Bum Deal

by Paul Levine

  At the moment, she was in the shower, and I was practicing my toasts in the living room. Wedding toasts are dicey. One good rule is not to mention the bride’s or groom’s earlier lovers or recent debauchery. No problem there. Solomon and Lord had met cute, if that’s what you call it when a cockatoo craps on a woman’s business suit. It was a case involving bird smuggling, with Solomon defending and Lord prosecuting during her brief stint in the State Attorney’s office. Solomon insisted on calling a bird to testify. Lord lost her cool, and the rest is an often-told tale of bird poop, contempt, and Solomon falling hard for his opponent.

  “Victoria, you had Steve the second you told him to get lost,” I planned to say.

  I was rehearsing when I heard a pounding on my front door. I opened it to find Ray Pincher, briefcase in hand.

  “How you feeling, Jake?”

  I’m so damn tired of that question.

  “Great, Ray. You have more champagne and pistachios for me?”

  He walked inside, eyeing me suspiciously, as if I might be hiding a baseball bat behind my back. “Have you forgiven me, Jake?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I didn’t want to hit you. It was Suarez I was furious with. He rigged the system. But you were standing there, wreaking havoc in the courtroom, talking trash about me, and I just lost it.”

  “Okay. If that’s yet another apology, I accept. Let’s move on.”

  “Gonna offer me a drink?”

  We moved into the kitchen. I poured a generous Jack Daniel’s on ice for Pincher and a thimble for me so I could deliver my toast while sober.

  “I got a call from a friend at Homeland Security,” Pincher said. “Some bells started ringing in their money-laundering division. Suspicious bank wire transfers. He looked into it, saw the party involved, and thought I might be interested. Sent me this.”

  Pincher opened his briefcase, pulled out a laptop, and clicked on a video. Security footage. A bank-teller window. A petite young woman in big sunglasses stood at the window, filling out a form. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders. A man in a polo shirt was standing next to the woman, but his face wasn’t visible. The teller’s right hand pointed to one side, and the woman looked in that direction.

  “The teller is saying that a bank officer will be needed to complete the transaction. Plus, they’ll need to fingerprint the woman to confirm her identity.”

  “So?”

  “Don’t you recognize the woman?”

  Pincher froze the screen.

  “She’s got a nice suntan and a lot of hair.” I looked closer.

  A luxurious pelt and a smooth, tan hide.

  That’s what Calvert said in appraising his wife’s looks.

  “Is that Sofia Calvert?”

  “Bingo!”

  “She’s alive.”

  “And rich. This was taken three days ago, her thirtieth birthday.”

  “The day her spendthrift trust ripened. Is that the bank in the Caymans where Pepe stashed the money?”

  “You got it. Forty million bucks, most of which is Pepe’s, if you ignore the fact he’s hiding it from the IRS.”

  “Did she get the dough?”

  “The whole forty mil.”

  I let out a long, low whistle. “Jeez . . .”

  “Yeah,” Pincher said. “Ain’t it something?”

  I heard the shower turn off in the bathroom. Melissa would be ready in fifteen minutes. Fully dressed, with makeup and jewelry on. No muss, no fuss. I liked that—and everything else—about her.

  “Did your friend at Homeland Security trace the money she withdrew?” I asked.

  “Tried. It was wired from the Cayman Islands to a bank on the Isle of Man, and from there to a bank on the Cook Islands. After that, he doesn’t know. Cook Islands won’t cooperate with our government.”

  “All those islands. Why not just call them the Isles of Hidden Loot? As for Pepe Suarez, serves the bastard right.”

  “Jake, you always say that rough justice is better than none.”

  “This is more like poetic justice, Ray.”

  “You won’t get an argument from me. Pepe was about to file a petition in the Cayman courts to have Sofia declared dead so the money would revert to him. Now he doesn’t get a buck, and I’ll put his ass in jail.”

  I thought about it. “Sofia planned all of this. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Pincher shrugged. “What do you think?”

  “It’s possible. She was scared her father was gonna have Wetherall snatch her if she didn’t give him his money. Maybe kill her. My guess is she taunted Calvert into choking her. Sets up the argument and her disappearance. She really did storm out of the house that morning. Calvert really did go to Frostproof looking for her. Unbeknownst to him, she’d enlisted Freudenstein and Burnside to frame him for murder. My theory, anyway.”

  “Kill two birds. Father and husband.”

  “And give herself time to reach her birthday and grab the money. Her father, thinking she was dead, gave her breathing room.”

  “By the way, Jake, that cat of Sofia’s that Calvert strangled.”

  “Yeah. Escapar.”

  “For what it’s worth, in Spanish, escapar means ‘escape.’”

  I reached for the Jack Daniel’s. “I need another drink.”

  “Me, too.”

  I poured, and we sat in silence a moment.

  From the bedroom, I heard Melissa’s sweet voice. “I’ll be ready in a couple minutes, darling.”

  “Take your time, hon. Ray and I are out here drinking whiskey and solving mysteries.”

  I sipped and said, “Where do you suppose Sofia is?”

  Pincher thought about it a moment. “I’m guessing with Mr. Polo Shirt in the video. Unfortunately, his face doesn’t show up on any of the footage, so we don’t have an ID.”

  “You don’t need his face. You’ve got his arms.”

  Pincher gave me a look.

  “His right forearm is heavily muscled,” I said, “much larger than his left. What you’ve got there, Ray, is a tennis pro.”

  -67-

  Body Heat

  Raiatea Island, French Polynesia . . .

  The beach was white crystalline sugar. The water was turquoise, the waves quiet whispers. The sun bore down, bounced off the sand, and baked the air.

  “It’s hot,” Billy Burnside said.

  “Yes,” Sofia Calvert said. “Very hot.”

  Sofia wore a white thong and was topless, her small breasts golden from weeks in the sun. He wore Speedos, sweat trickling down his chest. The two lovers were stretched out on cushioned chaises, holding hands across the small divide. A uniformed servant delivered icy drinks. No fruity cocktails or coconuts filled with rum for them. Gin and tonics, icy steel in the throat, a quick buzz in the brain. It was only 11:00 a.m.

  Soon it would be time for lunch. The biggest issue of the day, Sofia thought. Whether to have Papeete Tahitian prawns or oka popo raw-fish stew. And whether to dine on the beach or the outdoor pavilion adjacent to the kitchen. She would have to inform the cook soon. So many decisions, she thought, smiling to herself.

  Her house was separated from the beach by only blooming bougainvillea—a riot of pinks, purples, and yellows. The house was a sprawling affair, seven separate high-roofed tropical pavilions. Two on each end were open-air, no walls at all. The five enclosed pavilions were linked by stone paths and flanked by outdoor gardens with waterfalls and stone sculptures of Polynesian gods. Inside, the walls were warm woods and the floors brushed travertine marble, cool on bare feet. The house had cost Sofia $4.5 million, barely a dent in her accounts.

  “Do you want to hit some balls after lunch?” Billy asked.

  “Golf or tennis?”

  She would do either one. Billy was easy to be with, so she chose to be likewise. She’d never been that way with Clark, but therapy with Dr. Freudenstein had helped her change. He’d been a huge help in her personal life, not to mention writing that nutso letter for $2
0,000. And then recanting, as planned, so Clark wouldn’t have to go to prison.

  “Tennis,” Billy said. “We oughta work on your backhand.”

  “After it cools off.”

  “I gotta tell Manu to water the clay court,” Billy said. “He doesn’t understand clay needs way more maintenance than a hard court.”

  “You do that, honey.” Her voice sleepy.

  They were silent a moment, listening to the soft splash of waves at the shoreline. Billy said, “Got a question for you, sweetie.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you ever think of him?”

  “Who? My father or my husband?”

  “Your husband.”

  “Not really.” Nothing to be gained telling Billy too much. He was sweet but simple. Perfect, really, if you knew his limits. Whereas Clark, bless his dastardly heart, was as twisty as a corkscrew. But he came through for her when it counted. Her mind drifted to the night she nearly died.

  Sofia regained consciousness, coughing, hacking, sputtering . . . and cursing.

  “Ath-hole! Fucking ath-hole!” She sat upright in the bed, put her hand to her neck, and greedily sucked in painful breaths.

  “Thank God!” Calvert said. “I thought for a minute you were gone.”

  “Fuck you, Clark, you maniac!” She tried to swallow but couldn’t. Her voice was scratchy, each word a serrated knife. “I want a divorce.”

  He winced and his eyes blinked. She’d taken him by surprise.

  “You’re screwing that tennis pro, aren’t you?” he said.

  She didn’t answer. What could she say that he didn’t already know?

  “Aren’t you!” he demanded.

  “I’ve seen a lawyer.”

  “What! Who?”

  “Sam Buchanan.”

  “That shark! You want to clean me out, is that it?”

  She pulled the bedsheet to her neck. “Only half. I figure that’s close to ten million.”

  Clark’s dark eyes burned like hot coals, and for a moment, she feared he might strangle her, this time with finality. But his shoulders slumped, and he sat on the edge of the bed, staring into space. After a moment, he said, “Which would you rather have, years of bitter litigation, after which you get half of what’s left of my money, or an easy forty million in a few months?”

  “You’re talking about the trust? It’s only six million. The rest is my father’s.”

  “And every cent in your name.”

  “You want me to steal his money?”

  “Money he’s hiding from the IRS. God, how I’d love to see you fleece the bastard.”

  “How?”

  “Pepe took a helluva risk putting dirty money in your name. He has no recourse if you swipe it.”

  She shook her head. “He’d kill me.”

  “Not if you’re already dead. Or if he thinks you are.”

  Intrigued, she thought about it a moment. “You want me to go missing?”

  “I could orchestrate it.”

  “How? I take a swim off Haulover Beach and not come back? Then what, you pick me up in our boat and drop me off in Bimini? He’ll never fall for that.”

  “It’s a little more complicated. Pepe has to believe I killed you.”

  “Why would he?”

  “He’s predisposed to think the worst of me. If you go missing, he’ll point the finger at me. When I let the cops catch me in lies about your disappearance, when your tennis-pro paramour says you’re terrified I’ll kill you and dump your body in the Glades, when Sam Buchanan tells investigators you wanted a divorce, when you bribe that quack shrink to start yakking that I’m a psychopath, even I might think I killed you.”

  He laughed. That little snorting bark of superiority that she usually found so irritating. But now she smiled along with him. Sticking it to her father appealed to them both in equal measure. Clark loved the gamesmanship, moving the pieces on the chessboard. Winning!

  Her desires were simpler. She loved the money. She’d recently watched a piece on one of the travel channels about French Polynesia. A faraway paradise called Raiatea Island. Even the name appealed to her.

  “What if they prosecute you?” she asked.

  “Without a body, unlikely. Anyway, the day you empty the trust account, it will be clear you’re very much alive and very, very rich.”

  They laughed in tandem.

  “I think I still love you a little,” Sofia said. “I just don’t want to be married.”

  “That’s okay, sweetheart. Neither do I.”

  “I almost wish your hubby could see us, that prick,” Billy said, wiping sweat off his Ray-Bans with a beach towel.

  “Clark’s not that bad.”

  “Jeez, he almost killed you.”

  “He didn’t mean to. The game just got out of hand.”

  “You’re too nice, Sofe. Way too nice.”

  “You’re nice, too, honey. But you’re not gonna be tonight.”

  “Whadaya mean?”

  “In bed.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I want you to choke me,” Sofia said.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © Alan Weissman

  The author of twenty-two novels, Paul Levine won the John D. MacDonald fiction award and was nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, Shamus, and James Thurber prizes. A former trial lawyer, he also wrote twenty-one episodes of the CBS military drama JAG and cocreated the Supreme Court drama First Monday starring James Garner and Joe Mantegna. The critically acclaimed international bestseller To Speak for the Dead was his first novel and introduced readers to linebacker turned lawyer Jake Lassiter. He is also the author of the Solomon & Lord series featuring bickering law partners Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord. Levine has also written several stand-alone thrillers, including Illegal, Ballistic, Impact, and Paydirt. A graduate of Penn State University and the University of Miami Law School, he divides his time between Miami and Santa Barbara, California. For more information, visit Paul Levine’s Amazon Author Page at www.amazon.com/Paul-Levine/e/B000APPYKG/.