Hades

by Russell Andrews

  “Why not?” Reggie said from across the room.

  Before Bruno could answer, Justin said, “Because Evan sold all your platinum to someone else. He used you the way he’d been using his other investors. You didn’t own it anymore because he’d shorted it so somebody else could make the profit.”

  Bruno quietly applauded. “Very good, Sherlock.”

  “Who’d he sell it to?”

  “The bastard sold it to himself. He fucked us. We were buyin’ the platinum and making money. But he’d bought the fucking company that was using all the platinum. The one we were selling to.”

  Justin said, “Bastard, is right. But he was a smart one.” He remembered what he’d been told at the Ascension office. “Harmon bought the company that makes the filter device the cars need. And then he turned around and made an even bigger profit all for himself, by selling the devices to the company in Mexico that makes the final parts.”

  “The company he also owned,” Reggie said.

  “He had every base covered.”

  “You guys are pretty good at your job, I’ll give you that,” Bruno said.

  “One thing throws me, though,” Reggie said. “If he’d stiffed you and stolen from you, why were you still smuggling for him? Why agree to keep shipping the platinum to Mexico?”

  “We weren’t. And we didn’t.”

  “But the truck that crashed . . . that had to be Evan’s platinum.”

  “It was.”

  “But . . .” Reggie squinted. Her lips turned up in that crooked smile. “He’d started doing it on his own.”

  Bruno nodded. “He mighta done it legally at some point,” he said, “but he starts moving it into Mexico on a regular basis, we’re gonna know about it. So he had to keep smugglin’ it in. He couldn’t let us know what he was doin’, takin’ our goods and makin’ a fortune.”

  “So when word got around about the truck—” Justin started to say.

  “He knew Bruno and Lenny Rube would realize what was going on,” Reggie finished. “He could have paid them back and even kept up paying them a profit on their investment. But they never would have realized what he was doing. Double dipping—giving them the small profit and taking the big one for himself and his other partners.”

  “Once the platinum was found in the truck,” Justin said to Bruno, “Evan realized that you and Lenny would figure out exactly what he’d done: played you for suckers and taken you for a lot of money.” He gave a half laugh. “And it would have worked, at least for a little while longer, if whoever was driving that truck in Texas hadn’t gotten drunk and turned the thing over.”

  “Like I said,” Bruno added, “I woulda killed the little prick. But somebody beat me to it.”

  “So we’re back where we started,” Reggie said. “Who killed Evan Harmon? And why?”

  “Reggie,” Justin said abruptly, “we have to see H. R. Harmon. And Lincoln Berdon.”

  “Jay, it’s impossible. Their lawyers have blocked us every step of the way. Berdon’s in and out of the country and Harmon’s lawyers just keep talking about how he’s so grief stricken. We haven’t been able to get near them. We’ve been trying. They’ll go right up to the attorney general, if need be—they’ve got a lot of clout and they’re using it to keep us away from them.”

  He turned to her, his head cocked. “Say that again.”

  “What?”

  “What you just said.”

  “I said they’ve got a lot of clout and they’re using it to get off our backs.”

  “And they’ll go up to the attorney general if need be.”

  “I’m sure they can even go higher than that.”

  Justin smiled bitterly, said, “Or lower.” And when they both turned to stare at him, he said, “We have to see Harmon and Berdon. And we have to see them soon.”

  “I can’t help with this,” Reggie said. “You can’t get in officially.”

  “Then we’ll get in unofficially.” Justin turned to Bruno. “You in the mood to do a little research?”

  The three of them went through everything that Justin had printed up on H. R. Harmon and Lincoln Berdon.

  Reggie said, “I don’t see a way to do it, not in any way you’re going to get them to talk. You’re not going to be able to barge into their office and bully them into a confession.”

  And then Bruno said, “Wait a second. Go back to that golf thing. The club he plays at, it’s in Westchester?”

  Justin flipped through the papers on his desk. “Yup. In Westchester. Every afternoon at four.”

  “What’s the name of the club?”

  “Tilden,” Justin said, glancing down to make sure he had it right.

  “Tilden,” Bruno repeated. And then he said, “I think we got our in.”

  “You want to explain this?” Justin said.

  “The caddy master at Tilden. Good guy, nice guy. Name is Eddy Braniff. Never met a football spread he didn’t like. Same for college hoops.”

  “Okay, so you know the caddy master, good for you.”

  “Hey, it’s not like I go around socializin’ with the guy. We don’t go out for fuckin’ high tea. The guy owes. And he owes big.”

  “How big?” Justin asked.

  “Thirty-five grand.”

  Justin smiled and nodded. “I think we’ve got our in,” he agreed.

  34

  H. R. Harmon was always surprised that golf was considered a morning game. What could be better than heading out on the links on a summer afternoon? The weather had usually cooled off; deer would flit across some of the expansive fairways; the timing was perfect, at the end of the round, to have an ice cold beer or, better yet, a tall gin and tonic. As usual, he thought, people had it all wrong. They did things backward. They went out when it was the hottest and most crowded because they were sheep. They were afraid to go against the norm. Frightened people making bad decisions. Even about something as simple and pleasurable as a game of golf.

  H. R. smiled at the thought. And he realized his caddy thought he was smiling at him. Which wasn’t the case. The caddy was kind of a screwup: couldn’t find a ball on the second hole, told him to play a seven iron when he needed a six, was way off on the yardage on the fourth hole.

  “You’re new here,” H. R. said.

  “Yes, sir,” the caddy said.

  “Caddied around the area before?”

  “Not so much,” the caddy said. “It’s kind of a new profession for me.”

  H. R. looked the caddy up and down. “A little old to be starting life as a caddy, don’t you think?”

  “Well, sir, it takes some people longer than others to find their lot in life.”

  Some lot, H. R. thought. Spend your whole life trying to figure out what to do and this is what you come up with—carrying around someone else’s golf bag.

  Frightened sheep, he thought.

  H. R. teed off from the blue tees on the fifth hole. His Pro VI went about 220 yards down the right side of the fairway. H. R. still had good eyes, and he thought he saw the ball trickle into the right short rough. If he had a decent lie, he’d be in good shape. A solid rescue club knocked up toward the front of the green, a chip, and a one or two putt for a par or bogey. Easy. Except the caddy wasn’t heading for his ball. The idiot was steering the cart off to the left, over toward the woods on that side.

  “You gotta get yourself some glasses, son,” H. R. said. “You’re heading to the wrong side.”

  The caddy didn’t respond, other than to step harder on the golf cart’s accelerator. H. R. spoke louder, saying, “I’m on the other side of the fairway. You’re going the wrong way!”

  The caddy turned his head to look at his passenger.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  The woods were thick and shielded them from the open expanse of the rest of the golf course. Justin knew they couldn’t stay there forever; at some point someone would come by. They had to move quickly.

  As he slowed the golf cart to a stop, he saw H.
R. Harmon’s eyes widen as he saw the size of the man who was waiting for them in the woods.

  “Thirty-five grand this cost me,” Bruno said to Justin. “I can’t fuckin’ believe I let that little weasel skip out on the whole thirty-five grand.”

  “It’s for a good cause,” Justin said. “It’ll help keep you from going to prison.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Bruno said, “before I lose my temper.”

  “Whatever it is you boys are doing,” H. R. said, “you’re making a very big mistake. You’re not going to get any money out of me. And people will be here very soon to see what’s going on over here.”

  “We’ve got plenty of time, Senator,” Justin said. “More than enough time, in fact. And we’re not looking for money.”

  He saw H. R. flinch a bit at the word “senator.” He realizes we know who he is, Justin thought. Always a little unnerving.

  “Here’s a cell phone,” Justin said to H. R. “Call Lincoln Berdon and tell him you need to get together right away.”

  “What is this all about?” H. R. said gruffly. “I’m not going to do any such thing. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’ll repeat it one more time,” Justin said. “Call Lincon Berdon and set up a meeting for this evening. Tell him it’s important.”

  “Go to hell,” H. R. Harmon said and he began to yell out for help. Before a syllable could escape from his lips, Justin swung his elbow as hard as he could swing it into the aging ex-politician’s mouth. A tooth flew out. And Harmon went down hard.

  From his seat on the ground, a dazed Harmon spit out some blood, looked up and said, “You just made a big mistake.”

  “I’m afraid you’re the one who made the mistake,” Justin said. “My associate is not nearly as easygoing as I am.”

  Bruno now stepped over to the man on the ground and said, “Take one shoe off.”

  Harmon looked up, confused. “What?”

  “Take one shoe off. It’ll be a lot worse if I have to do it for you ’cause I’m already in a bad mood and I might take your whole fuckin’ foot with it. Now take your goddamn shoe off.”

  Harmon reached down and untied his left, all-white golf shoe.

  “Take your sock off,” Bruno said.

  Harmon did as he was told.

  “Stand up,” Bruno said, and Harmon pushed himself off the ground and stood up.

  Bruno pulled out a pistol with a silencer on it. And now Justin could see that Harmon was afraid.

  “He asked you twice, so I’m not gonna ask. I’m telling you. I’m gonna shoot one of your toes off. Then he’s gonna ask you again. Each time you don’t do what he says, I’ll blow another one of your toes away. You won’t die. But it’ll hurt like hell. And I hope you don’t mind the sight of blood.”

  “Wait,” Harmon said.

  “Too late,” Bruno told him. He bent down, and before Harmon could react, Bruno put the end of the barrel against H. R. Harmon’s pinky toe and pulled the trigger. There was a quiet pop and the toe disappeared in a spray of blood. The old man fell back down, in shock and enormous pain. Blood poured out of the end of his foot.

  “Ask him again, Jay,” Bruno said.

  Justin stood over the onetime politician and said, “Call Lincoln Berdon and set up a meeting. Set it up for right now. Please.” He held his cell phone down toward Harmon, who had, in the past five seconds, aged twenty years. His face had gone slack and his skin had turned pale.

  “My foot,” he groaned. “My foot . . .”

  “Stand up again,” Bruno told him.

  “Give me the phone, give me the phone,” Harmon said quickly. He reached up to grab it out of Justin’s hand. He punched in the required numbers as quickly as he could manage. He was so rattled it took him three tries to get the sequence right.

  Harmon reached Lincoln Berdon immediately, said there was an emergency and they had to meet. Said he couldn’t discuss it over the phone. His voice was shaky but over the phone must have just sounded urgent. It worked. He hung up and nodded. He stared up at Justin and Bruno, overwhelmed by pain and the stunning realization that he was in a situation over which he had absolutely no control.

  Bruno tossed a handkerchief in the air and it fluttered down to the dirt by Harmon’s shaking hand. “Here,” the big man said, “tie somethin’ around that before you bleed to death.” He looked over at Justin, saw the look Justin was giving him. “What?” Bruno said. “You got what you wanted, right? Now you think I gotta start touchin’ people’s feet? Fugettaboutit. He can fix his own fuckin’ foot.”

  H. R. Harmon’s driver, Martin, was surprised to see his boss coming up to the car with two men. He was even more surprised when he realized his boss was walking with one shoe off, and that his foot was bleeding like a motherfucker. What surprised Martin the most, however, was when one of the men, the smaller one, put a gun into his side and told him to get behind the wheel of the limo and start driving.

  Martin had no desire to get shot, so he said, “Sure,” and, without demanding any more information, headed back toward the city, which is where the smaller guy told him to go. The bigger guy, the scarier one, didn’t go with them. That was more than okay with Martin. And more than okay with Mr. Harmon—he could see that as soon as the big guy left. At one point during the drive, Martin glanced in the rearview mirror, saw his boss leaning back with his eyes closed, and he asked him if he was okay; but Mr. Harmon didn’t say anything in response, so Martin decided to dispense with all further questions.

  The traffic heading into Manhattan cost them about twenty minutes, so the drive took a little over an hour. As Martin drove, Justin reapplied the makeshift tourniquet to Harmon’s foot. Martin found a few Advil in the glove compartment of the limo and Justin forced the old man to swallow four of them. Almost nothing was said the whole way in. The only words spoken were when Justin’s cell phone rang. It was Reggie—Reggie who spoke to him as coolly as if they’d never met before. He closed his eyes while she talked, envisioning her naked on his bed, remembering making love to her. He realized he wasn’t paying much attention to what she was saying, so he interrupted her to say quietly, “Look, we have to talk.”

  “Let’s just finish our business,” she said, her voice even. “Let’s just get through this and finish, and then we’ll see if there’s anything to talk about.”

  He said okay, his heart pounding, and she told him what she’d found out since he and Bruno had left East End Harbor. She’d run prints on the Chinese man that Justin had killed. They knew his identity. When she told him, he looked over at the wounded man sitting next to him. He said nothing to H. R. Harmon, just spoke into the phone: “Okay, I’ve got it.” Then he said, “These are sick goddamn people.”

  She also said she’d gotten the records for all Larry Silverbush’s phone calls. Justin had been right, she said—Silverbush had made the calls that Justin thought he’d made. He had a moment of self-satisfaction, then he told Reggie to hold on a second, and he said to Martin, “What’s the number of this car phone in the backseat?” Martin didn’t hesitate; he reeled off the number. Justin gave it to Reggie, asked if she could get a list of all calls made and received on it starting a week before Harmon’s murder, and then he went, “Hold on one more sec.” He said to Martin, “You have a cell phone of your own?” Martin said, “Yeah,” and Justin said, “Give it to me.” It didn’t take the driver long to hand that over, and Justin flipped it open, got the number, and gave that to Reggie, too, again asking her to check all outgoing and incoming calls. He saw the look in H. R.’s eyes, knew he’d struck a little too close to home. Then he put his phone to his ear again. He and Reggie both stayed on the phone without saying anything. He could hear her breathing, and he knew she didn’t want to sever the connection the same way he didn’t. There was nothing they could communicate to each other, not right now, but he was glad she didn’t want to be separated from him. Even if it was only temporary. He listened to her breathe, and then he finally heard her hang
up.

  They went over the Triborough Bridge into Manhattan, but they didn’t drive to the Rockworth and Williams building, as Justin had assumed. When they reached the city, Harmon—whose rich man’s tan had faded into a sickly-looking pale green color—gave an address on East 69th Street. They pulled up in front of a brownstone.

  “What is this?” Justin asked.

  Harmon’s voice was weak. It had no resonance. Justin knew the old man had to be in serious pain. He didn’t really care. “Lincoln’s home.”

  “No,” Justin said. “He lives on Park Avenue.”

  Harmon shook his head. “That’s his family home. He keeps this as a separate residence. To use for private functions.”

  Justin turned to Harmon’s chauffeur and said, “Pop the trunk.” When that was done, Justin said, “Now get out of the car and get into the trunk.”

  “What?” Martin said.

  “Get into the trunk,” Justin told him. “You have five seconds.”

  Martin was there in four seconds. Justin closed the trunk, said to Harmon, “Try to remember to let him out when we’re done.”

  Harmon nodded but didn’t look as if that particular command was going to be a top priority.

  Justin wondered if he’d made the right move by not bringing Bruno. They had decided that it would be better if Bruno took Justin’s car back to East End Harbor. Justin did not expect this session to take long. And he’d been afraid that Bruno’s involvement wouldn’t be good or productive for anyone concerned. For all he knew, the FBI would be waiting inside the house, and that would not be a meeting Bruno would relish. But now he wished he had some company. Some large and intimidating company.

  “All right, let’s go,” he told Harmon.

  “I want to put my shoe on,” H. R. Harmon said.

  “It’ll hurt a hell of a lot worse if you do that,” Justin said.

  “I’m not going into Lincoln’s house looking like this. I have to put my shoe on.”

  Justin shrugged and watched as the old man grimaced and groaned but got his shoe on. He even tied it. But not too tight. And Justin was impressed: H. R. barely limped on the short walk from the car to the town house. Justin decided the old guy wasn’t much on honesty or decency but he was hell when it came to dignity.