by Jean Martino
“Scott,” said Linda after Wainwright had abruptly left them, “is it possible Michael has a laptop and access to the internet? If he does why did all those emails I wrote come back as undeliverable?”
Scott shook his head. “Hard to know right now,” he said. “I think if he did though he would have found a way to contact you. It sounds like a bluff to me. And I am beginning to wonder if Wainwright knows anything about anything going on in this company.” He flipped open the annual report book he had found in the lobby and read the first page written by Roger McLean. It talked about the incredible profits the company had made the last year and gave credit for that to the company’s hard working and innovative stock brokers. Perhaps it was time, he decided, closing the book when Wainwright entered the office looking weaker but relieved of the pain he had obviously been enduring, to have a talk to Roger McLean.
“I apologize for that,” Wainwright said. “These ulcers are killers. Well, to answer your question, Mrs. Rossi, despite the disturbing reality that Michael has not been heard from for a week, I assure you your account is being serviced with all due care by our brokers here.”
“Then I would like to talk to those brokers,” Linda persisted.
He shrugged and raised his hands sideways. “They are all extremely busy right now and to take them away from their work keeping track of the stock changes on the stock exchanges could interfere with profits of clients. I am sure you understand that.”
“And if we came back after the stock exchanges closed?” she asked, “would someone be free to talk to me then?”
“It’s hard to say,” he answered. “They will certainly at that time have a lot of work to do updating what happened today.”
Scott could feel the bluff. Wainwright was trying to create smoke screens around himself. He knew nothing. He obviously was out of his depth in this company and knew it. “Perhaps Roger McLean could help us,” he said, flinging a thought into the arena for a reaction.
He got it. Wainwright’s face turned purple almost and not from any ulcer pain. “That’s not possible,” he said. “Mr. McLean has no day to day dealings with the company.”
I doubt that, thought Scott, but could see they were wasting their time with Wainwright. The man they needed to talk to was Roger McLean and if that was the case he could easily get his address through Max.
Suddenly Linda was on her feet, her eyes flashing. “I’ve had just about enough of the run-around you’re giving me,” she said angrily. “Someone in this goddamn place has to know where Michael went. I’m not stupid. I know someone is covering up something and I intend to find out what it is no matter how long that takes, and when I do you’ll all be sorry you ever heard of me!” With that she turned and marched to the door.
Scott, startled at her outburst, but proud of her for the way she had stood up to Wainwright, followed her out into the lobby as she marched past the now unsmiling nervous receptionist and slammed her finger on the down button at the elevator doors.
Neither of them spoke as they stepped into the elevator and Scott pressed the P for the underground parking lot. In the corner of the elevator he could see a small camera directly on them and turning to Linda he saw she was looking at it also. They both knew it was possible that the camera contained a listening device also, so neither said anything. When the elevator doors opened on the underground parking lot, Linda finally found her voice with a vengeance.
“I’m about to lose everything financially aren’t I?” she said angrily. “They won’t even tell me what has happened to my investments and they aren’t going to help me either. It’s as though my whole account disappeared with Michael and Cindy.”
“Honey, you aren’t going to lose anything. Michael would never have put your money at risk. He has to have protected it somehow. But Wainwright hasn’t a clue how to check anything out except financial statements apparently. He’s a façade as a president. We’re wasting our time talking to him.”
“But the laptop he said Michael took with him,” she cried. “How could he have done that and not even tried to email me in Australia?”
“That could be a bluff too,” said Scott wondering the same thing. “But for now I need you to try and stay calm. I have a feeling Mr. Roger McLean knows more than Wainwright suggested he did about his company and their accounts.”
Stay calm? Stay calm when her whole world was crashing around her? How did she do that? She wanted to scream, to yell, to demand someone tell her what the hell had happened to her daughter and son-in-law, and now what was happening to the money she had thought was so safe and secure. “I wish I had your coolness,” she said.
“Had a lot of practice at it,” he said with a wry grin. Then something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned quickly to see someone hurrying away from his car towards the entrance of the lot on the other side. He grabbed Linda’s arm, pushing her towards his car just a few feet away. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Seeing the look on his face, Linda knew this wasn’t the time to ask why so hurried to the car as Scott went racing across the lot, running between parked cars until he reached the drive-in entrance that was unattended and ran outside.
Next to the building was a restaurant where the parking lot outside it was crammed with cars. People were walking towards the restaurant or back to their cars, and it was impossible for him to tell if any of them was the man he had detected in the parking lot.
When he returned to the car, Linda was looking anxious. “Are you alright?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said breathing deeply to catch his breath. “Got a bit spooked there for a minute. Didn’t mean to scare you. Saw some man walking away from our car.”
“Did you get a good look at him?” she asked.
“Not his face, but he was very tall and thin and wearing a gray business suit so he could have been some business guy working for McLean’s checking the car out.”
As Scott unlocked the passenger side door Linda’s eyes caught on something stuck on the windshield. “What’s that?” she asked.
He followed her gaze to the windscreen where a small manila envelope was placed under the windshield wiper. He grabbed it and opened it then showed it to Linda as he stared around him again, looking for some movement.
Linda stared at the computer compact disc for a long time. “I don’t understand,” she said noticing it didn’t have a label. “Did that man you were chasing put it here?”
They got in the car and Scott backed out and drove through the exit then turned onto MacArthur Boulevard heading towards the beach. “He must have,” he said. “I have a feeling he works for McLean’s, possibly knows Michael.”
Linda shivered, still staring at the disc. “If he knows Michael then maybe there’s a message on it from him, or Cindy,” she said, wincing from the headache that had started and rubbing her temples to ease the pain in her head. “Scott, I don’t have a computer here with me. But there’s one at the Newport Beach house. Could we get it to work so we can look at this?”
Scott shook his head, his thoughts on the fact that someone at McLean’s was trying to help them somehow. One of the staff? One of Michael’s co-workers? He had to find out who it was and try to talk to him. “No, someone took out the hard drives in that computer. Besides the police and the FBI will be investigating it right now.” He knew by now Grant and his team would have discovered Roger McLean owned the house and be working on the connection with McLean’s in their investigation.
“I need to buy a laptop then,” Linda said. “Then I could look at what’s on this CD and also set it up to check my Australian internet email account. I’ll have to call Jessica and explain how to add a new location in my AOL Connection Set up and add the International access number into that location. I should have done it before I left Australia, but she has access to my internet account and can do it for me from there. Can we go to a computer store now so I can buy one?”
“I have a better idea,” he said. �
�Dan has several in his garage. His friends give him their old ones when they buy new ones and he fixes them up and sells them. I’ll drop you off at the unit and go by Dan’s and see what he can come up with. Unless you want to come with me.”
“My head is killing me,” she said, feeling faint from the pain as she continued to rub her temples. “I need to lie down for a while. Could you handle it without me being there?”
“Sure,” he said, noticing how pale she had gotten since they left McLean’s. “Got any Tylenol?”
She nodded. “At the unit,” she said, leaning her head back against the head rest and closing her eyes.
Scott glanced at her worriedly as he continued driving to the unit. Whatever was on that disc he just hoped it would give her some hope and not tear her down anymore than she had been.
* *
Palm Springs, California:
Carl Denholm was lying stretched out naked on his front, on one of the chaise lounges surrounding the Olympic sized pool at the back of his Palm Springs mansion. A young buxom blond, wearing a skimpy bikini bathing suit, was kneeling over him spreading aroma therapy oils over the parched brown skin of his back, trying to find the muscles that seem to have collapsed with age under furrows of sun baked skin.
“That feels good, honey,” he murmured, reaching back with his hand and patting her bottom. “Real good.”
She forced a small laugh for his sake, her mind concentrating on the diamond bracelet he had given her when she arrived that morning, and working her way now towards that diamond necklace and ring he had promised her if she was “good” to him. Her face screwed up at the thought of what she had to do to earn these little goodies when his wife, who had everything given to her on a silver platter, without having to earn them like she did, just sat in beauty shops all day getting herself worked over by fluttering attendants, and, what Carl didn’t know, being massaged by one of those hunky young men at the Spa Massage Parlor, and God knows what else. But at their age - Carl admitted only to being in his sixties, but she knew he was in his late 70’s and his wife the same - they could afford to pay for these spicy little things in life, and she was not immune to collecting her rewards for favors granted.
Now a multi-millionaire, very multi he would tell everyone who cared to listen, Carl had made his money in various ventures, some in New York, some in Las Vegas, but what he didn’t tell anyone was that those ventures were syndicated and the people he dealt with came from the Middle East and South American countries.
His mind was on money as always as he lay in the hot desert sun feeling the masseuse’s hands sliding over his body. Money was power; he thought contentedly, the corners of his mouth twitching, his blue eyes narrowing. And money was something he had plenty of right now. And he didn’t care where it came from either, the more money he had the more power he had. And respect, he reminded himself, thinking of that meeting he had scheduled tonight in Las Vegas, with Tony Bianca, the most powerful man in New York’s underworld right now. Tony respected him, trusting him to do the right thing for him and the consortium of other underworld figures he had steered in Carl’s direction, who had invested heavily in Carl’s Las Vegas hotels.
Carl had not let them down. Like him, their money was brought in mostly from underground banks around the world that could use unorthodox methods; eliminating the need to use the banks in the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force; its thirty member states in the Caribbean Basin now adhering to stricter banking laws. And Roger McLean had proven more than a willing participant in the moving around of those funds, he thought, smirking at his own cleverness. Roger’s three month annual trips to Europe and Asian countries had made him invaluable to them. After the money had been placed with an underground bank, he was given a playing card torn in half, the other half being forwarded to the banker in whatever country they wanted the money transferred to. On presentation of his “receipt” in the target country Roger could obtain the money through foreign exchange currencies, or drafts and other non banking instruments, avoiding exporting cash out of the country and limiting the risk of detection. Yes, Roger was important to them and he knew how to keep his mouth shut, knowing his rewards would be substantial.
The money, then intermingled with Casino profits, had soon found other outlets to be channeled through; the legitimate dry cleaning stores and other businesses in New York, all making them more money than they could easily declare on tax returns as legitimate earnings.
Too much money, not the lack of it, he thought wryly, had created problems. It had been piling up offshore in those banks and they had been on his back to find more ways to launder it back into the US economy. He remembered when he had first met Roger McLean junior three years ago in a Palm Springs country club, the idea of using his Investment Company had sprung into Carl’s mind. He knew McLean had been struggling to keep his Newport Beach Investment business afloat at the time. It hadn’t taken much convincing to persuade McLean to let him use his firm to legitimize all that excess offshore money. The consortium and Bianca had praised him no end for his judgment. They were not the kind of people he wanted to mess with, even though he was never sure who most of the real people were behind those aliases they all used. He turned his head around to stare back at the blond; thinking about money and power always made him feel horny. He slid around and smiled up at her.
She knew what that smile meant and smiled back, her mind concentrating on the diamond necklace as she prepared to earn it. At that moment the cell phone rang and he swore. “Fuck!” he yelled, reaching to pick it up and sending her flying sideways and crashing onto the patio.
“Carl!” came Roger’s voice. “I’m on my way to the airport. Flying down there in my private jet. Be there in an hour.”
Carl sat up straight. “What the hell for?” he asked. “I’m leaving for Vegas in two hours, soon as the wife gets home.”
“It will have to wait,” said Roger, the urgency in his voice causing Carl to grab for his bath robe on the lounge chair next to him. “This can’t.”
“What’s up?” asked Carl, standing up and pulling his bath robe around his short, skinny body.
“Can’t talk over the phone,” said Roger. “You know everyone has access to these airwaves. Just be there, OK?”
The blond stood up rubbing her arm and moved back towards Carl.
“Not now!” he yelled at her. “Get lost. Go home. I got business to take care of.”
She knew better than to protest. Grabbing her oversized white fabric purse and high heeled white scuffs she hurried to the front of the house where her car was parked, as Carl called to Joseph, his top security guard who was always lurking around nearby.
“Yes sir?” said Joseph.
“I’m expecting Roger McLean to arrive in an hour or two,” he said. “Make sure no one is following him and let him in as soon as he arrives.”
The guard hurried to the front of the iron gated house where other security men, posing as gardeners, were pottering around keeping their eyes peeled.
Carl hurried inside his house and to his den, tying the belt of his white bathrobe tightly around his skinny waist and smoothing his dyed black hair back off his face. What the fuck had gone wrong with McLean, he wondered, his mind thinking of the millions he had invested in stock through that company; and the millions his hotel partners had filtered in from their offshore bank accounts into the hotels then had him invest in the futures market stock there also.
Nah, he thought, couldn’t be anything to do with the investment accounts. Roger left all that in Michael Brampton’s capable hands. He and Michael had a special arrangement that not even Roger McLean was aware of. Once a week Michael called him to give him all the value balances of all the accounts he had channeled money into from the hotel’s consortiums. That Michael he was a whiz at making them all richer, he thought with a chuckle. He had no idea whose money he was dealing with, and that’s the way Carl wanted to keep it, letting him think it was all legitimate money from wealthy Vegas hote
l owners. McLean had convinced Michael that Carl was the linchpin in the consortium and, despite those investor accounts being set up under different aliases with the money coming in from different banks in Las Vegas, that Michael had to account to Carl for everything.
And to keep Michael motivated, Carl had rewarded Michael for his personal attention to those accounts and his discretion in keeping everything confidential; buying that house in Newport Beach, for a cool one millions dollars then transferring title to Roger; telling Roger it was a little incentive to keep Michael happy in making them all richer. Roger had not liked that much at the time, but Carl had calmed him down.
“I’m putting it in your name,” he told him. “Free and clear. That way Michael and his wife can live in it cost free and the IRS won’t hound him wanting to know where he got the money and wanting their cut. You can say it’s just a gift from a friend to a friend if they check on you, and Michael and his wife are living there to maintain it for now. The IRS knows you’re a multi- millionaire like me and can afford it.”
