Solid Oak

by William F Lovejoy

  Oak told her, “I think you’re right about that, Bobbi. Whoever someone is, they’re in a position of power as far as information goes.”

  “We’re sure they tracked you from New York City to D.C. and to the hotel.”

  “I may have to go underground. In my own damned country. I hate this Big Brother buzz, and I hate someone with the wherewithal to know everything.”

  “But,” she said, “he or she or it is using the power to kill people.”

  “A real downer.”

  They concentrated on the salads.

  And then the lobster arrived, succulent and steaming.

  They were halfway through that course when Malone said, “You’ve got what, twenty years in?”

  She nodded.

  “I think you should quit and come to work with me.”

  She dropped her tiny fork with the lobster morsel. That was out of the blue.

  “What!”

  “This interview has gone very well,” he said. “And please note that I said work with and not for. I’ve made my decision.”

  “I haven’t applied for anything!”

  “You’re vested. Just let the pension accumulate until you’re ready to claim it. I’ll pay you whatever it takes. How about one-fifty a year? No, make it one-seventy-five.”

  “Shit, Oak. How would you do that?” Bobbi retrieved her fork.

  “Did I mention that when I locate a client’s stolen money, I keep thirty percent for my fee?”

  “Jesus, 30 percent!”

  “Almost as good as lawyers do,” he said.

  “Oak, I took this job right out of the university. It’s the only real job I’ve ever had.”

  “We can broaden your horizons. Your boss has never sent you out of the country, right?”

  “I don’t see how . . . .”

  “My last recapture of stolen funds amounted to seven mil,” he said.

  Seven million. The fee would have been 2.1 million.

  “I live with a computer,” she said rather lamely.

  “We can probably find one of those.”

  Chapter Six – Saturday, June 15

  Malone slept twice on the plane to Phoenix. Once on the Reagan National to Denver leg, and once on the last leg to Phoenix. He arrived at Sky Harbor just after 10:45 in the morning, shuttled to the car rental plaza, and landed a Jeep Cherokee.

  He’d just settled behind the wheel when his cell phone buzzed. He glanced at the caller number and thumbed the green button.

  “Wonderful! You’re coming to the City by the Bay.”

  “No, I’m not! I had a couple of ideas for you after thinking about this last night.”

  Damn. He thought getting her to the west coast had been a good idea. He’d dropped her off around midnight and thought about going to Charleston to look over Mal’s house, and then decided the cops had probably been through it. Not as thoroughly as Malone could do it, of course.

  “Toss them my way.”

  “D gave you three names. Seems to me if he wanted . . . a contract, he’d have only given you one name.”

  Well. . . .

  “That’s exactly why we’d work so well together,” he said to keep the selling pitch open. “I’m going to have to review what I thought he’d said.”

  “So if he gave you three names, and you have a rep as an investigator, maybe he wanted you to pin down which of the three was proving to be difficult for him. He may have known he had a problem of some kind, but not where it was coming from.”

  “All right. I can buy into that.”

  “Another line of thought,” Bobbi said, “is that none of the three are connected to each other at all. D was known as something of an unsavory character. He could have been operating multiple scams, found out someone was probing into it, and thought it was one of the three. He wanted to know which one.”

  That line might get ol’ Daddy-in-law off the hook.

  “Definitely worth looking at, Bobbi. And look, you don’t have to waste time on this. It was my decision to check out D’s proposal.”

  “You wanted me to be curious. Now I am.”

  Curiosity was kind of a necessary personality trait for those involved in the analysis game.

  “There’s another scenario,” Malone said. “If D was into a number of scams at the same time, his killing might have resulted from another ‘deal’ as he called it and be totally unrelated to the three names.”

  “I’m not big on coincidence, Oak.”

  “Well, okay. I’m not either. Scratch the last scenario.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to quietly take a look at Jim. See what I can learn.”

  “So you’re . . . there?”

  She was good at being circumspect on a phone that was so easily scanned.

  “Yep. I’m here.”

  “Are you, you?”

  “Nope.” He was now Fred Williamson, as far as airlines and hotels would know. It was a backup identity he carried in the lining of his carryon.

  “Call me if you find something new.”

  “Happy to do that.”

  Keep her curious. Good idea.

  Malone cranked up the Jeep and worked his way out of the airport complex. He found a route onto the I-10 southbound and stayed with that until he could exit east on Elliot Road. A half-mile later, he turned south again and found the Autoplex Loop.

  Autos to the left. Autos to the right. Autos all around. Volvo and Kia and Acura and an American or two. They all had the best deals in town.

  This would be the place to explore if he ever needed to replace his ’98 Silverado. Maybe in four or five years.

  Malone kept cruising along the curving street.

  And there it was: JIM MEARS’ AUTORAMA.

  He pulled into the lot and found a customer parking spot. Shut off the engine and looked around. There were a few acres of Fords and Nissans. Silver and white and red were predominant. None of the lovely pastels of the fifties and sixties. It wasn’t cost efficient to offer too many colors any more. And forget more than two options on interior colors.

  He barely had his door open before a young man emerged from the huge glass-fronted showroom. No sport coat and tie here in the Valley of the Sun in mid-June with a temperature in the high 90’s. He was wearing khakis and a sport shirt. Dressed like Oak Malone.

  “Good morning, sir! Anything we can help you with?”

  Malone shook the offered hand and said, “I hope so. Is Jim Mears around?”

  The young man managed to hide his disappointment and said, “He’s in his office, I think.”

  “Thanks. I’ll find it.”

  He had told Bobbi he was going to “quietly” look at Mears, but during the drive from the airport, he had changed his mind. If he stayed low and incognito, not much was going to happen. He could go home and wait to see if another assassin showed up on his doorstep. That passive activity told him nothing about the three names.

  Instead, he could insert a few probes and see what the reactions might reveal.

  Pushing through the big glass door into the showroom, Malone looked around at display cars and the sales cubicles, then to a hallway leading to more offices. He selected that destination.

  The hallway was festooned with lots of pictures and newspaper clippings mounted to cork boards with thumbtacks. The focus of all the postings was Jim Mears. Thanks, Jim, for your support of Little League. And the bowling team. And the soccer club. Thanks, Jim, for your generous donation. Take this award with our appreciation, Jim.

  There was one card listing all of the organizations that old Jim supported. It was a long list, and Malone wondered how a single man could keep up with so many memberships. Or lie about them. He looked both ways down the corridor, saw no one watching him, and pulled the thumbtack on the card. He folded the card once and slipped it in his back pocket.

  At the next office, he turned in and faced a nice-looking secretary behind a desk cluttered with stacks of paper.

 
“May I help you?” she asked.

  “Sure. My name’s Oak Malone. I’d like to see Jim for a minute.”

  “Let me check.”

  She slid out of her chair with grace and moved to a door to her right. Knocked once, then opened it and went inside.

  She was back out in a minute and said, “Go right in, Mr. Malone.”

  Oak went right in to discover a well-appointed office with thick wool carpeting in dark gold, mahogany desk and book cases, and leather seating in pale blue. Desk chair and two visitor chairs facing the desk. Over a credenza with a computer terminal behind the desk, the gold wall was littered with pictures of Jim posed with celebrities or notables that Malone didn’t recognize.

  Mears rose from his chair, dressed like Malone in khaki’s and a button-down collar on his blue oxford shirt. He appeared mostly fit, maybe thickening around the waist, the hair on his arms paled by the sun. His face was smooth under brown eyes. The smile was full and jovial.

  “Mr. Malone,” he said, shoving his hand across the desk.

  Oak shook it. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “Well. . . .”

  “U of A. You were two years behind me.”

  “Oh, man! Long time ago. Sure I do. Have a seat.”

  Oak took one of the chairs. Of course Mears didn’t remember Malone, but he was too much of a glad-hander, a proponent of boosterism, ala Sinclair Lewis’s Babbit, that he didn’t know how to handle it any other way.

  “I don’t want to use up your time, Jim, but I was in town on business and thought I’d just drop by to say hello.”

  “And I’m damned glad you did.” Mears settled back in his desk chair. “What the hell have you been doing?”

  “Well, you know, I was in government service for a number of years, but now I’m strictly into criminal investigation.”

  A flicker in the eyes? Yes. Lower right lip gave a tic? Yup.

  “The hell you say. Must be a lot more interesting than selling cars.”

  “It has its moments, but hey, Jim, you look like you’re doing all right.”

  “Can’t complain, at least not a lot. The economy goes up and down, and we go with it. Still, Americans got to drive.”

  “They do.”

  The two of them small talked for about fifteen minutes—the U of A Wildcats football and basketball, neither of which Malone followed but which Mears was ardent about, the Arizona heat, the difficult housing industry. Mears went on about some woman he had known in Tucson who achieved minor celebrity as a rock musician.

  “She went by the professional name of Cheetah. You don’t remember her?”

  “I don’t, Jim. I must have been gone by then. I tell you, though, the knockout I recall, I think she was a freshman, damn, what was the name? Ah, Lani something. Lani Powell. You ever know her?”

  Which was a lie. Lani Dixon was six years behind Malone.

  The way Mears’ eyes shifted to the left and his smile lost a couple degrees, Malone thought he was looking hard for an answer he already knew, and then gave up the lie instead.

  Oak decided that, no, he wouldn’t vote for Mears.

  “No, don’t think so.”

  “Well, she was a knockout. Look, Jim, I’ve got to get going, but I just wanted to say hi.”

  “Man, Oak, thanks for stopping by. Great to see you and good luck with everything. You ever need new wheels, we’ll get you something at invoice.”

  “Good luck to you, too.”

  Malone left, stopping in the showroom to look over a Fusion as if he truly had an interest, but then disappointed the young man once again by going out and getting in his rented Jeep.

  Judging by Mears’ facial tells, this had been a successful visit.

  *

  The Chairman called at 3:40, pretty much on his regular routine.

  “May.”

  “Chair.”

  “Oh, good. I’m glad you called.”

  First things first. “Did November check in with you?”

  “He did,” May said, “but I didn’t have anything for him. Malone dropped out of sight.”

  “Ah, you told me you could monitor him.”

  “Somehow, he’s figured that out. But I know where he is now.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Phoenix.”

  Well, that was not a good sign.

  “He got to Phoenix without you knowing how?” he asked.

  “Yes. The last things I have are a credit card charge to a restaurant in Baltimore, and he paid off his hotel bill with the same card. Then no more charges. He’s gone to an assumed name. But the Treasurer called in. Malone dropped into his office to talk to him.”

  Damn. Dinmore gave Malone names.

  The Chairman did not want to hear this third-hand, so he said, “I’ll call the Treasurer myself.”

  “Very well. Should I send November to Arizona?”

  “Yes, in case Malone pops up again.”

  As soon as he had a dial tone, the Chairman called the Treasurer.

  “Hello. I have a customer here. Please call back in ten minutes.”

  It happened that way sometimes. He waited the ten minutes and then dialed again.

  “Treasurer.”

  “I understand you had a visitor.”

  “Oak Malone, who I don’t know from Adam. He walks into my office, and makes like he knows me from the university. Later, when I called May, she told me you were keeping an eye on him.”

  Mears sounded shaky.

  “Tell me about it.”

  The Chairman waited while Mears detailed the whole conversation.

  “He said he knew you from the University?”

  “Yes. I didn’t remember him at all. But I called Tucson, and they show a Malone graduating in ’89.”

  “And he said he was investigating you?”

  “No, no. He said he was a criminal investigator, but hell, why would he show up at my door? He must have something on me. Christ, I don’t even know who he works for.”

  “He works for himself. And he doesn’t necessarily know anything about you. Don’t get tensed up. We’re on top of it.”

  “And he mentioned Lani’s name. How in hell would he know that? Shit, he called her a freshman, but she was six years behind him.”

  “Please remember these phones are not private. Avoid names.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Sorry.”

  “Relax, Treasurer. We’ll take care of business.”

  “May said the Recruiter is dead.”

  “He is. He was about to go public with some kind of information.”

  “Shit! Maybe we need to pull back.”

  “We’re okay. Just keep a cool head.”

  “What if Malone comes back?”

  “Stall him. Call me.”

  “I don’t have a number for you.”

  Reluctantly, the Chairman provided his disposable cell phone number.

  Mears didn’t sound any less shaky by the time they ended the call.

  But now Lani’s name was in the mix. Dinmore had provided names, but what else? Even if Malone had received nothing more from Dinmore, he was still a threat. November would have to cancel the threat.

  And what else?

  The accounts. He would have to call May back.

  *

  Malone had checked into a Best Western in northern Phoenix as Williamson and spent the afternoon surfing the Internet on his laptop for other traces of Mears, Dixon, and Corridan. Not much for either Mears or Dixon, but Corridan was everywhere, usually in the context of hearings or meetings of his Senate committees.

  At 5:00 Eastern Time, he called the Dixon residence in Georgetown, and the woman who answered said that Dr. and Mrs. Dixon would likely be home around 6:30 or 7:00. She wanted to take a message, but Oak just said he’d call later.

  He didn’t want to talk to her yet. He did want to know where she was, and three hours away was good.

  At 5:00 Arizona Time, which was static since the state didn’t believe i
n daylight savings time, similar to his own view, and since he had missed lunch, he drove down to an Arriba’s Mexican restaurant on Camelback Road and satisfied his appetite.

  Then he took a leisurely drive through Scottsdale and located the Dixon’s winter time home. He supposed it was for wintertime. God knows the summers were hot. Compared to Washington, D.C., of course, it was dry heat. That was the Chamber of Commerce spin.

  The house was on Orange Blossom Lane, backed up to the fairways of the Arizona Country Club. One shouldn’t have to travel too far if one was a golfer. One should have a golf cart in the garage and lots of red tile on the roof, just like most of the neighbors, and one should have around five or six thousand square feet of living space for a home one visited a couple times a year.

  Either the houses were too large, or the lots too small, because the homes seemed crowded together. Malone thought there was a hell of a lot of vacant space in Arizona, but still, they crammed the houses together. Probably to keep the selling prices low, under two or three million.

  Despite the crowded feel, there was lots of green shrubbery dividing the homes and giving them some privacy. Also some cover for surreptitious visitors. Palm trees scattered about. The street was narrow, and Malone checked for parking places.

  Then he drove back to his motel to watch the news and rest until dark.

  *

  Conrad Sherry arrived at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix out of Miami at 8:43, and as soon as he reached the main terminal, he called May.

  “This is November.”

  She described a man named Malone, who was supposed to be in Phoenix, and who was not supposed to leave Phoenix. Sherry would get the full fee.

  “So where’s he at? Phoenix is a pretty good sized city.”

  “Nothing to give you, yet. Get a car. Get dinner. Get a motel. Wait until I call.”

  Sherry hated waiting around. If he wanted to wait around most of every day, he’d have stayed in the Army.

  On the other hand, the Army didn’t pay as well.

  Chapter Seven – Sunday, June 16

  At 2:20 on Sunday morning, Malone parked the Jeep two blocks north and one block east of the Dixon home. Having been removed, the courtesy lamp bulbs didn’t bother to come on when he opened the door and got out into the warm night. A quarter moon provided a touch of lighting. He smelled the aroma of sage. There was a stack of clouds off to the west, barely seen in this light, and not threatening at all.