertram the bare facts: Beck lied to cover his theft by saying I was onto their business.

I followed the trail of bread crumbs. I didn't like where they went.

Bertram's gonna know Beck stole the money. Will Regan lie and say Mitchell got it back? If he does, I might be someone Bertram could ignore. But what's Regan's percentage in lying at this point? Can I count on Regan lying just to keep me out of it?

Yeah, along about the twelfth of Never, I can.

It was pretty clear where those bread crumbs went: Richard Bertram would find out Harry Morgan talked to Larry Beck, and Richard Bertram would surmise this very conversation took place, and Richard Bertram would assume the worst.

"Does your little gem cover Richard Bertram also?"

Beck had been watching me think it through. The cagey look got slyer.

"Let's make it all the cash and five million."

"Oh, I see we're bargaining," I said conversationally. "Here's my counteroffer. For each person you give up, you save one kneecap. You've got two kneecaps; maybe you should find two names."

His voice took on a pleading note.

"I'm a dead man if I don't disappear. It doesn't matter if you turn me over to the cops or not. If I don't disappear, I'm dead. It takes money to disappear fast. Okay, just the hundred thou and two million. I need that for Nikki and I to get started somewhere. I'll give you everything for that."

I doubt he intended it, but bringing Nikki's name into it didn't hurt his case. She was tied to him in this mess, regardless of what she did or didn't know.

"Give me what you have, and we'll see if it's worth it."

"No! I've got to trust you on the cash, but I want the other guaranteed."

It galled me, but I had one overriding priority: Jess and Sydney. Call it premonition or just fucking nerves, but I had this feeling that something very bad was lurking just out of sight. It twisted my gut to let this guy slip. He tried to kill me. He tried to kill Sydney. He did kill Cara.

But he's a viper with its fangs pulled. What else is lurking in the jungle? Better the devil you know ... yada, yada, and enough with the metaphors, Harry.

His definition of "guaranteed" was refusing to tell me his password while introducing me to the world of cryptocurrency accounts. By the time I was done typing what he told me—minus his brief stint entering the withheld password—twenty-nine million dollars sat in a new account.

"You're a rich man, you know," he said. "Only you can get at it. Not me, not Regan, nobody."

I didn't feel rich. "Talk."

"Jordan and Richard run a string of girls. Check out—"

"Bzzz, old news!" He gaped. "Well, to be fair, confirmation Regan's in on it, but otherwise, old news. The service is called Eroticos. It has two sides. One where women who get into the business for reasons of their own work. Like Sydney and, well, I'm guessing Nikki. Another side that's not so voluntary. Like Kimi. I've heard those women come in along with other imports Bertram makes." I stretched my lips into something that only superficially resembled humor. "Gibson didn't like the idea that I was going to make the hurt permanent."

That shook him. Maybe it was the menace of permanent injury. Maybe it was the fact that I knew the secret already. But I was guessing it was that Gibson was talking, and that meant accessory to murder and attempted murder for the man sitting in front of me.

My hand lashed out faster than he could flinch. No fist, an open-handed strike to the bone right behind his ear. I watched his brain rattle as pain exploded through his head.

"You think I was kidding about hurting you? You fucking. Tried. To kill me," I spat. "Now we talk about that password to the remaining two million." I stepped up again.

"Wait, wait!" he babbled, trying to cower away. "There's more."

Yeah, there's more, and babbling is the way I want you.

"The girls are just the tip of the iceberg. That side of Eroticos brings in some good cash plus side benefits, if you know what I mean."

Yeah, I understand the side benefits of a sex slave, you fucker.

"They provide labor for companies, like if you need a hundred people on a cocoa farm or a coffee farm. Fifty people for a silk factory. Girls for places that want them, of course. Boys too. Whatever, it doesn't matter. Pay the money and they'll deliver. Foreigners who don't speak the language and are less likely to be able to run home."

Silk mills. Interesting example ... Charlie Everett ran silk mills.

Beck was rushing on, trying to avoid another blow. "Central Africa, the Mideast. They want to push into western Africa and then Latin America."

"And here in the U.S.," I said. "Say if you had a gravel company with quarries that needed people to turn big rocks into little rocks."

His eyes darted away, but not before I saw the flash of fear.

"I didn't have a choice. The fuckers were squeezing me out." I assumed "the fuckers" were the mob. I'd expected him to that since they owned a lot of that sector, but Jess said she'd seen nothing in the paperwork to hint at it. "I kept getting underbid and underbid until I was desperate. Then they made me an offer. Fuckers! An offer to make me a junior partner in the company I started. I had to find some way to cut costs so that I could underbid them and stay afloat."

It took everything I had not to hit him again. "I didn't have a choice," he'd said. I didn't need a Berlitz course to translate that. Gosh, private jets to go shoot things at thousands of dollars a day. It's so expensive. There's no choice but to buy a workforce I don't have to pay.

Just as it had been with Gibson, it was a war inside I didn't want to win. He wasn't watching me. If he had, he'd have shit his pants at what was on my face.

"You're lucky you made the deal with me." I saw his shoulders ease. "But now you're going to tell me every last thing. If you hold back even one drop, the deal's off."

Now he faced me. I saw belief blossom.

"I'll tell you everything I can, but you gotta realize they don't talk about the details to clients. Umm ... where do you want me to start?"

"Bertram and Regan."

"Richard is the operations guy. He moves the product"—oh, it took so much effort not to shatter his nose at that word—"around. Jordan is the front man. 'Cause of who he is, he knows lots of the kind of people they're looking for."

"What do you mean 'who he is'?"

"His father was rich and his grandfather and great-grandfather before. Jordan went to the right schools, summers in Kennebunkport, winters at Aspen, that kind of thing. The people he met growing up were the ones who inherited companies or got board seats as a matter of course."

Beck's tale wound on. It didn't take long. Telling about greed usually doesn't; the story's too well-known. I kept my face impassive.

"And the thirty-two million?"

"I told you they were thinking about expanding. The money was capital. But Jordan was stupid to put them in the desk. Actually, they're all stupid. Just stick the money in an account in the Caymans."

Since I'd thought pretty much the same thing myself, I didn't argue. What did I know? I didn't have illegal millions I needed to shroud. Maybe the Feds really did track that stuff, Caymans or no Caymans. For every banana republic trying to become the next place people parked money, another was starting to crack down. Hell, even Switzerland was starting to open their vaults. Or maybe these assholes just liked having a secret club handshake.

"So, this party was an offsite meeting to discuss corporate expansion?"

He shook his head. "No. It was just a party. Jordan likes to throw them when a new client comes on board. Like Anders."

"And you just happened to be there and the certificates just happened to be left unsecured."

He shook his head. "It's not what you're thinking. I didn't just 'happen' to be there. I'm usually invited."

"And you hand out your girlfriend at a sex party." Even though he'd been the one to end up with her that night, I remembered the picture of her on her knees with Anders.

"Fuck you!" A little fire when said girlfriend came into the conversation. While he was blah-blah-blahing about Morality Police, I worked on what else he could give me. My ears did perk at "sometimes we and Gia," but I remembered the caught-by-wife-with-mistress threesome fantasy Sydney had described. Interesting that he called her Gia even though he had to have known her real name from Nikki. Product, not people.

"... and Jordan's careless like that. It wasn't planned. I saw the chance and took it."

Another question occurred. "Did you take them, or did you send someone? Like maybe Kimi?"

"Kimi? What the fuck are you talking about? She's—" He broke off, staring out the window. I half-turned, keeping one eye on him in case he was trying the oldest dodge in the book. If he was, he'd get a .45 slug in the gut while he struggled with the chair. He wasn't; a pair of headlights were completing an arc that turned them off the county road.

"Nikki?"

He shook his head. "Niks no ... umm ... she won't be here until tomorrow. Did you call the police? I thought we had a deal."

His worry seemed genuine. It alleviated mine a little, that some Brady-like reinforcements were on their way. "We do." Had Murray changed his mind about coming? And then I had a flash of premonition.

"I'll be around," he'd said.

"It might be Mitchell."

Beck paled. "You led him here? You fucker! We had a deal!"

"I didn't, not intentionally. And yeah, we had a deal." I pointed to the table where a stack of banded bills lay. "A hundred grand, right there. You've still got the two mil in the account. That was our deal." I picked up the red bag with the rest of the cash. Yeah, my ribs didn't like it.

"If you leave me here like this, it's the same as murder."

I thought about that. It was pretty much the same thing.