Payoff

by Douglas Corleone

  “And last night?”

  “Emma says she thinks she turned it on. But then, she also thinks she fired a shot when there’s no bullet hole in the house.”

  “Who besides Manny and your immediate family possesses the code?”

  “No one that I know of. But we were never particularly careful about it. Someone could have seen one of us enter the code. We have several guest bedrooms; sometimes people stay overnight.”

  “And the camera outside?”

  “Outdated. It’s really just for show. It works, but it doesn’t record unless we put a tape in, and I can’t remember the last time we did. Security was never an issue, Simon. This is Calabasas; there is virtually no violent crime. Maybe the occasional domestic dispute. Property crimes are rare, and if someone were looking to rip someone off, they’d have plenty of bigger and better homes to choose from in Malibu or Brentwood or Bel Air. This is something we never could have imagined.”

  Tasha and I had felt very much the same way, living in Georgetown, and I’d been a U.S. Marshal at the time. I’d not only known the worst of humanity; I’d also dealt with it on a daily basis.

  Emma returned with a list of Olivia’s online accounts, and I excused myself to make my call. Kati Sheffield was a thirty-four-year-old FBI computer-scientist-turned-mommy. Four years ago, when she became pregnant with her first, she quit the Bureau to stay at home. It didn’t take long for her to discover that her services were in great demand among private investigators like yours truly. Now Kati was pregnant with her third, and maintained a booming small business to boot. All of it on the down low, of course. According to Kati, her husband, Victor—a detective with the Connecticut State Police—didn’t even know what she did to earn money. Some detective, I thought.

  “Hey, Finder.” The code name she’d given me.

  I glanced at my watch, added three hours. “Good evening, Breaker. Mind opening a few doors?”

  I could hear her toddler, Miles, singing along with the television in the background. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, if I wasn’t mistaken. My own daughter, Hailey, had adored Mickey Mouse before she was taken. But then, it was silly of me to pain myself like this every time I heard M-I-C-K-E-Y or the “Hot Dog!” song. After all, what kid didn’t love Mickey Mouse?

  “Happy to,” Kati said. “When do you need them open by?”

  “Before the carriage turns back into a pumpkin would be nice. They belong to a teenage girl, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  “I’ll do my best. Give me what you got.”

  I gave her everything on the list, then said, “So you’re even working nights? And how is it that Sherlock doesn’t know?” Her code name for her husband, Victor, not mine.

  Kati had the kind of smile you could hear over the phone. “I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m having an online affair. Last week I caught him downloading a book about the psychology of cybersex to his Kindle. He said it was for a case.”

  “Maybe it was.”

  “He’s currently assigned to the Welfare Fraud Unit.”

  “Oh. Sorry, Breaker. By the way, how are you feeling?”

  “Fat, hungry, tired, fat, and nauseous.”

  “First trimester still?”

  “Just started the second.”

  “It gets better, doesn’t it?”

  “I’ll have to let you know; it’s different with every pregnancy. I’ll call you once I’ve opened the doors, Finder.”

  “You’re a gem.”

  I stuffed the BlackBerry back into my pocket and returned to the great room. I asked Emma if she remembered anything else about the intruders that she and Edgar hadn’t already shared. But no, all she knew was that they were Hispanic, couldn’t tell from where.

  “I can’t tell a Mexican accent from a Puerto Rican accent from a Portuguese accent,” she assured me with some embarrassment. “The one who did most of the speaking, he had dark brown eyes, but I couldn’t tell you anything about his skin color, because the flesh around his eyes was painted black. His lips were darker than most. Not as pink. The one with the computer spoke with a barely audible accent. The other two, I didn’t hear speak at all. They were all of average weight and height, as far as I could tell.”

  “Nothing else distinguished them? Any scars? Tattoos? Maybe a limp?”

  She thought on it. “The only real clue I tried to look for was on the pack of matches the leader removed from the bandola case. It was a dark matchbook with yellow and green lettering, but I couldn’t make out the words.”

  I’d already done a bit of research on my BlackBerry while waiting for my flight at the airport. The bandola is a South American instrument, played primarily in Venezuela and Colombia. The blue dart frog whose venom the assailants claimed to have poisoned Emma with is also found in South America, in southern Suriname and the northern to central parts of Brazil. These could be two valuable clues. Or they could be attempts at misdirection, like the misspellings in the ransom note and the use of the word obrigado.

  I wouldn’t know until I knew.

  Edgar ran a hand through his thinning hair. He was sweating despite the chilled air in the room. “What now, Simon? What do we do?”

  I pointed toward the stairs, said, “Next thing I’d like to do is pay a visit to your daughter’s room.”

  Chapter 10

  Olivia’s bedroom didn’t look anything like the room I’d slept in as a teenager. That shouldn’t have come as any surprise, yet somehow it did. The sheer size of her room gave me pause. It was larger than the studio apartment I currently kept in D.C. The room boasted a huge walk-in closet. Beneath our feet was another hardwood floor; above our heads, a vaulted ceiling with a decorative ceiling fan. As opposed to the traditional style found in the rest of the house, Olivia’s room was ultramodern, every piece of furniture bathed in a light pink with the occasional sprinkle of silver. The walls and bedding were bright white, almost blinding with the waning sunlight bleeding through the blinds on the massive windows.

  I scanned the hardwood floor for blood or scuff marks but it seemed immaculate. The sheets were clearly kicked around but didn’t necessarily show signs of a struggle.

  On one of the nightstands next to her bed was an eight-by-ten-inch framed photograph of Olivia standing between her mother and father on the red carpet in front of the old Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Olivia appeared older than her fifteen years in the way that daughters of the Hollywood elite often do. Her long, silky brown hair cascaded like a waterfall across her bare shoulders. Her eyes were a crystal clear blue that you’d think existed only in paintings. Her slender body hadn’t fully developed, yet she posed in a way that told anyone viewing the photo, Don’t you dare think of me as a child.

  But she was a child. A child in danger. A child who needed to be found at any cost.

  “Don’t take these questions the wrong way,” I said, “but does Olivia use any illegal drugs?”

  “I’m sure she smoked pot,” Emma said. “We’ve joked about it. But nothing harder, to my knowledge.”

  “I think she may have tried LSD,” Edgar said.

  “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  “She watched my Blu-ray of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas recently, and she was laughing for two days straight.”

  “Any prescription drugs?”

  Emma shook her head. “She’d been taking the antidepressant Paxil for several months, but she stopped that not long ago.”

  “Why did she stop the Paxil?”

  “I think so that she could drink alcohol.”

  “She drinks often?”

  “No, not often. Just at parties, and I’m sure she drank while she was away.”

  “Had Olivia been on any trips recently?”

  “Just one, a couple months back. She and a few of her female friends flew to the Caribbean.”

  “Which islands?”

  “The Cayman Islands.”

  “Where did they stay?”

  Edgar said, “The Ritz-Carlton on Seven Mile
Beach in Grand Cayman.”

  “Anything unordinary happen during the trip?”

  “Not that we know of,” Emma said. “She came home thrilled, said she had the time of her life.”

  “How about between then and now? She make any long-distance phone calls or talk about anyone she met while she was abroad?”

  “No,” Emma said. “She didn’t mention any boys, if that’s what you mean.”

  “She stopped taking the Paxil before or after the trip?”

  “After, I believe. Maybe just before, I’m not sure. But the doctor I spoke to—her pediatrician, actually—told me that her stopping the Paxil abruptly is probably what was causing the afternoon sluggishness and occasional nausea.”

  “Any vomiting? Maybe an eating disorder?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Just the nausea. It would come and go.”

  “Did she lose any weight?”

  “No,” Emma said. “If anything, she gained a pound or two since the trip.”

  Edgar added, “Of course, she’d been starving herself before the trip to look good in her swimsuits.”

  “Did Olivia keep a photo album of the trip?”

  “No,” Emma said. “Her camera’s digital, one of those tiny Nikon COOLPIX that Ashton Kutcher pitches. The photos she doesn’t like she deletes, the others she posts on Facebook.”

  If Kati came through, I’d have access to those by tonight.

  “Mind putting together a list of her friends, Emma?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Star the names of the girls she went to Grand Cayman with, please. And any addresses and phone numbers would be helpful.”

  “Of course.”

  Emma grabbed a pen from her daughter’s desk and stepped into the hallway, heading in the direction of the stairs.

  Edgar turned to me. “I’m trying to remain strong for her, Simon, but I have to tell you, I’m absolutely petrified. What if we never get Olivia back?”

  I could tell Edgar what that felt like. I could describe for him in great detail the way an ordinary mind began to perceive everything around it quite differently. How paranoia became a constant state. I could tell him he’d never experience another truly happy day from now until the end of his existence, how it would simply be impossible because that part of the brain responsible for happiness had been irreparably damaged, if not utterly destroyed, the moment his daughter was stolen from this house.

  “Right now, Edgar, we have to focus entirely on getting her back. It does none of us any good to even consider the other way around. We have a window now, and that window is constantly shrinking. Whatever measures we take, they begin as soon as Emma returns to this room with my list.”

  “But the ransom demand—”

  “Until you receive word from the kidnappers, there isn’t anything we can do on that end. But that doesn’t mean we have the luxury of sitting around and doing nothing to find your daughter until we hear from them.”

  “All right, Simon. Tell me, what do we do next?”

  On the second floor of the house, one floor below us, a telephone began ringing.

  “That’s in my den,” Edgar said, moving toward the door.

  I followed him down the stairs and into a room filled with Hollywood memorabilia. Costumes, awards, weapons, autographed pictures all vied for the eye’s attention, but just now it was our ears that were leading the charge.

  “Restricted,” Edgar said, pointing to the caller ID. He lifted the receiver and held it between our heads so that I could hear. “This is Edgar Trenton,” he said.

  “Are you alone?” The voice was synthesized, just as you’d expect to hear in a Hollywood movie.

  Edgar looked in the doorway, where Emma stood trembling. “My wife is here.”

  “No law enforcement?”

  The voice of the man on the other end didn’t sound as though he were surprised to hear that Emma was alive. They’d never meant to kill her.

  “No law,” Edgar said. “Tell me what I need to do to get my daughter back alive and unharmed.”

  “Do you have a pen and paper?”

  Edgar tossed aside some folders on his desk and found a Sharpie. He uncapped the marker and tested it on one of the folders. “I do,” he said. “I have a pen and paper ready.”

  “Listen carefully,” the voice said. “Take down every word I say. As I explained in the letter, if you fail to comply exactly, I will mail you your daughter’s head in a plain brown box. Is that understood?”

  Edgar’s face lost what little color it had. His right hand began shaking and he had to plant the left on his desk to steady himself. He looked as though he might collapse.

  In the seconds that followed, there was complete silence.

  Then somehow Edgar Trenton finally gathered himself and managed a stammering yes.

  Chapter 11

  We had only forty-six minutes.

  Edgar’s bank apparently remained open till 7 P.M. “There’s a new look to bankers’ hours,” he explained as we hurried up the hill toward his neighbor’s drive. “With deregulation, you get increased competition among financial institutions. Banks are competing with brokerage houses and credit unions. They’re treating their businesses more like retail operations than professional services groups. ‘Open late’ is just the newest hook.”

  Edgar finally ceased his nervous rambling. His eyes were hooded and I could tell he was tired. Soon as he received Emma’s call, he’d taken a private jet home from Berlin. Even if he’d slept on the plane, there was little doubt he was jet-lagged.

  Over the Pacific, the sun was dropping from the sky, leaving us in an eerie dusk as we approached his neighbor’s gate. Edgar rang the bell impatiently, propping himself up against a stone pillar.

  The intercom squawked to life. “Ed, is that you?”

  Edgar looked into the camera. “Yeah, Freddy, I need a favor.”

  There’s that damn word again.

  “Sure, Ed. What do you need?”

  “I need to borrow your Ducati.”

  Freddy hesitated. “Are you serious?”

  “As an aneurysm. Look, Freddy, it’s my friend who’ll be driving it. There’s no time to explain. If anything were to happen, you know I’m good for it.”

  “Of course, Ed. It’s just a matter of liability.”

  “Damn it, Freddy, this is urgent.”

  “Does your friend have a motorcycle license?”

  “I do,” I said.

  There was a long pause. “All right. Wait there, I’ll bring it to the gate.”

  “We’re in a hurry,” Edgar said.

  A few minutes later I followed Edgar’s black Ford Escape down Prado de las Flores on Freddy’s silver Ducati. Last time I drove a motorcycle was roughly a year ago, heading east on the autobahn out of Berlin. The sound of the engine made me think of this beautiful woman, Ana, a lawyer from Warsaw whom I deeply cared about but would probably never see again.

  Life, it’s full of unfairness.

  I passed the Escape as soon as we merged onto the Ventura Freeway. I had to make it to West Hollywood well before Edgar in order to get into position. The kidnappers wanted Edgar to reach Wells Fargo just before it closed, so that there would be fewer people inside. They chose a branch in West Hollywood because of the darkness and chaos outside. That was where the kidnappers would be driving around with Olivia, ready to release her upon completion of the final wire transfer.

  Or so they said.

  The kidnappers wanted $8.5 million wired equally into four Cayman accounts. Because of Olivia’s trip, Edgar’s brows had risen when he heard “Cayman,” but that was probably no more than coincidence. All criminals banked in the Cayman Islands. Some legit people too, I assumed.

  “I need to know my daughter’s alive,” Edgar had barked into the phone after jotting down the instructions with a black Sharpie. “Let me speak to her.”

  “I will do better,” the synthesized voice said calmly. “I will let you see her.”

 
“When? How?”

  “When you step inside the bank, go straight to the front window and look outside. My man will be driving a black Dodge Charger west on Sunset Boulevard. Your daughter will be in the backseat, directly behind the driver so that you can see her. Come alone. We will be conducting countersurveillance. If anyone is watching you, we will kill her.”

  The plan was for me to park inside an underground garage, just hidden from the street. When I received word that the Charger was coming, I’d start up the ramp and fall in line a few cars behind them. The Ducati would provide me enough flexibility so that I wouldn’t lose the Charger, even if it took an abrupt turn off Sunset.

  “I’m walking up the block now.” Edgar’s voice came through crystal clear on my earpiece. “Traffic going west on Sunset is flowing steadily. The Charger will have room to maneuver, so be sure to stay on top of them.”

  “Copy.”

  I was parked on the ramp and ready. From the breathlessness in his voice, I could tell Edgar was moving much faster than he was used to. My watch confirmed that he still had six minutes before the bank locked its doors.

  “I’m about to enter the bank,” Edgar said into his Bluetooth.

  “Copy.” I revved the engine on the Ducati, steeled myself.

  “I’m turning toward the front window.”

  My stomach burned.

  My teeth grinded inside my helmet.

  My right arm needed steadying.

  “And there they are, Simon.”

  The Ducati took off like a bolt. At the top of the ramp, I caught air and landed hard, made a sharp right west onto Sunset, and scanned the traffic for the Charger’s distinctive taillights.

  There you are, you bastard.

  Edgar had insisted on going forward with the transactions, which—thanks to numerous flops and various bad investments—would virtually wipe him out. I couldn’t argue. If somehow I lost the Charger and couldn’t get Olivia back to him and Emma, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

  Hell, I could barely live with myself as it was.

  I remained four cars behind the Charger, which wasn’t making any unusual moves. I could see the back of Olivia’s head, directly behind the driver. I couldn’t see her arms but I assumed they were bound.