Big Numbers (12 page)

THIRTY-FOUR

Psycho Sam is all the way down, face and belly turned skyward on Shore’s carpet. His glassy eyes reflect the flashlight beams of the Branchtown police officers. Blood flows from multiple cuts around Sam’s mouth and chin.

The cops advance carefully. After a few kicks, as if they were checking a rabid dog they’d just shot, one of the patrolmen snaps on handcuffs.

Psycho Sam woke up as the cops tried to wrestle him into a Branchtown black and white, and now, five minutes later, the poor bastards are still trying. A handful of neighbors have come outside to watch, and I don’t blame them. It’s quite a show. Like trying to put a feral cat in a coffee can for a return trip to the pound.

I’m standing in Shore’s parking lot, watching this post-midnight circus because I told the cops I needed some fresh air. Lucky me. I’m fighting nausea and squeezing a wad of paper towels in my palm to control the bleeding.

For his encouraging and growing street audience, Sam tosses off two cops, jams his head back out the car window, fights off fists, batons, and a choke hold to make sure we all see his bloody face. He yells at me. “I’ll be back, puke. To snap your chicken neck.”

I stir another teaspoon of real sugar into my artificially creamed Maxwell House. Chemical fortification. I’m worried about Mr.
Vic, exhausted to the point my camper sounds alluring, and Branchtown Detective Jim Mallory is so not finished sucking my energy.

“Okay, Carr, give me your bullshit story one more time,” Mallory says. “Start with why you gave
Vic Bonacelli’s name to the 9-1-1 operator.”

We’re still at Shore Securities, the scene of the crime. Mallory and I plus a bald uniformed Branchtown sergeant named Towson are seated at Shore’s round kitchen table finishing the pot of coffee I made. If I lean back six inches, my right hip brushes the paper shredder.

“I told 9-1-1 it was Vic being attacked,” I say.

“I heard the tape, Carr. She asked who was calling, you said
Vic Bonacelli.”

It’s almost sun-up. My eyelids feel like stone paperweights. “If I did, Jim, it was a mistake. I was looking at
Vic with his head on backward. Maybe I got confused.”

Mallory doesn’t believe me. Screw him. Lots of people make errors in that kind of situation, can’t remember details. Let him prove I did it on purpose.

“And you were dressed like a burglar because…”

My hand has been cleaned and bandaged by the EMT guys. They said I needed a couple of stitches, but I opted for the butterfly bandages. “George Clooney, I think. One of those caper movies.”

“What?”

“Fashion, Detective. George Clooney wore all black in this movie a few years ago. Presto, the all-black thing was fashionable again. Me, I’m always behind, like most of the American
public. Heck, I was still wearing that Sonny Crockett, white jacket, pastel T-shirt thing at the company fish fry last summer.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Carr. But tell me that other bullshit story, the one where it’s three o’clock in the morning, you’re dressed in solid black, including black sneakers, and you decide to come by Shore Securities because…”

I slurp my coffee. “I couldn’t remember if I had an appointment in the morning or not. I live close by.” I point with my thumb toward the parking lot.

Mallory shakes his head, no. “You’re lying, Carr. You lied to me at the hospital when you said you didn’t see a weapon in
Vic’s hands, and you’re lying now. You were here to burgle Shore Securities, weren’t you?”

“I have a key, Detective. Look. Right here on my chain. I even know the pass code,
Vic’s birthday. Eight-twenty-one, nineteen-forty-nine. I don’t need to wear black to burgle anything in this building.”

“You and Bonacelli meet a lot at night?”

“We’ve been lovers for years.”

“I’ve heard stranger.”

“Screw you.”

Jim’s partner, Eagle Scout, glides into the room with a message for the long wild hairs in Detective Mallory’s right ear. I watch Mallory’s face as he listens, but there’s no tell in the eyes like before, no change in the line of the lips, no muscle twitch in the jaw or neck. Maybe the Eagle Scout just lined up breakfast.

When his partner pulls away, Mallory glances at me. “Your boss is doing well.”

“Mr.
Vic’s alive?”

“That’s the word. Go see him if you want, but stick close to home, case I have more questions later. Maybe when I figure what you were planning to steal.”

I dump my coffee in the kitchen sink. “I am home, remember? I live in the yellow camper out back.”

THIRTY-FIVE

Straight Up Vic’s in one fine mood for a guy who had his neck turned in circles like a rotisserie chicken. They’ve installed Mr. Vic in one of those car-wreck neck braces. His dark brown hair is combed, and his wife must have brought him clothes because he’s wearing a flashy blue and gold Hawaiian shirt, black silk pajama bottoms, and a pair of deerskin slippers. The grin on his lips tells me his wife also brought him a bottle.

Or maybe he’s thinking God smiled on him
. Getting up close and personal with Psycho Sam Attica almost gave me religion, and Vic was already a practicing Catholic.
Something
must have been watching over him. Sam tried to break his neck and missed. That’s a freaking miracle.

“They tell me it was the football training saved my life,” Mr.
Vic says. “The beefed-up neck. But I figure the real hero was you and that jar of hazelnut coffee creamer. Thanks, Austin.”

He laughs the whole time I’m pulling up a chair.

Five minutes later Rags strolls in, Dapper Dan in a light-weight tan summer suit, white shirt, and yellow tie. He’s smiling until he sees me, then his lips shrink and his eyebrows bunch. That nutty blister in his eye gets nuttier; the man truly hates me.

“What’s
he
doing here?” Rags says. He’s pointing at me, of course. “He’s the one responsible for your injuries!”

“Take it easy,”
Vic says. “That crazy guy Attica put me here, not Austin.”

“He’s Carr’s client,” Rags says.

The words come spitting out, especially my name, and there’s an unfamiliar shrillness in them. Uncontrolled. There is something very wrong with Tom Ragsdale today. There’s saliva on his lips, and like static electricity, I feel his malice charge the air. Must be off his meds.

“Carr
should control his customers,” Rags says.

I’m facing the
hospital room’s side wall, an unadorned slate of pale yellow except for a poster-size dry-marker board hanging at eye level. Pre-painted squares list Vic’s nurses, therapists, and meals for the next three days. The meat loaf with fresh peas and mashed potatoes sounds good tonight. Maybe I’ll stick around.

“
True,” I say. “Ideally, I could keep Sam calm.”

“See
,” Rags says. “He admits it!”

“Also ideally,” I say, “Shore Securities wouldn’t sponsor sales contests and pay extra commission on bonds that default in a year. I’ve already heard of six lawsuits.”

Vic knows I’m right. He says nothing. But Rags’ gaze turns shiny and hot. Out there. The saliva on his lips begins to bubble and foam. I wonder why Vic and his daughter Carmela never noticed this craziness before. To me and most other Shore salesmen, Rags’ shortage of sanity has been obvious a long time.

Of course, I’m prejudiced. I hate the bastard
.

Rag’s right han
d slides into his coat pocket. What’s he have in there? Adrenalin pumps through me. His hand clears the pocket, showing us that his fingers are wrapped around a snub-nose revolver. My heart races, each pump bringing the gun into sharper focus. I can’t believe he wants to shoot me.

Mr.
Vic’s snatch-move from the bed is quick, grabbing Rags’ wrist, pushing the revolver back inside Rag’s pocket. Vic has stretched out his body as well as his hand to grab Rags, making it easy now for Vic to use his weight keeping Rags’ arm tied up.

I travel quickly
around the bed and wrestle the gun from his fingers.

Mr.
Vic makes a call, then sends me to Sea Bright to dump Rags’ gun from the Highway 36 bridge. I drive over the Navasquan River, like Mr. Vic said, but I keep the gun. Might come in handy if Psycho Sam comes for me again.

When I get back to the hospital
half an hour later, Rags has left. Vic is sleeping.

“Where did Rags go?” I say.

Vic rubs his eyes. “Rags is on his way to the marina. He and Carmela are going to take a vacation, use my boat to motor out to the Hamptons, spend a week or two docked at a friend’s cottage.”

I pull up a chair, “You think that’s all Rags needs? Rest?”

“I’m hoping,” Vic says. “What do you think he needs?”

I shake my head. “A lobotomy.”

I’m on my way out when Detective Jim Mallory fills the doorway, motions for me to sit down. My heart picks up tempo again thanks to the bulge in my back pocket and the loud bump Rags’ revolver makes hitting the chair.

“I’m going to be putting an armed guard outside this room,” Mallory says. “And Carr, you can park your camper at the police station if you like. The desk sergeant will show you where. I’ve already spoken to him.”

“Why now?” Vic says. “There’s hasn’t been a guard on me all morning.”

Detective Mallory lifts a fist to his mouth and coughs. “Sam Attica escaped.”

THIRTY-SIX

Kelly and I spread
her newly delivered bonds like a giant map of the United States. State of California general obligations on the extreme left, New York City G.O.s in the upper right edge, Iowa, Kansas, and Louisiana IOUs smack in the middle.

It’s a fortune in green, rose, and earth-toned parchment, each one a federally tax-free municipal bond registered in the name of Kelly Rockland. On the bid side, each piece of paper is worth between one and two
hundred thousand. Two-point-two million, all total.

Broadcast
before us like this, the securities pretty much conceal Kelly’s antique French dining table except for a spot near the faux Canadian border where Kelly and I made room for a Sterling silver ice bucket. Neither of us wants to keep getting up for the champagne.

“How much is here?” Kelly says.

Shall I give her face value, today’s bid value, or the retail price she paid when I earned a commission on the purchase side? Each number requires considerably detailed and overlapping explanation.

Kelly saying, “They sure don’t look valuable. More like a collection of old deeds…just paper…one match and poof.”

What a thought. “Easy, girl. That paper’s worth almost two and a half-million dollars.”

“I thought you said Gerry’s bonds were worth two-point-three million?”

“Two and a half face, two-point-three in current market value.” Two-point-two on the bid, actually, the one hundred thousand difference being my and Shore’s commission.

The blank look on Kelly’s face makes me grin. Or maybe it’s the champagne. I’m starting to forget about Rags, Psycho Sam, and my pain-wracked body. Starting to enjoy myself. Kelly will be gone soon. I’ll miss her, the great sex, the restaurants. But I’ll have my fifty-eight thousand plus thirty-six percent of the one
hundred thousand commission. A little salary for all my hard work.

I’ll be able to pay off the ex-wife, rent a new apartment.
The courts will then lift the restraining order. Beth and Ryan will once again come for weekend visits.

“Two-point-five is what the bonds are worth when they mature,” I say. “Two-point-three is what you paid on the open market.”

She blinks once. Twice. That dull blank look is still there. I know the gaze well. I’ve been selling stocks and bonds for seven years. Everybody gets that face when I try to explain why bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.

“Pretend I’m holding two bonds, Kelly, one that pays four percent interest a year and a second bond that pays five percent. Which one do you want?”

“The one that pays five percent.”

“Of course. So does everyone else. That’s why one bond can be worth more than ano
ther in the open market. The bonds with old interest rates fall or rise in value to match the current yield market.”

Kelly offers me her cha
mpagne glass for a refill. “I get it. So Gerry has at least some bonds in the portfolio whose interest rates are below market?”

“You catch on fast.”

Her smile crunches up her nose. “Oh, I still have a few questions.”

She opens another bottle of Bollinger, saying, “So if these bonds are registered to me, why won’t Gerry’s kids track me down and serve me with an injunction? It doesn’t matter where I am, right, the bank that collects and mails the bond interest is in the United States?”

I love the shiny little bubbles in my champagne. But they are not as bright as Kelly. “I told you there are things you have to do in Mexico.”

The champagne is dwindling. So are my inhibitions. We’re leaning against the dining room table and I’m staring at Kelly’s breasts, the gentle curve of her sculptured thigh. My left hand feels the
parchment, the rough texture. I have an idea brewing and the mental image just produced a bicycle pump in my pants.

“Explain,” she says.

I brush the bicycle pump against Kelly’s leg. Show her how I feel. “From Vera Cruz, or wherever you end up, you fly to Mexico City and put the bonds up as collateral for a loan. Use the subsidiary of an American bank. It’s easier. You’ll only get about sixty-five, seventy percent of the current value, but that loan money you can hide, make clean as a whistle.”

“How?”

“I’ll do some checking for you. Probably through a numbered bank account in Caymans, or Panama. They’ve got more secrecy now than the Swiss.”

I touch h
er shoulders, she yields, and I ease her down on top of the bonds. Can’t take it anymore. I yank at her panty hose. The bicycle pump will not wait.

“But I need two million,” Kelly says, “not less than one-point-five.”

Quick with numbers, this redhead. She did the seventy percent of two-point-three million in her head.

“You have all that
jewelry, the cash you gave me but never invested.”

I’m losing interest in small talk. I mean, wow, what a meal has been placed on my table. Everything I ever wanted
—a fortune in bonds and a willing, half-naked redheaded woman—spread out before me.

The symbolism is staggering, distracting even. On one level I feel so shallow. Yet my body and mind’s reaction is undeniable. Instinctive. Sex and abundant sustenance is what nature taught
men to seek and acquire.

Kelly groans as I push inside her.

And look, there’s that Renoir she loves, the sunny summer street scene,
Pont Neuf
, hanging on the wall behind her. All those rich happy people, strolling in the sunshine. The essence of light on a summer day.