Madman's Thirst

by Lawrence de Maria

  “I saw the whole thing, Jake. It’s a miracle you survived.” Arachne looked devastated. “I almost got you killed.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “I insisted on the demo ride.”

  “Forget it, Ari. I’m just glad we can laugh about it.”

  “Do they know what went wrong?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Something mechanical, no doubt. Stuck gas pedal, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Well, at least I hope Honker was helpful. Did he provide any useful information?”

  Scarne didn’t want to tell Arachne that the security man had stonewalled. The real estate mogul had only tried to help. It wasn’t his fault that the trip had been a total waste of time. He obviously felt bad enough already.

  “We talked in generalities,” Scarne said. “We were going to pick it up after lunch. Now, he’s got other problems. Maybe I’ll call him in a few days.”

  “So, you didn’t get into the things you mentioned to me?”

  “I told you I would be circumspect.”

  Arachne flashed an expansive smile.

  “Yes, yes, of course you did. Well, I have to get back to the city, but I’ll check up on you. Of course, I’ll cover all your hospital bills.”

  Only the very rich can get away with a line like that today , Scarne thought.

  ***

  A resident came in late that afternoon, holding a sheaf of X-rays and reports.

  “I’m Dr. Bhupathi. The NASCAR people are apparently very solicitous of your health, Mr. Scarne. I’m happy to tell you that they – and you – have nothing to worry about. A mild concussion. Some deep bruises but, amazingly, no broken bones or serious burns.” Bhupathi gave him a strange look. “Those marks on your face seem to be healing remarkably fast. And some of your injuries are a bit inconsistent with what happened. Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

  Scarne didn’t want to go into his Florida experience, so he merely said, “I seem to be accident prone lately. I’ve been wondering about the burn part. I kept waiting to be fricasseed.”

  “I asked the track people about that myself. They have reinforced fuel tanks and pretty good fire suppression systems on those cars. And they don’t put much fuel in the demonstration cars to begin with. Apparently yours was almost down to fumes by the time you crashed. You and the driver were incredibly lucky.”

  Bhupathi told him they wanted to keep him overnight, just to be sure about the concussion. Scarne, who by now felt like one big bruise, didn’t argue.

  ***

  Honker called the next morning. He sounded less reserved and asked him to stop by the track office after he was discharged.

  “There is something I want to show you.”

  As Scarne was dressing to leave the hospital, there was a tentative knock on his door. He turned to see a sheepish-looking Crane, arm in sling and bandage on head. His nose was askew. “How you doing,’ pardner?”

  “Fine, Crash. You OK?”

  Scarne made a conscious effort not to stare at the nose, which looked like it was signaling a left turn.

  “Hell, this is nothin’.” Crane lifted his sling a bit. “And I’ve been concussed before. There’s not much left upstairs to scramble.” He shifted uncomfortably. “But I’m mighty sorry about what happened. They said I went bonkers. More than usual, I mean.”

  Scarne felt for the man. Whatever happened obviously wasn’t his fault, and, in addition to feeling guilty about almost killing his passenger, he was undoubtedly worried about his career.

  “Listen, Crash. They’ll get to the bottom of all this. Right now, just get better. You’ll be back out there in no time.”

  “Sure.” But he sounded dubious. But then he brightened. “Hey. When I am, you got a pass into every race on the circuit. Just call. Anytime.”

  They shook hands, painfully, laughing, and Scarne headed to the track.

  When he arrived at Honker’s office, Graebe was there, along with two men in coveralls. They were introduced as NASCAR mechanics. Other staff drifted over to listen. On a small plastic sheet on Honker’s desk was a jumble of cylinders, wires, gaskets, nozzles, hoses and other mechanical and electrical paraphernalia. Scarne picked up a piece.

  “Is this all that’s left of the car?”

  No one was apparently in the mood for levity and he soon found out why.

  “It’s a nitrous oxide racing kit made for Camaros and Firebirds,” one of the mechanics said. “Pretty sophisticated array. Got a 16-foot braided stainless feed line, high flow solenoids and wet nozzle, arming switch, relay, wire and wire harness, fuse, crimp terminals, micro throttle activation switch and mounting bracket…”

  Honker blessedly cut him off.

  “All well and good, but Mr. Scarne will be more interested in this.”

  He picked up the largest object on the table, a blue cylinder labeled N2O.

  “When you mentioned that sweet smell, it got us to thinking,” Graebe said. “Nitrous oxide has that smell. Dentists use it to calm patients, especially kids. They call it ‘sweet air’ or ‘laughing gas.’ Because it’s nonflammable, it’s also used in motor racing as an oxidizer to increase engine power.”

  “NASCAR allows that?”

  “No, of course not,” Honker said quickly. “Racing kits of any kind are banned. But some guys like to experiment with engines and I thought maybe one of them hooked one up on Crane’s demo car just to give it a little boost. If it cracked during your initial run, the gas might have seeped into the cab.”

  “But I wasn’t affected. In fact, I didn’t smell anything.”

  “That bothered us, too,” Graebe said. “But we checked the engine anyway. It hadn’t been altered.” He paused. “Then we found this kit in the garage area. The bottle was almost empty.”

  It came to Scarne before anyone said it.

  “The suit!”

  “Yeah,” Graebe said. “Crash’s suit. I checked the air-conditioning pack. It had been tampered with. Somebody had pumped in some nitrous oxide. When the unit kicked on, Crash got a snoot full of happy gas.”

  Honker pulled out a piece of paper. “Got this off the Internet this morning.” He started reading: ‘When inhaled, nitrous oxide is absorbed in the bloodstream and has a calming effect. At higher levels, it can induce euphoria, making it a popular ‘recreational inhalant’ among teen-agers, and others, seeking a relatively safe ‘high.’ Normal breathing eventually eliminates the gas from the body. Users remain fully conscious and keep all natural reflexes, but may experience altered perceptions of reality, hallucinations and disassociative behavior.”

  “Does it say anything about singing show tunes?”

  That finally got a smile from Honker.

  “You’re lucky to be alive, Jake,” Graebe said. “You had Chuckles the Clown driving.”

  “Actually, he wasn’t driving. He handed me the wheel, literally.”

  “That would do it,” one of the mechanics murmured.

  After the mechanics and Graebe left, Scarne and Honker sat across from each other at the desk. The security man cleared his throat.

  “I think I owe you an apology, Scarne. I can only assume somebody was trying to kill you. Can’t imagine anyone wanted to get Crane. If they did, they could have done it a lot easier when he was driving alone. It had to be you. It’s a miracle it didn’t work. If Crane hadn’t detached the steering wheel, you’d have hit the wall head on, like Dale Earnhardt. No chance. Hasta la vista! And there was not enough fuel left in the tank to cause a fire. Whoever did this hadn’t counted on that. But he, or they, went through a lot of trouble to make it look like an accident. Somebody wants you dead.”

  “You probably were a pretty good FBI agent.”

  “Maybe. But I must be losing a step.”

  “Don’t sweat it. There’s a lot of that going around. I’ve been spending so much time in hospitals I’m thinking about getting a personalized gown.”

  “So the story about ‘rum
ors’ was bullshit.”

  The cat was obviously out of the bag.

  “A couple of those names I gave you are already dead. You might want to tell your bosses to increase their due diligence on Staten Island. They’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

  Honker stood up and stuck out his hand. Scarne took it.

  “Thanks, Jake. I’ll pass it along. Anything you need, let me know. We’re running down the N2O kit now, and I’m calling in the state cops. We’ll get whoever did this.”

  Scarne knew they wouldn’t.

  CHAPTER 28 – THE PRINCETON CLUB

  Sobok had never been to the Princeton Club at 15 West 43rd Street, a short walk from the Peninsula Hotel. When he visited New York on his own dime, he usually stayed at the University Club, where, as a member, he could reserve a comfortable room for less than $200 a night, which in New York passed for a steal. He arrived a bit early for his lunch and, after a quick tour graciously provided by one of the Princeton Club’s staff, decided that the University was superior.

  He entered the Tiger Grill exactly at noon and spotted his host sitting at a very private table in the corner of the room. He sat down and a waiter quickly walked over. The man opposite, who was drinking a Manhattan straight up, looked at him.

  “Do you want a drink?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Sobok said, smiling at the waiter. “Johnny Walker Blue, please, one ice cube.” The waiter left and he said, “I’m surprised you wanted to meet in so public a place. Although I must admit I prefer this to the back of a car, even a Rolls.”

  “I was in a hurry that day. It’s no use getting paranoid in a city as big as New York. Nobody knows who you are. Now, tell me what went wrong. I thought you never made mistakes. And for what I’m paying you, you’d better not make another one.”

  Sobok’s expression never wavered. The ability to mask his emotions was, of course, almost a necessity of his profession. It also came in handy at the baccarat tables in Montenegro. But he filed away the threat, again.

  “Nothing, except the unpredictable. One can’t plan for that. I believe you Americans call it Murphy’s Law. You can imagine my disbelief when Scarne crawled out of the window and actually went around the car to rescue the damn driver! There was virtually nothing left of the vehicle.”

  The waiter appeared with his drink and two menus. After listening to the specials, both men ordered salmon. The waiter, who had suffered the displeasure of Sobok’s host in the past, gently suggested that they choose something else.

  “The chef was disappointed in the quality,” the waiter said.

  They ordered steak frites instead.

  “Good man,” Sobok said after the waiter left. “Anyway, the impact on the wall was spectacular. I lost count of how many times the car rolled over. You have to hand it to the NASCAR safety engineers. But even then he should have been incinerated. The plan was 99 percent foolproof. There would have been no evidence after a fire. He would have been the victim of bad luck.”

  “So, what the hell happened?”

  “Alas, as I subsequently learned, it was a demo car, with little fuel in the tanks, apparently as an added safety precaution. Just enough for a couple of twirls around the track. I understand that many of these promotional rides are given as birthday presents. One presumes it would be bad form to immolate dad on his special day. In any event, I’m beginning to believe Scarne is the luckiest man on the planet.”

  Sobok sipped his Scotch appreciatively. The other man began peppering him with questions. Sobok let him vent.

  “You should have killed him in Florida.”

  “I didn’t even know who he was. I’m not a serial killer.”

  “Do you think he will figure it out?”

  “It would not be prudent to think he won’t. He seems very capable. And capable and lucky is a very dangerous combination.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  The waiter arrived with their food. That gave Sobok time to think. The man must be running out of options, Sobok realized. He may be getting desperate. And that breeds sloppiness. Sobok wasn’t afraid of many things. Sloppiness was at the top of a very short list.

  “It will be very difficult to arrange another mishap,” Sobok said after the waiter left. “Ordinarily, I would say that you should leave Mr. Scarne alone from now on. But if – I should say, when – he figures out what happened in the car, then, from what I hear, he will never let up. So he has to go. This time without worrying about the consequences. I think your mistake from the very beginning was trying to finesse things. You worried about the editor, and where did that get you? You wanted an accident for Scarne. More aggravation. I find that the direct approach is often the best. Especially with men who have many enemies. Such as those two Italian thugs on Staten Island. The police will need a stadium to question all the possible suspects. The same holds true for a private investigator, especially one with a past like Mr. Scarne. I will take care of him my way now. But he will likely be on his guard, so I want to double my fee.”

  “Agreed. But there is something else I want you to take care of first.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Bimm. I don’t need him any more.”

  Loyalty, Sobok realized, was not the man’s strong suit. Nor was subtlety. Telling one retainer that other retainers are expendable is poor management. And despite what the man said, meeting in a public venue was a lapse of judgment. Either he is losing his grip or feeling omnipotent, dangerous traits in this business.

  “I won’t keep you,” the man said. “You have work to do.” He passed an envelope to Sobok. “Bimm is in the Bahamas. All the information you need is in there. Get a move on.”

  Sobok smiled as he added more folders to the mental file he was building on his employer. He left without another word.

  ***

  Aristotle Arachne sat alone drinking coffee, his anger and frustration growing. The assassin was correct. He’d tried to be too cute. The idea to kill Scarne at the track and make it look like an accident was Arachne’s. Race tracks were dangerous places. Arachne, who drove Formula One cars for relaxation, knew that first hand. The assassin’s use of nitrous oxide, he had to admit, was truly inspired. It should have worked. That damn Scarne has more lives than a cat. When I get through with him, he thought, Scarne will wish he’d have died in that fucking car!

  “Jesus, Ari, are the building inspectors asking for bigger payoffs? You look like you want to kill someone.”

  Arachne was so startled he spilled his coffee. He looked up. It was Donald Trump. Arachne forced a laugh. Trump was surrounded by several Middle-Eastern types. The son of a bitch always has something going. No introductions were made and after the two rivals exchanged a few more barbed pleasantries, Trump moved away. Then he turned.

  “I haven’t been here in a while, Ari. What’s good?”

  “Try the salmon.”

  Cong Bao was waiting for Arachne outside the Princeton Club.

  “Where to, sir,” he said as he held the door of the Rolls.

  “The Empire State Building.”

  Only a slight narrowing of the driver’s eyes indicated his displeasure. No stranger to hereditary feuds himself, Arachne sympathized with him. Trump has his Arabs, but I have something better, he thought, even if Cong Bao hates them. The world might eventually run out of oil. It’s not likely to ever run out of Chinese.

  A few minutes later they were both in an elevator taking them to the 84th -floor office of the Hong Kong-based Chinese Office of Foreign Projects, distaste written all over Cong Bao’s face. Given the recent developments, Arachne had taken to having his bodyguard close by whenever he was outside his home. Upon exiting the elevator, Arachne left him in the outer office of the C.O.F.P., with the terse instruction to “be civil.”

  He went into the familiar conference room, where he knew he’d be kept waiting so that he would know his place. He went over to a window and looked downtown, where the rebuilding around ground zero was finally making seri
ous headway. Good, he thought, it will provide a distraction from my own plans. Nobody is paying any attention to what goes on in Staten Island. Let them waste their money on a grandiose tower that will inevitably lose money and further strap the city and Port Authority, and which Jihadist nutcases will try to knock down. The real profits to be made would come from underground. When the time came for him to make his move, Arachne believed, the public would demand that his projects be approved. Nobody would look too closely where he got his financing.

  CHAPTER 29 – GREEK WAYS

  Arachne’s family had made its money in time-honored Greek ways, through shipping, and when necessary, smuggling. His grandfather, Kratos Arachne, never reached the financial or political status of the Onassis clan, possibly because his penchant for violence and double-dealing alienated potential allies. Nevertheless, he left his only son, Zoltan, a fortune estimated at $100 million, which the gambling womanizer squandered almost as quickly as he sired his eight children.

  By the time Aristotle, the youngest, came along, there weren’t enough millions left to keep all the children in the splendor to which the family had become accustomed. There were enough drachmas, however, to provide him with a fine education in the United States. Sensing early that the deregulation sweeping American markets was a license to steal (everyone in the family said that he favored his grandfather), the young Arachne became an American citizen and, except for one operation that would soon prove crucial to his plans, left the shipping business behind.

  After graduating with honors from Princeton, he gravitated to Wall Street, where for the next five years he grounded himself in “creative financing” in firms that no longer exist, mainly because of how creative they were. He made money, but walked in the shadow of hedge fund sharpies and derivative barons who stole money in amounts that made him look like a three-card-monte player in Times Square. He didn’t want to be merely rich, he wanted to be feared and respected. All his life, the reduced circumstances of his family, which forced the Arachnes to sell off many of their estates, grated on him, and he set out to acquire as much real estate and property as he could. He started small, with housing projects, minor league baseball stadiums and condo developments in the Sunbelt. As with most of his high-flying rivals, leverage was his friend. Using his knowledge and contacts on Wall Street, he branched out into huge shopping malls and casinos. His holdings, on paper at least, eventually passed the $1 billion mark. But he was still not satisfied. The Trumps and Pritzkers of his world were worth many times that.