John Grisham

by The Brethren (v5)

  “Where’d you stay?”

  “What is this, Joe Roy?”

  “Give me the name of your hotel.”

  “Why?”

  “I have the right to know. I’m the client. I’m paying for your expenses. Where did you stay?”

  “Ritz-Carlton.”

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t know. The Ritz-Carlton.”

  “There are two. Which one was it?”

  “I don’t know. Not downtown.”

  “What flight did you take?”

  “Come on, Joe Roy. What is this?”

  “What airline?”

  “Delta.”

  “The flight number?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You got back yesterday. Less than twenty-four hours ago. What was your flight number?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Are you sure you went to Washington?”

  “Of course I went,” Trevor said, but his voice broke a little from a lack of sincerity. He had not planned his lies, and they were breaking down as fast as he put them up.

  “You don’t know your flight number, which hotel you stayed in, or the name of the investigator you spent the last two days with. You must think I’m stupid.”

  Trevor didn’t answer. He could only think of the mike in the briefcase and how lucky he was to have it outside. Getting flogged like this was something he’d rather Wes and Chap not hear.

  “You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?” Spicer asked, on the attack.

  “Yes,” Trevor said, a temporary pause in the lying. “I stopped and bought a beer.”

  “Or two.”

  “Yes, two.”

  Spicer leaned on his elbows, his face halfway across the table. “I got some bad news for you, Trevor. You’re fired.”

  “What?”

  “Terminated. Sacked. Gone for good.”

  “You can’t fire me.”

  “I just did. Effective immediately. By unanimous vote of the Brethren. We’re notifying the warden so your name will be removed from the list of attorneys. When you leave today, Trevor, don’t come back.”

  “Why?”

  “Lying, drinking too much, sloppy habits, a general lack of trust on behalf of your clients.”

  It sounded true enough, but Trevor nevertheless took it hard. It had never crossed his mind that they’d have the guts to fire him. He clenched his teeth and asked, “What about our little enterprise?”

  “It’s a clean break. You keep your money, we’ll keep ours.”

  “Who’ll run it on the outside?”

  “We’ll worry about that. You can pursue an honest living, if you’re able.”

  “What would you know about an honest living?”

  “Why don’t you just leave, Trevor? Get up, walk out, it’s been lovely.”

  “Sure,” he mumbled, his thoughts a blur but two coming to the forefront. First, Spicer had brought no letters, the first time that had happened in many weeks. Second, the cash. What did they need the five grand for? Probably to bribe their new lawyer. They’d planned their ambush well, which was always an advantage they held because they had so much time on their hands. Three very bright men, with lots of idle time. It wasn’t fair.

  Pride made him stand. He extended a hand and said, “Sorry it had to happen.”

  Spicer shook it reluctantly. Just get out of here, he wanted to say.

  When they made eye contact for the last time, Trevor said, almost in a whisper, “Konyers is the man. Very rich. Very powerful. He knows about you.”

  Spicer leapt up like a cat. With their faces just inches apart, he said, also in a whisper, “Is he watching you?”

  Trevor nodded and winked. Then he grabbed the door. He picked up his briefcase without a word to Link. What was he supposed to say to the guard? Sorry, old boy, but the thousand bucks a month in cash you were getting under the table just got cut off. Sad about it? Then ask Judge Spicer here why it happened.

  But he let it pass. He was reeling and almost dizzy, and the alcohol didn’t help. What would he tell Wes and Chap? That was the question of the moment. They would hammer him as soon as they could catch him.

  He said good-bye to Link, and Vince, Mackey, and Rufus up front, same as always but now for the last time, and walked into the hot sun.

  Wes and Chap were parked three cars down. They wanted to talk but played it safe. Trevor ignored them as he tossed his briefcase into the passenger’s seat and got in the Beetle. The caravan followed him away from the prison, and slowly down the highway toward Jacksonville.

  THEIR DECISION to dispose of Trevor had been reached with a maximum of judicial deliberation. They’d spent hours hiding in their little room, studying the Konyers file until every word of every letter was memorized. They’d walked miles around the track, just the three of them, playing one scenario against another. They ate together, played cards together, all the while whispering new theories of who might be watching their mail.

  Trevor was the nearest culprit, and the only one they could control. If their victims got sloppy, they could do nothing about it. But if their lawyer had failed to watch his trail, then he had to be fired. He was not the type to evoke a lot of trust in the first place. How many good, busy lawyers would be willing to risk their careers in a gay extortion scheme?

  The only hesitation in ridding themselves of Trevor was the fear of what he might do with their money. They expected him to steal it, frankly, and they couldn’t stop him. But they were willing to run that risk in return for a bigger score with Mr. Aaron Lake. To get to Lake, they felt they had to eliminate Trevor.

  Spicer gave them the details of their meeting, word for word. Trevor’s muted message at the end stunned them. Konyers was watching Trevor. Konyers knew about the Brethren. Did that mean Lake knew about the Brethren? Who was really Konyers now? Why did Trevor whisper this and why did he leave his briefcase outside the door?

  With the scrutiny that only a team of bored judges could generate, the questions poured forth. And then the strategies.

  TREVOR WAS MAKING COFFEE in his newly cleaned and shined kitchen when Wes and Chap made their quiet entry and came straight at him.

  “What happened?” Wes asked. They were frowning and gave the impression they’d been fretting for some time.

  “What do you mean?” Trevor asked, as if things were splendid.

  “What happened to the mike?”

  “Oh that. The guard took the briefcase and kept it outside.”

  They frowned at each other some more. Trevor poured the water into his coffee machine. The fact that it was almost five and he was making coffee was duly noted by the agents.

  “Why did he do that?”

  “It’s routine. About once a month the guard will keep the briefcase during the visit.”

  “Did he search it?”

  Trevor busied himself by watching the coffee drip. Absolutely nothing was wrong. “He made his usual quick exam, which I think he does with his eyes closed. He removed the ingoing letters, then took it. The mike was safe.”

  “Did he notice the thick envelopes?”

  “Of course not. Relax.”

  “And the meeting went well?”

  “It was routine, except that Spicer had no outgoing mail, which is a bit unusual these days, but it happens. I’ll go back in two days and he’ll have a stack of letters, and the guard will not even touch the briefcase. You’ll get to hear every word. Want some coffee?”

  They relaxed in unison. “Thanks, but we’d better go,” Chap said. There were reports to make, questions to answer. They started for the door, but Trevor stopped them.

  “Look, fellas,” he said very politely. “I’m perfectly capable of getting dressed by myself, and of having a quick bowl of cereal, alone, the way I’ve done it for many years. And I like to open my office here no earlier than nine. Since it’s my office, we’ll open at nine, and not a minute sooner. You’re welcome to be here at that unholy hour, but not at eight f
ifty-nine. Stay away from my house, and stay away from this office until nine. Understood?”

  “Sure,” one of them said, and they were gone. It didn’t really matter to them. They had bugs crawling all over the office, the house, the car, even the briefcase now. They knew where he bought his toothpaste.

  Trevor drank the entire pot of coffee and sobered up. Then he began his movements, all carefully planned. He’d started preparing the moment he left Trumble. He assumed they were watching, back there with the boys from the white van. They had the gadgets and the toys, the mikes and the bugs, and Wes and Chap certainly knew how to use them. Money was no object. He told himself to believe they knew everything, just let his imagination run wild and assume they heard every word, followed every turn, and knew exactly where he was at all times.

  The more paranoid he was, the better his chances of escape.

  He drove to a mall sixteen miles away near Orange Park, in the sprawl south of Jacksonville. He roamed and window-shopped and ate pizza in a near-empty food court. It was difficult not to dart behind a rack of clothes in a store and wait for the shadows to walk by. But he resisted. In a Radio Shack, he bought a small cell phone. One month of long distance with a local service came with the package, and Trevor had what he needed.

  He returned home after nine, certain that they were watching. He turned the television on full volume, and made more coffee. In the bathroom he stuffed his cash into pockets.

  At midnight, with the house dark and quiet and Trevor evidently asleep, he slipped out the back door and into the night. The air was brisk, the moon full, and he tried his best to look as though he was simply going for a walk on the beach. He wore baggy cargo pants with pockets from the waist down, two denim shirts, and an oversized windbreaker with money stuffed inside the liner. In all, Trevor had $80,000 hidden on himself as he wandered aimlessly south, along the edge of the water, just another beachcomber out for a midnight stroll.

  After a mile his pace quickened. When he’d gone three miles he was exhausted, but he was in a desperate hurry. Sleep and rest would have to wait.

  He left the beach and walked into the grungy lobby of a run-down motel. There was no traffic along Highway A1A; nothing was open except for the motel and a convenience store in the distance.

  The door rattled enough for the clerk to come to life. A television was on somewhere in the back. A chubby young man of no more than twenty emerged and said, “Good evening. Need a room?”

  “No sir,” Trevor said, as he slowly drew a hand from a pocket and produced a thick roll of bills. He began peeling them off and placing them in a neat row on the counter. “I need a favor.”

  The clerk stared at the money, then rolled his eyes. The beach attracted all kinds. “These rooms ain’t that expensive,” he said.

  “What’s your name?” Trevor asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Let’s say it’s Sammy Sosa.”

  “All right, Sammy. There’s a thousand bucks. It’s yours if you’ll drive me to Daytona Beach. Take you ninety minutes.”

  “It’ll take me three hours because I have to drive back.”

  “Whatever. That’s more than three hundred bucks an hour. When’s the last time you made three hundred bucks an hour?”

  “It’s been a while. I can’t do it. I run the night shift, you see. My job is to be on duty from ten until eight.”

  “Who’s the boss?”

  “He’s in Atlanta.”

  “When’s the last time he stopped by?”

  “I’ve never met him.”

  “Of course you haven’t. If you owned a dump like this, would you stop by?”

  “It’s not that bad. We have free color TV’s and most of the air-conditioning works.”

  “It’s a dump, Sammy. You can lock that door, drive away, and come back three hours later, and no one will ever know it.”

  Sammy looked at the money again. “You runnin from the law or something?”

  “No. And I’m not armed. I’m just in a hurry.”

  “So what’s up?”

  “A bad divorce, Sammy. I have a little money. My wife wants it all and she has some pretty nasty lawyers. I gotta get out of town.”

  “You got money, but no car?”

  “Look, Sammy. You want the deal or not? If you say no, then I’ll walk down the street to the convenience store and find somebody smart enough to take my cash.”

  “Two thousand.”

  “You’ll do it for two thousand?”

  “Yep.”

  The car was worse than Trevor had expected. It was an old Honda, uncleaned by Sammy or any of the previous five owners. But A1A was deserted, and the trip to Daytona Beach took exactly ninety-eight minutes.

  At 3:20 a.m., the Honda stopped in front of an all-night waffle grill, and Trevor got out. He thanked Sammy, said good-bye, and watched him drive away. Inside, he drank coffee and chatted with the waitress long enough to persuade her to go fetch a local phone directory. He ordered pancakes and used his new Radio Shack cell phone to find his way around town.

  The nearest airport was Daytona Beach International. A few minutes after four, his cab stopped at the general aviation terminal. Dozens of small planes sat in neat rows on the tarmac. He stared at them as the cab drove away. Surely, he told himself, one of them was available for a quick charter. He just needed one, preferably a twin-engine.

  TWENTY-NINE

  THE BACK BEDROOM of the rental had been converted into the meeting room, with four folding tables pushed together to make one large one. It was covered with newspapers, magazines, and doughnut boxes. Every morning at seven-thirty Klockner and his team met over coffee and pastries to review the night and plan the day. Wes and Chap were always there, and six or seven others joined them, depending on who was in town from Langley. The technicians from the front room sometimes sat in, though Klockner did not require their attendance. Now that Trevor was on their side, they needed fewer people to track him.

  Or so they thought. Surveillance detected no movement inside his home before seven-thirty, which was not altogether unusual for a man who often went to bed drunk and woke up late. At eight, while Klockner was still meeting in the back, a technician called the house under the ruse of a wrong number. After three rings, the recorder came on and Trevor announced he was not in, please leave a message. This happened occasionally when he was trying to sleep late, but it usually worked well enough to roust him from bed.

  Klockner was notified at eight-thirty that the house was completely still; no shower, no radio, no television, no stereo, not a sound from the normal routine.

  It was entirely possible he’d gotten drunk at home, by himself, but they knew he had not spent last night at Pete’s. He’d gone to a mall and arrived home apparently sober.

  “He could be sleeping,” Klockner said, unconcerned. “Where’s his car?”

  “In his driveway.”

  At nine, Wes and Chap knocked on Trevor’s door, then opened it when there was no answer. The rental sprang to life when they reported there was no sign of him, and that his car was still there. Without panic, Klockner sent people to the beach, to the coffee shops near the Sea Turtle, even to Pete’s, which was not yet open. They canvassed the area around his house and office, by foot and by car, and saw nothing.

  At ten, Klockner called Deville at Langley. The lawyer’s missing, was the message.

  Every flight to Nassau was checked; nothing turned up, no sign of a Trevor Carson. Deville’s contact in Bahamian customs could not be located, nor could he find the banking supervisor they’d been bribing.

  Teddy Maynard was in the middle of a briefing on North Korean troop movements when he was interrupted by an urgent message that Trevor Carson, their drunken lawyer in Neptune Beach, Florida, was missing.

  “How can you lose a fool like him?” Teddy growled at Deville, in a rare display of anger.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t believe this!”

  “Sorry, Teddy.”

&n
bsp; Teddy shifted his weight and grimaced from the pain. “Find him, dammit!” he hissed.

  THE PLANE was a Beech Baron, a twin-engine owned by some doctors and chartered by Eddie, the pilot Trevor had coaxed out of bed at six in the morning with the promise of cash on the spot and more under the table. The official quote was $2,200 for a round-trip between Daytona Beach and Nassau—two hours each way, total of four at $400 an hour, plus some fees for landing and immigration and pilot downtime. Trevor kicked in another $2,000 for Eddie’s pocket if the trip took place immediately.

  The Geneva Trust Bank in downtown Nassau opened at 9 EST, and Trevor was waiting when the doors were unlocked. He barged into the office of Mr. Brayshears and demanded immediate assistance. He had almost a million dollars in his account—$900,000 from Mr. Al Konyers, through Wes and Chap; about $68,000 from his dealings with the Brethren.

  With one eye on the door, he pressed Brayshears to help him move the money, and quickly. The money was owned by Trevor Carson, and no one else. Brayshears had no choice. There was a bank in Bermuda managed by a friend of his, which suited Trevor just fine. He didn’t trust Brayshears, and he planned to keep moving the money until he felt safe.

  For a moment, Trevor cast a lustful eye at the account of Boomer Realty, currently with a balance of $189,000 and change. It was within his power, during that fleeting moment, to snatch their money too. They were nothing but felons—Beech, Yarber, the odious Spicer, all crooks. And they’d had the arrogance to fire him. They had forced him to run. He tried to hate them enough to take their money, but as he wavered back and forth he felt a soft spot for them. Three old men wasting away in prison.

  A million was enough. Besides, he was in a hurry. If Wes and Chap suddenly charged in with guns, it wouldn’t have surprised him. He thanked Brayshears and ran from the building.

  When the Beech Baron lifted off the runway at Nassau International, Trevor couldn’t help but laugh. He laughed at the heist, at the getaway, at his luck, at Wes and Chap and their rich client now minus a million, at his shabby little law office now mercifully idle. He laughed at his past and at his glorious future.

  At three thousand feet he gazed downward at the still blue waters of the Caribbean. A lonely sailboat rocked along, its captain at the wheel, a scantily clad lady nearby. That would be him down there in just a few short days.