Chapter 57
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Jack walked up California and down to the wharf. The last rays of sun broke through clouds to cast his shadow sharp on the street in front of him as he walked down the steep hill. His seldom-used briefcase felt a hundred pounds heavier with the extra pound of paper. Bob had to be right. Captain Yan was sure someone had been financing Albert Weise. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a reason for Yan to make an end run around the Feds.
The line for the ferry was short for a change. The wind turned again, now westerly. Twenty-knot winds whipped through the Gate, knocking the tops off the four-foot waves and pushing a fine spray sideways like rain. When the ferry moved out from the protection of the quay, the boat hit a wall of wind and listed hard to starboard. The Captain turned into the wind. The move startled some of the French tourists standing near him.
The men stood looking down their Gallic noses at the squeals from their women. He watched them, trying to occupy his mind with anything but the thought of someone financing a man to kill his sister.
All the French women were pretty. One was lovely, Eurasian, with features similar to Lee’s. Her eyes were huge and she wore just enough makeup to call attention to them. She wore dark blue tights tucked into well-broken-in hiking boots. Her green parka, hanging open, showed the white turtleneck that barely covered her hips and accentuated her breasts. They were firm and high and her nipples hardened in fear as the squall hit.
Her man was in his late fifties, and with a little work, managed to look fortyish. He was the oldest in the group. He had the look, with his silver-black hair sprayed firmly in place. He was shorter than the woman even in his fashion cowboy boots. He wore no jewelry other than a huge gold watch. European women weren’t as proud of their wedding rings as their American counterparts so it was tough to tell if they were married, but he had the ownership stance down.
Jack wasn’t sneaky enough. The short Frenchman caught him looking. The man turned his woman away from the rest of the crowd and reached up a hairy left hand and massaged her right breast. She didn’t object, but stood with her head down, waiting for him to be done.
Jack turned toward the rail, embarrassed for her, thinking of Lee. Lee would never let herself be treated like property. If you liked the Playboy Playmate look, Lee wasn’t as pretty as this woman, yet she was exponentially more attractive. Lee placed a high value on herself and expected others to do the same. Not arrogance, instead a confidence saying, “I know what I have done and what I’m capable of. I deserve appreciation, admiration, and respect.”
Jack wandered away from the French group, finding a place to think. His mind hunted in his head like a beagle trying to find the freshest scent. His intuition pinged away like active sonar and his brain wouldn’t let the signal through. His spinning mind settled on a conversation he had with one of Meghan’s nurses.
Margaret was thirty-eight years old, mother of one, and a widow. She needed the shift differential so she covered Meghan from seven PM to seven AM, Tuesday through Thursday. That’s how she got the tan so dark, laying out by the pool at her condo in Napa, and driving over the top every day to care for Meghan. In the small hours of the morning, less than a week ago, she had stepped outside for a smoke break, and they talked.
“My life turned bad two years ago,” she said. She turned her iPhone to show Jack pictures of her boy. She was so proud of him. From the surly look on the boy’s face, Jack thought if they ever met his first instinct would be to slap the boy.
“With me working long hours and my husband being overseas and all, he got away from me. He joined a gang. At first I didn’t think anything of it, just a way to feel like he fit in. He’d always had trouble making friends.” She took another deep drag off the cigarette.
“Then he started doing things, shoplifting, and once a burglary. Then he screwed up big time. Armed robbery. He was just along for the ride and didn’t know what they were doing. He got off light with a stint in CYA.”
Her husband had been a reservist. They sent him to Afghanistan to keep track of all the aid. He’d walked into a minefield. Margaret and he had mostly talked about luck that night. They talked until dawn about the goddess of chance.
Jack stayed in his reverie until the ferry slowed for the dock in Sausalito. By then it was black-dark, the night so far moonless. He walked down the gangplank trying to remember where he’d parked the car. The days blended together.
Jack was not a good driver. This was somehow not manly. He barely avoided two wrecks and been in a fender bender in the month before he bought this car. He’d bought the two-year-old pearl-white GTR from the woman after she told him how the car had saved her life-twice. He figured maybe the car liked saving people.
It started effortlessly, but once it got going the engine seemed to run rough because of the race tuning. The clear sound of Lou Gramm’s voice singing, “I want to know what love is, I want you to show me,” came through the speakers. He checked all the gauges and telltales: A habit left over from buying an English car when he was a boy, not smart enough to know better.
He reached into the glove box and pulled out the scanner Bob had given him. Bob, knowing him better than he knew himself, gave him the scanner on his 37th birthday. Jack justified his constant snooping with it by saying he didn’t want to get stuck in any government messes, like fires or surveillance or such.
“Subject is pulling out of parking lot and turning left onto Paradise Drive.”
It sounded like police surveillance, unusual for this part of town, and not the kind of thing he usually found appealing, but the chatter was on the Federal frequency. He would have kept scanning, looking for something juicier, but was just turning onto Paradise himself. He normally stayed on Paradise for a while watching the water before he turned toward his house. He didn’t want to be in the middle of an arrest.
“Subject is passing Mar West.”
He looked in the mirror. There were two cars behind him. He must be right in front of the suspect. He made a left on Centro to get away from them.
“Subject has turned left on Centro.”
Neither of the cars behind him had turned on the street yet and there were no cars in front of him. The lights behind him turned on to the street. He slowed as he tried to figure out what in the hell was going on.
“Subject is slowing: chase cars leap-frog-now.”
The car immediately behind him made a right, letting the other one move in front. Jack was more pissed off than worried. Who in the fuck were they to assume it was their right to follow him? The voices coming out of the speaker were middle-class and bored. He held to a speedy twenty-five. His mind raced while the car crept along at the speed limit imposed long ago by people who had time on their hands. His mind didn’t race ahead, but instead around in circles as the car inched through one of the most laid-back towns in the world.
He opened his mouth to tell Siri to call Bob. It was supposed to be nearly impossible for someone to crack the encryption on his phone, but they could have bugged the car. If they’d done that then they could be listening in at his house. They could have bugged his work and all his friends.
“Who in the fuck are they?” he yelled at the top of his lungs. The sound of his own voice startled him. He sounded hysterical, even to himself.
Jack turned off the street, on to his circle and then he was at his gate. The following car kept going when he turned onto the court. He was thinking that as pissed off as he was, it was a good thing no one had the balls to follow him to his doorstep. There was a strange car parked in the driveway with federal government plates. He walked up the field stone path to the kitchen entrance and let himself in. He grabbed a bottle of water and took the back stairs down to avoid using the elevator off the sitting room. Angelo Mangusta was nurse on duty.
Angelo was small enough to have been a jockey, twenty years older than Jack was, and looked more like a Sicilian Don than a nurse. Angelo didn’t need the work. He specialized in home health care as soon as he had enough experience to demand a good wage. He had taken care of an AIDS patient in the eighties who’d left him a thousand shares of Microsoft. He’d kept it. It was now worth over $6 million and paid him an annual dividend income around $160K. Angelo looked up from his freshwater fly-fishing magazine and smiled. He glanced at the gauges above the hospital bed.
“I think she was very close today, Mr. McDonald. Right after I came on, I sang the part of Carmina Burana to Meghan that Ms. Schacter said she liked. I’m sure she was trying to smile and hum along.”
Angelo had a sweet, boyish tenor, his pipes still pure and clear, even at his age. “Should I try again?”
Jack nodded. The piece was from the “Cours d’amour: Dies, nox et omnia.” Jack straddled the chair, watching his sister’s face intently and listening to the opera. The bawdy Latin was at odds with the purity of Angelo’s voice. The piece almost sounded like a prayer. Jack guessed it was, in a way-a prayer to love. Jack sat swaying gently to the notes, willing Meghan to move. Breath trembled in her throat and her face twisted, the hint of a brief smile crossing her face before it was gone as she lapsed back into stillness.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds, squeezing them shut as hard as he could. He looked deep inside himself for the strength to go on and, not finding it, went on anyway. He reached out with his inside touch to check on Meghan.
Are you there?
Jack! I’m here and getting better and I’m sure I’m going to wake up soon. Hug Dvora and let me lay here and get well.
It wasn’t really words. He’d tried to explain it to Bob once. Bob was one of the most religious men he’d ever met and in all other things one of the least self-deceptive. He didn’t try to change Bob or argue with him or reason with him about his religion. Bob always said religion was like pretty girls. One person thought one kind of girl was pretty and another one thought she was ugly. And, people could be head-over-heels in love with someone that made another person’s skin crawl.
Jack didn’t begrudge his best friend his religion. When Jack had first talked to Bob about his gift, Bob had just smiled and said, “God works in mysterious ways. He has given one of the best men I know a gift he can use to keep other people safe. Hallelujah!” Jack knew other religious types who would call it the curse of the devil, skip the exorcism and go right to burning him at the stake.
Jack let the tears flow and kissed his sister on the forehead and took the elevator up, smoothing his face and breathing into clarity and calm, clinging to the flowery, clean smell of Meghan’s freshly shampooed hair. It seemed like her hair was growing in straighter. She’d like it if it were more manageable. He hoped with all the hope he had that she would never be more manageable. He wanted his wild, rule-breaking, brilliant, funny sister back.
The elevator door opened and he walked down the hall into the sitting room. Dvora started to rise. He waved her back into her favorite chair, the one that was way too firm. The two men sitting on his couch, in his house, on his land, made no attempt to stand. Both of the men had the same sort of look-self-satisfied and at the same time defensive look that too many government employees have. When had the public servants become the masters?
Jack walked into the dining room and grabbed one of the hard, stiff chairs they stuck guests in who wouldn’t take the hint to leave. He carried the chair into the sitting room, spun the chair and straddled it. He moved at almost a run. He folded his arms along the back of the chair and dropped his chin down on to the platform his arms made. Then he stared at the bigger of the two men. He’d pulled the chair too close, forcing the bigger one to pull in his feet. Both of the men now had to look up at him.
The taller, younger one was tall even sitting, so he was used to towering over people. He was maybe thirty-five, white and thin, with a very red face. He wore an off-the-rack suit, a bad shade of brown for his shade of redhead. The tie didn’t go well with the striped shirt and his sort-of-brown penny loafers needed a good cleaning before they would take a shine.
Tall man had small, even, sort of white teeth over a weak chin and under a mustache that needed closer trimming. His eyes were pale blue, large, but set too close together. He met Jack’s gaze well for the first few seconds, then his eyes wandered, first going to Dvora for support, then finding none, he looked to his partner. Tall man reached into the inside left pocket of his suit, fumbled with a black card case and extended a card to Jack, clearing his throat.
“W. Samuel Rogers, field investigations, Treasury Department. My associate is Alfred Barton, with the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
Jack took W’s card, not bothering to look at it and then turned and took his partner’s card, giving the other man the same attention he’d given his partner. The shorter man was harder to pigeonhole. He looked more like an Achmed than an Alfred. When the man stood later, Jack found out he was about five-seven. He wore Bally shoes at the bottom and a hundred-dollar haircut on the other end. His conservative suit looked like a Hart-Marx and went with the rep tie. Not dressed first cabin, but better than a mid-level government employee should be able to afford. Alfred had one of those heavy black-beard shadows that are dark within four or five hours of shaving, a deep cleft in his strong chin, and a nose as hooked as Jack’s Blackfoot grandmother’s.
Alfred met Jack’s gaze with more confidence than his partner, almost as if amused. The cards looked real, but anyone can get business cards printed anywhere in a few hours for a couple of bucks.
Turning to smile at Dvora, Jack asked, “Did you check their IDs?”
Meghan’s continued coma was taking a heavy toll on Dvora. Her cheeks were sunken, the lines bracketing her mouth growing deeper. She tried to smile, gave it up as requiring too much effort, and shook her head no, dropping her gaze down to the brandy snifter. She had a brandy glass in her hand a lot lately. He glanced at the decanter. It was visibly lower than when he left. He turned his attention back to the two public servants.
“What can I do for you?”
Rogers spoke. “We are part of a team investigating rumors of insider trading and stock manipulation. We are concentrating our current investigations on five genetic engineering stocks-ReWire, Genotopian, Life Force, Double Helix, and Med-Gene. There has been talk in the brokerage community, and elsewhere, that you might be able to provide us with information.”
Jack said, “I have been looking into ReWire. It is my fiduciary responsibility to do so. My sister’s medical condition forces me to examine her portfolio. There is a chance, albeit a small one, she will not be contributing additional capital to her holdings. Her holdings in ReWire are by far the largest part of her portfolio. I am not happy with the company’s performance, but I have certainly not seen any evidence of stock manipulation. Who says I might have such information?”
The question didn’t get an answer. Alfred/Achmed cleared his throat and said, in the self-satisfied and obnoxious tone that only a true career bureaucrat can muster, “Mr. McDonald, Ms. Schacter, let me be candid with you. The only reason we have not been here before in a more official way is because of your, how shall I say this, ‘friendship’ with certain people. Our resources are immense. Being cooperative now would be a good thing.”
Alfred sat back almost languidly. Alfred sat on his couch, in his house, on his property, and told him he should cooperate. Jack pictured himself picking Alfred up and, with a wind-up like a hammer thrower, slinging him right through the window and, if his form was good enough, bouncing him off the deck and into the bay.
He smiled blandly down at Alfred and said, “Mr. Rogers, Mr. Barton, I would certainly cooperate with the authorities, if I had anything to cooperate with. If, in any of my business dealings, I happen to stumble across information that might be of use to you, of course I will give it to you. Now that I know you are concerned about a stock that is so important to my sister’s financial well-being, I will be even more attentive.”
He stood up keeping the neutral smile on his face.
“If there is nothing else?”
They eventually got the hint and stood. Rogers, now able to look down at him, relaxed a little. Both of them waited until Dvora stood before turning to go, Rogers staring hard at her butt in tights as she walked back to the bar to top off her drink.
Alfred smiled and held out his hand and tried the squeeze. He was an extremely strong man. Jack debated whether to crush his hand, breaking all the little bones he could, give him a false sense of security by pretending to be weaker, or just respond with enough of a squeeze to let Alfred know he could kill him. He chose the last option. As he watched the arrogant look leave Alfred’s face to be replaced by hatred, he knew he had chosen the wrong option. He had made an enemy of a proud and petty man. He herded the men out the front door.
Dvora stared out of the window onto the bay. A small boat fought the wind no more than a quarter of a mile off his dock. They were fools to be out on a night like tonight, no matter what their skill. He moved closer to Dvora, took the brandy glass from her and picked her up in a bear hug. She fought the hug for a few seconds and then fiercely returned it, the need to be held overwhelming worry.
“I was followed on the way home,” he whispered into her ear.
Dvora tried to pull away.
“I have the house swept every day, but I didn’t check the car. I want us to act like nothing is happening. Tomorrow we need to have a council of war. I want Bob, Lee, Alice, Sir Ian, and Uncle Chin in on this.”
He tried to move away and she dug her fingers into his shoulder blades, holding him tight. He disentangled and led her over to the couch, to her favorite corner, guiding her in to it and turning to hold her face in both of his hands.
“I’m worried about the booze.”
She stared down at her lap, cheeks coloring. Then she slowly lifted her gaze to meet his. The tears were there, unshed but ready.
“I hate it when you’re right. I know I shouldn’t be drinking this much but it’s so damn frustrating, waiting, hoping, nothing happening. If Meghan knew I was drinking this much, she’d hammer me. She’d been going back to counseling, you know. Do you think it affected you as much as her?”
He knew what ‘it’ was without any explanation. How much had having lunatic, alcoholic parents affected him? He was obsessive, unsure, suspicious, grasping, brilliant, paranoid, sensitive, obtuse, intuitive, unfeeling, passionate and cold. In other words, his parent’s craziness left him like most people, with some good and some bad, and some he hadn’t figured out yet. He couldn’t answer the question and didn’t fall for the diversion.
They sat watching the weather on the bay, talking about what their lives were like as kids until almost midnight when Jack’s mobile buzzed with the tone from the phone in Meghan’s sick room. He yelled into the phone as he and Dvora he ran for the stairs.
“What’s wrong, Angelo?”
“Nothing at all,” came the confident radio voice. “There’s something I think you’d both like to see.”