Gavin Williams watched her eyes flicker and close.
Her neck is so tiny. So fragile. Like a willow twig. I could reach out and snap it. Just like that. Put my hands around her lying, thieving throat and crush the devil inside.
There were no other patients. No staff. He and Grace were alone.
No one would know. I could do it in a split second. Smite the wicked, purge the evildoer of sin.
In a trance, Gavin Williams reached his hands out in front of him, flexing his long, bony fingers open and closed, open and closed. He imagined Grace’s windpipe collapsing beneath them, felt his excitement building.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
The nurse’s voice made him jump physically out of his seat.
“Your fingers. I know what you’re thinking.”
Gavin was silent.
“You’re a smoker, aren’t you? I was the same when I gave up. You never stop thinking about it, do you? Not for a second.”
It took Gavin a moment to register what she was saying. She thinks I’m grasping for an imaginary cigarette. As if he, Gavin Williams, would ever be so weak as to succumb to an addiction. Out loud he smiled and said, “No. You never do.”
“Believe me, I get it,” chirped the nurse. “It’s like an itch you can’t scratch. There’s a courtyard outside if you’re desperate.”
Gavin Williams retrieved the Credit Suisse paper from Grace’s sleeping fingers and slipped it back into his briefcase.
“Thank you. I am not desperate.”
But he was.
AFTER TWO WEEKS GRACE RETURNED TO her cell on A Wing. Warden McIntosh had intended to transfer her back to her original cell with the Latinas on the less austere C Wing, but Grace became so agitated that the psychiatrists recommended the prisoner be allowed to have her way. The warden was baffled.
“But Cora Budds assaulted her. She’s one of our most violent inmates. I don’t understand. Why would Grace want to go back to that?”
The psychiatrist shrugged. “Familiarity?”
Not for the first time, James McIntosh reflected on how little he understood the workings of the female mind.
Grace’s fellow inmates viewed the situation more crudely. “No wonder Cora and Karen look so excited. Did you hear? Grace is comin’ back to A Wing. Looks like the oyster bar has reopened, ladies!”
In fact, when the time came, Cora Budds greeted Grace coolly. Something had changed about Grace. The old fear, the wariness, had gone. In its place was a calmness, a confidence that made Cora uneasy.
“So you made it, huh?”
“I made it.”
Karen Willis was more demonstrative, flinging her arms around Grace and hugging her tightly. “Why didn’t you talk to me? If things were that bad? You shoulda talked to me. I could’ve helped.”
Karen Willis did not know what it was that drew her to Grace Brookstein. Part of it she put down to her stubborn streak. Grace was the underdog at Bedford Hills, a pariah, hated by screws and inmates alike. Karen Willis did not believe in running with the herd. Besides, Karen knew what it felt like to be an outsider, betrayed by one’s own friends and family. When she shot her sister Lisa’s abusive boyfriend, a bully and a rapist who had terrorized Lisa for six torturous years, Karen expected her family to rally around. Instead they’d turned on her like a pack of hyenas. Lisa played the grief-stricken widow: “We had our problems, but I loved Billy.” She even testified against Karen in court, making her out to be an angry, violent person who had a “vendetta” against men, implying that she’d acted not out of sisterly love but out of sexual rejection. “Karen always wanted Bill. I could see it. But Billy wasn’t interested.” The prosecutor changed the charges against Karen from manslaughter to second-degree murder. Karen never spoke to any of her family again.
But Karen Willis’s affection for Grace Brookstein ran deeper than their shared abandonment. Lisa had been right about one thing. Karen had never been much of a fan of men. Short, weasel-faced rapists like her sister’s boyfriend Billy had never been Karen’s type. Fragile, innocent blondes like Grace Brookstein, on the other hand, with her wide-set eyes and slender, supple gymnast’s limbs, her soft skin and smattering of girlish freckles across the nose, that was another matter entirely. Karen Willis was as far removed from the stereotypical predatory prison dyke as it was possible to get. Jokes about “oyster bars” made her want to gag. She had no intention of forcing herself on Grace. The girl was quite clearly (a) straight and (b) grieving. Unfortunately, neither of those things changed the fact that Karen Willis was in love with her. When she heard Grace had tried to kill herself, Karen collapsed. When they told her Grace was going to live, that the worst was over, Karen wept with relief.
Grace hugged her friend.
“You couldn’t have helped, Karen. Not then. But perhaps you can help now.”
“How? Tell me what you need, Grace. I’m here for you.”
“I know who framed me and my husband. What I don’t know is how he did it. I need evidence. Proof. And I don’t know where to begin.”
A smile lit up Karen’s face. Perhaps she could help Grace after all?
“I have an idea.”
DAVEY BUCCOLA LOOKED AT HIS WATCH and stamped his feet against the cold. I must be crazy, coming out to this godforsaken place on some wild-goose chase for Karen.
Davey Buccola was tall, dark and, if not quite handsome, certainly better looking than the vast majority of his profession. He had olive skin, faintly scarred from acute teenage acne, intelligent hazel eyes and strong, masculine features dominated by an aquiline nose that gave him a hawklike, predatory look. Women were attracted to Davey. At least, they were until he took them home to the shoddy two-bedroom apartment in Tuckahoe he still shared with his mother, or picked them up in his twelve-year-old Honda Accord, the same car he’d been driving when he graduated from high school. Private investigation was interesting work, dangerous and challenging. But it didn’t make anybody rich. It wasn’t like Magnum, P.I.
Davey Buccola had had a crush on Karen Willis since they were kids. He felt bad when they locked her up and her family turned their backs on her. The shit-for-brains who Karen killed had had it coming. But Davey wasn’t here just for Karen’s sake. He was here for his own. He needed money, pure and simple. And Grace Brookstein had money.
At last the gates of the prison opened and the visitors were taken through security. Davey Buccola had visited numerous correctional facilities, so he knew the drill. Coat off, shoes off, jewelry off, scanner, metal detector, dogs. Kind of like catching a plane, only without the luggage and the duty-free stores. Better for people watching, though. You could tell the moms right away, the tired slump of the shoulders, the resignation in the faces, aged from years of sacrifice and pain. There were a couple of husbands, deadbeats most of ’em, overweight, long-haired, telltale signs of drug use. But overall there were very few men in the visiting line. It was all women, women and children, braving the cold to make the depressing journey to Bedford Hills in hopes of keeping their families together.
Davey thought, Women are a lot less selfish than men.
Then he thought, They’re also a lot more conniving. Men lie when they have to. Women do it for kicks. He would listen to Grace Brookstein. But he would take nothing she said at face value.
Davey walked into the visitors’ room and sat down at a wooden table. A scrawny little kid came and sat down opposite him.
“I think you have the wrong seat. I’m here to meet Mrs. Brookstein.”
The kid smiled. “I’m Grace Brookstein. How do you do, Mr. Buccola?”
Davey shook her hand and tried not to look shocked. “I’m good, thanks.”
Jesus H. What happened to her? She’s only been in here a month. The Grace Brookstein he’d expected to meet was the fur-clad vixen from the courtroom, glamorous, groomed, dripping in diamonds and disdain. The girl in front of him now looked about fourteen, with close-cropped hair and a pale urchin’s face. She had a broken nose
, deep shadows under the eyes, and she looked like she hadn’t eaten in weeks. The orange jumpsuit she was wearing swamped her tiny frame. When Davey shook her hand, he noticed the skin was almost transparent.
“Karen said you need some help.”
Grace dispensed with the pleasantries. “I want you to help me prove that John Merrivale framed me and my husband.”
Karen hadn’t mentioned anything about this. “She needs you to do a little digging,” those had been her exact words. Nothing about Grace Brookstein being a total fucking fruit loop who’d convinced herself her old man was framed. Jesus. Every man and his dog knew that Lenny Brookstein was as crooked as a two-dollar bill.
“John Merrivale. Wasn’t he the number two at Quorum? The guy the FBI has been working with?”
Reading his thoughts, Grace said, “I understand your skepticism. I don’t expect you to believe me. All I’m asking is that you look into it. I’m doing as much research as I can from the library here, but I’m sure you appreciate my resources are limited.”
“Look, Mrs. Brookstein.”
“Grace.”
“Look, Grace, I’d like to help you. But I gotta be honest. The FBI has been through Quorum’s finances with a fine-tooth comb. If there were any evidence that Merrivale had framed your husband, any evidence at all, don’t you think they’d have found it?”
“Not necessarily. Not if they trust him. John’s been working with the FBI, Mr. Buccola. He’s part of the investigative team. Don’t you see? He’s convinced them he’s one of their own. Believe me, John Merrivale can be very plausible.”
“Plausible’s one thing. Stealing seventy billion dollars and stashing it where no one can find it, not the SEC, not the smartest brains at the bureau, no one…some might say that’s impossible.”
Grace smiled. “I believe that’s what my attorney told the jury. And yet here I am.”
Davey Buccola smiled back. Touché.
“I’ve never even opened a bank statement, Mr. Buccola. John Merrivale’s a financial wizard. If I could do it, couldn’t he?”
Davey Buccola thought, I underestimated her. She’s not a fruit loop. Misguided, maybe. But she’s nobody’s fool. “All right, Mrs. Brookstein. I’ll do some digging for you. But I’m warning you now, don’t believe in foregone conclusions. They’re against my religion.”
“I understand.”
“If I take this case, I’ll take it with an open mind. I’m digging for the truth. You might not like what I find.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Another thing you should know: nothing’s going to happen quickly. This is a complicated case. A lot of the information is classified. I have FBI sources, guys in the police and the SEC who’ll talk to me, but it’s slow work.”
Grace looked at the four walls around her. “Time’s about the one thing I have left, Mr. Buccola. I’m not going anywhere.”
Davey Buccola shook her hand. “In that case, Mrs. Brookstein, I’m your man.”
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING, HONEY? COME back to bed.”
Harry Bain looked at his wife’s voluptuous naked body sprawled out across the sheets. Then he looked at his watch. Six A.M. Fucking Quorum.
“I can’t. We’ve got a team meeting at seven.”
“Can’t you say you’re sick?”
“Not really. I called the meeting.”
The whole of America hated Lenny Brookstein. But at that moment no one hated him quite as much as Harry Bain.
I can outsmart a street fighter like Brookstein, Bain had reasoned, when he first took the case. It’s not like we’re looking for a pair of cuff links. Seventy-five billion dollars is missing. That’s like trying to hide a country. “Excuse me, but has anyone seen Guatemala? Some dead Jewish guy from Queens mislaid it last June.”
Of course he would find the money. How could he not?
Yet here he was, a year later, with nothing. Harry Bain, Gavin Williams and their team had commandeered Quorum’s old offices as a base for their investigation. With John Merrivale’s help, the task force had spent millions, chasing leads all over the world, from New York to Grand Cayman to Paris to Singapore. Between them, Harry Bain, Gavin Williams and John Merrivale had clocked more air miles than a migrating flock of Canadian geese, produced enough paper to wipe out an entire rain forest, conducted thousands of interviews and seized countless bank records. If Lenny Brookstein took a shit between January 2001 and June 2009, the FBI had a record of it. But still no goddamn money.
Their failure wasn’t from lack of effort. Gavin Williams might be a card-carrying weirdo but you couldn’t fault the guy for commitment. As far as Harry Bain could tell, Williams had no friends or family, no personal life at all. He lived and breathed Quorum, following the impenetrable, circuitous paper trail of trades Lenny Brookstein had left behind him with the dogged bloodlust of a fox hound. Then there was John Merrivale, the Quorum insider-turned-police-asset. John was an odd bird, too. So shy he was almost autistic, the guy still teared up whenever Lenny Brookstein’s name was mentioned. In the beginning, Harry had wondered whether John might be implicated in the fraud himself. But the more he learned about Lenny Brookstein’s business practices, the less he suspected John Merrivale, or Andrew Preston, or any of the other employees. Brookstein was so secretive he made the CIA look indiscreet. Surrounded by people, a social animal to the last, at the end of the day Lenny had trusted no one. No one except his wife.
Rumors on the team were that John Merrivale was unhappy at home. Harry Bain had met Caroline Merrivale once and could well believe it. That bitch probably wore stilettos and a whip to bed. Or a gestapo uniform. No wonder John was happy to put in long hours on the task force. So would I be if I was married to Madam Whiplash.
“OKAY, FOLKS. WHAT HAVE WE GOT?”
The elite group of FBI agents who formed the Quorum task force stared at their boss dejectedly. One joker piped up, “Gavin’s thinking of heading out to Bedford Hills again, right, Gav? He’s gonna use his legendary charm with the laydeez to get Mrs. B to sing like a bird.”
The rest of the group sniggered. Gavin Williams’s obsession with “breaking” Grace Brookstein had become a running joke. Either Grace didn’t know where Lenny had stashed the cash, or she knew but she wasn’t telling. Either way, Williams was beating a dead horse and everyone could see it but him.
Gavin didn’t join in the laughter. “I have no plans to return to Bedford, Stephen. Your information is incorrect.”
The joker murmured to his partner, “‘Your information is incorrect.’ Is he human? He sounds like R2 fucking D2.”
“No kidding,” his partner replied more loudly. “‘Help me, Obi-Wan Brookstein. You’re my only hope!’”
More laughter.
Gavin Williams glanced around the table at his so-called colleagues. If he could, he would have ripped every one of their hearts out with his bare hands and stuffed them down Harry Bain’s smug, self-satisfied throat till he choked. What did any of them have to laugh about? They were all part of the biggest, lamest operation in FBI history. If he, Gavin, were running the show, things would be different.
Harry Bain said, “Okay, then, so it’s all on this trip to Geneva.”
John Merrivale had spent the last three weeks researching a huge swap trade from 2006. The trail led as far as a numbered account in Switzerland, then went cold.
“Gavin, I’d like you and John to make the trip together this time. Two heads may prove better than one.”
John Merrivale failed to hide his surprise. He and Gavin Williams usually worked independently, following up on separate leads. This was the first time Bain had asked them to travel together.
“I’m f-fine to handle the Geneva trip alone, Harry.”
“I know you are. But I’d like the two of you together on this one.”
John Merrivale’s relationship with Harry Bain had come a long way since Harry’s “bad-cop” interview with him, before Grace’s trial. It had taken months to persuade not jus
t Bain, but the entire task force, that he was on their side, that he was as much a victim of Lenny Brookstein as anyone else. But slowly, with the steady, quiet patience on which he’d built his entire career, John Merrivale had won them over. He was no longer frightened of Harry Bain. But at the same time he didn’t want to cross him. John still loathed confrontation. As much as Gavin Williams’s dour, monosyllabic presence was bound to ruin the Switzerland trip, John didn’t want to fight about it.
Harry Bain said, “We need to build some more team spirit. Bounce ideas off each other more. Somehow we’ve got to break this deadlock.”
John Merrivale tried to imagine a scenario in which anyone might “bounce an idea” off Gavin Williams. Bain really must be getting desperate.
THE FLIGHT FROM NEW YORK WAS bumpy and unpleasant. John Merrivale felt his stomach flip over with nerves. He tried to make small talk with his companion. “Of course, legally we can’t force the Swiss to cooperate with us. But I know the g-guys at the Banque de Genève pretty well. I may be able to p-persuade them to stretch a point.”
Silence. It was like talking to a corpse.
Gavin Williams closed his eyes. “Persuade them?” “Stretch a point?” They’re criminals who laundered Brookstein’s dirty money. They should be stretched on a rack till their limbs are wrenched out of their sockets and their screams can be heard from the Statue of Liberty.
“Have you spent m-much time in Geneva, Gavin?”
“No.”
“It’s a beautiful city. The m-m-mountains, the lake. Lenny and I used to love coming here.”
Gavin Williams pulled on his sleep mask. “Good night.”
The plane rattled on.
JOHN MERRIVALE WAS BOOKED INTO LES Amures, an exclusive five-star hotel in Geneva’s old town. In the old days, he and Lenny had enjoyed many fine meals in Les Amures’s famous restaurant, which had been built in the thirteenth century and decorated with exquisite frescos, painted façades and art treasures. Lenny used to say it was like eating in the Sistine Chapel.
Sidney Sheldon's After the Darkness Page 12
