Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) (22 page)

SIXTY

The urge, of course
, is to panic. I mean, this reward baloney is not fooling Creeper. But...and this is a
big
but, a real redline rule of sales...to switch arguments now is guaranteed failure. Positive doom.

Think
going over Niagara Falls in a tea cup.

See, with any client, you can never give up, never let them believe they know better than you. You have to maintain expert status or the wh
ole relationship sinks. You keep pushing benefits, asking for the order.

When he can, a big hitter like my ex-pal Walter Osgood will pick on some unique area of the client’s psyche, some weak spot where the customer is particularly soft and vulnerable.

What was that story Beth told me about her time with Creeper?

“Max,”
I say. “Your boss is dead. So is your friend Jerry. Where the hell are you going to go? Back to the circus? Maybe they’ll let you clean the cages of the lions and tigers. Those big smelly cats.”

Creeper jams the lock through both ends of the chain, hi
s jaw muscles flexing. But he hesitates...frowning before snapping that puppy shut.
Oh my God.
He’s thinking about it. Creeper’s actually considering my desperate and semi-ridiculous proposal.

Time to ask for the order.

“Work for me, Max. You won’t be sorry. Let’s go to my office right now, I’ll write you that check for fifty thou. What do you say?”

Creeper stares at the still
open padlock. A passenger jet heading into Liberty-Newark cruises low in the steel blue morning sky. My heart knocks against my ribs.

Click
. Creeper locks me up. The chain around me seems to double in weight, an anchor pushing me against the aluminum hull of the boat.

“Max no talk good,” he says. “Cannot be stockbroker.”

I work hard to adopt a full-boat smile. I know it looks bad. I mean, he shut the padlock, converting my ass into a two hundred fifty pound, semi-verbal fishing sinker. But the truth is I swear I’ve almost got him. I know it sounds nuts, but I’m telling you. I’m close to closing him. Come on, Carr. Drive this big ugly puppy into the doghouse.

“You don’t have to be a
stockbroker,
” I say. “In fact, you don’t have to say a word to anybody if you don’t want to. I’ll tell my employees you’re a mute.”

Max shakes his head. “You big liar. Your own daughter say so. Also a wimp. Elizabeth tell me ab
out your electrical sex with wife.”

Huh? How does Beth know about that? “You mean Susan’s Mobachi 3000?”

Max snorts. “Yeah.”

At least snorting is what I think his thick ugly nostrils are doing. He could be just cleaning his nose. You don’t pick up a lot of social etiquette wrestling bears.

I take a deep breath. Turn it around, Mr. Golden Tongue. Turn this wimp thing around. “That should make your decision easy,” I say. “I’m a trusting soul, Max. It’s true. I want to get along, let everybody do what they have to do. For a tough guy like you, I’ll always be an easy mark. In other words, I’m such a wimp, you can always kill me later. Anytime you feel like it. Like after you cash that fifty thousand dollar check.”

Creeper’s gaze falls to the padlock. “Is stupid idea. Max no stockbroker.”

Son-of-a-bitch, this sale is still alive. “
Forget
stockbrokers, Max. You say nothing to anyone, except maybe ‘Get the fuck out of my way.’ I want you to drive my car, Max, be my bodyguard. Gina and Tony’s friends might try something.”

Creeper fingers the lock. His gaze climbs to the brightening Sunday
morning sky. A pastel blue now, warming the damp air.

Like a pre-199
0 computer, I can hear Creeper’s square head ticking. Slowly, he twists to look at me. I sense curiosity in his gray eyes.

“What kind of car
would Max drive?”

SIXTY-ONE

One Month Later...

“Are we going for Mexican
again?”

Ryan’s
six-word query comes across as one long whine. I know my son doesn’t like hot sauce or even overly spiced food, but I thought my budding all-star shortstop enjoyed Umberto’s relatively mild chicken
chimichangas.
He never said he
didn’t
.

“It
is
my Wednesday night to pick the restaurant,” I say.

Beth shakes her head. She’s glaring out the passenger window
in the backseat of my Camry. “And that means Luis’s. You haven’t picked another place for us to eat on Wednesday in like, what? Three years?”

“What about that night we went to Zorro’s for a masked cheeseburger?”

Beth says, “Masked cat was more like it. And the only reason we went there was because Luis’s was closed for a few days after the fire.”

I brake the Camry at a red light on Broad Street. A mile-l
ong white stretch limo pulls up beside us, diverting my mind from repartee’ with Beth. Why do these limos always have blackout windows? Like if we actually saw Bruce Springsteen or Harlan Coben, we might jump straight out of our cars and attack them?

Green light. I push down on the gas pedal. Thanks to the ex-wife’s change of heart, I have Beth and Ryan again on Wednesday nights, plus every other weekend. When I showed Susan’s attorney how well Shore was doing, what my new ownership percentage was, the man became very interested. When I showed him how I
’d named Susan custodian of the kids’ college mutual fund accounts, well, he became almost friendly.

So did Susan, actually. Soft and gooey. She actually smiled at me tonight when I picked up the kids.
Nothing like a mid-five-figure bribe.

Being the one to “capture” Creeper probably helped my cause as well. Though I discouraged the idea, primarily because the perception was inaccurate, the media continually played up the sensational angle of a father using his Gift of Gab to trick a murderer, his daughter’s kidnapper, into surrendering. In truth, I probably
would
have made Creeper my driver, as promised, if some shell collecting beach bum hadn’t seen Creeper with Gina’s shotgun, called 9-1-1 right away on his Nokia.

Those Keansburg cops swarmed over us like locusts
fifty feet from the dock, had Creeper in handcuffs before I could explain the special conditions of his new employment.

He must have had outstanding warrants.

We hit another red light. “Tell you what, kids,” I say. “As a special treat, in celebration of this modest family reunion, I’ll take the two of you back to the Locust Tree Inn for steak and lobster. Bluefish and the Creeper won’t be there, but maybe we’ll meet some other—”

“N
OOOO,” Ryan and Beth say. Their combined voices vibrate the Camry’s windows.

I was only kidding. I’m hitting Luis’s tonight for reasons other than tequila and burritos.

“You are a silly man,” Mama Bones says. “You see those two pretty girls at the end of the bar?”

“Yes.”

Luis’s Mexican Grill is filled with Bonacelli clan members tonight—all the Bonacellis and the happy, recently encouraged crew of Shore Securities. We’re having a party to celebrate Mr. Vic’s return from Tuscany, not to mention the surge in new accounts shared by all.

“Luis
is in love with the girl on the right,” Mama Bones says. “One with dark hair and dark eyes. Her name is Solana.”

I give Vic’s mother
the full-boat Carr grin. Don’t want Mama Bones turning me into a toad.

She
lets the twinkle in her eyes spread across her whole face. Wrinkle by wrinkle. “You such a goofball, Austin. You’re lucky I’m not ten years younger.”

Ten
years? Hell,
twenty
wouldn’t give her a shot. “I’m sure you were something, Mama Bones.”

“You better believe
it.”

I nod and grin like one of those bobble head dolls. I have another question on my mind. “So, before I get back to my kids over there
—”

“Where?”

I nod, pointing with my head.

“Oh, you got very beautiful children.”

“Thanks. But please, a question. Were you the woman who called me from Clooney’s that Saturday night, the person who set me up to see Franny give Gina that DVD?”

The smile on Mama Bones’
face freezes. “How you figure that out, smarty pants?”

I knew it. “Just a hunch.”

“Hunch, huh?” Mama Bones touches her chin. “Yeah, I’m the one who called. I wanted you to see that state copper with Gina. That copper playing every side of the fence.”

Mama Bones might have her villains mixed up. Blood can be thicker than truth.
It was Gina who wanted to sell out Shore Securities to Brooklyn. “But why show me that DVD? What was
I
going to do about it?”

“
What you did worked out fine, smarty pants. It’s sad about my niece, but now Vittorio keeps his business.”

I touch Mama Bone’s shoulder.
She’s going to be very unhappy with me later. “I’m sorry about Gina, Mama Bones. She was a very special person.”

Mama Bones lowers her gaze. Wonder if she’s up f
or a mob promotion now that Bluefish is dead?

“I
’m going back to my table,” she says. “My Vittorio will be here soon. I know he is anxious to see you. But when you come over to my table later, I want you to meet my sister’s girl Nicky.”

“Right
.”

“She gotta a great figure.”

SIXTY-TWO

When Beth, Ryan and I finish eating, we walk three blocks to Carvel’s for ice cream. Though it’s fun to show and share with my children things
I
liked as a kid, my job as parent isn’t only to be protector and pal. Once every visit—six times a month—I exercise them like boarding horses and rein the discussion down trails my children might not like to travel.

“So you two are studying hard in school, right?”

They both nod, Beth with somewhat less enthusiasm. I used to slip in questions like this when I thought they least expected interrogation, another technique I learned watching television cop shows. But ambush with teenagers is hard these days. Too many video games with terrifying monsters.

“The grades are still good, right?” I ask. “Both of you?”

“I got all A’s and B’s for the year,” Ryan says.

Silence from my daughter.
Uh oh.

“Beth?” I scrunch my eyebrows when she glances at me. Never underestimate disapproval as a training tool.

“Maybe I got a C or two this time,” she says.

My ex-wife will have a hissy fit. Beth has been all A’s and B’s since kindergarten.

I lick my double-fudge chocolate on a sugar cone. “School is extremely important,” I say. “Life is about choices. Good grades and more schooling gives you extra choices. Bad grades, no college, your career options are pretty much restaurants and hospitals. Waiting tables or changing bedpans is what our current, aging population most craves. The Baby Boomers are eating their way into early bad health.”

Ryan stares straight ahead. I may have gone too far with my explanations.

“We know the speech, Daddy,” Beth says. “We need a college education to earn The Big Money.”

After I drop Beth and Ryan at Susan’s new house, a four-bedroom ranch two blocks from th
e beach, I head back to Luis’s.

I’m at the bar, being introduced to Luis’s girlfriend,
Solana, when Mr. Vic parades inside the restaurant like he’s the first astronaut coming home from the moon. Talk about your favorite son. Takes him fifteen minutes just to hug and kiss his five sisters, Mr. Vic being passed from table to table like a bottle of ketchup. Shaking hands, slapping shoulders, laughing with the men between lip smacking the women.

With the Bonacellis, one virus
today gets you twenty colds tomorrow.

An hour later
, we’re finally alone. Mr. Vic says, “So business is good despite the bad publicity?”

“Oh, yeah,” I say.

We’re drinking margaritas at the corner table beneath Luis’s wall-mounted television. The Yankees and Red Sox are playing a pre-season game in Boston. The whole U-shaped bar—a baseball bleacher section in disguise—cheers the TV, a buffer between us and the Bonacelli-Shore revelers. Much to the baseball fans’ chagrin, Luis let Mama Bones turn up the house music for dancing. The combined roar is deafening.

Mr.
Vic’s coming at me slow, but he’s obviously heard what I’ve been up to. If I know Vic, he’s getting ready to jump me. Go ahead, pal. I’m ready.

“Business is
real
good,” I say. “Like the publicity was good for us, not bad. We lost five accounts the first day, but that was pretty much the end of it. We’ve opened one hundred fifty
new
accounts since.”

Mr.
Vic nods unconvinced. Here it is. His eyebrows pinch. Oh, yeah. Here it comes.

“I hear Rags is trying to sell you his seventeen percent inte
rest in Shore,” Mr. Vic says. “You know those shares are supposed to be Carmela’s. What do you think you’re doing?”

“
Not
trying
to sell, Vic. Sold,” I say. “Escrow closed today.”

The frown deepens, like he wants to punch me
. “What?”

I stand up. “Come out back with me,
Vic. I have something to show you.”

Mr.
Vic stares and hisses. “Carmela’s supposed to get those shares in the divorce agreement.”

I show Mr.
Vic my most delicious, full-boat Carr grin. “What divorce? Carmela’s decided she’s still in love with crazy Rags. She’s down in the Caribbean with him right now, sobering him up at Eric Clapton’s gold-plated rehab. Glad my money’s going to such a good cause.”

“You’re
not getting away with this,” he says.

I turn and hit
the TV’s off switch, then reach up over the bar and cut the dance music, too. The sudden absence of loud noise makes everyone in the restaurant stare my way. Or maybe it’s the fact that I am now standing on Luis’s bar.

“Everybody come outside
,” I say. “I have a special surprise for Vic and
all
you Bonacellis.”

Lots of murmuring, but nobody wants
to comment on what’s tied down on the flatbed of the giant white truck I had parked in Luis’s lot.

“Is this a freaking joke?” Vic
says finally.

“No,” I say.
“In addition to Rags’ shares, I also closed today on Walter’s seventeen percent interest in Shore.”

Mr.
Vic’s face turns white as fresh snow. “What? You bought Walter’s stock, too?”

“Yes, sir
. As of noon today, I own fifty-one percent of Shore. You work for me now.”

Dazed, Mr.
Vic glances again at the white truck’s heavy load, a giant rectangular sign. The bright, red-lettered plastic will tomorrow take its place above Branchtown’s busiest street. I think it might take Vic and his mother a long time to get used to Shore’s new moniker.

Our new sign reads
Carr Securities, Inc.