Stealing Flowers

by Edward St Amant

  Kwong seemed not to react, although I saw the fear in his eyes as he looked at us and saw that we were all armed. I think he might have recognized me and so must have been doubly fearful. Peter moved his pistol to Kwong’s lower leg, and without hesitation, shot him. I jumped back and let out a gasp. The small hole in his leg began to spurt with bright fresh blood. Kwong cried out in pain and curled into a fetal position on the bed, holding his wound, and freeing the woman to cover herself. His penis had shriveled up into an inch.

  “I need a name,” Peter repeated.

  “Who?” Kwong gasped.

  “The killer of Cheryl Garland and Graham Roberts.” A silence followed and a film of sweat spread over Kwong’s hairless upper body. The Chinese girl sobbed and the blankets turned red. Peter lowered the gun to Kwong’s other leg, whose gaze followed it.

  “They’ll kill me,” Kwong said

  “I’ll give you twelve hours to get out of the country. Now name the man or die.”

  “Lloyd Mills.”

  “He paid you the final installment today?” Kwong nodded. “Were you the shooter?”

  “An L.A. crew did it.”

  “The guy with the shaved head?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Who killed Sally Tappet?”

  “I’d nothing to do with that.”

  “If your facts check out, I’ll give you your twelve hours. If you warn Lloyd, I’ll come after you.” Peter signaled us and we backed up into the shadows of the hallway. We descended the stairs at a run and sped away in his car. Josh took the Thompson out of my clenched fist.

  “Good thing the safety was on,” he said.

  My heart raced until we reached the highway. From there, we drove home. “Wake up your parents and Una,” Peter said when we arrived and made himself a drink.

  Mary and Stan came from their rooms and looked rather disheveled, but as always Una was focused and ready for anything. Stan shook Peter’s hand, then Josh’s. “What is it, my friends?” Dad asked.

  “We got him!” Peter returned and passed him the files, “It’s in here. A professional mechanic from the west coast killed Cheryl Garland and Graham Roberts, an assassin hired by Lloyd Mills. It’s connected to the plans of The Zortichii Group. Both Lloyd and The Family of Truth are involved, just as Burlington hinted in court. The name Zortichii is from David Zortichii, Moses Truth’s birth name. They are a consortium controlled by Barry Town Investments. This in turn, is controlled by Zortichii Enterprises, which is controlled by Moses Truth and the Family.”

  Mary had grown pale, but managed a weak smile. I felt so sorry for my parents, and especially her; this wouldn’t bring Sally back no matter how successful we were. I’d introduced Lloyd Mills to the Tappets; In their deepest darkest hearts, how could they ever forgive me?

  “Lloyd can’t be alone,” Peter continued. “I don’t know who are involved, but at least Kyoto Takeshi and some other executives. Any legal maneuvering that Lloyd could make publicly with one or two long term executives at his side would certainly place downward pressure on the market price of Tappets. Afterward, the consortium would come in, make a surprisingly generous offer compared with what the market expected to produce. Lloyd and his people would be placed in charge.”

  “He’s in charge now,” Mary said.

  “But not permanently.” Mary shook her head, but I couldn’t tell whether in disgust or disbelief. “If Tappets took on a massive expansion of credit,” Peter continued, “and puffed up its assets. In a year or so after this, Tappets could be worth twice the price.”

  Stan pressed down his hair and brushed down his moustache with his right hand. “How does this help Christian though?”

  “We have met with a Korean named Kwong Katigbaki. I believe, he’s the one who was the go-between for Lloyd and the deaths of Cheryl Garland and Graham Roberts. He’s denied having anything to do with Sally’s death, but today Kwong met with Lloyd and Swift Retribution, who is traveling with three other members of The Hostility Branch of The Family of Truth. We need one, perhaps two more days to corner them. I’m pretty sure that they’re Sally’s murderers, but perhaps Lloyd doesn’t realize it. That would explain more than a few things.”

  “How can that be?” Mary asked. “This Kwong had nothing to do with Sally’s death?”

  “The Hostility Branch of The Family of Truth, didn’t kill Cheryl and Graham, they killed Sally. These are the same men who raped her, also probably the same men who killed Rick Edwards, but I don’t think Kwong or Lloyd know about them. Perhaps Lloyd is being used by someone indirectly involved. Maybe they have tapped into his greed to run the business and he has become blind to everything else.”

  “But he must have known,” Stan interrupted.

  “He really couldn’t have had a direct involvement with the murder,” Peter said. “Still though, maybe someone from The Zortichii Group got them to be available to Graham Roberts through him, but even here, he might be innocent in regards to it.”

  “But if he’s in at all,” Mary said, “doesn’t that damn him completely? After all, Sally and he were involved in a close relationship at some point and Tappets has employed him his whole adult life?”

  “This sounds like a lot of speculation,” I said, speaking for the first time.

  “We’ll go through the files carefully,” Peter said, “and see what else we can find. Do nothing about this for two days,” he added. “If you haven’t heard from me in this time, go to the police, to Detective Cramer.”

  For the next two days, Peter, Josh, and I met in anonymous diners in Jersey to go over the files. Peter and Josh were still not living at home and were motivated to get to the bottom of it quick, but it was perplexing. No direct connection to Lloyd Mills could be made and if we hadn’t seen it for ourselves and heard it from Kwong’s mouth, we wouldn’t have believed it.

  “We should just scare it out of him,” Josh suggested when his father was out of earshot. I nodded and we met secretly that night to discuss it. Since Josh had been trailing Lloyd, he knew what to do, where to go. Ashe agreed to help us.

  That next night at ten o’clock when I came into The Tin Island Bar, I was packing Kwong’s Thompson. An annoying repetitive song played from the speakers as I waited for Lloyd. Although cool air blew in where I sat near the door, I sweated inside of my cotton sports-jacket. A small crowd had gathered, some of them ate, but most of them talked and drank. The bar held bands of powerful electric light flooding in from the ceiling, but there was something old, even gaudy about it.

  I saw a young man who reminded me of Silent Peace when I’d first met him. He stood with a pale thin girl, maybe seventeen, who seemed unfocused and drunk, but otherwise, quite pretty. Where Josh hid, I didn’t know, but close-by. I took my drink and found a quiet booth near the back exit, as planned. An hour slipped away as I daydreamed about revenging Sally’s death. She’d brought us into contact with those robots on the bus, and she being the stronger and smarter, as far as I was concerned, I sort of blamed her for it. But of course, it was also an accident of fate and that had more to do with The First Law of Life for orphans and those others born unlucky, then any chance act of God.

  Lloyd finally entered the bar, alone, just as Josh predicted. He looked even more thin and pale and I knew he was anxious. I stayed perfectly still. I was in disguise but I covered my face with my hands as well. When Lloyd sat down at the bar, I rose and left, then headlights flashed and I rushed over to our rental car, hopping into the backseat. “Where’s Josh?” I asked Ashe in a rush.

  “You’ve got too much adrenaline running,” she said, “relax. Lloyd will likely be crying in his drink for a while. I saw him. He’s a nervous boy, let’s hope he doesn’t hang around long. I’m pretty certain that he’s armed. You’ll have to get his gun from him just like I’ve shown you. Remember, we’re breaking every law in New York State, if we aren’t killed, we’re going to jail. This is okay for you, you’re going anyway, but I’m getting married this yea
r.” I was too nervous to laugh. “Remember,” Ashe continued, with a sympathetic look, “he’s frightened. Nothing worse than fear in the enemy. Just as the old man always says, ‘It’s two steps from courage and one step from panic.’”

  An hour later the two-way radio crackled. “Okay boys and girls,” the voice of Josh said, “this is it! Over.”

  “We’re ready,” Ashe said. “Out.”

  I stepped out of the car and walked quickly to the side of the bar. I caught sight of Josh behind the far corner of the other side of the building, then I spotted Lloyd. The breeze had picked up and the poor light in the parking lot didn’t show up even the pot-holes. His Jaguar was forty yards away and I came up about thirty feet behind him. Then the Jaguar literally blew apart in a violent brilliant explosion and flew five feet straight up into the air, parts flew everywhere. This was Josh’s doing. I could see that more than a little bit of revenge had went into it. I caught up and put Kwong’s Thompson into Lloyd’s back. “Don’t make any sudden moves,” I whispered. I reached forward and slowly took the gun from out of his front right jacket pocket, just where Ashe had promised it would be.

  “I thought of just letting you get into your car,” I said bitterly “so consider this your lucky day.” The explosion drew attention from the patrons of the bar, who came out all in one crowd. Ashe flashed the car’s lights as though to hurry us. “Over there,” I said and pushed him forward with the tip of Kwong’s Thompson.”

  “What do you want?” he mumbled.

  I thought he was going to cry. “If you want to stay alive, shut up. You’ll find out soon enough. More than one person can hire killers and blow up cars.”

  “You’re making a huge mistake.”

  I pushed him forward again. As we approached the car, Ashe jumped out, wearing a ski-mask. She seized Lloyd by the arm and shook him quickly down, searching for any other weapons. She gave him a rough push into the backseat and cuffed his hands as a precaution. We raced west to Manhattan, with Josh following in another rental car. I knew that we weren’t so far from where Lloyd lived in his luxurious apartment building; he’d be able to walk home when we were done. We took two short residential streets south, and one over, east. In a low-rise vacant building, I took Lloyd to a room lit with a single dull uncovered ceiling light. I tied him securely into a wooden chair. Unseen, Josh and Ashe watched from the corridor.

  In the upper corners, spider’s webs and dust balls hung from the ceiling. Graffiti, much of it in crypt, covered the gorged filthy walls. An old desk, turned on its side, had been partly vandalized and the top had been scorched with lighters, but outside of that, the empty room had little but an echo and useless debris. It was a perfect place for this sort of thing; whatever sort of thing we were doing. I guess you could call it shaking the tree. I was a fairly desperate man. Slowly, and in front of him, I took off my disguise.

  “You think that my family and I have a merchant mentality,” I said with disdain. “You think that because we do business according to the rules that we’re afraid to seek justice on our own? That the Tappets’ kind of lawful behavior is a sign of weakness.” I saw that he was plenty nervous. That I’d been disguised and showed myself now scared the color from his face. “Let me tell you something,” I continued, “personally, I don’t think I can win an appeal in the courts. I came here to kill you and then leave the country. I always thought that you recognized that you were blessed by one of the best families in the world. They used their influence to save you from the streets when you asked for their help, they employed you, moved you up in the company, you slept with their beautiful daughter, ate at their table, I mean, just what does it take to win you over? You’re just a lousy common criminal who can beat a polygraph.”

  “I didn’t beat the polygraph,” he said heatedly. “I’d nothing to do with your sister’s death. I liked her much, more than–”

  I slapped his face with all my might and took the Thompson, juggling it from hand to hand in front of him as though I was nervous, which I was. “You’re a pathological liar and this led to your less-than-brilliant career as a murderer.” Suddenly, the door was swung open. This was planned.

  “We’ve got to go,” Josh called in a disguised voice but without showing himself to Lloyd.

  “I’m not finished,” I said, pretending to be angered.

  “Shoot him,” Josh said, “that’s what you came here to do. I don’t like this waiting around. Let’s go!”

  I walked back and forth for a minute more. “I’ve never shot a person before. It’s harder than I thought, but for you, I think I can manage it.” I pushed the gun into his face and released the safety. It wasn’t loaded. “In the beginning,” I said, “when you first discovered Cheryl Garland and Graham Roberts stealing from my parents, why didn’t you speak up.”

  Lloyd swallowed and tears abruptly came to his eyes. “They’d been embezzling a whole decade before their deaths,” he whispered.

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Maybe as much as two hundred million, I don’t know exactly.”

  “Who else knew?”

  “Besides me, Cheryl, Graham, and Massaki.”

  “You killed Massaki Fakato as well?”

  “He died of natural causes as far as I know.”

  “You killed Hiroyuki Nakamura so you could be interim president.”

  “It looks like that, but I’d nothing to do with it. I liked the old man. You know that.”

  “How many in Tappets knew about The Zortichii Group?”

  “Three besides Graham and Susan.” This truly shocked me. “Kyoto Takeshi, Gordon Whitley and Donna Wader.”

  Brad Burlington had sincerely believed in the conspiracy theory. I thought it far-fetched, but there it was. “Who are the leaders in The Zortichii Group?”

  “I thought they were originally from Icon Electronics run by Al Wu. He’s the president of Icon Corporation, Barry Town Investments, you know, money from the three largest religious cults goes into these corporations. They also help finance the Zortichii Group, and others like it, to cannibalize other industries. I didn’t know it, but Zortichii controlled them, not the other way around.”

  I looked up at Josh who was surprised but also indicated to move it along.

  “The Zortichii Group planned to buy Tappets as cheap as possible with me as Tappets’ front man,” Lloyd continued. “They were going to put me in charge, but I rued that day.”

  “They approved Sally’s death?”

  “You’re off base. They had nothing to do with Sally’s death. That was probably The Family of Truth. I’d absolutely nothing to do with it.” I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks as revulsion rose in my stomach. I pointed the gun at him. He appeared confused, as though wounded by every part of his own confession. His features had been replaced by stress and fear. Whatever hope he had been holding back, seemed to be gone and his unreadable face had become one of surrender. “There may be killers in The Zortichii Group,” he said, “but I’d never have let anybody hurt Sally, not even for complete control of Tappets. I passed the polygraph because I told the truth.”

  I looked over at Josh who shrugged, and then returned my attention to Lloyd. “Name Cheryl Garland and Graham Roberts’ killers.”

  “Why do I have to stay here any longer? Kwong Katigbaki. I’d no idea where it would lead, and if I had, I’d have stopped it. When Sally was killed, though as surprised as you, I seized the opportunity at Tappets and didn’t come to your defense.”

  “You produced the poem about me and Sally for the prosecution?”

  “I’d kill her murderers if I could,” he said, not denying the charge about the poem. “There’s no need to kill me for your sister’s sake. I’d nothing to do with it, and if her killer is Graham, he’s dead.”

  “You met with one of her killers last Saturday,” I whispered into his ear. Lloyd’s face lost all of its remaining color. “The man you talked to on the bench in front of The Tanner Place after your meeting with Kwong Kati
gbaki.”

  “He works with The Zortichii Group,” Lloyd said. “His name is Tim Daniel.”

  I knew that Tim Daniel was Swift Retribution, the former Thought Jacob, the blond lean Head-Elder at Denver with a sparse beard, although he looked different now. The interrogation ended and I untied Lloyd and let him stumble out of the building at a half run. Ashe and Josh stayed out of sight the entire time. When he had gone, Josh came into the room with Ashe.

  “He didn’t know after all,” he whispered disappointed.

  “At least he’ll never report us,” Ashe said. “I’m glad that’s over. If Dad ever found out, he would kill us.”

  “On the contrary,” Josh interjected. “I’m going to tell him.”

  “I’ll bet good coin that tomorrow Lloyd will resign at Tappets starting tomorrow,” I ventured.

  “You felt the same way as me,” Josh added, looking over with a broad smile. “When you were done with him, you knew he wasn’t Sally’s killer.”

  I nodded. It looked like Lloyd hadn’t anything to do with Sally’s death. If so, he’d have known that Tim Daniel was with The Family of Truth. However, during the interrogation, I had really felt like pulling the trigger, I mean if there had really been bullets in it, and now was slightly ashamed, but these feelings, I kept to myself.

  The next day, Josh and Ashe told Peter what we had done. None of us expected him to be calm about it, but he was exactly that. On Sunday, July 3 at around four o’clock in the afternoon, Peter, Josh, and Ashe, came for dinner at Una’s invitation. It was extremely hot outside and the air-conditioning was on full. I met them at the door with Susan by my side. She was staying over with me. Una had been happy all weekend and I could tell she was elated about the break from the courtroom proceedings. She’d bought a gigantic palm tree with actual ripe coconuts for the foyer and when Stan had first seen it, he sat in the chair by the door and had a belly laugh. It was the first time I had seen him laugh like that since Sally had died. I felt relaxed, but tense as well. The whole affair wasn’t out of my mind for even a minute. Ashe looked very spunky today, maybe even close to the edge of over the top. Her body was a classic in her red summer dress, skimpy enough and tight. Josh looked great too. I was growing fond of them both, besides Andy, they were becoming my first true close friends.