Deal Gone Bad - A Thriller (Frank Morrison Thriller Series Book 1)

by Tony Wiley

  Cowgirl shrugged. “Funny how the old saying is true,” she said.

  “Which one?” he asked.

  “That the trouble starts when you have to split the money. We never used to have that kind of trouble. The other operations we did together all went down smoothly, all the way to the split.”

  He sighed. “We were all on the same page then. No guns. No violence. Too bad Mike doesn’t think like that anymore.”

  Cowgirl went to the coffee machine to refill her cup. “Want some more?” she offered, raising the pot in her right hand.

  He shook his head. “No thanks, I’ve still got about half left.”

  He took out his mobile phone and punched in Harris’s number. The wily old fox picked up almost instantly. He was an early bird.

  “Harris, it’s Morrison,” he said. “Listen, we have to meet with Mike and Cowgirl. It’s important.”

  “Meet with Junior and Cowgirl?” Harris said. “Why would I want to meet with them?”

  “I’ve got good reasons, Harris. Eight million good reasons.”

  There was a slight pause.

  “OK, you’ve got my attention,” Harris said. “When do you want to do that?”

  “In a half-hour. At Mike’s place.”

  Chapter 46

  Laura’s cute little white SUV was parked in Mike’s driveway along with the two other big black Navigators. Morrison and Cowgirl had debated whether they would each drive their own car to the meeting, but in the end they decided to ride together in Cowgirl’s discreet white van.

  They pulled up behind one of the twin SUVs. Morrison got out in time to see a cloud of dust emerge from the bottom of the hill. Harris was rolling up the long path in his car. Seemed to be doing good speed. As the wily old fox pulled up to them, Morrison saw the look of anticipation painted on his face: he couldn’t wait to hear the rest of the story.

  But to Morrison’s surprise, Harris didn’t first inquire about the eight million dollars. The question he fired off at him concerned the previous night’s events.

  “Can you tell me what the hell happened down at Flanagan’s?” Harris said.

  “What? You didn’t ask your employee?” he said.

  “My employee?” Harris tried to pretend Angry Eyes was not related to him, but Morrison stopped him dead in his tracks.

  “Don’t try to bullshit me, Harris,” he said. “I know all about your guy. He just very stupidly tried to get back at me. Call him and ask him why. You’ll see. And while you’re at it, make sure you tell him to leave me alone. I’ve got enough on my plate right now without having to worry about that big ape swinging his fists at me.”

  Harris nodded. Decided not to pursue the matter further. Then he looked at Cowgirl and greeted her cheerfully. “Long time no see. You look great.”

  Before Cowgirl could reply at all, the front door of the house opened with a creaking sound. Morrison, Cowgirl and Harris turned toward Mike, who now stood on the porch. His face was closed, his eyes like narrow slits.

  “Looks like everybody’s here,” he said. “Why don’t you all come in?”

  *

  It was the first time the four partners had stood together in the same room since Morrison’s bust and the collapse of the operation.

  Obviously, nobody had brought any balloons or flowers to celebrate the occasion. Success had many fathers, and failure was an orphan. With the magnitude of that failure, Morrison figured that orphan could have come straight from Dickens.

  Mike had led the small group through the hallway to his office. In passing, Morrison had caught a glimpse of the blond guy, slumped on a sofa in the living room, watching some TV. He hadn’t seen Laura and her baby.

  They all shook hands and greeted each other with a certain reserve. When Harris came up to Mike, he couldn’t resist a dig. “Hey, Junior,” he said. “Long time no see.”

  This didn’t please Mike, but Morrison observed that their host was not so prompt to correct Harris as he had been with himself.

  “Call me Mike, will you?” he said in a neutral tone.

  Harris grinned. The wily old fox had reaffirmed his ascendency.

  “Sure, Mike, sure.” Harris looked at everybody and said, “All of us together again. We should snap a picture for poor old Tommy. That would make his day up there in Ogdensburg, don’t you all think?”

  Mike ignored Harris. He nodded toward Morrison.

  “Mind telling us what happened between you and Sheriff Sanford last night?” he said. Then he nodded toward Cowgirl. “Since you came up here with her, I assume she’s already up to speed, but I sure ain’t and I don’t think Harris is either.”

  “That was nothing,” Morrison said with a dismissive wave. “Some stupid brawl with one of Harris’s guys. That won’t happen again, right, Harris?”

  Harris nodded in acknowledgement. “My guy was just out to have a bit of fun. He didn’t know Morrison, that’s all,” he said.

  Mike arched his eyebrow. “So you got Sanford off your back then?”

  “She let me go, didn’t she?” Morrison said.

  Mike nodded. “Good. I don’t need these bloody deputies sniffing around my place anymore.”

  Harris took the floor next to address Morrison. “Now that that item is settled, why don’t you put us up to speed, if everybody’s fine with that?”

  Morrison cleared his throat and began to speak. “We needed to meet because I have some important news for all of you concerning our operation. I’ve just completed an audit this morning with the last confirmation I was waiting for.”

  Cowgirl had already heard the speech, but Mike and Harris were all ears.

  “In the days following my bust, eight million dollars were withdrawn from the four other banks,” Morrison started, and he told them everything. How the money had been withdrawn according to his plan. Two million dollars per bank. Four hundred accounts in each bank. Everything.

  As they took in all of this, Mike and Harris started looking at the other partners. Morrison grinned. “You can relax,” he said. “None of us in this room has stolen the money. I made bloody sure of that.”

  Mike and Harris jumped in unison.

  “Then who did?” they asked.

  Morrison made a small pause for effect.

  “Sheriff Sanford,” he said. “Bloody Sheriff Sanford.”

  Harris’s eyes widened. Mike cursed between his teeth.

  “I knew it,” Mike said. “I knew it. She’s not clean, that bitch. I knew there was something wrong with her.”

  For his part, Harris seemed more skeptical.

  “Mind telling us how you came to that conclusion?” he asked.

  Morrison retold the whole story up to and including his arrest at Flanagan’s and the realization that Sanford herself had pocketed his USB flash drive when she had arrested him three years before. Morrison took his time. Spared no detail. Linked all the items of that narrative in a tight, logical chain. As he was laying all this out, he could see Mike and Harris’s surprise at these developments. But in the end, both shared Morrison’s conclusion without the slightest hesitation.

  “OK,” Harris said, “Sanford stole our money. So how do we get it back?”

  “We need to learn as much as we can about her,” Morrison said. “She didn’t act alone. Couldn’t have, it’s impossible. Cowgirl has already figured out where she lives, but we need to know if she’s married, who her friends are. We have to look into her circle to find her accomplices and pin her down.”

  Harris shook his head. “I can tell you that she’s single,” he said. “I see her often at public functions. I know her a bit. Socially, you know. We make small talk here and there. She’s never been married and there’s no boyfriend anybody knows anything about.”

  “What about her friends?” Morrison asked.

  “No idea,” Harris said. “But I can definitely inquire. I can start right this morning.”

  “You do that,” Morrison said. “For our part, Cowgirl and I will trail her a
bit. See what she’s up to.”

  Mike had been silent for a while but he was shifting in his chair. Getting agitated. “This is all very nice,” he said, “but if we know it’s her, why don’t we just corner her straight away and make her cough up the money? Hell, I’ll be happy to do it.”

  Morrison shook his head. “No way,” he said. “We can’t just barge in like that. We need more details on how she did it. Then we can squeeze her. Otherwise, she’ll just deny everything and you’ll have exposed yourself for nothing. She’s a sheriff. She’s got the law on her side.”

  Harris immediately backed Morrison. “That’s right. And I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to get involved directly in this, Mike.”

  “Why not?” Mike said. “I’m as much a part of this as you are.”

  “I’m not disputing your claim of the pot,” Harris said. “But you shouldn’t be involved in direct actions to recover it, that’s all. You should remain in the shadows on this.”

  “I’ve bankrolled this whole thing alone,” Mike said. “I’ve already fronted more than fifty K to Morrison.”

  Harris was very firm. “We’ll pay you back,” he said. “With interest if you insist. Quote your rate. But there’s enough heat on you as it is.”

  “Bullshit,” Mike said.

  “Oh yeah?” Harris said.

  Morrison then realized that Harris probably knew a lot more about Mike’s activities than he had let on.

  “There’s all sorts of rumors going on about you,” Harris continued. “We already have enough of a personal angle with Morrison and Sanford as it is. What’s keeping you busy these days, Mike? Why don’t you tell the others what you are dealing in?”

  Mike closed up. “None of your business,” he said.

  “As long as the eight million dollars were not in the picture, you were right. It was none of our business. But now they are, so it is our business,” Harris said.

  Morrison looked at Mike. “You’re involved in drugs, right? The guy who died on the motorcycle was one of your dealers?” he said.

  Mike didn’t say anything. But his silence only confirmed Morrison’s suspicions.

  Morrison shook his head. He had always shunned drugs. They could make you a lot of money very fast. That’s why so many dealt in them. But they also attracted a lot of heat, from the law and from the street. All in all, if you were in it for the long term, trafficking drugs was no good. It always ended with you dead or gone for twenty-five years. Hell, if he had been busted for drug trafficking instead of skimming some ATMs, Morrison knew he would still be behind bars. No question about it.

  There was a lot to do.

  They were now racing the clock.

  Morrison figured they had to build a strong case against Sanford before she could do the same against him. She had released him from jail only because she didn’t have anything solid on him. But it could change soon. Maybe they were still running some analysis on the crime scene. They could be only hours away from identifying one of his prints out there.

  Or maybe he was really off the hook. He just didn’t know.

  But one thing he knew was that he had no time to waste. So he decided to end the meeting right there so they could all get back to work.

  “We were five partners to get this operation going,” he summed up. “A lot has happened since, but this hasn’t changed. When we get our money back, we will split it in five equal parts, just like we had planned, and then we will go our separate ways. That includes you, Mike, but you need to stay in the shadows. Everybody agrees?”

  Cowgirl and Harris nodded.

  Mike seemed pissed. He nodded, but he did so somewhat reluctantly.

  Like someone who was only biding his time.

  *

  After the meeting was over, Morrison walked up the creaky front staircase alone to his blue room. He opened the drawers, picked up the few clothes he had in there and dropped them in one of the shopping bags he had kept. No way was he spending one more night at Mike’s place. Not with the dark shadow cast by his drugs business. The last thing he needed was to be associated with it. And anyway, Morrison figured it was better to steer clear of Mike now that he had Harris and Cowgirl on his side.

  Morrison left the blue room with his bag, anxious to join Cowgirl in the white van and get going.

  As soon as he set foot in the hallway, a crack opened in the door opposite his. Two haunted eyes peered quickly at him. Then the door opened swiftly.

  What Morrison saw shocked him.

  It was Laura.

  Obviously, she had timed her move to make contact with him. And she had been very careful.

  Looking at her, he could understand why.

  Her cheeks were red and swollen. Deep marks circled her throat as if someone had violently grabbed her and tried to strangle her. To top it all, her eyes had never seemed more distressed than they did now.

  She looked at the bag he was holding, with all his clothes inside.

  Her eyes widened. “What, are you leaving?” she whispered.

  Morrison nodded. “I have to,” he said.

  She looked even more desperate.

  “Please, you have to help me,” she whispered. “You have to help me. He’s gonna kill me.”

  He looked over her shoulder into the room. Her baby stood against the far wall, staring vacantly into space. Like she was still in shock. Completely shut off. He felt his blood boil. Mike, you son of a bitch. You slimy piece of shit. He immediately thought back to the full glass of milk she had left on the kitchen counter when they had talked. Mike had picked up on this, and he had responded by giving her a beating. Simply for having the nerve to talk with him.

  Morrison shook his head. It struck something deep in him. Very deep.

  Bloody Mike. Bloody scumbag.

  There was some shuffling downstairs in the hall. Laura peered nervously in that direction.

  “Please, help me,” she whispered again, “you’ve got to help me.”

  The stairs started to creak. Someone was coming up.

  Morrison hurried a few words. “I can’t do anything right now,” he whispered, “but I will come back. I promise you, Laura, I will come back.”

  Chapter 47

  Morrison crossed paths with Mike on his way down the creaking staircase.

  “Checking out?” Mike said.

  Morrison stopped one step above and gazed at him. He felt like throwing a solid punch on his face. That’s all the bastard would have deserved. But since that meant automatic retribution on Laura, he kept his arms loose and gave no hint that he had just seen her in her terrible condition.

  “It’s better this way,” he said. “I’m gonna stay over at Cowgirl’s. I’ll bring back the Navigator later on.”

  “No rush,” Mike said. “Nobody needs it here. Just focus on recovering our money.”

  Morrison went down to the hall and pushed his way outside, cursing between his teeth. Harris’s car was gone. Cowgirl was waiting in the white van’s passenger seat.

  He climbed in the driver’s seat and slammed the door hard. Then he gave two quick punches to the steering wheel. “Son of a bitch!” he let out loud. “Son of a bitch!”

  Cowgirl turned toward him, completely taken by surprise.

  “Morrison, what’s with you?”

  He gave another hard punch on the steering wheel and told her about Laura. What Mike had done to her. When he was finished, Cowgirl shared his anger.

  “Son of a bitch,” she said. “He’s really become a mean bastard.”

  He cocked his head to the right and jammed the key in the ignition. Fired up the engine with a sharp twist of the wrist that sent the V6 racing.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to let him get away with that.”

  “What are you gonna do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. But I’ll get even with him. You can bet your life on that.”

  He gunned the white van along the steep path all the way down, raising an enormo
us dust cloud in the process. When he reached the county road, he decided to calm down. He settled into a quiet, even cruise.

  “Now, why don’t you show me where our dear sheriff lives,” he said.

  Cowgirl gave him the directions. It wasn’t very far from Mike’s place. They had to drive toward Acton to get there but without entering the town. They stayed on the periphery, eventually approaching the Perkins Electronics compound. At this hour, all was quiet. There was no shift change at Perkins, so they were able to roll by the massive facility without slowing down.

  They turned on Sanford’s country road and drove up for a few minutes. Then Morrison saw her house for himself.

  It was really big, just like Cowgirl had said. Set on a huge tract of land with a long driveway lined up with enormous maple trees. He whistled.

  “That’s gotta be worth at least a million or two,” he said.

  “Yeah, easy,” Cowgirl said.

  “No way can she afford that on a sheriff’s paycheck,” he said. “No way.”

  He saw Sanford’s patrol car parked in front of the house alongside her gleaming Mercedes convertible. She was still at home.

  “Let’s keep an eye on her for a little while,” Morrison said.

  He drove on for a hundred yards, then he made a U-turn and came back to park the van under the shade of a giant oak. With a clear view of the mouth of Sanford’s driveway but not of the house, so they wouldn’t draw any attention to themselves. Then he rolled down the front windows and killed the engine. It was going to be another hot day. They would need some breeze in that van.

  Cowgirl drew a bottle of water from her door’s side pocket and offered him some. He drank a big gulp. It was fresh and tasted good. She had slipped some lemon wedges in there.

  “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you as agitated as when you came out of Mike’s house,” she said, a look of concern on her face. “Punching the steering wheel and cursing. That’s not you. You’re always so calm and collected.”

  He gave her back the bottle. There was no judgment from her part, just a genuine surprise. And she was right, of course. He had let himself slip. It hadn’t happened to him in a long time. Certainly not during his prison stay. He knew how important it was to keep it together in there. More than just about saving face, it was really a matter of survival behind bars.