The Job (44 page)

Then, shortly after 5:15, I walked half a block west on Twentieth, parked myself opposite a well-maintained brownstone, and waited.

At 5:20 A.M. a long, black, Lincoln Town Car pulled up in front of 234 West Twentieth Street. Five minutes later Lizzie emerged from la nand Geena’s apartment. As she walked toward the car, she looked up and saw me crossing the street, approaching her. Her face registered incredulity, then dismay.

“Oh, Christ, Ned. Why …?”

But then she stopped and saw what only your most intimate ally can see: real fear.

“What has happened?”

“Please,” I said.

“Let me ride with you to the airport.”

She hesitated for a split second, but then gave me a fast nod.

As the car pulled away I noticed that the glass partition between the driver and the rear seat was down. As if reading my mind, she asked the driver if we could have a little privacy.

A motor hummed as the glass partition slid up into place. When it was closed, she looked at me.

“So… ,” she said.

“So… ,” I said. And began to talk. Taking her step by step through everything that had happened since Jerry bailed me out of jail. I spared her no details. I made no apologies for my bad judgment. It all came spilling out. Though she said nothing, her eyes grew wide-especially when I detailed the events in Old Greenwich earlier that week, and explained how Jerry was now my jailer.

She didn’t interrupt me once, though I knew what she was thinking: I’m about to work for these people?

When I finally finished, there was a long silence. I reached for her hand. I expected her to pull back or push me away. But she took it. And held it for a moment. Tightly.

He offered me money. She offered me a plane ticket to the destination of my choice. She said I should disappear, escape into the great American nowhere, assume a new identity, and hope that my vanishing act would convince Jerry that I planned to remain silent. I could even drop him a note, outlining my position: You leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.

“He doesn’t work that way,” I said.

“You’re either on his team or you’re the enemy. And all enemies are to be annihilated. I promise you, if I leave town, he’ll have me on the FBI’s Most Wanted List in a heartbeat.”

“Then you’ve got to go to the police.”

“And do what? Come on like some deranged conspiracy theorist? The story I’d tell them would sound so unhinged, they’d shove me into a rubber room at Bellevue-and then book me for murder one after Jerry tipped them off. All the cops would have to do is get the restaurant manager to I.D. me. And once they took statements from any of the two hundred witnesses who saw my screaming match with Peterson, everything else would fall right into place, and I’d be doing a life stretch at Bridgeport-or wherever the hell Connecticut has their maximum security prison.”

“I can’t believe it’s that desperate.”

“Believe me, it’s completely desperate.”

She squeezed the palms of her hands against her eyes.

“You idiot. You stupid idiot. How, why did you take the job? Especially when it smelled so bad?”

“I had no money. I had no home. I had no prospects. And it was Jack Ballantine. Do the math.”

She pulled her hands away from her face.

“Do you blame me?” she asked quietly.

“No way.”

“I blame me.”

“Don’t.”

“I was unforgiving.”

“You were hurt.”

“Yeah, and I wanted to punish you for that. And, oh, Christ, did I ever.”

“I made the bad calls, not you.”

“I gave you no choice.”

“I panicked myself into believing this was my only option. And once you panic, you lose all judgment.”

We pulled into Kennedy Airport, and drove up the ramp to the American Airlines terminal. The driver opened the trunk and placed Lizzie’s bag by the curb.

“I don’t know how to help you,” she said.

“Can I at least call you?”

“I guess so,” she said flatly. Then she got out of the car, grabbed her bag, and hurried into the terminal. She did not look back.

The car drove me back into the city. As we approached SoHo, I asked the driver to let me out on Broadway and Spring. It was just after 7:00 A.M. I found a telephone. I dialed Queens.

“Sorry to get you so early, Phil.”

“No problem, boss. You still sound like a gun’s at your head.”

“Believe me, it is. You find anything about this Simeone guy?”

“Yeah. Runs a couple of big food processing plants in Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama. But he also has a couple of businesses south of the border.”

“What kind of businesses?”

“A ketchup factory in Mexico City, a couple of sweatshops in Bogota and Medellin…”

“Medellin?” I said.

“Isn’t that the coke capital of the world?”

“You read your National Geographic, boss. Anyway, nobody I spoke with said that he’s in any way connected to the white powder biz. But there’s no doubt that he knows people down there who are in that game. You doing any business with this joker?”

“Just transporting some of his cash to an offshore bank.”

“Nice work,” he said sardonically.

“I have no choice.”

“You are in some serious shit.”

“I need a straightforward yes or no, Phil. In your considered opinion, do you think the money I’m carrying could be from south of the border?”

“In my considered opinion, abso-fucking-lutely. I mean, the white powder business is about as cash based as you can get. And the money has got to be lodged somewhere, capeesh?”

I sucked in my breath.

“Thanks for the opinion.”

“Boss, get out of this.”

“I would if I could.”

Back at the loft, I sat down on my bed. Within seconds I was asleep-and when I woke again, it was late afternoon and the phone was ringing.

“Where the hell have you been?” Jerry asked when I finally got around to picking up the phone.

“I’m still in L.A.-but I must have tried your office and cellphone half a dozen times.”

“I had a bad night. Couldn’t sleep. So I was making up for it now.”

“You’re supposed to be working for us, remember? Which means keeping regular office hours.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Jerry-bag men don’t keep office hours.”

“If I say I want you here…”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“You’re going to Dallas tomorrow.”

“Great.”

“It’s another airport rendezvous. You’ll be meeting a representative of a fund client named Chuck Battersby. And then you’ll be heading straight on to Nassau via Miami. I’ll have the tickets messengered down to you at the loft.”

“Fine,” I said tonelessly.

“Mr. Ballantine said that he had a delightful dinner with your wife last night. Sorry: your estranged wife.

“An absolute charmer’ is what he called her.

“Bright, beautiful, funny as hell-Allen must have screwed up royally to lose her.” His exact words, Ned.”

Between clenched teeth I said, “Is there a point to this, Jerry?”

“None whatsoever. Though I guess you should know that we’ve engaged Mosman & Keating to handle Mr. Ballantine’s PR-and I personally requested that Lizzie take charge of the account.”

I didn’t want to intimate that I had seen Lizzie yesterday-or had previous knowledge of this development. So all I said was, “You’re a very clever guy, Jerry. First me, now Lizzie.”

“It’s called ‘keeping it in the family,” Ned. And you know what a family-oriented business we are-and how we look after each other. Speaking of which, I understand your picture’s in the papers, and on television.”

“What?” I managed to say.

“Not a picture, actually. More of an artist’s sketch. Anyway, got to fly. Have fun in Dallas.”

As soon as he hung up I grabbed the television remote and turned on New York One. I had to wait ten minutes for the headlines. The Peterson story was the third item. The anchorman spoke of “intriguing new developments in the death of Ted Peterson, the GBS computer executive killed Wednesday night after being hit by a northbound Metro-North train at a railway crossing in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. On the scene at Old Greenwich is New York One’s Mary Shipley. Mary…”

Jump-cut to Mary Shipley. Still looking angular and serious. Still standing in front of that train crossing in Old Greenwich-the sight of which had my heart thumping at double time.

“Fred,” Mary Shipley said, “the mystery surrounding the death of computer executive Ted Peterson is growing daily, with Connecticut state police now saying that coroner reports show that Mr. Peterson was severely intoxicated when he fell under a New Haven-bound Metro-North train on Wednesday. According to the Stamford coroner’s office, the level of alcohol in Mr. Peterson’s blood was nearly ten times over the legal limit. It still isn’t clear whether Mr. Peterson had been driving that evening. He was seen earlier that night leaving the Hyatt Regency Hotel with this man…”

The camera cut away and showed a police sketch of a thirty-something guy with tired eyes, terse lips, and the usual sullen,

“wanted murderer” expression. A tie and jacket were sketched in below his neck. I’d seen better likenesses of myself-and was relieved that it wasn’t so identifiably me.

“… whom police are seeking for questioning. He’s a white male in his early to mid-thirties with sandy hair, around six feet tall, and of medium build. He was dressed in a suit the night of Ted Peterson’s death. This same man was allegedly spotted by a Metro-North conductor boarding a Grand Central-bound train at Old Greenwich within an hour of Peterson’s death. Connecticut state police are speculating that this was the same individual who was seen by the engineer on the tracks right before the accident.”

The camera cut back to Mary Shipley.

“Reporting for New York One…”

I hit the “off” button, and thought, As soon as I leave the loft, I run the risk of being nabbed. That police sketch will have made this afternoon’s edition of the Post. And it will also be shown on Live at Five, Eyewitness News, and every other local television news program. And even if the police portrait left a lot to be desired, someone somewhere is bound to spot the resemblance.

I checked my office voice mail. I received the following message:

“Hi, it’s Lizzie, and I’m calling you from thirty-three thousand feet. I’m sorry I haven’t returned your phone calls recently, but I really did need the space. Anyway, I do think it’s time we began to speak about finalizing things-so if you want to call me, I can be reached at my L.A. office today anytime after one o’clock Pacific time.”

At first the message baffled me. Then I instantly understood. She was covering for memaking it seem as if we hadn’t met yesterday, just in case Jerry was hacking into my voice mail or had my phone tapped (two likely possibilities, given his need to control everything and everyone). And fearing that he also might be recording conversations on the loft phone (and not wanting to risk saying anything confidential on my cellular), I had no choice but to use a pay phone. I threw on a pair of dark glasses and a baseball cap before venturing out-just in case somebody happened to be glancing at the Post as I passed by.

I walked west, stopping at a Korean grocer to get five dollars in change. Then, finding a phone booth on a quiet end of King Street, I punched in Lizzie’s number in L.A.” and deposited $3.75 in quarters when prompted. After putting me on hold for around sixty seconds, her secretary put me through.

“Can you call me back?” I asked.

“I’ve only got two minutes.”

“This will only take a few seconds. When are you next in Nassau?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Making another deposit?”

“Of course.”

“Well, while you’re at the bank, I really think you should open an account in Jerry Schubert’s name.”

“Are you serious?”

“Very. And we’re now down to ninety seconds. So, for once in your life, please shut up and listen to me.”

I listened. Then, after ninety seconds, Lizzie hung up-and I went back to the loft in search of Jerry’s passport.

It was easy to find-he kept it in his unlocked desk drawer. I flipped through it. There were recent entry stamps for Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, the Cayman Islands, and Luxembourg… but not the Bahamas. I studied his signature on the inside flap. I expected Jerry to have an extravagant, bold autograph-but it turned out to be a tight, spindly scrawl. After around twenty attempts on a blank sheet of paper (which I then shredded and flushed down the toilet), I was able to produce a reasonable facsimile of his John Hancock on the two forms required for opening an account at the Bahamian Bank of Commerce. Then I filled in the remainder of the application, using his passport to provide details like his date and place of birth. I also circled No on the corner of the form that asked if the applicant wanted bank statements sent to his home address.

I presented these forms to Oliver MacGuire the following afternoon.

“So your friend Mr. Schubert wants to open an account with us?” MacGuire asked.

“Well, just between ourselves,” I said, tossing Jerry’s passport onto MacGuire’s desk, “he’s actually my boss. The fund is his baby-and he wants a secure offshore home for his twenty percent commission from all deposits.”

“Twenty percent?” MacGuire said, studying me carefully.

“That is a sizable commission.”

I reached down beside me, hoisting up the computer case stuffed with the cash I had collected that morning at Dallas Airport. I placed it on MacGuire’s desk.

“Yeah, it’s a hefty cut-but look at the money he’s bringing into the fund.”

“How much today?”

“Four hundred and ten thousand.”

“Of which”-he scribbled a few figures on his desk blotter” exactly eighty-two thousand should be deposited in Mr. Schubert’s account?”

“Absolutely.”

He studied the forms at length. Finally he shrugged.

“Well, it’s not as if you’re opening the account in your own name. And you do have his passport. And his signature on the form matches that in his passport, which leads me to conclude that either this is perfectly legitimate, or you are dangerously clever.”

Before I had a chance to protest my innocence, he raised a finger.