More headlights swung past the front windows and Walter caught a glimpse of a small sedan parking across from the pickup truck. A minute later, an attractive woman with red hair came through the door, posed long enough to get everyone’s attention, and then took a stool on the dark side next to the recently arrived pair. Gerry drifted over, mumbled a greeting, and took her order for a gin martini.
As she waited, the woman’s glance drifted to Walter. Her eyes smiled, telling him that he was her kind of man. She seemed to be laughing to herself as she sipped her drink.
Could she be the one? Walter wondered. Why not a woman? It would be logical as hell if they went back to his car and drove away. She wouldn’t have to take the briefcase until she was certain that they weren’t being followed. But it was up to her to make the move. If she were the contact, she would have no trouble identifying him. His shoes were shined and his trousers were creased. He was the only one in the place wearing a business suit.
Walter looked around. He recalled the sound of the voice on the tape and tried to remember the face that his imagination had put with it. That face was nowhere in the room. In the stained mirror behind the bar, he could see his car parked outside. It stood alone. No one had parked near it. He looked at his watch. Hogan had warned him that the pickup man would probably let him sit for quite a while, making sure that he was alone. He glanced back at the redhead in the black dress. She had already struck up a conversation with the two young men in the T-shirts. Walter sipped at his drink. It was promising to be a long night.
People came and went. The first woman picked up her purse and left with her boyfriend right at her heels. A slutty-looking woman entered, ordered a drink, and within a few minutes was joined by a male arrival. They left together almost immediately. An older man with a terrible limp pulled himself up onto a stool with great effort. Walter studied him until the man looked back. Then Walter was embarrassed because he seemed to be focusing on the man’s handicap.
Two hours went by uneventfully. The man with the limp belted back two shots and left. Walter finished his second scotch. Finally, the redhead pulled her cigarettes and lighter back into her purse, gave Walter a glance that said “last chance,” and sauntered out the door. When she pulled away, Walter saw that there were only two cars in the lot, his and the pickup truck that belonged to the two T-shirted characters, who were still working their way through whatever was on tap. He surmised that the woman had probably been Hogan’s agent who had cased the place, checked out her two drinking companions, and then left. He decided that he had missed his rendezvous. When he went outside, the top of the briefcase was still visible through the front window of his car.
As he drove away from the roadhouse, he dialed Andrew Hogan’s office on his car phone. Hogan picked up instantly and told Walter he was already aware that the kidnapper had never shown up. “As far as we can tell, he never even tried. No cars were casing the place. No one moving through the woods on foot.”
“What about the two kids at the bar?” Walter asked.
“They were working for us,” Hogan said.
Walter was shocked. “Then who was the woman?”
“A hooker who offered to do both our guys for the price of one.”
“Well, if our man wasn’t there, where was he?” Walter wondered.
“Probably at home,” Andrew speculated. “Maybe he’s just a nut who gets his kicks out of playing games.”
“We shouldn’t be playing games,” Walter snapped bitterly. “We should just pay the guy.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference if the case was chock full of money. He never even took a look.”
“If it’s someone real close to me, he wouldn’t have to look. He might have known what we were up to without even bothering to show up.”
Andrew’s tone became consoling. “I know this is tough on you, Walter. But you and I were the only ones who knew the case was empty. No one else. Not even the people who had the place staked out.”
“And what about tomorrow? When we wire those funds, anyone who’s really looking will know that it’s only ten thousand. We’re going to get Emily killed.”
’Try to sleep on it, Walter. Maybe the best thing we can do is take this to the chairman and let him make the call.”
“It won’t take Hollcroft five seconds before he’ll be on the phone to the police. We’ve been through all this, for Christ’s sake.”
“Let’s both sleep on it. I don’t mind telling you that I’m getting uneasy about setting a trap for a courier.”
“Dammit! It’s your idea. I was the one who said it wouldn’t work.”
“Like I said. We’ll sleep on it!”
Walter knew that there was no chance of his sleeping on anything. His whole life was coming to an instant of crisis. His entire future would be decided in the next twenty-four hours. He felt desperately alone. If only Angela were with him. If he could just talk to her.
Angela carried her wine out onto the balcony of the town house and looked at the moonlight sparkling on the water. A wonderful night for a swim, she thought. A romantic night. Exactly the kind of evening six months ago when Walter Childs had first hit on her.
She had known it was coming ever since she had joined the bank and learned that Walter was her mentor. She had probably overdone it at her interview. But people looking for a high-paying job had to impress the hell out of the people who were doing the hiring. Women had the added burden of making sure which of their many attributes was making the impression.
Walter’s interest was obvious. He had monitored her work as if it were the most important activity at InterBank. Weekly, she was summoned to his office for a professional conference on her progress. But always the conversation was more about Walter and the loneliness of command than about any achievement of hers. She had recognized all the opportunities to be sympathetic, to display her concern for his burdens, and to offer an opportunity for a more relaxed meeting.
At one of their sessions, after official business hours, he had gestured to the stack of documents on his desk awaiting his attention. “An all-nighter,” he had sighed. “Probably just grab a fast bite and then get back to the desk.” And then, as if the idea had just occurred to him, he had suggested, “Say, if you’re not terribly busy, maybe you could join me. We could talk over dinner.” Angela had agreed with a show of enthusiasm. You didn’t get ahead by offending the people in power. Skillfully, she had kept the conversation on her work and the demanding chores waiting back in his office. At the end of the meal, he had no entry to anything except to say good night and call her a taxi. But she knew that wouldn’t be the end. Walter regarded her as his personal property. She had to find some way to outlast his interest, or she probably had to find another bank.
The moment had come during a three-day business conference at a Caribbean resort. Walter had found her in the cocktail lounge with two of her colleagues at the end of the first day and had moved in. He had out-waited the colleagues, then suggest a moonlight swim. It was while he was toweling her off that he had pulled her close and kissed her. “I hope you understand the way I feel about you,” he had whispered.
She understood, but knew a truthful answer would be a career-limiting move. “What took you so long,” she answered, and she had kissed him in return.
The second night of the conference, he had joined her on her patio with the requisite bottle of champagne, and alluded to a family that simply didn’t understand the pressure he was under. The wife who no longer loved him was the last act of his play.
On the third night, he had joined her in her bed. A very tender and considerate lover, Angela had thought while pretending to unheard-of heights of ecstasy. Better than the hot-shots she had grown up with, more energetic than her fellow MBA students, and certainly more durable than the business ethics professor who began apologizing for his inadequacies the instant their bodies touched. But still, there was no doubt that he was simply taking advantage of their relative positions. It wa
s up to her whether this was the beginning of her career or the end. Right at that moment, she had decided that it would be neither.
She sipped the fine white Bordeaux that Roberto had apparently ordered and that had been waiting in a bucket of fresh ice when she entered the room. Roberto’s plane had touched down on Grand Cayman just as the sun was touching the horizon. She stayed aboard while the small turboprop was towed into a private hangar and found only one person waiting when she stepped out onto the plane’s swing-down steps. Roberto’s agent had been well briefed. His car, with darkened windows, was parked immediately outside the access door of the hangar building. There was no one in the area who could possibly identify her.
She had leaned forward in her seat and asked the driver to take her past the Banca Folonari and then spent the next half hour studying the narrow streets of George Town, capital of the islands, and Grand Cayman’s only attempt at even an insignificant city. She was driven by the front door of the bank branch, a two-story structure with an imitation warehouse facade that could just as easily have been a souvenir shop. Then she had the driver take her down the side streets and around the brick structure. She noted the row of windows on the second floor and the small parking area for the executives behind the building. Angela shook her head in dismay. The entire Folonari branch wasn’t much more impressive than a typical American late-night convenience store. It seemed anything but the most profitable branch of a major European money center.
But, of course, banks no longer needed impressive facades. Nor was there any reason for barred teller cages and mammoth vault doors. The Cayman branch was simply a computer center, housing small, inexpensive terminals that were connected to the rest of the world by telephone lines and satellite uplinks. Generally, there wasn’t anything in the building worth stealing. Grand Cayman had become a world money center not because of the security of its vaults, but simply because of the generosity of its banking laws. The island government didn’t require that depositors report their balances to the tax authorities. Nor did it ever ask depositors about the sources of their wealth. Funds transferred through a Cayman branch simply vanished from the radar screens of police departments and tax collectors all over the world. The tiny island nation, once it freed itself from British rule, had become a rival to Switzerland as the safe haven for thieves of every kind.
Angela created a mental picture of the area as the driver spun back and forth over the streets surrounding the building. There was a jewelry store on the corner diagonally opposite the bank. Directly across from the Folonari entrance was a huge imported goods outlet, with open arches looking out over the street. There was a liquor store with dozens of wine racks fronting the street, a drugstore, and a sidewalk cafe. In the daytime, she guessed, the whole area would be swarming with tourists. It was a good area in which to become invisible.
Now, as Angela relaxed on the patio with the white Bordeaux that had been provided by her Cuban customer, she finalized the elements of her plan. She would connect to Walter’s computer server and watch for his connection to the Folonari branch. Once she knew that the money had been moved, she would head for the shops she had noticed. She could kill at least an hour looking at gold chains while she watched the bank entrance through the jewelry store window. Then, if no one showed up, she would move down a few doors to the import center and spend another hour selecting a camera. If she needed still more time, she could look at lenses and other camera accessories, all the while keeping watch on Folonari’s entrance. She felt certain she would be able to spot a courier, who would be wearing a business suit in an island of sport shirts and tank tops. And she would see anyone who tried to follow him.
Angela finished her wine and stepped back into the suite to unpack. From the side pocket of her valise, she took out a floppy sun hat. Then she spread out a striped, long-sleeved poncho, oat-colored slacks, and leather sandals. She would blend in easily with tomorrow’s columns of shoppers.
Emily’s voice seemed to come from hell, shrill with pain and nearly breathless with fear.
“Jesus, he’s got a razor. He’s going to cut off my ear. Help me, Walter! Help me!”
Then, the calm man’s voice that was colored with laughter. It was obvious that Mike was enjoying the moment.
“Not an ear? Then maybe one a your tits! You think he remembers what they look like …”
Emily’s scream. “God, no! He’ll pay. He’ll get you the money.”
Walter screamed, “No! Stop it!” into the phone, but all he heard was a click and then the sound of obscene laughter. “Please, don’t hurt her,” he begged.
“Why not?” the man’s voice demanded. “You brought the cops!”
“No, I didn’t. I just …”
“Don’t lie to me! Who do you think you’re dealing with? One of your flunkies at the bank? You had cops casing the place all afternoon.”
Walter stammered, “I … I didn’t mean …”
“And then those two kids at the bar. Where did you get them? Out of Mod Squad? They might as well have been wearing badges.”
“Please, it wasn’t my idea. It won’t happen again. I’ll …”
“I’ll give you one more chance. Your old lady still has her ears and her tits. But if anything happens this time, I’ll be sending you her heart!”
“I’ll do exactly what you tell me.”
“Stay by the phone. I’ll be calling you back in a few minutes.”
A click, and then the sound of an open line.
Walter used both hands to hang up the phone. When he raised his drink to his lips, he could hear the ice cubes trembling.
“Jesus,” he said in a whisper. His first thought was to call Andrew Hogan and tell him about the call. He wanted to scream at him for the danger that Emily was in, and to berate him for underestimating the kidnapper. But he couldn’t get past the terror that he had heard in Emily’s voice. It was as if the madman’s razor had been hovering over his own face. He didn’t want Andrew or anyone else involved. He just wanted to pay the money and put an end to all this.
He snapped down the drink and rushed to the wet bar to pour himself another. Then he began pacing his living room, glancing at the telephone each time he passed it. “Ring, goddammit! Ring!”
It was only half an hour since he had shuffled from his garage into the kitchen, disarmed the security system, and gone to the telephone answering machine. There was no message waiting. Maybe Andrew had been right. The man was of no account and had probably lost his nerve and abandoned the ransom. Walter had taken off his jacket, loosened his tie knot, turned up his sleeves, and gone to the wet bar to fix himself another drink.
The tension was suffocating. Pilfering accounts. Moving small amounts of money. Assembling the $100 million ransom. At any point in the process, he could have been spotted by any one of hundreds of people who sat bleary-eyed at their computer terminals, watching the flow of funds in and out of banks on three continents. It had taken all his nerve just to keep his fingers on the keyboard.
And then there were the hours spent at Randy’s, pretending to drink when his stomach was in knots, eyeing the lowlife regulars hoping for a sign, and all the while stealing glances at his car.
Even though nothing was resolved, it had been a relief just to lock himself in the familiar and safe surroundings of his own home. But then the new worries began. Would he be able to transfer the entire $100 million as he had planned? Would Hogan recognize the transfer in progress and be able to stop it? Would the transfers go through or would they be blocked by some well-meaning clerk, awaiting a confirmation? Would he be summoned to the boardroom instantly or would the money be gone and Emily be free before his theft became known? Walter had none of the answers. But there was no turning back. He would have to plunge ahead and live with the consequences, whatever they were. He had gone to the bar for another drink, hoping that the alcohol might bring a few moments of peace. And then the telephone had rung. Walter had hesitated, sure that it was probably something routin
e, but fearful nevertheless. He had been greeted by a moment of silence and then the sound of a tape player. An instant later, his head had nearly exploded with the sound of Emily’s screams. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He had never intended to hurt her.
Now, the telephone rang again and he sprang to it instantly.
“Hello.”
The voice: “You gotta car phone?”
“Yes, of course.”
“What’s the number?”
He rattled off the number of his cellular telephone.
“Wrap the money up in a brown paper parcel. Keep it outta sight, on the floor of your car, in back of the passenger seat. And bring the leather briefcase with you. Keep it in the front seat, in plain sight. You got that?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Noon on Saturday you go for a drive on the Garden State, by the Paramus Mall. Make sure the car phone is turned on. I’ll call you.”
“Saturday?” Walter couldn’t contain his fear. “What about tonight? Or tomorrow?”
“Saturday! At noon. And don’t screw it up. You know what will happen.”
Emily lay motionless, her hands chained above her head, the blanket tossed in a heap at her feet. She had hardly breathed since her grotesque jailer had sauntered up the stairs, playing back the screams he had recorded. And now he was on his way back down to the basement.
It had been the most terrifying moment of her life when he had brandished the razor-sharp linoleum knife and fantasized about where he would begin the process of slicing her to pieces. Her plans of escape were forgotten. Her dreams of freedom had become a nightmare. Even though she had come to despise her husband, there had been no pretense in the screams that begged Walter to save her. If he had arrived at that moment and paid her ransom, she would have clung to him in gratitude for every living moment that was left to her.
The leering psychopath had held out strands of her hair and sliced them in front of her eyes so that she could see the capabilities of the blade. He had drawn a drop of blood simply by touching the curved point under her ear. He had cupped her breast and used the back of the knife to trace the ease with which he planned to mutilate her. And all the while, his machine had been running, recording her pleading and begging and, when he seemed about to strike, her screams. Then he had played it all back for her, enjoying the sound of her degradation as much as he would enjoy the feel of the ransom money.
The Trophy Wife Page 15
