PROLOGUE
Apalachicola, Florida
From his high-backed rocking chair on the wide planked wooden porch of the Gibson Inn, Rico watched the parking lot of the office building across the street. Gloria, his current girlfriend, sat in the chair next to him petting one of the Inn's big yellow cats. Rico and Gloria had checked into the Gibson the night before, playing the part of tourists. Gloria had been lobbying for a few days out of town, and Rico thought bringing her made his presence there less noticeable. A single man on holiday raised questions.
It was late afternoon. The offices would be closing soon, and Rico watched to see if Bascomb stayed late again today. The white Lincoln was still in the lot along with a half dozen other cars. Rico fanned himself with the Miami paper he had managed to locate at the local CVS pharmacy and rocked, not taking his eyes off the building across the street.
"Rico?" Gloria asked.
"I told you to call me Tony," Rico replied, not looking at her.
"Tony? How come we have to stay at the hotel? I wanted to go to the beach."
"I told you to look around town. It's historic, a fishing village, people come from all over to see this corner of Florida."
"I did that. After you see the fish market and the arts & craft shops, that's about it. They don't even have cable in the room. Or even a TV."
"I told you, it's historic. You pay extra for no TV." Rico stopped rocking. People were coming out of the building now, getting into their cars. "I tell you what," he said, turning to her. She was hugging the fat cat. Now she'd have cat hair all over her. Rico hated cats and claimed to be allergic to them, though he displayed no symptoms.
"How about if you go over to the beach on the island and be back for dinner? I got us a reservation for seven-thirty."
"Without you?" She dropped the cat and stood. Now her feelings would be hurt, and he’d have to placate her later on or she’d be pouty and irritable. She waited for a reply, and getting none, she turned and stomped off. Rico watched her leave. She was only nineteen, light in the brains, but had a hot magazine cover sexuality Rico found irresistible.
When only the Lincoln remained in the parking lot Rico stood, picked up the black nylon gym bag from the seat of the rocker next to his, and went for a walk.
Timothy Bascomb was waiting for a telephone call. He had been horrified to find the fax on his desk two days ago with his daily correspondence. The lists probably made no sense to his staff; in fact, there was a yellow Post-It note attached from Leonard, his legal assistant, with just a question mark on it. The problem was that this Oscar Leopold guy who sent the fax knew something about the deal and suspected his role in it. R.J. Walters wasn't returning his calls and he didn't know what to do next. A scandal like this might not be a problem for Walters, not in a big metropolitan area, but in a small town he could be disgraced and ruined.
After Walters had refused to take Bascomb's third call in four days, Bascomb sent him an email. Call or I’ll do what’s necessary. Still no call, even with the implied threat. Bascomb sat back in his leather executive desk chair, his coat off, tie loosened, and eyes closed.
He heard the front door buzzer, surprised, thinking everyone had already left. Hadn't they locked the door? Sometimes clients stopped in unannounced, but now there was no office staff to act as gatekeeper. He would have to attend to it.
Bascomb stood, buttoned his shirt collar, and slipped his tie back in place. Had to look right. Bascomb was not one of those Florida lawyers who opted for short sleeves and no suit jacket in deference to the heat. He was halfway to the door when a large man with an Orlando Magic baseball cap, Hawaiian shirt, and designer sunglasses stepped through, stopped, and just stood there, blocking the doorway.
He was holding a large handgun casually at his side in his right hand and was grinning. A nylon gym bag was in the other hand.
"What do you want?" Bascomb said. "We only keep petty cash here, but I have a few hundred dollars and credit cards on me." Nothing like this had ever happened to him. He had never been threatened with a gun or robbed. His legs were suddenly shaky and he could actually feel his heart thumping. He told himself it was nothing. Maybe just one of the local rednecks with a complaint.
"Relax, Mr. Bascomb. I don’t want your money”, Rico said. He stuck the gun in his gym bag. The sight of the gun and Bascomb knowing it was there was all Rico needed.
"That’s not what,” Roberts searched for words. “What I mean is that you startled me with that thing. Now what do you want? Did you have an appointment? We only work by appointment here, you know." Bascomb slipped back into his in-charge attorney role, though he had no idea what the gun was about. As soon as he left, Bascomb planned to call the sheriff. Have him picked up for the gun, assault, trespassing, and anything else he could think of.
"No. This is a suicide." Rico pulled a length of blue rope from the bag and held it out to Bascomb. “I found this last night tied to your boat on the trailer outside your garage. You were having dinner with the wife and kids. I didn’t want to bother you.”
"What the hell are you talking about? You're going to kill yourself here? And how could you get to my boat, I live in a gated community. We have security."
"No. I'm not the one. The suicide would be you. Here’s the deal. You’ll take this rope, tie it to that fixture there." He pointed to the heavy antique chandelier hanging in the center of the room. "Then stand on one of those fancy leather chairs, tie the rope around your neck, then tip the chair over. Pretty simple, isn't it? Even a lawyer could follow those directions."
"This is preposterous. I will do no such thing. Go ahead and shoot me, but I won’t do the job for you." Bascomb felt his chest tightening. His knees buckled slightly. The adrenaline surging through his system made him light-headed. He thought of running but the man stood between him and the door and there was no rear entrance. He could lock himself in the bathroom if he could get to it, but there was the gun. His cell phone was in his desk and out of reach.
"Yes. You will. Here, sit down a minute, we’ll talk and you’ll understand. You look white as that famous sugar sand beach you people talk about so much." Rico pulled a chair over, right under the chandelier and pointed to the seat. “Now would be a good time.”
Bascomb dropped into it, his hands gripping the chair arms tightly, still thinking of possible escape.
"Here, take a look at these cute pictures.” Rico pulled his cell out of his pocket, pushed a button and turned it so Bascomb could see the picture. “That’s your wife with the kids out in front of the mansion, isn’t it?”
Bascomb was shocked. The guy knew the place. He had been to the house.
“You see, Timothy, if you refuse, I have a lot of options. I may shoot your wife. Maybe rape her first in front of your kids. Then kill them, too. Or maybe the other way around. Rape the kids while one or both of you watch. Throw in a little torture. Then I might even let you live, but as a paraplegic. Lots of bad things could happen that you can prevent real easy. And you know I know how to get at them. And we both know you are not an innocent – you have things to atone for. This can save a lot of embarrassment for you if things keep going the way they are.
“At best, it's all going to work out badly for you no matter what happens. But you can stop the exceptionally bad things from happening to your family. You have the power to save them. It's up to you. To the police it’s either going to look like a tragic suicide or a mass murder. I know you want to do the right thing. So what’ll it be?"
Rico stood over him. Bascomb considered jumping him. Rico didn't have the gun in his hand and was holding out the rope again. But Bascomb knew his own limitations. This man was big, in control, and this wasn't Bascomb's arena. He could squash him in a court room but was powerless here and truly believed the man would do as he threatened. He had no choice. He thought about his wife and kids. Tears welled in his eyes. Maybe someone would walk in, or the phone would ring and distract him.
"Who sent you?" he asked, his voice trembling, trying to stall for time, his eyes darting around the room, hoping for some miracle, some kind of help. But while anything could happen, most of the time things just proceed on their own without any intervening fortuitous event.
"I think you know. Just take the rope. Make it easy on yourself. You know it’s going to happen." Rico held it out again.
He hesitated, vainly tried to stand up, then meekly accepted the rope. Thinking incongruously about how his wife would handle the kid’s college tuition one day.
"One thing," Bascomb asked, gripping the rope tightly with both hands in his lap. "Could I use the bathroom? I mean, I don't want…"
"Afraid of shitting yourself? I bet you saw that in the movies. Actually I’ve seen it happen. It’s when the sphincter relaxes at death, but don't worry about it. You won't be alive to feel any embarrassment."
Back at the inn, Rico paced, checking the street through the window, full of nervous energy while waiting for Gloria to return. He was charged up, having used as a weapon this time just his voice. The power exerted was like nothing else to him, a high that he released later by shoving Gloria forward over the back of a chair, ripping off her new skirt, and taking her brutally and quickly from behind.
Then he made the call to let them know it was done.
The Mahi was terrific at dinner that night.
CHAPTER ONE
One Month Earlier
The resonant thud of something very heavy smashing into the building jarred Roy’s insides. Muffled screaming voices sounded tones of panic, fear, and urgency. The reception area was in turmoil. Jumping up quickly from his desk, Roy caught his leg on the chair, tipping it over.
The door was three long quick steps away. As he pulled it open, the thought flashed by too late that maybe he should have taken a quick look before stepping from the safety of his office.
Roy's door was one of six that ringed the secretarial area. Just beyond a waist-high dividing wall on the opposite side of the large cubicle-filled room was the reception area. Visitors normally had to wait to pass through the dividing wall by way of a low swinging door after being buzzed permission by Amy, the new receptionist.
Carl Cake had not waited.
The heavy little wooden door was now in his hands, raised over his head and on a downward and sideways arc that would propel it through the plate glass window looking out onto the parking lot unless Cake changed his aim.
He didn't. The tempered glass exploded into thousands of tiny hexagonal pieces, the window going opaque before following the door into the bushes in a violent, silvery, waterfall-like cascade.
The original loud noise had apparently been caused by Amy's desk, which was now legs side up and resting at a forty-five degree angle against two overturned four-drawer file cabinets. Cake was now looking with satisfaction and awe at the empty window space as Roy moved forward to defuse the Cake bomb. Amy was still screaming, standing back against the wall with the fingers of her right hand spread-eagled over her mouth and her purse in her left hand, ready to escape if she got the chance. She had on only one of her shoes, a low-heeled pump to minimize her height. She was nearly six feet tall and thin.
The office was now silent except for Amy's continued screaming. Then the telephone rang. Amy shut up and went into auto-response, looking for the telephone in the debris scattered on the floor. The other employees tentatively peeked out from behind or over their partitions, most of them with cell phones in their hands, dialing 911. Cake was still looking out the window when Roy reached him. It was already warm and humid near the window, the hot Florida air flooding into the breached air conditioning dam of the window space.
Roy spun Cake around by the shoulder, which wasn't very difficult, since Roy was nearly two hundred fifty pounds of once muscled flesh, almost twice Cake's weight, though they were the same height.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Roy demanded. Cake's eyes were wide; not wild but excited.
"I told you! I told you I wanted my money. I'm the one what got hurt, not you. You think you can piss on me and take what's mine? No way."
There was a thin trickle of spittle dripping off his unshaved chin. Like a rabid dog, Roy thought.
"Okay. Okay. I explained it to you before. Mr. Gamble is handling your case personally. It takes a while for the money to come through. Let's calm down and see if you can talk to him." Roy looked over his shoulder to see if Jack Gamble, Big Jack, was in his office. Roy was heavy, but of average height. Jack, on the other hand, looked like he could have been a professional wrestler. Probably six-foot five and God knew how heavy. His was the biggest office, of course, with a private bathroom and separate exit into the parking lot. Big Jack was the owner of the law firm, Gamble and Associates, P.A., and Roy was the senior associate. Jack's door was just then opening and Jack was on his way through it, in shirtsleeves, his tie loosened, and tucking his shirt into his unzipped and unbelted pants, dressing himself as he came out scanning the room, taking in the destruction and settling on Roy and Cake.
"A guy can't even take a crap around here in peace," he bellowed.
After the police left with Cake, and Amy was given charge of putting the office back in order, Roy thought that even with the excitement, now would still have to be the time to confront Jack about the partnership.
The deal had been one year. One year to learn the system, get his feet wet, and Jack would give him a partnership interest in the firm. It had been two years, and his feet were now wet up to his ass. Jack put him off time and again. The time was never right. They had to conclude certain cases, get over the hump. There was always a reason, always a hump to traverse. When confronted about the issue, Jack would get angry, his big round face flushing red, and he would pound his desk to complete his more emphatic sentences - intimidating, even to Roy who had been in tense courtroom and client situations. But today still had to be the day. Come across or he would walk, that would be his final bargaining position. Hardball.
Roy sat in his office, wiping the sweat from his face with his open hand, then drying it on his pants. It wasn't particularly hot in the closed room, but then Roy would sweat when everyone else was shivering. The price of being either overweight, as his ex-wife Eva claimed, or as he believed, his high metabolism.
Jack had hired Roy out of private practice for his trial experience. Roy’s firm was small, but handled a fairly heavy trial caseload. Jack's was a large personal injury practice employing twelve attorneys split between the office here in West Palm and the branch intake office in Miami. Nearly all the clients resulted from the television, billboard, and print advertisements starring Big Jack Gamble.
Roy initially thought the marketing of a law firm in that way a bit sleazy, but was seduced by the big bucks promised and the signing bonus offered by Jack. The meat of the offer, though, was a share of the big contingent fee pie if Roy took over the litigation area of the firm. He had certainly done his part; now it was Jack's turn. He understood, in a way, Cake's frustration in dealing with Jack. Maybe it was just a matter of getting his attention first, like the joke of the donkey and the two-by-four.
Roy left his office later for the short walk to make his demands again. No bullshit this time. Let him try and run the litigation without him. Couldn't be done.
It had been several hours since the morning excitement, and except for the missing reception door and the new plywood window covering, everything seemed normal. There was the faint muttering of people on telephones or working with their computers in the cubicles. Billy Grubbs, another of Jack's personal clients, was following Amy as she led him toward Jack's office. It was reminiscent of Land of the Giants to see Grubbs and Jack together. Grubbs was nearly the size of Jack, though younger by ten years and wearing dirty work clothes. Roy noticed the sandy tracks Billy's work boots left on the nice pile carpeting.
Roy was almost to Jack's door, behind Amy and Billy when Jack stepped out.
"What is this, a parade?" he said with a big following grin, looking at all three of them in a row.
"I need to talk to you first if I can, Jack. Remember? We were going to discuss our arrangement today," Roy said, trying to step in front of Amy, keeping his voice confidentially low.
"Tonight," Roy said, not bothering to speak softly. "At the boat after dinner. Too much to do right now," He moved Roy out of the way with the back of his arm so that he could see Billy. "Customers come first, and Mr. Grubbs and I have a lot to discuss."
"Damn right we do," Grubbs said as he stepped inside after Jack.
It was well known in the office that Billy Grubbs was another disgruntled client. But because Jack kept his files to himself, no one was sure why Billy was angry. This was their second meeting in as many days and yesterday's had ended with a lot of door slamming and yelling, but no police or broken windows. How would it end today?
Chapter Two
Toward the end of the main dock of the Palm View Marina, Jimmy Simmons checked the mooring lines on his father's sixty-foot ketch, the Lindy Sue. The off-again, on-again rain squalls and the fact that it was a Tuesday evening rather than the weekend kept most of the boaters home. Jimmy had just turned nineteen, and his father had agreed to let him take the boat up the coast to the Sebastian inlet and back starting this Thursday. It would be the first time he would handle the boat alone, although he had crewed with his father on this and other boats since he'd been fourteen.
He had three friends going with him, but two were women who had never sailed, seeing their role as looking good in or out of swim wear, and the third was his friend Ron who would likely be quickly drunk and not much help handling the boat. Fortunately the boat was rigged with roller furling and other automatic labor savers allowing it to be sailed almost single-handedly.
Because of the Lindy Sue's size, she was moored in the largest slip at the end of the T-shaped dock. Jimmy re-tied the four mooring lines and checked the placement of the dock bumpers. Wind driven waves rocked the boat, threatening to dash it against the pilings and made the lines hard to handle. The warm rain was beginning to come down harder now, and it was so dark from the heavy clouds that the yellow sodium dock lights had come on automatically, although it was still early evening. Lightning flashed across the lake, followed seconds later by rumbling thunder.
One mile away and closing, he thought. His father had taught him to gauge the distance and speed of an approaching storm by the time between when the lightning was first seen and when the thunder was heard.
Finished, he started down the dock toward his new Audi TT, a birthday gift from his mother and stepfather, to bring back the rest of the provisions for the voyage. He had left his hat on the seat of the car, and the rain was stringing through his red hair and into his eyes. He kept his head down and wiped the water from his face frequently. Walking as fast as he could on the slick dock, he passed the other boats, most of them diesel or gas powered cruisers, stinkpots, his father called them, and nearly all of which were buttoned up and unoccupied.
Just before he reached the spot where the dock turned toward the shore, he noticed Jack Gamble on the Lucy II down inside the opened engine hatch at the stern. Gamble's back was to Jimmy, and he was hunched over, apparently working on the engine, nearly lying on it, in fact, but you couldn't mistake his size. Jack was a good three hundred pounds, maybe three-fifty and fat. Jimmy promised himself he would never let himself go like that. He patted his flat, hard, belly unconsciously through his wet shirt. The guy must have no respect for himself.
His father had tried to keep Jack out of the Marina, and the condo complex that went with it, but had failed. Jack had some influential friends and a lot of money. But the man had no class, Jimmy's dad had said, and you can't buy class no matter how much money you throw around.
The rain was blowing almost horizontally now in heavy gusts, and lightning crackled close over the water nearby. But it could soon pass, and in a few minutes the sun might be peeking through with the evening sky showing blue. Such was the weather in West Palm Beach. In the meantime he hurried down the dock, pulling his shirt up over his head to see better through the downpour.
He was almost past Jack's boat, and, if he had started down the dock just a few seconds earlier or later, wouldn't have been so affected by the explosion.
Jack's boat blew up in a tremendous roar, though Jimmy never heard it.
In the instant before a spear of the shattered fiberglass hull pierced his heart and the impact of the explosion threw him off the dock, Jimmy thought he'd been hit by lightning.
The receding tide would take him almost to the Lake Worth inlet before the Coast Guard would find his body early the next morning.
CHAPTER THREE
Oh good. Customers, thought Sydni as she scanned the new messages on her encrypted email account.
The emails all originated from her website, www.EliminateTheProblem.com, that had been registered though an offshore intermediary in the Dominican Republic. No way even for the Whois database of domain names to trace it back to her.
Looks like the first one was going to be easy. A sexual harassment problem with a young woman who could not afford to lose her job by filing a complaint, primarily since she wasn’t here legally. Usually a simple message by Sydni to the guy’s wife or supervisor with some explicit Photoshopped pictures of a prohibitively young man or woman solved the problem. The idea was to make him lose his job. If that didn’t work, step two depended on the client’s budget and how far away they lived since travel expenses may be involved. A personal visit by a young person to the home while hubby was away to confess to a fictional love affair often worked. Step three may involve a beating severe enough to cause permanent damage followed by a warning of more to come, though it rarely came to that.
She had started the business using a fictitious name, disposable cell number, and an anonymous mail drop at the local shipping center using only cash transactions. Then one day she got a call from the store clerk that someone was trying to find out who owned the box. She figured it had to be a disgruntled client since the police would just come in and grab the records. Now it was strictly wire transfer to one of her various offshore banks.
The deal was half the money down and half if the help she offered succeeded. No refunds for failure and no guarantee of success. She had learned about collections. The rule of the prostitute was her financial guidance. That is, the perceived value of the service diminished significantly once the service was performed. She made it clear that if the job was a success and the second half was not paid, the client then became the victim. Sydni had no accounts receivable.
The easiest ones were for requests for killings. She just kept the money and never responded or tried to carry out the job. It was hard to imagine they would complain, or to whom. Only four of those so far, but pretty lucrative. Mostly they paid the first half, then sent numerous pleading or threatening emails when nothing happened. Too bad. Then they gave up, all but this one who kept after her.
The second email was another plea for help when repeated calls to the police proved fruitless. A bad neighbor bullying the client’s kids, partying late into the night with his outlaw friends, a vicious dog, stealing newspapers, the list went on and on. The email was almost a short story in itself. Resolutions in these cases were often difficult since even a severe beating didn’t usually work. But in that case a week later the bad neighbor’s house mysteriously burned to the ground.
Funny how those things happened.
Sydni saved an encrypted copy of the messages on another remote website then followed up with the standard email explanation of secure payment procedures for the help requested.
Confirmation of the money transfer for the new cases, if it came, would take a day or two, so Sydni folded up her laptop and headed back to the gallery to help set up the new show. Oscar, though a decent artist, just had no eye for arranging the paintings on the gallery walls.