Payoff

by Douglas Corleone

  He did as he was told and I moved toward the kitchen and unplugged the iron, never taking my eyes off him.

  “You lied to me,” I said.

  His lips parted, but he didn’t say anything.

  “About having a television,” I added. “If I’m not mistaken, Chandler Bing is about to get locked in an ATM vestibule with a lingerie model during a citywide blackout.”

  He stole a glimpse at the television, nodded.

  “Have a seat on the couch,” I told him.

  He sat.

  I said, “Tell me about your roommate, Kellen. He was in the photos taken at the Next Level.”

  Krusas shifted his considered weight. “I met the girls at the Ritz the day they arrived. I had no idea how old they were. They were traveling by themselves, they had IDs that said they were eighteen.”

  “Go on.”

  “So a couple days later, when they were about to head out to lunch, I told them my roommate and I were going to the Next Level that night. I asked them if they’d like to meet us there.”

  “What did they say?”

  “They said they’d think about it.” He paused, peered up at his ceiling. “But they showed up.”

  “And what happened at the club?”

  “Nothing. We all danced. Drank. Took some pictures.”

  “Why aren’t you in any of the photos?”

  He frowned. “Because I was the one taking the pictures.”

  “Kellen hooked up with Alysia?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Lola?”

  “Some local. He’s native to the island, but I don’t know him. I mostly hang with people in the service industry.”

  “How about Bethany?” I said. “Who was she with?”

  “She danced with everyone. She wasn’t interested in anyone in particular; she just wanted to have a good time.”

  “Which leaves Olivia.”

  He nodded.

  “You hooked up with her?”

  “No, she wanted nothing to do with me. That’s why I was taking the pictures instead of posing for them.”

  “But in some of the photos, it appears Olivia is with someone and he’s been cropped out.”

  Staring at Krusas’s thick wrists, I knew it wasn’t him.

  “Those must have been taken later in the night. Once it was clear that Olivia wasn’t into me, I tried to get Kellen to come with me to another club. But he wanted to stay with Alysia.” He added, “Again, I thought the girls were eighteen.”

  “So you left and Kellen stayed,” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Did Kellen bring Alysia back here later that night?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Well, did he come home?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t even spoken to Kellen since that night.”

  “So Kellen didn’t come back here?”

  “Like I said, I don’t know. Because I didn’t come back here. I got picked up for a DUI. I spent the night in jail. You can check with the Caymanian police.”

  “That would’ve been in your file at the Ritz-Carlton.”

  “Only if I reported it.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No. I had two DUIs in Arizona, where I first worked for the Ritz, then another two in New York, when I worked at Battery Park. That’s why I was transferred. If it happens here, I’ll be fired.”

  “So you’ve had a falling-out with Kellen?”

  “Yeah, he was the designated driver that night.”

  “He moved out?”

  “Some of his stuff’s still here. I’m pretty sure he just went back to Costa Rica. His dad pays most of the rent on this place. Look, I moved in here because I got a great deal. But we weren’t close friends. We never even spoke when he was in Costa Rica, just when he was here in the islands.”

  Something about the way Krusas was speaking about Kellen troubled me.

  “Do you think it’s possible, Jon, that Kellen had something to do with Olivia’s abduction?”

  He shrugged his wide shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? What gives you doubt?”

  He scratched behind his ear like a stray before finally dragging his gaze up to meet mine. “I’ve heard rumors over the past two months.”

  “Rumors about what?”

  “That Kellen may be involved with a Costa Rican gang that’s involved in the sex tourism trade in San José.”

  Five minutes later, Krusas stood in the doorway to Kellen’s bedroom while I went through Kellen’s things. There was nothing to be found, unfortunately. Nothing at all.

  The last name Kellen had given Krusas was Smith, but he didn’t think that was genuine. And there wasn’t time for me to stick around to attempt to obtain the name from Louise or anyone else at I & E Bank. If what Krusas was telling me was true, Olivia was fast running out of time. If I didn’t hurry, she could be gone forever.

  “Why did you lie to me twelve hours ago?” I said as I stepped back into the living room.

  He lifted his shoulder and spoke softly. “You remember what happened when that American girl went missing in Aruba ten years ago? The Aruban cops picked up five or six guys and kept them in jail while that monster Joran van der Sloot just continued telling lies. I was scared. I realize the truth usually comes out in the end. But what happens in the meantime? Nuts like Greta Van Susteren tell the world what to think and everyone rushes to judgment. I’m a doorman. I’m overweight and I drink too much. But I just want to live my life. I don’t want to be infamous.”

  I turned and opened the front door.

  “I hope you find her,” he said as I stepped into the hall.

  I looked back at him, thought about our meeting at the Ritz this morning. “For your sake, Jon, you better hope I don’t find her twelve hours too late.”

  Chapter 25

  Early the following morning I arrived at Juan Santamaría International Airport in Alajuela, just outside of San José. I collected my suitcase and the duffel I’d purchased back in Grand Cayman, then rented a silver Toyota Land Cruiser and made my way into the city.

  With its mix of baroque and neoclassical architecture, Costa Rica’s capital reminded me a lot of Madrid. Of course, in a way, San José was emblematic of every major European city—due in large part to its hellish morning traffic.

  While I waited, breathing in the black fumes of the public bus idling in front of me, I dialed Edgar Trenton on my BlackBerry.

  “Simon,” he said in a hushed tone, “where are you?”

  “Edgar, are you alone?”

  “Yes, I’m outside. Raúl’s here, but he doesn’t speak English. Now, where are you?”

  “Costa Rica.”

  “Have you been watching the news? The FBI’s named me a person of interest. The media are having a field day.”

  “Have you brought in a lawyer?”

  “Of course. Seymour Lepavsky, one of the best criminal defense attorneys in L.A. But it’s not prosecution by the Justice Department that I’m worried about, Simon. It’s the prosecution that’s occurring on the twenty-four-hour cable news networks. I’m the lead story, and they’re going to keep digging and digging and digging until they’ve dredged up every last damning detail about my life.”

  “What are they saying?”

  Edgar inhaled as though it might be the last breath he ever took. “I’ve been having an affair with my assistant, Valerie. She’s a very young girl and now news about our relationship is everywhere. They’re saying Emma knew about the affair and that she was going to leave me. Emma apparently went to see this notorious divorce lawyer, Ernie Byers, in Beverly Hills. I had no idea, you have to believe me, Simon. But they’re claiming that I knew that Emma was aware of the affair and that I knew she’d gone to see Ernie. I hadn’t, I swear. But no one seems to care. They’re calling me a liar and they’re calling it motive.”

  Made sense. I’d been close to coming to the same conclusion.

 
; “Simon, they think I arranged this entire thing in order to stash the eight and a half million, so that Emma couldn’t get half the money in the divorce.”

  “But they have no evidence, Edgar. Have your lawyer consult with your publicist and release a statement saying—”

  “The feds are claiming to have evidence, Simon. The bandola case? The one my wife described? It washed ashore near Gladstones restaurant on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. My gun—the .38 Emma says she fired—was inside the case.”

  “So?”

  “So, they’re saying it was loaded with blanks.”

  There it was, something I’d been wondering ever since Emma told me she’d fired a shot inside the house. It was why I’d asked her if she felt any difference in the recoil. Blanks will do that, discharge with substantially less force. Under ordinary circumstances, an experienced shooter like Emma would have realized she was shooting blanks. But Emma had been tackled head-on in the same moment she fired the shot. She simply hadn’t noticed.

  “Easy, Edgar,” I said. “Calm down. Having a stroke isn’t going to do you or Olivia any good.”

  “Before that gun was found, Simon, I’d told the agents that I’d personally loaded it with live ammunition.”

  “There may still be another explanation,” I said. “One of the intruders was already inside the house when Emma heard the other three enter. Did anyone besides you and Emma know the combination to the gun vault?”

  He hesitated. “No, Simon.”

  “Not even Olivia? Olivia knew the security code to the alarm. Emma said she trusted her with everything.”

  “The police asked Emma. She told them she never gave Olivia the combination.”

  I remembered looking at the gun vault at the Trentons’ estate. The combination was only three digits.

  “What was the combination, Edgar? Did the numbers have any significance? Could the combination have been easily deduced?”

  He hesitated again. “Eight, twenty-one,” he said, a sound of relief burrowing its way into his voice. “It’s our anniversary, Simon. Of course, someone could have figured it out.”

  Edgar was a smart guy. I wondered why he wouldn’t have come to that conclusion himself. Could be that he was getting hit from all sides, that he simply wasn’t thinking straight.

  Or it could be something else.

  “Well, there you go,” I said tentatively. “What else did the feds recover from the bandola case?”

  The question seemed to bring Edgar back down to reality. He said, “The so-called poison that Emma was injected with. It turns out it was made up mostly of a harmless blue dye used to make ink, mixed with a small amount of sedative.”

  That confirmed that the assailants had no intention of killing Emma, just as I’d thought.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes.” He paused and I thought I’d lost the call. Then he continued, “The worst of it, Simon, is the knife they recovered from the bandola case. It’s a huge thing—the blade’s a foot long. Two of them were made for me by this craftsman in Moldova during preproduction of this Hostel rip-off we released straight-to-DVD a couple years ago. One of the knives hangs in my den at the house. The other was apparently stolen from my office at the studio.”

  “You didn’t notice it missing?”

  “Simon, it was hanging in my office the day I left for Berlin. Now it’s gone.”

  “Edgar—”

  “I know, Simon. None of this is important. The only thing that matters now is finding Olivia. My fear is that if the feds think I’m involved, they’re going to head off in the wrong direction and my daughter will never be found.”

  “We’ll find Olivia,” I said. “And finding her will clear your name.”

  If you’re clean, I wanted to add.

  In case he wasn’t, I remained vague about what I was doing in Costa Rica. I promised I’d keep him posted on my progress, then stuffed the BlackBerry into my pocket and continued to wait.

  I watched with envy as motor scooters blew by the Land Cruiser on both my left and my right.

  It was another fifteen minutes before I reached my destination—CIMA, a Costa Rican hospital designed and organized specifically for Americans. I parked the Land Cruiser in the lot in front of the main wing and entered the hospital, where I was met by an American flag belonging to U.S. veterans, who maintained an office right there in the lobby.

  I stepped up to the information desk and spoke in English. “I’m here to see Aubrey Lang. She’s an emergency room nurse.”

  “Is she expecting you?”

  “I don’t think so, but I’m pretty sure she’ll see me. I’m an old friend. My name’s Simon Fisk.”

  “Please have a seat, señor.”

  “Gracias.”

  I took a cushioned chair in the waiting room and made a mental note to stop by the cafeteria for some strong Costa Rican coffee. I didn’t bother with a magazine, didn’t think my eyes would be able to focus. So I looked up at one of the small television sets, which showed a female talking head jabbering in Spanish. The volume was set too low to hear, but it soon became clear what she was going on about, when a photograph of Carousel Pictures’ studio head, Edgar Trenton, appeared in the upper left-hand corner of the screen.

  Edgar had become the worldwide story—the Trentons’ daughter, Olivia, all but forgotten.

  Forgotten by all except me.

  I filled my lungs with oxygen and opened my eyes wide, sat as straight as I did back in grammar school. I needed to feel young just now.

  But the fatigued appearance two minutes later of Aubrey Lang in her tattered blue green scrubs didn’t help in that respect. Not one bit.

  “Simon,” she said, clearly not thrilled to see me.

  I pushed myself out of the chair. “It’s been a long time, Aubrey.”

  She nodded. “Eleven years.”

  I choked back the emotion, said, “Since Tasha’s funeral.”

  Chapter 26

  While we were attending American University, the woman sitting across the table from me was Tasha’s best friend. Aubrey Lang—a farmer’s daughter from Ames, Iowa—always had dreams of seeing the world. But for her parents, Ames was the world, and if Aubrey wanted to live a life beyond the borders of the Hawkeye State, then she’d do so entirely without their financial or emotional support. And that’s just what she did.

  After obtaining her nursing degree in the States, Aubrey joined the Peace Corps, requesting placement in Costa Rica’s Protected Areas Management program. In short, she wanted to save the rain forests. Since the Corps required a degree in an area such as wildlife management, she continued her education at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where she took part in a variety of local conservation activities.

  Once the Corps sent her to Costa Rica, Aubrey went to work providing technical training to park managers, guards, and guides; promoting community-based conservation; and aiding in the development of the country’s ecotourism industry.

  While she was working in Costa Rica, she fell in love with the country and its people. After two years, she requested and was granted an extension of service and went on to work with the children of San José’s outlying slums—locally called tugurios—which year after year were becoming increasingly desperate and violent.

  After her tours in the Peace Corps, Aubrey Lang still couldn’t see herself leaving the country, so she became certified as a nurse in Costa Rica and went to work in the ERs of San José’s busiest hospitals. She’d been here with CIMA in at least some capacity since the hospital’s inception in 2000.

  Now, as we sipped rich Costa Rican coffee in the cafeteria, Aubrey Lang and I discussed Life After Tasha. The two women had always shared a special bond I couldn’t begin to understand, and long after we graduated from American University, Aubrey and Tasha continued to see more of each other than most people see siblings living abroad.

  The day Hailey was abducted, Aubrey boarded a flight to D.C., took a room at the Georgetown Best We
stern, and remained there through the entire ordeal. When Tasha took her own life a few weeks after Hailey’s disappearance, Aubrey blamed herself for not accepting our invitation to stay with us at our house.

  “I’m a goddamn nurse,” she’d said to me at Tasha’s funeral. “I knew she shouldn’t have been prescribed all those tranqs and sedatives and painkillers and muscle relaxers at the same time. But I never said a word. I should have been there in that house with her, Simon. I could have stopped her. I could have saved her.”

  Aubrey and I exchanged a few phone calls after she returned to Costa Rica, but they became too painful for both of us and ceased within six months.

  “So, I’d better get to why I’m here,” I said.

  “You mean this cup of coffee with me isn’t the purpose of your trip?”

  “Afraid not, Aubrey. You’ve been watching the news?”

  Her head fell to one side. “You mean the missing teenage girl in California?”

  “Olivia Trenton, yes.”

  “You think she’s here in San José?”

  I explained why I’d flown to Grand Cayman and the steps I took to attempt to piece together Olivia’s missing day, which followed her night at the Next Level. I told her what I’d learned from Jon Krusas, the Ritz-Carlton doorman. Then I showed her Kellen’s picture.

  Aubrey frowned. “You’d think he’d stand out here with that blond hair and those blue eyes, but this is a big city. We’re going to have to look for him.”

  “We?” I said hopefully.

  “Of course. Do you have any information besides his first name?”

  “Just that his father likely works for some shady land developer.”

  Aubrey smirked. “A shady American land developer in Costa Rica? Well, that really narrows it down.”

  I smiled. “I’ve missed that sense of humor, Aubrey. Even though, as I recall, most of your jokes were at my expense.”

  She grinned. “You were always an easy target. Besides, that’s what most made Tasha laugh. Gotta give the audience what they want.”