Payoff

by Douglas Corleone

  “No. Ernie said I’d be entitled to half. He didn’t think Edgar would even contest it. California law is pretty clear.”

  I heard Edgar’s footfalls as he started down the steps.

  Quickly and quietly, I said, “When you fired the .38 at the assailants, did the recoil feel any different than it had when you fired the gun at the range?”

  She bit down on her lower lip, which was already swollen. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “Well, think about it,” I said.

  I pushed my chair away from the table and stood up just as Edgar stepped into the great room. He handed me a check and I stuffed it in my pocket without looking at it.

  “You must be exhausted,” Emma said to me. “You haven’t slept. Would you care for some coffee, Simon?”

  “Espresso, if you have it.”

  “Of course. I’ll be right back.”

  I turned to Edgar. “Last night when we were in Olivia’s room, we got interrupted by the phone call from the kidnappers. Would you mind if I had one last look around?”

  “Not at all. Would you like me to come up with you?”

  “No need, Edgar. Stay down here and rest. I’ll call down if I have any questions.”

  Chapter 17

  I slipped on a pair of latex gloves and stepped back into Olivia’s colossal room. Her parents had already inventoried it, so I didn’t need to spend much time going through her drawers. The only thing on the list that had surprised me was Olivia’s U.S. passport.

  “That’s a good thing, right?” Edgar had said. “It means they don’t intend to take her out of the country.”

  I wasn’t so sure. Leaving Olivia’s passport seemed to me like another attempt at misdirection.

  I found Olivia’s passport in her top desk drawer. I flipped through it, then stuffed it in my pocket. If I located Olivia in another country, she’d need her passport to come home with me.

  Next I got down on my hands and knees and examined every inch of the hardwood floor. I then checked every inch of her walls, including the areas behind her furniture and framed posters and those inside her walk-in closet.

  Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Time to go.

  As I stepped out of the room, I flipped the switch to extinguish the light but shut the ceiling fan off instead. I turned it back on, watched the blades slowly pick up speed again.

  While I did, my eyes locked on the ceiling around the fan. The base of the fan seemed to be wobbling. Looked as though it could come crashing down at any moment. Whoever put that ceiling fan up there had done an awful job. But that didn’t mesh with anything else about this house, except maybe the squeaky door downstairs.

  I hate heights but I wanted to examine the base of the fan. So I moved the armoire just below it. I flipped the switch and waited until the fan stopped spinning; then I removed my shoes and socks and climbed on top of the armoire.

  Two of the screws on one side of the fan were loose. I was able to unscrew them with my fingers. Carefully, I shifted the base in order to feel around inside, hoping I wouldn’t electrocute myself. I felt around and felt only wires.

  I was about to replace the base when I heard something shift inside it. Sounded like something metal. I reached my hand inside the base and pulled out what looked like a large diamond pendant. If it was real, it was worth a fortune.

  I replaced the base and the armoire, then started the fan to make sure it was working.

  Then I went downstairs and showed Edgar and Emma the pendant, asked if they recognized it. Neither of them did.

  “Do you have a small hand mirror you don’t mind me destroying?” I said.

  Emma went to retrieve one.

  “Where the hell did you find it?” Edgar said.

  “It was hidden in the base of Olivia’s ceiling fan. When Manny comes back to work, he’ll need to screw the base in properly. It’s dangerous as it is now. Could fall on someone.”

  Emma returned with the hand mirror. I set the mirror on the table and ran the diamond across its center.

  The mirror split neatly in half.

  “It’s real,” Emma said, puzzled. “Could this be what the intruders were looking for?”

  I didn’t think so. But it could well have had something to do with why their daughter was taken.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to borrow this,” I said, holding up the pendant.

  Edgar hesitated, but Emma stepped forward and said, “Of course. Anything that might help get Olivia back to us.”

  I placed the pendant in my pocket. Edgar’s eyes followed it all the way.

  “It’s safe with me,” I assured him.

  He nodded and forced a smile, and I suspected he was thinking about his neighbor Freddy’s Ducati.

  Before he changed his mind, I said, “Would you have Nicholas bring the car around?”

  “Certainly.” Edgar pressed an intercom button and gave the order.

  “The moment we pull away, I’d like you to call the FBI field office on Wilshire Boulevard.” I recited the telephone number. “Tell them everything, leave nothing out.”

  I started for the front door, dragging my lone suitcase behind me.

  “Don’t you think you should be around when they arrive?” Emma asked. “They’re bound to have questions for you.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” I said. “But over the past twenty hours, I failed to report a serious crime, I provided the LAPD with a false accident report, and I burglarized a dead man’s home. I’m no use to you if I’m in custody.”

  I turned the handle and opened the front door, let the Los Angeles sunshine fully fall on my face for the first time since I’d arrived. This was the only part of L.A. County, it seemed, where the sun was never snuffed out by smog.

  “Where are you heading to, then?” Emma said.

  “I’ve got a flight leaving from LAX in less than an hour.” I added, “Best to keep that bit of information to yourselves. When the feds first get here and find this wreck of a crime scene, they’re not going to be too happy.”

  “We won’t say a word,” Emma assured me. “But where are you going?”

  “I’m beginning where your daughter went two months ago and where your money went last night.” I started down the steps past Raúl and Luis and watched Nicholas pull the car around the long circular drive.

  Over my shoulder I told Emma, “I’m heading to the Cayman Islands.”

  Part Two

  THE BANKERS OF GEORGE TOWN

  Chapter 18

  The moment my plane touched down at Owen Roberts International Airport in Grand Cayman, I turned on my BlackBerry and clicked on the browser. My thumb worked as fast as it could, first booking a return flight to the States for ten days from now, then reserving a room at the Grand Cayman Beach Suites. During the flight, the overweight businessman sitting next to me had explained that getting through customs could be a bitch here in the islands. I’d need to show proof of a hotel reservation and a return ticket. Thanks to a practiced thumb, by the time the plane emptied out, the problem had been solved.

  At the airport I rented a black Jeep Wrangler with a GPS. It was only two hours later here than in L.A., and I wanted to get started right away, but I decided to check in at the Grand Cayman Beach Suites first to establish a base. The resort was located on Seven Mile Beach, just a shell’s throw from the Ritz-Carlton.

  I had only the one piece of luggage with a couple changes of clothes. I tossed the suitcase on the room’s king-size bed, then hurried downstairs to the Tommy Bahama store I’d spotted on the way up. If you’re going to run around a Caribbean island asking questions about a missing girl, it’s best not to look as though you’ve just flown in from Washington, D.C.

  I showered and dressed in a relaxed fashion befitting the island, then headed out on foot in the direction of the Ritz-Carlton. My first objective was to establish a time line, particularly for Olivia’s missing day. It was possible, of course, that Olivia’s abduct
ion had absolutely nothing to do with her vacation in Grand Cayman. But in my years as a U.S. Marshal hunting down fugitives and then as a private investigator retrieving children from noncustodial parents abroad, I’d honed my instincts to a razor-sharp point. And for the past twenty-four hours, my gut had been telling me that this island held the clues that would ultimately lead me to Olivia and her kidnappers. I wasn’t about to start second-guessing myself now that every second counted.

  The last Ritz-Carlton I’d entered was in Berlin. It was about a year ago, when I’d been hired by an American couple, Vince and Lori Sorkin, to find their six-year-old daughter, Lindsay, who’d been stolen in the middle of the night from their hotel room in Paris. Early in the case, I tracked the kidnappers back to Germany, where I’d paid a visit to my old friend Kurt Ostermann, a private detective who aided me on a previous case that had all gone to hell. Years ago, we’d been searching for a twelve-year-old named Elise Huber, who’d been taken from the States by her estranged father. When we finally found the two, the girl became frightened and ran. We gave chase, and poor little Elise Huber ultimately darted into the street in front of a night bus and suffered critical injuries. Unbeknownst to me, the girl eventually died from those injuries, and I was wanted by German authorities. Before Ostermann knew what I was doing in Berlin, he’d summoned the police to his office. Once Ostermann changed his mind about turning me in, the Berlin Ritz-Carlton became our hideout—and the place where I’d suffer several years of missed guilt all in the span of a few hours.

  Before taking on the Lindsay Sorkin case, it was my policy not to become involved in “stranger abductions,” cases in which the kidnapper was not one of the child’s biological parents. The reason was simple: I couldn’t bear to relive the days following my own daughter’s abduction. Since becoming involved in the Lindsay Sorkin investigation, I’d been seriously rethinking my policy concerning “stranger abductions.” It wasn’t that I felt the pain of Hailey’s disappearance any less. On the contrary, since my involvement in the Sorkin investigation, I’d been experiencing the torment of Hailey’s kidnapping even more. Because I’d been reminded of the pure evil that exists in this world, the selfishness and greed and indifference that permits individuals to justify in their own minds bringing harm to an innocent child.

  As long as that wickedness exists, how could I pretend otherwise? How could I turn away other parents whose children may have fallen victim to such malevolence?

  I’d come to the conclusion that I couldn’t. Not without adding guilt to the overabundance of excruciating emotions that already plagued my every day.

  I had convinced myself that I was taking on the Olivia Trenton case to return a favor to a studio executive who’d agreed not to film the agonizing story of my family’s destruction. But as I stepped through the doors and into the lobby of the ultra-plush Grand Cayman Ritz-Carlton, I realized that the Lindsay Sorkin investigation that had started in Paris and ended in Minsk was just the beginning of what would become a new chapter in the life and career of Simon Fisk.

  “May I help you, sir?” said the balding concierge.

  “Yes, I’d like to speak to the person in charge of security at the resort.”

  “Your name?”

  “Patrick Bateman.”

  “One moment.” The concierge picked up the phone, punched a button, and spoke quietly into the receiver. When he hung up, he said, “Please have a seat in the lobby, Mr. Bateman. Someone will be down to speak with you in a few moments.”

  As I moved toward one of the sofas, I scanned the front desk, which was bustling with guests. There were at least three young people working the desk, two of them male. I made a mental note to have a talk with them. Given the comeliness of the four California girls who’d stayed here two months back, I had a feeling these young men would remember them.

  I took a seat and pulled out my BlackBerry, opened the browser again. I typed in “breaking news” and clicked on the link to CNN.com. The first headline read:

  TEENAGE GIRL ABDUCTED DURING VIOLENT HOLLYWOOD HOME INVASION

  I didn’t need to read any further. The news had broken, which meant the Trentons had phoned the authorities, and the FBI was on the scene. The thought brought me some measure of relief, yet Edgar Trenton’s words continued to claw at me: We only met because I’ve read your story. I know it inside and out. And though it pains me to ask, Simon, what exactly did the feds achieve for you when Hailey was snatched from your house?

  He was right, of course. If we rested Olivia’s fate solely in the hands of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, we’d do so at her peril.

  “Mr. Bateman?”

  I looked up, although even with me sitting, the man standing in front of me was at eye level.

  He held out his hand, said, “Thomas Mylonas, director of security.”

  Mylonas stood no taller than five feet two inches. He was bald except for prematurely gray peach fuzz that stopped a few fingers above the ears. His eyebrows, however, were bushy and black. His white button-down shirt seemed painted on. Mylonas was a guy who spent plenty of time at the gym and wanted to make sure everyone who looked at him knew it.

  “What can I help you with, Mr. Bateman?”

  Mylonas seemed like the type of guy who’d get off taking part in a life-and-death investigation, so I decided to play it straight.

  “I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news over the past couple hours, but a fifteen-year-old girl was snatched from her home in L.A. the night before last. Her name is Olivia Trenton and she stayed at this resort with three of her girlfriends about two months ago.”

  “Okay.” The look he gave me was noncommittal. Maybe I’d misjudged him.

  “I’m a private investigator hired by the family,” I said. “I’m trying to rule out the possibility that Olivia met her abductors while here in the islands.”

  I knew that if I put it any other way, I’d risk scaring him off. No resort wants its name associated with a violent crime, especially the abduction of a teenage girl. Since the Natalee Holloway disappearance in Aruba nearly a decade ago, officials in the Caribbean islands had acted with extreme caution when discussing matters of security with outside investigators or the press. The islands in the Caribbean relied heavily on tourism to fuel their economies. In the Cayman Islands, tourism accounted for roughly three quarters of its gross domestic product and foreign currency earnings. The industry here was aimed at people just like the Trentons—upscale visitors from North America interested in unspoiled beaches, scuba diving, deep-sea fishing, and ultra-luxurious accommodations like the Ritz.

  When a territory like the Cayman Islands received bad press, tourism took a hit, leaving only a single pillar of economic development still standing—international finance. The Cayman Islands’ tax-free status—and its reputation for discretion, rivaled only by Switzerland—attracted banks and other companies to its shores like excrement attracted insects. (No offense to insects or excrement intended.)

  Mylonas said, “So, what specifically can we do for you, Mr. Bateman?”

  I stood, lowered my upper body, and spoke quietly. “I’d like to view your security tapes for the period of Miss Trenton’s stay at the resort.”

  Mylonas actually chuckled, which could easily have earned him a cracked jaw, back when I first started this job, following Hailey’s disappearance.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Bateman, but are you an attorney?”

  “No, as I told you thirty seconds ago, I’m a private investigator.”

  “I see. Then I’m afraid I can’t help you. In order for me to turn over security footage, I’d have to receive a court order.”

  “I’m not asking you to turn anything over, Mr. Mylonas. I’m only asking you to allow me to view very specific footage. With you standing on—I mean, over—my shoulder, if you feel it’s necessary.”

  “I understand. But I still require a court order.”

  “Look, Mr. Mylonas, a young girl was stolen from her home by four masked in
truders. I’m asking you man-to-man to do me this … favor.”

  Just saying the word “favor” made my teeth hurt.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Bateman, but there’s nothing I can do. I’m sure that tomorrow morning, you will be able to find yourself a reputable attorney, who will file the proper paperwork with the court and—”

  “Tomorrow morning,” I said.

  “Yes, tomorrow morn—”

  “How about tonight?”

  Mylonas held up his watch. “It’ll be very difficult to find an attorney on the island working this late at—”

  “No, Mr. Mylonas, what I mean is, how about tonight I come back here with every television reporter, newspaper journalist, and two-bit blogger on this island, and we feed into CNN and MSNBC and Fox News and tell viewers in the United States and all around the world that the missing California girl is believed to have been targeted for abduction two months ago at this very resort, the Grand Cayman Ritz-Carlton, and that the director of security, Thomas Mylonas, is refusing to aid—no, is obstructing—the investigation by withholding video footage that may identify the girl’s kidnappers.”

  I felt the heat rising up my neck and spreading to my cheeks, and I realized I’d inadvertently raised my voice and attracted the attention of several onlookers.

  “Mr. Bateman, I do symp—”

  “Mr. Mylonas, nothing you can possibly say will mollify me other than the words, ‘I’d be happy to show you the footage. Right this way, please.’”

  My eyes never left his as I removed my BlackBerry from my pocket, opened the browser, and typed in “Cayman television.” Using my peripheral vision I clicked on the top link and was brought to the page for CITN Cayman 27. I scrolled down to the number for its news hotline, memorized it, then closed the browser and began punching the number into the phone.

  Mylonas eyed the BlackBerry all the while, staring at it as though it were a ticking time bomb.

  “All right, Mr. Bateman,” he finally said, sweat forming above those bushy black brows. “I’d be happy to show you the footage. Right this way, please.”