Scottsdale Squeeze: a romantic light-hearted murder mystery (Laura Black Mysteries Book 2) (15 page)

“Max told you I’ve had dealings with Roger Wade once before. In that deal, I was merely a passive investor. Previous to my close association with Max, I was also involved in a couple of deals with both Roger and his partner, Howard Spencer. I came to know Roger as an honest but excitable person who didn’t seem to have the temperament for developing the land he and his family owned. Apparently, I was not alone in my assessment, because over the years I heard Roger was finding it harder and harder to obtain financial backing to develop his properties. The only time he ever did a first class job on a golf resort was in building the Scottsdale Saguaro Sky and that was only because his father was still alive and kept him from doing a crappy job. The last few years I’ve heard he’s mostly
bought and sold undeveloped land. I know he was involved in one large development deal a couple of years ago. That was the Rio Rancho resort, just outside of Carefree. I never got the full details of who he was working with or how the deal was financed. Rumor was the major financing was from Mexico, which typically means drug money from one of the drug cartels, but that was the rumor.”

“For some reason, I keep hearing the name Howard Spencer. Someone told me last night he didn’t like Jackie. What do you know about him?”

“Howard and Roger were partners for many years so he would have known Jackie. About two years ago, Roger and Howard’s Rio Rancho project collapsed, which lead them both into a financial crisis. Since then Roger and Howard have both been selling off properties as fast as they can.”

“Any idea what happened to cause the collapse and crisis for Roger and Howard?”

“I have a good idea and I was somewhat involved, although I was not the cause of the crisis.”

I chipped out of the sand and back onto the green, and then everyone two putted. As we were walking to the eleventh tee, Johnny got a call on his cell phone then came over to talk to Tony. They were both muttering to each other in low whispers, so I backed away. I had no interest in knowing what they were saying. Besides, it gave me a minute to be alone with Max. As always, it was a great feeling.

“Nice move,” Max quietly said. “Hitting from the same tee box as us. Most women would have moved up to the front box. I saw the look Tony gave you. It seems you can’t help but charm him.”

“Well, it wasn’t my idea to charm him,” I said, also keeping my voice low so no one other than Max could hear. “I’ve never liked that some women claim to be as good as men at golf when they get a thirty-yard advantage on every hole. If I’m going to win a hole, I want it to be because I played better, not because I had an advantage. It’s just me.”

Max only
smiled and shook his head.

I looked over and saw that Gabriella was standing next to the cart, watching over Tony, as well as the rest of the group. Her eyes were constantly moving, scanning, and assessing. Over her shoulder, she had a large and expensive looking black leather bag. I suspected the bag contained her Uzi, along with enough ammunition to start a small war.

“Gabriella?” I asked Max. “I thought she was only for emergencies.”

“Well,” he said, “the thing about emergencies is you never know when one will come up. Better to have her and not need her.”

I lowered my voice further. Max had to bend over to hear what I was saying.

“Can I ask you something about her? Something personal? The last time we were all together, you remember the time I mean. I watched her as she fired her Uzi. I could swear shooting at those guys actually gave her an orgasm. Was I seeing things or did that really happen?”

“Gabriella is a woman of unusual wants, needs, and desires,” Max said. “But, Tony trusts her completely and that’s good enough for me.”

He stood back up and started talking again in a normal voice.

“You’re hitting well for not playing for a couple of years. With a little practice you could be really good.”

“The clubs you picked out for me are great. They look brand new.”

“I grabbed a set, along with a putter, from the pro shop this morning. I hope they are alright.”

“They’re perfect. Thank you.” I smiled up at him. “I love the feeling of holding a new shaft in my hand.”

I am such a bad girl.

Max caught my not-so-subtle tease and smiled down at me.

“By the way,” I said. “Diet Pepsi? How did you know?”

“Oh, at our last, umm, business meeting, the one with all the diamonds, you asked if we had any Diet Pepsi. This was after you already had three scotches. We didn’t have any then, so I thought I could make it up to you be bringing some along today.”

“Thoughtful,” I said. ”Are there any other secrets of mine you know about?”

“Not yet, although I would love to explore you and uncover one or two more.”

Stop flirting with the crime lieutenant.

“Humm,” I said. “Now you want to uncover my secrets? Sounds, interesting.”

I can’t help it.

EIGHT

Tony came back to the tee box and we got ready to hit. The eleventh hole was a straight par four with the pin in the middle of the green. Max had honors and belted a shot that landed a few yards short of the green. Tony hit a shot that was straight and landed about sixty yards short of Max. I hooked it and my ball landed thirty yards short of Tony’s, off the fairway in the short rough. Max and Milo took off in the cart again, letting me walk the fairway with Tony.

“In talking to Jackie,” I said, “she said about two years ago, Roger was involved in a deal with a guy who really scared her. She thinks this scary guy called her and threatened her before Roger was murdered. According to Jackie, this guy is big, arrogant, and has serious anger issues. He has short black hair, dark bloodshot eyes, and a full black mustache. She said he looks to be in his late thirties and has a big scar on the left side of his face. Like he’d been in a knife fight or gone through a windshield or something. In addition to English, he speaks Spanish, and at least one of his associates does too.”

“I believe I know the man you are referring to. I was only in the same room as him once and we were never introduced. He seemed to be a silent partner in the resort development deal I spoke of, the one that went south. This was about two years ago. This particular deal was in the process of going down the toilet and Roger had asked me for a meeting to discuss additional financing.”

“What happened? I asked.”

“Roger and Howard had run into financing problems on the project. By the time they asked for my help, the project was too far gone to save. As I said, Roger never had the temperament to develop his land into a world-class resort. The quality of the construction work was poor and too many corners had already been cut. Property values were falling at the time and several of the original investors either had backed out or had refused to give any more financing to attempt save it. If not managed properly, resort projects can sometimes end up in a death spiral and I could see that was where this deal was headed. I didn’t need to do any due diligence on this one. I told both Roger and Howard I would not invest in something that was so far gone. It would be good money after bad. As I told you, I may have been involved in the split up of the partnership because, as far as I know, that was the last deal they ever tried to put together as partners.”

“What happened to the resort?” I asked.

“The project eventually collapsed, as I predicted it would. Roger, Howard, and all of their investors took a bath on that one. It may be the reason Roger and Howard have been selling off so many properties, to make up for the losses.”

“Jackie said Roger had been having mood swings for the past two years,” I said. “I guess that would explain it.”

“In my opinion, Roger’s main problem is he has no strategic vision. His group had bought the land and started building back when property values were still relatively high. I’m sure he thought property values would continue to climb and they would ride the bubble up, and then make an even larger profit when they sold. Unfortunately, property values tanked as they were in the process of building, so they didn’t even get their original investment in the land back. Matter of fact, I was the one who eventually bought the land and the shoddy buildings they had started putting up on it. I was able to salvage some of the buildings and fortunately, the golf course layout was still in pretty decent shape. I tore down and rebuilt about half of the buildings, finished the project, and then sold it to one of the big hotel chains. You see, I ended up taking something that was shit and making something useful out of it.”

“What about Roger and the other investors? You made a lot of money on their loss.”

“That’s true. I imagine they were pissed but that’s just the way these things are done. If you don’t have the balls for it, you should be in another business.”

We got to our balls and Johnny pulled up with the cart. Tony and I both selected a club, then we both hit. Tony’s landed on the green, while mine fell short. We both put our clubs back in the bags on the cart and continued walking.

“Tell me more about the kidnapping,” he said. “Do you have any idea who they were or why they kidnapped your friend?”

“There were at least five of them and three of them had guns. They looked comfortable with crime and they seemed like professionals. I didn’t get the sense that they were federal or any sort of police agency. Just a bunch of criminals. I wish I could tell you more but everything happened rather fast.”

“I’ve started some inquiries,” Tony said. “If I hear anything, I’ll have Max relay you the information.”

“Thanks Tony, I really appreciate it. We can use this as my favor, so we’ll be even again.”

Tony stopped walking and gave me the same strange look again.

“Laura Black,” he finally said. “The favor I owe you is for something substantial, since you risked your life saving mine to earn it. Please consider this as something one friend would do for another. Who knows, someday I might ask you for something similar.”

Yikes!

Max and I chipped onto the green. Max sunk his first putt while Tony and I both two putted.

~~~~

We all then walked to the twelfth tee box. So far, Max had shot two birdies, Tony had shot par, and I had hit two bogies. Actually, considering whom I was golfing with, I was rather proud of myself.

The twelfth was a short par three with a sand trap guarding the green. My goal was to get the ball over the sand trap without having it sail too far over the green.

Max went first and hit a beautiful shot that landed ten yards past the hole then rolled back to within three yards of the pin. Tony hit next and landed on the right edge of the green. I shot last and was thrilled when my ball landed on the green, about ten yards from the hole.

I couldn’t help but smile at the shot and I might have let out a little squeal of delight. I looked over and both Tony and Max were smiling back at me. As usual, Max and Milo took off in the cart while Tony and I walked to the green.

“Tony,” I said, “when I think of building a resort, I think of having someone like Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus design the golf course and then building a big hotel in the middle. You talk about it like it’s a bunch of bankers getting together to roll the dice in a big crapshoot.”

Tony smiled and shook his head.

“Building a new golf resort is sort of like the Hollywood process of producing a movie. You need upwards of three-hundred million dollars anymore to build a first class resort. Most people can’t open up their wallet and pull that kinda money out. You usually need to organize a coalition of people. Sometimes the investors want to help finance the project, get a quick return, and then they back out. I like those people. It makes it simple for everyone. Then there are the ones who offer financing, but only in exchange for a long-term piece of the resort. I tell them up front if they are coming in with me, they don’t get a say in the operations. They always agree at first, but after things get established, they start to have ideas of how they could do it better. These are the ones who are a pain in my ass.”

“How is it going with Mrs. Sternwood? If I remember right, you said you’re splitting the new resort with her fifty-fifty.”

“I won’t have a problem with Muffy Sternwood. I’ve known her for as long as I’ve been out in Arizona. She’s both smart and sensible. Matter of fact, it was her late husband, the General, who was my mentor when it came to building and running resorts. Before I got together with him, I’d never even played golf, let alone built a golf resort. He not only showed me how to do it right, but he also tried to teach me about thinking for the long term. You know that piece of land Muffy and me are building the new project on? General Sternwood bought that back in the early eighty’s when it was nothin’ but four hundred acres of dry ranchland in the middle of nowhere. Sure, he bought it for next to nothin’, but even at that I always told him he was nuts buying desert land twenty miles north of downtown Scottsdale. Now, here it is, thirty years later and we have four hundred acres of virgin land sitting between The Boulders Resort and Troon North. The man had true vision, no mistaking that.”

“Tony, your resorts have to be doing well. Why don’t you switch to running resorts full time and get out of the other business?”

Tony looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. “It’s a question I have often asked myself as well,” he finally said. “Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that. I’ve come to the conclusion my resorts are profitable and run so smoothly at least in part because of my other ventures. Running a high-end resort is a cutthroat business, really no different from running a pizza joint. The other resorts would love to see us go down, no mistaking that. It’s the other side of the business that ensures they don’t make a move on us.”

“What could they do?”

“All sorts of things, labor troubles, supply problems, a smear campaign in the press, even an occasional fire is not outside the range of possibilities.”

“A smear campaign?”

“You probably didn’t hear about this, but there was a story last year about two resorts in Florida that were in fierce competition with each other. Anonymous leaks started on social media saying one of the resorts was riddled with bedbugs. No proof was ever given, but bookings at the resort have fallen over forty percent since the rumors started. They have spent upwards of a million dollars in PR and advertising to combat the false rumors. Now, the way I look at it, as long as I stay strong, people won’t make a move on us. In the Florida example, there was nothing the resort owner could do, except go to the press and start a PR campaign. People in Arizona know if they were to do something like that to one of my resorts, well, I would handle things somewhat differently.”

Yikes!

“Plus,” he continued, “with us, it’s more than a job. I believe you have already sensed we’re truly more like a family. We count on each other and I’d never give up on a guy if he screws up something once or even twice. However, if I lost my other ventures, we’d become another business. My top people would come and go like in any other company and I’d spend more time on human resources and staffing issues than anything else.”

We walked in silence for a few steps. My time with Tony was nearing its end and I wanted to get as much from him as I could. I asked him something that had been troubling me since our first meeting.

“When we were together before, you had talked about someone called Valentino. You said you felt like you were under attack. What ever happened with that?”

Tony stopped walking and looked at me. His face had gone stony.

“I trust you Laura Black, so I will be candid with you. Since the last time we talked, the situation has only been getting worse. It’s like there’s a cancer eating away at my interests in Arizona. I have reached out to my friends who control the activities outside of Scottsdale and their reports are similar. There’s something fucked up going on out there and I’ve spent the last few months trying to get my hands around it. As I told you, it started out small, maybe six months ago, with rumors of things amiss. But over the last couple of months, there have been too many things going wrong at once to be coincidence. I’m certain I’m under a coordinated attack, but there isn’t a pattern and nothing makes any sense. Word on the street is something big is about to go down. Shipments of mine have disappeared. People I care about have been roughed up and molested. Entire warehouses of my goods have been cleaned out. People have even started to disappear. Truth be told, I think there are some new graves out in the deep desert.”

“You still don’t know who is behind it?”

“No, and that’s the maddening part. If I knew who my enemy was, I could begin to confront the situation. But as of yet, the only name I have to go on is Valentino. I don’t know if that is the name of the group or the name of the man in charge of the group. Maybe it has something to do with the cologne he wears. Who knows? So far I don’t know shit.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Keep your ears open. You’re a smart and resourceful girl, Laura Black. It’s why you’re on my team. I think you’ll know something is amiss when you hear it.”

We walked up to the green without talking. Tony was furthest out and he two putted. I should have gone next, but Max had an easy putt and I offered to let him putt out. Ok, so I thought it would be fun to watch him putt, then to watch as he bent over to pick up his ball.

I’m such a bad girl.

Max easily made his putt, leaving the last putt to me. I was a good ten yards from the hole and I took my time lining up the putt. It felt creepy knowing both Max and Tony were watching my butt as I bent over and lined up the putt.

I hit the ball solidly and it started out way too fast and too far to the right. Remarkably, it gradually curved towards the cup, slowed down, and then fell in with a beautiful plinking sound.

I couldn’t help it. I raised my fist into the air and shouted out “Yes!”

I turned and saw both Tony and Max were laughing and clapping. Max took our clubs and walked them back to the cart, leaving me alone again with Tony.

“Laura Black,” he said. “I had an enjoyable time with you today. We should play again sometime soon. I can tell you haven’t played in a while, but your fundamentals are sound. If you need some pointers, you should give Max a call. He’s a good teacher and I’m sure he could help your game out. Plus, just between us, he still talks about you and I know he would enjoy your company.”