Coming To Terms

by Patricia Watters

  "I don't understand," Andrea said. "Why would Alessandro pick someone like me when there were any number of single women aboard for him to go after?"

  Schribe looked at her with a kind of tolerant understanding. "What happened to you is a pattern with Cavallaro. He looks for middle-aged women who appear to be traveling alone, charms them into believing he's interested in them, invites them for cocktails in his stateroom, then drugs them so they fall asleep long enough for him to hide a rare and valuable stamp in the lining of the woman's handbag. The next night he escorts the woman to a pre-arranged meeting place, where he laces her cocktail with a non-lethal poison then makes an excuse to leave. By the time the woman has recovered from what appears to be food poisoning, her handbag's missing, along with the stamp, taken by a contact who the woman believes was a purse snatcher. The woman files a report and the authorities give it no further thought because purse snatchers are rarely caught, but no one connects it with money laundering."

  Andrea tried to digest all the information she'd heard. She just wished there was some way to keep Jerry from knowing what a fool she'd been to be taken in so completely by Alessandro Cavallaro. She looked at the inspector, who was waiting for her response, and said, "Since that's the case, you have to believe what I told you."

  He nodded. "I did from the start. I just needed to confirm it."

  "Then I'm not suspected of anything?"

  "No," Schribe assured her, "only of being a foolish woman who got involved with a man she knew nothing about, not a rare occurrence on a cruise ship."

  Andrea couldn't argue. She'd not only been completely duped, she'd seriously considered giving herself to a man who didn't even want her as a lover, a man who made her heart flutter a little, but even then, there had been no spark, no desire to go beyond a certain point. But Jerry smashed that point to smithereens on the beach, and she doubted any man could bring out the wild, uninhibited side of her that Jerry did.

  "One thing more before we go," Schribe said. "May we see the handbag you had with you last night?"

  "My handbag?" Andrea said, baffled. "Why would you want that?"

  "Because it could have a valuable stamp hidden inside that would be the evidence we need to arrest Cavallaro. If you're unwilling to let us inspect the handbag we'll have no choice but to confiscate it and hold it until we do get a search warrant, which would also mean listing you as a person of interest in connection with Cavallaro and continuing to track your whereabouts."

  "I have nothing to hide. If the stamp's in my handbag, I had nothing to do with it getting there." Andrea grabbed her handbag and offered it to the man.

  Schribe opened the bag, dumped the contents onto a table and inspected the lining. Eyeing an area near the zipper that closed the bag, he said, "Was this slit here before now?"

  Andrea shook her head. "The bag is brand new. I bought it on the ship."

  "Then the stamp has been removed." Schribe tucked his fingers through the slit and when he pulled his hand out, he looked at his fingertips, which were coated with a dusting of white powder. He touched a finger to his tongue, and said, "There was drug payoff along with the stamp. Whoever took the stamp took the packet of drugs, but there's enough residue left to use as evidence. We should also find Cavallaro's fingerprints all over the handbag from securing the stamp inside the lining. I'll send the bag to our lab. Who else could have had access to your handbag yesterday or earlier today?"

  Andrea shrugged. "I don't know. I left it on the chair when I rushed into the restroom at the Pirate's Cove, but I don't remember much after that. It was at the medical clinic while I had my stomach pumped so I suppose any number of people could have gotten into it if they wanted to, including someone at the Pirate's Cove and those working at the clinic. My husband knows more about it than I do."

  "Then I'd like to talk to him," Schribe said. "Where can he be reached?"

  "Right here." Jerry stood in the doorway, his gaze moving over the faces in the room, eyes sharpening like honed steel as they settled on Andrea's father.

  CHAPTER 11

  Jerry addressed Inspector Schribe. "I was told at the front desk that you men are looking for me. What's the problem?"

  Schribe filled Jerry in on what he'd told Andrea and her parents about Cavallaro then added, "You were following Mr. Cavallaro and your wife last night. Was there a reason?"

  Jerry looked at the man, and said with irony, "Does a man need a reason to follow his wife when she's with another man?"

  "In your case, yes. You and your wife seemed to freely enjoy the company of the opposite sex with each other's knowledge, which was why I asked."

  "I was concerned for my wife's safety," Jerry said. "I knew Cavallaro had ulterior motives for being with her when I found out he had a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean and was a regular on these cruises."

  Andrea eyed Jerry with a blend of surprise and anger, surprise that he'd gone to the trouble of checking out Alessandro's background, and anger because he viewed her as a middle-aged woman incapable of attracting a man. Focusing on the latter, she said, "How did you learn that? From your sugar baby!?"

  "No, I learned it by making a call to a contact in Majorca," Jerry said in a controlled voice, "I wanted to prove that Cavallaro was a gigolo before you got in the sack with him."

  "I did not get in the sack with him!" Andrea cried.

  "You sure as hell were doing something between cocktails and the next morning!"

  "If that's not the pot calling the kettle black, with you getting it on with your sugar baby!"

  "Umm, excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Porter," Schribe cut in. "If we can get back to the issue of the handbag,"

  Andrea glanced at her father, who was glaring at Jerry, and she wished she'd held her tongue for once in her life. With her father this scene would play out again and again, ad nauseam, until the divorce was final. But now her father had the ammunition he needed to destroy Jerry. She pursed her lips, determined to say nothing, no matter what Jerry revealed.

  "Mr. Porter," Schribe continued, "we're trying to learn who had access to your wife's handbag last night. Cavallaro's contact never made it to the Pirate's Cove. We found his body in the trunk of a stolen rental car this morning, two shots in the back of the head at close range. Typical criminal-world assassination. So there's a hired gun who knows about the stamp, but most likely isn't part of the cartel. Our concern is, whoever it is believes your wife still has the stamp and will come after her."

  Andrea's father stepped forward. "I'll take my daughter off the island right away," he said. "We'll leave at once."

  "I'm afraid that's not an option," Schribe replied. "Your daughter was the last person seen with Cavallaro before he disappeared. We need her as a material witness."

  "What do you mean Cavallaro disappeared?" Carter asked. "I thought you were tracking the man."

  "He managed to elude us, with help," Schribe replied. "Alessandro Cavallaro knows whoever he needs to know, wherever he goes. In fact, we've known for some time that he has a base of operations here on the island."

  Jerry looked at the man in disbelief. "Then why don't you pick him up for questioning?" he asked, his tone carrying an edge of condescension, which didn't surprise Andrea. Jerry wasn't a man to stand by when a job needed to get done. Sending a couple of armed agents into an unsophisticated base camp on a small tropical island to pick up one man wouldn't seem too terribly challenging to him.

  "We've never been able to find the place," Schribe replied. "The interior of Andros Island is one of the largest unexplored tracts of land in the western hemisphere. It's dominated by hardwood forests with almost impenetrable bush and mangrove swamps."

  "Why do you believe Cavallaro's still here?" Jerry asked. "Couldn't he have left on one of the fishing boats, maybe in disguise?"

  "Not this time," Schribe said. "We checked all fishing and pleasure vessels in the area and he never returned to the cruise ship. We were searching for him when we found the body of his contact, another reason
we know he's here. The stamp didn't make the transfer so he knows whoever hired the assassin to kill the contact is undermining the organization and has to be stopped. Make no mistake. Alessandro Cavallaro is a very dangerous man. He'll stop at nothing to protect the interests of the cartel."

  Schribe's gaze moved from one face to the next, then settling on Andrea, he said, "Until we learn where Cavallaro is, you should not go off alone or your life could be in danger. In a couple of days we should have all the information we need, and you and your husband will be free to leave the island. In the meantime, we need to learn who had access to your handbag so we can find the stamp."

  "How much is the stamp worth?" Andrea asked, wondering just how much money in the form of a stamp she'd unknowingly been carrying around in her handbag.

  "Several million dollars," Schribe replied. "The stamp is believed to be a Treskilling Yellow. If genuine, it will be one of only two in existence." He turned to Jerry. "So it's vital we learn who had access to the handbag before it was returned to your wife."

  "I have no idea who that could be," Jerry said. "I looked for the handbag when my wife was being carried out of the restaurant but couldn't find it, so someone either handed it to one of the medics carrying my wife out, or turned it in at the clinic. It was at least ten minutes between the time I had someone call for medics and their arrival, but I was too involved with Andrea to think about her handbag, so anyone could have removed the stamp during that time. I suggest you start by questioning the owner of the Pirate's Cove."

  "We will," Schribe assured Jerry. "We'll also question everyone else who was at the Pirate's Cove last night, along with the staff at the medical clinic since the purse was there overnight. Any one of them could be involved. This is an extremely sophisticated operation with a wide net of contacts, all of whom are tight lipped because their cut in the action is so lucrative."

  "Well, I've told you all I know," Jerry assured him.

  "Then I suppose we're through for now." Schribe's eyes shifted between Andrea and Jerry, as he said, "If I have further questions, I'll get back to you. In the meantime, Mr. Porter, I suggest you make an effort to stay with your wife. We don't have the workforce on the island to give her one-on-one protection."

  Jerry slipped his arm around Andrea's waist, dragging her to him, and said, "I assure you, inspector, I'll be with my wife day and night until we leave the island."

  Schribe nodded before turning to leave, but the look on his face clearly showed his puzzlement over the very strange marriage of Andrea and Jerry Porter, just as Andrea's father's face did. And he would be the person Andrea would be facing next.

  ***

  After the two men left, Andrea's father pinned her with eyes as sharp as a hawk's and said, "You'd better start explaining. That bastard of a husband standing behind you has you mucking around in the same gutter you were in when he dragged you out of college to marry him. I hope to hell you're finally ready to crawl out."

  "She's not," Jerry said, stepping around Andrea to stand facing the man who'd been his nemesis for twenty-five years. But no more. This day was long overdue. "Andrea, take your mother and go outside," he said in a sharp voice. "Your father and I have some things to say to each other." For once, Andrea didn't argue with him.

  After the door closed behind the women, Jerry squared off with his father-in-law. Looking directly into the eyes of a man who stood as tall as he, a man a quarter-century his senior, with eyes that held the glint of honed steel, he said, "Andrea doesn't owe you an explanation and neither do I. You can't intimidate me, Ellison. You could wreck me financially—buy out my company with petty cash and destroy it—but you can't destroy me because I'd be right back building another company. I know your kind. Men with old money and the power it wields hire my company's services to clean up their messes, but that gutter I grew up in taught me how to not take crap from men like you who get what you want by using your name to intimidate people, but you don't intimidate me, and I'll always have an edge over you because you don't know what I'm capable of doing and it scares the hell out of you."

  Ellison withdrew an aluminum tube from his lapel pocket and removed the cap. "You're about to lose your wife," he said, slipping a cigar from the tube, "and that scares the hell out of you. For years my daughter lived in a two-bit apartment pumping out babies when she could have lived in a house I wanted to give her but you wouldn't take because you're so damn self-righteous. She resented you for that then, and still does. Now she's had enough of your crap and she's coming home to roost." He clipped off the end of the cigar with a gold cigar guillotine and tossed the tip into an ashtray.

  Jerry eyed the cigar tip, then fixed his gaze on Ellison, and said, "Let me give you a little heads up, Ellison. When I took your daughter away from you, you didn't have the power to stop me because I was offering her the one thing she didn't have. A way out. She didn't run off to marry me, she ran off to get out from under your control. That took guts, and she married me when I had nothing. Can you say the same for your wife? Can you ask yourself if Barbara would have married you if you'd had nothing? She's a decent woman, maybe she would have, but you'll never know, will you?"

  Ellison tucked the cigar in the corner of his mouth. "I still have my wife, and she doesn't screw around with other men," he said, eyeing Jerry with venomous delight. "Can you say the same about yours?"

  Deciding not to let this become an issue over wives, Jerry ignored his comment, and said, "You try to run the lives of everyone around you, but I refuse to dance to your tune, and you hate it that Andrea's more like me than you in that respect. In fact, that's what I admired most about her when we met. She was one of the few people who'd stand up to Carter Ellison III. Sure, there's nothing I can give her that you can't one up me on, but I wouldn't give a plug nickel to live in your ivory tower with your staff of servants because that's all you have. Take it away from you and you'd be out on the streets peeing in your pants, wondering what to do next."

  Ellison let out a short guffaw. "I wouldn't be peeing in my pants, Porter, I'd be pissing on gutter scum like you."

  "I may be gutter scum in your book," Jerry said, "but at least I know how to find my way out. If you lost everything you had and ended up in the gutter, and some benefactor felt sorry for you and gave you a hundred thousand bucks to get started again, you wouldn't know shit what to do with it, but I'd start a new business, maybe even better than cleaning up other people's messes, and I'd be right back out there racking in money from men like you who got it for nothing."

  "You really are full of crap," Ellison said, the unlit cigar bobbing up and down in his mouth as he talked, "the kind you get from living in the gutter."

  "I picked up more than just crap living there," Jerry quipped, eyes on the cigar. "I learned how to shove it down the throats of pretentious, self-important jackasses like you. The problem with you is you haven't got your mother's tit to suck on anymore so you suck on a big fat cigar whenever someone with guts stands up to you or refuses to jump through your hoops. Well, I have three daughters who wouldn't jump through your hoops, and they each married men who are self-starters, who don't need to suck on their mother's tits to be somebody." He held Ellison's caustic gaze, certain he'd hit at the core of the man.

  "You also had a son," Ellison reminded him, "a chip off the old block who you dragged into that same gutter you're so proud of, but he never came out. You knew about the booze parties and the street racing in that fast car of his, a car you bought him. You killed your own son, Porter. You might as well have put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger." He stood looking at Jerry, the cigar tucked in the corner of his mouth.

  Jerry said nothing, just held Ellison's unwavering gaze. The man won this round because there was nothing more to say because he was right. There had been times when he'd felt so damn guilty about Scott's death he'd wanted to put a gun to his own head but didn't want to disappoint the girls. Ironic. Not blowing out his brains because he'd let the kids down, like missing one of th
eir piano recitals, or showing up late for a school play.

  "Gotcha didn't I, Porter," Ellison said, a self-satisfied look on his face. "You can't one up me on that." To make sure his victory was recognized he flipped a flame from his butane lighter and held it to the cigar, eyes focused on Jerry as he sucked on it several times until smoke curled up.

  "Rot... in... hell," Jerry said in a low controlled voice. Sweeping open the door, he walked out, slamming it behind. He said nothing to the women as he past them and left.

  Half way to his place he looked back and saw no one coming. It had been a strident confrontation and there was no question the women heard it, and for some reason he'd expected Andrea to come after him, either to rub his face in the shit her father had thrown at him, or to add her two-bits to her father's final words, which were the core of a marital rift that had grown progressively wider since the night of Scott's accident, and with good reason. Like her father, Andrea blamed him for Scott's death, and nothing could change that because they were right.

  He hadn't been back at his bungalow more than fifteen minutes when he heard footsteps on the deck and turned to find Barbara Ellison standing in the doorway.

  "Can I have a word with you, Jerry?" she asked.

  "Yeah sure, why not. Everyone else has." Jerry immediately regretted his sharp retort. Barbara had been nothing but decent to him over the years. Early on she'd been resigned to their marriage, even staying with them at the lake house on occasion when the kids were growing up, but her husband would be cursing him on his death bed. "Sorry, Barbara. That was uncalled for. Come on in."