by Tim Tigner
“There’s more to it than that,” Troy insisted.
To his surprise, Emmy said, “You’re right. There is. The only reason I’m in good physical and mental health is because I wandered under the wing of a wonderful woman. Most runaways aren’t so lucky. Ava Zamora was the queen of the con in L.A. back in the nineties. She’s the proverbial person who taught me everything I know.”
Troy took a moment to absorb this and then said, “Judge Others. That’s his name, really. The third time I passed through his juvenile court, Others saw past my record and rough edges to what lay underneath—an ability you obviously share. He studied my file, gave me the brainteaser questionnaire that I later learned Mensa uses for admission, and then decided I had potential if given a good environment. He put me to work in the courthouse instead of sending me off to juvie.”
Emmy nodded. “Was medical school your choice, or his?”
“His. I wanted to be a lawyer like him—as you’ve obviously already guessed. He knew me better than I knew myself, however, and steered me toward a military medical scholarship. Thank goodness he did. Tell me more about Ava.”
“You always change the topic if I scratch beneath the surface,” Emmy noted. “But that’s okay. As for Ava, telling you about her would take hours.”
“Hours we don’t have,” Troy concurred, feeling strangely disappointed to be getting back to business.
“So what do we do next?” She asked.
And just like that Troy had it. The meditation had worked. Excited, he asked Emmy, “What’s odd about the tattoos?”
“What isn’t odd. The location for starters.”
“No, that’s explainable. We just didn’t want anyone to spot them—lest they try to remove them with a cheese grater or blowtorch. The answer to the question is: palm fronds.”
“Palm fronds.”
“Why would I have asked the artist to draw them? If I had wanted to make SBT look like a monogram I would have written the initials in the shape of a diamond, or put the T in the middle and drawn it bigger.”
“I give. Why?”
“Because SBT is not someone’s initials.”
“It isn’t?”
“No, SBT is a logo.”
“Of course!”
“And where do you find logos?”
Emmy looked over at the nightstand. “In the phone book.”
Chapter 23
After locking the elevator to prevent any chance of interruption, Luther removed his suit coat and rolled back the double-buttoned cuff of his right shirtsleeve. He plunged his hand into the cascading waterfall and said, “open sesame.” An excited Jury flew from his perch to a rocky outcrop atop the falls, alighting just as Luther’s fingers found their mark. The water stopped and the slab of slate backing the waterfall slid aside, revealing the door to Luther’s massive safe.
Jury made a wolf whistle.
The safe like the electromagnetic door locks had come with the office, which prior to housing Kanasis had been a jewelry store. The jeweler had the cast-iron monstrosity built into the concrete wall at the time of the building’s construction. Since replacing it with a more modern equivalent would have been a major ordeal and drawn unwanted attention, Luther had opted for rock-solid high-tech camouflage instead.
His designer suggested the floor-to-ceiling waterfall, and it was perfect. Luther had soon grown accustomed to the soothing sound (and gotten over the incessant urge to pee) and he now had a duplicate in his study at home, sans safe.
He took satisfaction from dialing in the five-digit combination. Spinning the cold steel between his fingertips felt like foreplay, foreplay that climaxed with the release of the mammoth door.
Today Luther scored the first time around. He plucked his reward from a velvet-lined shelf. His fingers felt electrified as he flipped through the thick linen pages of the titanium binder to the next available space. This ritual never lost its luster. Entry forty-seven was going to feel every bit as good as the first.
He took a vintage silver Montblanc from its rack on the shelf and filled in the anxious line: Oliver Horton/Matthew Lopez, $1,000,000, September 4, 2008. Luther recapped the pen and twiddled it between his fingers. “Someday, Jury, this journal is going to be in a museum. In the mean time, we’re going to have an obscene amount of fun.”
“Girls and cigars,” Jury replied. “Girls and cigars.”
Luther put the binder back on its shelf. He pulled his key ring from his pocket and used a cylindrical vending-machine key to unlock the refrigerated safe within a safe. The stainless steel box he withdrew had originally held one-hundred-and-forty-four vials, each cocooned within its own small foam and fiberboard container. Ninety-six remained. Ninety-six. He had shown exceptional self-control in the use of his magic potion. Until now.
Aside from the single backup dose Farkas always kept on hand, Luther had never supplied Formula 456 to his operative without designating the recipient. This first deviation did not constitute the breaking of one of his rules per se, but Luther knew he was crossing a line. Furthermore, as an attorney he knew all too well that crossing lines was what got people caught, or worse. He promised himself that this deviation would also be the last.
He withdrew three vials and applied a label to each, designating them as a popular brand of rapid-acting synthetic human insulin. The ruby-red color might once have raised uncomfortable questions, but marketing knew no bounds these days. He placed the three vials in a padded manila mailer along with a corresponding package insert. He would go home early today in order to hit FedEx by three. Farkas would have his ammunition in the morning.
Luther returned to his desk and tried to work on one of the legitimate cases that provided his cover, but between the new case and Farkas’s predicament, he could not concentrate. As a result, the front gate to Luther’s Bel Air estate yielded to his Porsche just sixty minutes after he closed his safe. He pulled his convertible onto the circular drive and parked before the main entrance. Looking to his left he saw his gardener’s perfect ass peeking out from beneath her Kelly-green shorts. It swayed alluringly back and forth as she scrubbed the bottom of his Spanish fountain. Coming home early definitely had its advantages, he thought.
“Good afternoon, Giselle,” he said from his car.
Giselle kept scrubbing, her tight ass wriggling away as if guided by a conductor’s baton. After another silent moment he noticed the white iPod clipped to the waistband of her shorts. She had not heard his approach. Given the good mood Oliver had put him in, Luther was tempted to take her where she knelt. She had been with him for three weeks now. His anticipation was nearing its peak …
He got out of the Porsche and slammed the door, ending all chance of surprise and forcing his return to discipline. He had waited this long, he could last until the weekend when he would have the time to seduce her properly. Giselle jumped up at the bang and whipped her head around, a startled look on her glistening face. Luther reached out and hit the pause button on her iPod. “Good afternoon.”
“Luther. You’re home early.” They kissed cheeks. Her blouse was unbuttoned halfway to her navel, exposing some world-class cleavage. She seemed to understand the unwritten rules, and appeared most willing to play the game—this far, anyway.
“Yes, I had a good day. Don’t let me interrupt you,” he said, turning toward the house. “Just wanted to say Hi.”
The cook had the afternoon off, so the kitchen was quiet. Luther grabbed a Corona from the special fridge that kept his booze just shy of frozen and headed up the winding staircase to his study. He had a stack of mail to manage, and he wanted to see how the market was doing.
He found the arched double-doors to his study closed, making the doorway look like the entrance to a castle keep. That was most unusual and a little disturbing. He wondered if Brandy was snooping around. That was one drawback to his revolving-door system of domestic help; no matter how well the agency tried to screen, you were bound to get people unworthy of trust. He would talk to her and
then check the security tapes later to see if they corroborated her story—more out of curiosity than anything else. Brandy’s transgressions or lack thereof would make little difference at this point. He was tiring of her. She had been with him for nearly four months, and three was usually his limit.
He flung both doors open wide, eager to catch her in flagrante delicto, but the sight that met his eyes sent his Corona to the sandstone tiles instead.
Jimmy Scapone—“Orca” as he was called by all unfortunate enough to know him—was seated ten feet in front of him. Another man roughly the size and weight of a Frigidaire stood silent guard off to Orca’s right by the waterfall. And then there was Brandy. Poor Brandy. Orca had repositioned Luther’s favorite leather armchair directly beneath the large domed skylight, center stage so to speak. He was leaning back in it with his hands behind his head, and his legs splayed out in front. Brandy was between them, her head in his lap. She jumped and spun at the sound of the shattering bottle. Luther saw that her left eye was swollen and turning black. She had obviously been crying.
While Luther’s mind was still processing the incredible scene, Orca reached out and swatted the back of Brandy’s head, displeased by her cessation. As Brandy turned to resume her forced servitude, Luther caught a glimpse of her project and saw that the rumors were true; the nickname was more than the figment of a wishful imagination. Orca really was a whale, a killer whale.
Orca gave him a smug smile. “Luther. Good afternoon. I wasn’t sure when you would be getting home. Do lawyers play golf on Thursdays, or is that just doctors?”
Luther could not conjure up a response fitting to the situation, so he just stood there staring at the vile scene and praying that the WWF-poster-boy to his left was only there to watch.
“Aw, doesn’t matter,” Orca continued, speaking as though they were long lost friends chatting on a chance elevator ride. “Fortunately Brandy was here to keep me entertained.” He patted her on the head. “What does matter is that you’re here now. We have to talk.”
Chapter 24
When they found the Cayman Islands yellow pages to be four hundred pages thick, Troy purloined an extra copy from an adjacent bungalow so they could go at it from both ends. They ordered a whole pot of room-service coffee, but Emmy struck gold before Troy drained his first cup. “Solomon Bank & Trust,” she said. “I found it.”
Troy left his phonebook on the desk and walked over to the bed where Emmy lay prone, reading with her ankles crossed in the air behind her. Sure enough, there it was, SBT surrounded by palm fronds. “A bank,” he said. “Of course. Did you ever read The Bourne Identity? The classic Ludlum thriller.”
“Afraid I missed that one.”
“It’s one of my favorites. The hero wakes up having lost all his memory. He doesn’t know his name or profession or anything. His only link to his past life is a piece of microfilm implanted under his skin with the name of a Swiss bank and a numbered account. Arriving at the bank, he finds that all he has to do to access his account is write out the number longhand for handwriting analysis. It was perfect, because like us he had no identification. This gains him access to a safety deposit box where he finds passports, disguises, millions in cash, and a gun.”
“Do you really think that we’re going to be so lucky?”
“Somehow I doubt it. But the point is, I would have recalled that story when trying to figure out how to communicate with myself in the future. I can’t believe that I didn’t think of it immediately—probably because I know my identity. Anyhow, I’m sure that’s it. There’s a safety deposit box waiting for us at Solomon Bank & Trust.”
Emmy was nodding along as he spoke, but Troy could tell that she did not seem to share his level of enthusiasm. “What is it?” he asked.
“How did it go for Bourne at the bank?”
Troy reached up to loosen a collar that wasn’t buttoned. “Actually, by accessing the account he alerted the people who were after him that he was still alive. They tried to kill him on the spot.”
“And let me guess, there was a woman with him who all the while was telling him to run away.”
“Marie. Yes. Sort of.”
“So maybe that was the message, Troy. Maybe this was your way of telling yourself to run.”
Troy shook his head. “Why not just tattoo RUN then?”
“On the bottom of your foot? Lots of ways to interpret that, don’t you think? I had a client with ARMY tattooed on his shoulder. Every time I saw it I wanted to look for LEGY on his thigh.”
“I’ve got to go with my instincts on this one, Emmy. And they’re telling me that the answers to our questions are at SBT.”
Emmy stood and squared off her slender five-foot-two frame against his solid six. “But it’s not just your instincts that matter. We put the other half of the puzzle on my foot, so obviously I’m supposed to have equal input.”
“Okay, you tell me then. What do we do if not the bank? Mug a Chinese couple, steal their passports and spend the rest of our lives hiding in a rice paddy?”
“At least that way we’ll get the rest of our lives! We’ve lost enough already. I can’t stand the thought of us losing anymore.”
Emmy’s use of us stilled Troy’s tongue. Her Freudian slip had spotlighted the elephant in the corner.
Judging by the mollification of her expression, she realized it too.
After a moment of strained silence he reached out and clasped both her hands. “As tempted as I am to run off with you, I can’t do it until I know that I wouldn’t be leaving someone else behind. I’m sure you can’t either.”
Emmy met his stare for a minute, her eyes misting over. Although no words passed between them, he knew that they were thinking as one. The foundations had been ripped from their lives, replaced by corpses, snipers, and guns. The only support each now had was the other. What would they do if the secrets within Solomon Bank and Trust somehow stole that too?
But in their hearts they both knew that there was no escaping the bank.
Chapter 25
Mesmerized though he was by the surreal scene transpiring in his study, Luther still found himself feeling for Brandy. This emotional flare-up surprised him—given his own situation and the fact that he planned to fire her soon anyway. It also bothered him. He had to walk a fine line when talking with the Mafia boss. He had to act tough and superior yet subservient. Compassion had no place on that overcrowded landscape. Looking Orca in the eye, he said, “Our business is man’s business. Let’s not mix it with pleasure.”
Orca gave an appreciative shrug and said, “Brandy, darling, we’re going to have to finish this later.”
Brandy backed her head away, hesitant, fearing another swat. When none came she stood silently and bolted for the door.
Orca made no attempt to cover himself after she left. Zipping up would be dangerous if not impossible given his engorged condition. He just left his flag waving in the primitive display of manly superiority that Luther suspected was the true objective of Orca’s assault.
As Brandy fled, Orca said, “I was just getting ready to explain your domestic situation to Zero, seeing as how we was getting to know Brandy and all. I was telling him that I thought you had discovered a trend for the twenty-first century. Much better that you’re here to explain it to him yourself though, don’t you think?”
Luther looked over at Orca’s steroid-stuffed companion. “Zero?”
“It’s from sub-zero,” Orca said. “You know, the big freezers?”
“I get it,” Luther said, guessing from the dull look on the bodyguard’s face that the nickname was a double-entendre.
“So tell him,” Orca pushed.
Luther was perversely proud of his unique domestic arrangement, but he did not like to discuss it. He did not like to discuss anything revealing with anyone. Unfortunately, a bottle of Courvoisier had loosened his tongue while he was trying to secure his loan from Orca, and the braggart in him had escaped. Since then he only drank alone. “Let’s n
ot go there today.”
“He uses domestic help as rent-a-wives,” Orca said, ignoring the plea. “He has this employment agency that works with a lot of Hollywood wanabees who can’t pay their rent. The agency sends him hotties like Brandy on a regular basis. They clean the house during the day and polish his knob at night. Ain’t that right, Luther?”
Luther just nodded and tried to look bored.
“Come on Luther, show some pride. It’s a brilliant system. Tell Zero how you came up with it.”
Luther turned to Zero, accepting that the fastest way to end the game was to play along. “I got the idea while leasing a car. I only lease cars—never buy—so I can trade them in for a new model as soon as I get bored with my ride. The salesman got a long call from Vin Diesel while I was in his office, so I picked up an exotic car catalogue. Looking at the different models astride each vehicle, I found myself wishing that I could get the same deal on the girls that I could on the cars they were advertising. Before the salesman hung up, I decided that there was no reason I couldn’t.
“I drove my new Ferrari straight to Fernando’s, a talent agency representing wannabe models and actresses and made a deal with the man himself. It’s actually a very symbiotic arrangement. The women on my domestic staff get to live in a mansion and make good money doing easy work. I get to cut it off quick and clean whenever I want, with no backtalk, guilt, or alimony. And I don’t waste time in pickup bars.”
Zero opened his mouth for the first time. “Why not just call hookers?”
Luther gave the enforcer a double take. Despite being crude, it was a reasonably intelligent question. “Two reasons. First of all because hookers are dirty, bitchy crooks and I don’t want them in my house. Secondly because there’s no challenge in it. No conquest. I like the hunt. These girls don’t show up at my door with their legs spread. They come to cook or clean or tend the grounds. I have to seduce them.”
