Shake the Trees (16 page)

CHAPTER 22

Sam had returned to his leased condominium late Saturday afternoon.  The pain in his gut had become severe as acid chewed at the lining of his stomach.  A bagel before he left for work Friday morning was the last thing he could recall eating.  A few saltine crackers had helped.  At least he wouldn’t resort to alcohol like the last time.  He doubted he could keep it down.

He desperately wanted to call Sandi and tell her what was happening.  But she had her own problems now.  And if he really was the cause of the water problems at the ranch, he wasn’t sure how she would feel about him.  He opened his laptop and began to compose an e-mail in his mind.  An e-mail was better he thought.  That way if she didn’t want to talk to him she wouldn’t have to.

It was at that moment Sam noticed a new message in his inbox.  He moved the cursor to preview the message, but didn’t recognize the address.  Then froze as he studied the subject line.  “A Message From Dr. Bob.”  Sam’s mind spun wildly.  Was the message sent before he died?  Was a mistake made?  Could he still be alive?  Or was this somebody’s idea of a cruel joke?  With a shaking hand he moved the cursor to the message and tapped on the laptop.

This message has been forwarded from a remote server at the request of the following subscriber(s): Dr. Bob. 

This message has been forwarded for the following reason(s): failure of subscriber to access server for a continuous period of time exceeding 48 hours.      

The subscriber has requested the following action(s): download attachment.

Sam moved the cursor and began to download the attachment.  He knew the file was large.  Even with the new top of the line laptop American had provided and his high-speed broadband connection, it took several minutes.  After the download was complete, Sam tried to open the attachment.  A new message popped onto his screen. 

This file is encrypted and password protected.  The password consists of between four and seven characters.  After three failed attempts at password entry, this file will be permanently deleted.  Please enter your password now:

Sam’s mouth hung open as he stared at the blinking cursor.  He didn’t have the password.  Dr. Bob had loaded encryption software on his laptop, but he didn’t know the password.  And he had only three chances to get it right.  Somehow Sam knew that the password was his key.  The key to a door that led out of the nightmare he’d stepped into on Friday morning.

Sandi was sitting at the kitchen table in her cabin at wit’s end.  She needed to do something, but there wasn’t anything to be done.  Not until Monday.  She looked at her doodles of earlier that day.  Ned Ron Incorporated.  Ned Ron.  Ned Ron written several times in heavy block letters.  Then she saw it.  She scratched out the letters in reverse order in a hurried and angry scrawl and picked up the phone and called his cell.

“Sandi,” Sam answered.  “Are you okay?”

“Sam, I want to know what is going on there.”

“What?”

“Is anything going on there?  Anything that might be connected to this Ned Ron thing?”

For the second time that day, Sam began to talk.  And talk.  He told Sandi everything that had happened since Friday morning.

“Whoever’s doing this is screwing around with the wrong people, Sam.  I swear to God we will figure this out, and they will pay for what they’ve done.”

“Sandi, I think I might be arrested.”

“We don’t know that, Sam.  But I think we should be prepared.  I’m going to talk to Bartholomew Citron about this on Monday.  Maybe he can give us the name of a good attorney there.  For this kind of thing.”

“You mean a criminal attorney.  I’m not a criminal, Sandi.”

“I know, Sam.” 

Sandi had begun to get her anger under control, and now her mothering instincts kicked in.  “Did you sleep last night?”

“Not really.”

“Have you had anything to eat today?”

“I had a few crackers a little while ago.”

“Before that?”

“A bagel before I went to work yesterday.”

“Sam, I need you to be strong.  To stay strong.  I want you to order some delivery.  Anything.  Then you need to get some sleep.  Do you need something to help you sleep?”

“I don’t think so.  Not anymore.”

“I’ll call back in a couple of hours.  After you’ve eaten.  Dustin wants to talk to you.”

“Sandi.  I don’t know if I can.”

“We need to keep things normal for him.  He wants to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“Get something to eat.  We’ll call back.”

“Okay.  Talk to you later.”

Sandi hung up.  She knew that nothing strengthened the resolve of a good man like the admiration and affection of a child.  And she knew that Sam was a good man.

He was soaking up the sun and a mango pomegranate smoothie.  He would have preferred a cocktail, but the smoothie wasn’t bad.  In fact, all the food, while short on fat and carbs, was delicious.  Ten pounds had just melted away.  Without feeling deprived.  And deprivation was not well tolerated by Marc Mason.  He’d also been working out with a personal trainer every day, which had helped him tone up considerably.  Truth be told, he was feeling better than he had in years.

He’d even been drilling a nurse on night duty.  Granted he wouldn’t be seen in public with her, but she was enthusiastic.  And who knew in the dark?  Definitely better than the alternative.  He had so much more energy lately that he’d also been hitting on one of the daytime maids as well.  And making good progress he thought. 

All in all, life was good at the moment.  And soon it was going to get better.  Much better.  There was no reason to be concerned about the $2,500 a day price tag for his new accommodations.  Soon he would be making ten times that amount in interest.  Every day.  He wouldn’t be sucking up to nurses and maids for a piece of ass then.  The most beautiful girls in the world would be sucking up to him.  Literally.

He leaned back in the lounge chair and smiled at his unspoken joke.  And he thought about how far he had come.  His mother had once called him an ass.  It was one of his earliest memories as a child.  But she was wrong.  She was the ass.  Hopefully she would be embarrassed by the latest turn of events - even if nobody knew he was at the center of it all.  He reminded himself to tell her that he’d been thinking of her when he renamed the company, although she probably didn’t have the brains to figure it out.  She was too stupid to comprehend the fact that he was insulting her.  Calling her the ass.

Marc turned away from his dark thoughts and focused on the money.  All the money.  And the rest of his family.  He’d heard stories about his great-grandfather.  About the fortune he had made.  And lost.  About the respect he was shown and the deference he commanded.  Now he was resurrecting the family’s glorious past.  He was the one who would make - and this time keep - a fortune.  He would restore the family name.  To the tune of well over a hundred million dollars.  What would his great-grandfather think of him now?  Marc smiled at the thought.  Then jumped up from the lounge chair.  It was time for maid service.

CHAPTER 23

He woke with the sun and made coffee with the tiny and stained Mr. Coffee that sat next to the plastic bathroom sink.  Then walked out of the cinder block motel with a steaming mug in hand.  It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and the air was still cool on his face.  He checked the newspaper stand, but it hadn’t been delivered yet.  He’d given Sally the room with the working television. He didn’t care.

The old Ford LTD sat sagging in front of the room, its dull surface barely reflecting the slanting sunlight of the new day.  The Marco Island airport was only a couple of miles down the road; he’d checked with the kid manning the facility about keeping the car a while longer, and was told to enjoy.

Tillis took a sip of the hot coffee and admired the morning sky.  Pastel shades of pink, orange and blue swirled together with white wispy clouds.  None of the crisp deep hues of a northern sky.  The colors were all so muted and blended together down here.  Tillis wondered if somehow the blurred boundaries and sultry air made it easier for people to confuse right and wrong. 

He found two white plastic chairs near the lobby, wiped off the dew, and dragged them both over in front of their rooms.  Then made a second pot of coffee.  Before long Sally stumbled out of her room still half asleep.  He began a poor rendition of the Miss America theme song and she gave him the finger.

Tillis laughed and cheerfully offered welcome information.  “Coffee’s on.  By the sink.”

“Thanks,” Sally muttered. 

She soon returned with her own steaming mug and collapsed into the chair beside him.  “Do I really have to go to this fish fry?”

“Didn’t you hear what I told that fat red-haired kid?’

“About understanding the environment around you?”

“That’s it.”

“Somehow I knew that’s what you’d say.”

“You’ll enjoy yourself.  I promise.”

Sally looked skeptical as she stood and walked back into her room to answer her ringing cell.  In a few moments she returned to her plastic chair and leaned back against the concrete block wall.

“We have a line on the number that called the gumbo-limbo BlackBerry.  It was a disposable.  Purchased at a drug store on South Beach.  Our call was the first and only time it’s been used.  We pinged it off a tower in the same area.  It’s still there.”

The family homestead was remote and rural.  The building site had been created generations before by the dredging of two drainage ditches about one hundred yards apart.  Mama’s house sat on a slight rise, which had been created by the fill removed from the cut ditches.  The white clapboard home sat on poured concrete piers, which was yet another attempt to stave off the waters which surrounded the site and periodically encroached upon it.  A huge covered porch wrapped around two sides of the home.  Rocking chairs of disparate design, age, and condition sat haphazardly on the worn porch floorboards, some of which still bore the patina of a grey paint that had been applied in the distant past.  A few large shade trees had obviously been planted decades before, while several clumps of palms had just as obviously been placed there by nature. 

Two stainless steel pots filled with peanut oil sat atop propane burners near one corner of the front porch.  Thermometers had been placed in the bubbling liquid.  When the oil reached the exact temperature required, fish filets were taken off ice, rolled in a mixture of cornmeal, flour and spices, and then placed in a wire mesh basket.  The handle of the basket was fitted into a notch at the end of a long stick, and gently lowered into the popping oil.  When the filets reached the perfect shade of golden brown, the basket was pulled from the stainless steel pot and allowed to drain.  Then the hot filets were dumped onto several sheets of newspaper that had been laid out on a wooden picnic table in the front yard.

As soon as the fish filets were removed from the oil, another man appeared with a bowl of batter consisting of cornmeal, buttermilk, and onions.  With a long-handled wooden spoon and a deft hand, spoonfuls of batter were dropped into the hot oil.  When they acquired the same golden hue as the fried filets, the hushpuppies were removed and placed in a huge ceramic bowl layered with several sheets of paper towels. All of this work was done by the men.  Frying fish and hushpuppies involved an element of danger.  It was men’s work.

The women had prepared the remainder of the feast.  A huge bowl of cheese grits.  And greens.  Mustard greens and turnip greens.  In separate bowls and labeled, as there were strong opinions and preferences when it came to greens.  Several small glass shakers of pepper vinegar sat next to the greens.  Finally, there was a huge glass container painted with a frivolous red and yellow design.  A spigot protruded from the bottom of it.  The container was filled with sweet tea; sweet enough to uncurl your toes.

A styrofoam cooler filled with ice sat next to the tea, and the cooler was not the only item on the picnic tables made from styrofoam.  So were the plates and the cups.  In a hot and humid climate and in a place where fried food was a staple, styrofoam was beloved.  If the plates and cups still remained four hundred years later, so be it.  The Williams clan had not gone green.

As Tillis and Sally approached Mama’s house, they were engulfed by smiling members of the extended Williams family.  Sally was hugged and Tillis’ back was slapped.  Soon the women surrounded Sally and guided her away from the cruder sex.  They told her how pretty she was. Except that she was too skinny.  And they complimented her eyes, her hair, her skin, her clothes, her shoes, and her jewelry.  They asked all about her.  About her family.  Her job.  Her love life.  Especially her love life.  They brought her food and tea, and insisted that she eat.  They treated her like she belonged.  Like she was one of them and always had been.

Tillis laughed at jokes he’d heard before but enjoyed anew as he made his way to the piles of food.  After he filled his plate, he found Bubba sitting at a picnic table that was shaded by the canopy of a massive camphor tree.  The two shook hands and exchanged greetings.  Then Tillis sat down to eat.

“Tillis, I’m glad to see you haven’t killed yourself trying to defy gravity in that propeller driven piece of shit you generously refer to as an aero plane.”  Bubba announced to everyone in the general vicinity.

“I received excellent instruction at a very young age.”  Tillis responded good-naturedly.

Bubba smiled.  “You were a talented student.  A goddamned smartass.  But talented.  Billy Bob says you want to talk to me about my current employer.”

“He does does he?”

“He’s smarter than he looks.”

“I guess he told you about Dr. Bob.”

“Damn shame.  I’m sure he was a genius like everybody said.  But he was also weird as hell.  Not exactly military issue if you know what I mean.  And I guess South Florida can spare a Cuban or two.”

Tillis paused, but let the last comment pass unchallenged.  “I’m afraid I have some more bad news.  It hasn’t hit the papers yet, but I expect the whole world will know about it by tomorrow morning.  Looks like about $150 million dollars disappeared from your employer’s accounts.  Last Thursday after the close of business.”

“Disappeared?”

“Probably transferred overseas.  Gone.”

Bubba shook his head and produced a rueful laugh.  “Well, I can’t say that I’m terribly surprised.  Guess I’ll be doing a little more fishing now.”

“You’re not surprised?”

“I never trusted that Cuban kid.  And he weren’t no doctor.”

“What about the CEO?  The acting CEO?  Sam Norden?”

“Good man far as I could tell.  Took him down to The Palms Gracious Living Retreat in Venice.  He insisted on talking to some of the old folks there before he’d agree to be hired on.  You know, to make sure they were being treated fair and square.  He was learning the ropes from the guy that hired me.  Marc Mason.  He’s the one that came up with the idea for the new company, you know.  American Senior Security.  Pretty smart cookie.”

“I understand Marc Mason’s been in rehab for a while.  Totally out-of-pocket for the last six weeks.”

“Yeah.  I flew him there.  Someplace called The Lakes in Palm Beach.  Real fancy.”

“Did he have a problem?”  Tillis asked.

Bubba contemplated the question for a moment before answering.  “He drank a little more than most, but the only thing he was addicted to as far as I could tell was pussy.”

“Tell me about the girls, Bubba.”

“Don’t know much.  He got around.  Can’t really blame a young buck like that.  Top of his game.  Making the big money.”

“Any girls in Miami?”

“I dropped him at that general aviation strip just north of downtown once, and a hot young thing picked him up.  She never got out of her car, but I could tell she was a looker.”

“Do you remember anything about the car?”

“Wasn’t the car I was looking at.”

Tillis chuckled.  “Do you remember anything about the girl?”

“Just the eyes.  Beautiful blue eyes.”

“That’s it?”

“Nice tits too.”  Bubba smiled broadly and winked.

Finally it was time to leave.  The arrival process was reversed.  And magnified.  One hug goodbye could never suffice when sustenance and confidences had been shared.  The departure process was prolonged and exhausting.  Sally felt relief and a little sadness when she was, at last, safely ensconced in the old and smelly Ford.

“You know what?  I really did enjoy myself today.  I liked those people.” Sally commented as the LTD bounced down the sandy driveway.

“People are a function of their environment.  That doesn’t make them good or bad.  It’s just who they are.  Good and bad is much more complicated. Those folks are good people.”

Sally looked over at Tillis and smiled weakly.  It didn’t bother her when he was right.  It just bothered her that he was almost always right.

Tillis returned her smile and filled her in on his conversation with Bubba.

“What next?”  Sally asked.

“Where next.”

“Okay, where next?”

“Miami.  South Beach.  But we need to get back to Tampa by Monday morning.  To arrest Sam Norden.”

“How can you arrest an innocent man?”  Sally asked.

“Like my Daddy used to say before he whupped me, ‘this is gonna hurt me a lot more than it’s gonna hurt you.’ ” 

“You were whupped?”

“Of course I was whupped.  Technically you’re not even really a Southerner unless you were whupped.”  Tillis looked over at Sally skeptically.  “You weren’t whupped?”

“We had conversations and time outs.”

“Oh my Lord Almighty!  I’m surprised you didn’t become a lawyer.”

“You’re a lawyer.”

“Bite your tongue.  I’ve never taken the Bar exam and I’ve never been a member of an organized Bar.  I merely infiltrated the enemy camp for three years in order to learn their evil ways.”

“Is there anybody you despise more than lawyers?”

“Politicians.  And especially politicians who are lawyers.”

“But your best friend is the Governor.  He’s a politician and a lawyer.”

“The exception that proves the rule.”