Miracle Man (22 page)

“Eighty-five dollars an hour, plus out-of-pocket expenses. A deposit of three grand up-front. You bring the account up to date when we find him, and the balance is due simultaneously when we hand over the report and photos. No checks—unless they’re certified. We take all major credit cards.”

“Is cash okay?”

“That’ll work.”

“How long will it take?”

“To get you the level of detail you want—three weeks or less if he’s in the tri-state area, five weeks if he’s elsewhere in the U.S. If he’s overseas, it all depends. Why do you want to find this guy anyway? Does he owe child support, or you need him as a witness in a lawsuit?”

Susan’s eyes narrowed. “Mr. Carter, your ad says that your company offers a discreet service.”

“Sorry, Miss Jones. Point taken.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow with the deposit.”

34

C
ruising down New York City’s elegant Park Avenue, a midnight blue Bentley limousine stopped in front of # 550, a sleek glass and steel palace of capitalism which was home to the corporate offices of several Fortune 500 companies.

The imposing looking bodyguard sitting next to the driver exited the vehicle. An observant passerby could have caught a glimpse of the shoulder holster under his left arm. Speaking into his earpiece, he alerted the waiting security guard in the building’s lobby that he and Mr. McAlister would soon be entering. As they approached the building’s entrance, they were joined by building security and then were ushered into an awaiting elevator which had been taken out of service and placed “on standby.” The guard checked the elevator’s control panel to ensure that the elevator would make only one stop, the sixty-eighth floor, penthouse level.

Floor sixty-eight was one of twenty-three floors at 550 Park Avenue that were fully occupied by Bushings Pharmaceuticals, a New York Stock Exchange listed corporation and one of the largest drug companies in the world. The entire sixty-eighth floor, comprised of over twenty thousand square feet, was used solely for the offices of Bushing’s eight top executives.

Looking like finalists from the Miss Universe pageant, McAlister’s two secretaries sat at matching zebra wood desks in McAlister’s opulent private reception area. “Good morning, Mr. McAlister,” they said in unison.

Without acknowledging their presence, McAlister commanded, “Coffee. And have Turnbull come in right away.”

No
more than three minutes after McAlister barked his orders, the CFO, Martin Turnbull, entered McAlister’s office holding a thick folder. Turnbull pulled a crumpled wad of tissues from his pocket and patted the perspiration from his nose and forehead as he glanced at the re-circulating waterfall which comprised an entire wall of the immense office with its soaring fourteen foot ceilings. One of McAlister’s secretaries hurried in behind Turnbull with a large sterling silver serving tray.

Colum McAlister was the CEO of Bushings. Standing six feet tall and at one hundred seventy pounds, he was trim and in good shape for a man of sixty-three. Working-out every day under the supervision of his personal trainer in the private gym of his office suite helped in that respect. He had a perennial tan and his sparse silver hair was perfectly groomed, as were his manicured highly polished finger nails. His complexion had the toned radiance usually reserved to movie stars and only obtained through a regimen of weekly facial treatments. He dressed in “bespoke” shirts, suits and neckties from Saville Row and his shoes were custom made in Italy. His gold and sapphire Cartier cuff-links and tie-pin perfectly complemented his gray suit and pale blue monogrammed shirt. The only items that he was wearing which weren’t personally created for him were his argyle socks, underwear and Hermes belt. Even his pink gold Patek Philippe wristwatch was custom designed at a cost of almost two hundred thousand dollars, a sixtieth birthday gift from his wife. While McAlister’s appearance had been painstakingly tooled, there was an inherent roughness to the man which was discernible in his eyes and the way he carried himself. The street fighting kid who grew up in one of Brooklyn’s worst neighborhoods wasn’t far beneath the polished veneer.

“How bad does it look, Marty?”

“The Board’s going to be all over our ass again at the meeting.”

“What the hell do they want us to do? Our product line is being eroded. How much are we losing because of the discontinued meds?”

“We’ve seen seventeen of our drugs go into the shitter because they’re obsolete. Nobody needs them anymore, and on six of them we didn’t even recover our research and development costs so we took a huge hit to the P&L. Bottom line, our sales are down 21% this year alone. We’ve lost some of our real ‘cash cows.’ But it’s not just us. Everyone’s suffering.”

McAlister slammed his desk as he leaned forward toward Turnbull. “Exactly. And that’s what we have to stress to the Board. It’s that guy. He’s killing us all.”

“You’re absolutely right. Look,” said Turnbull, as he placed a list in front of McAlister. “Here are drugs that you can’t even give away now.”

McAlister held the piece of paper and shook his head. “Has Collins been reaching out to him? Can’t we make a deal?”

“He’s reached out, several times. But Austin’s not playing ball. You can’t even get to him. He has this gatekeeper bitch. No one gets past her.”

“Did we try to buy her?” asked McAlister.

“We got nowhere. She’s another goody two shoes.”

“If we could make a deal with him, and get a license on his patents, we’d be fine even if we took a haircut on our margins.”

“It’s not going to happen. He has his damn Uniserve company, and he’s having it do non-exclusive deals with generic drug manufacturers to make his meds available as cheap as possible.”

McAlister’s eyes narrowed and he chewed on one of his lips. “The guy’s crazy. He’s giving his stuff away. Who the hell does that?”

“I just read an article in Forbes that said that if Austin operated Uniserve for profit, he’d be one of the richest guys in the world inside of ten years.”

McAlister’s face reddened and a vein on his right temple began to throb visibly. Seeing these familiar signs, Turnbull stepped back, as McAlister’s temper was legendary. He always tried to deflect the brunt of McAlister’s anger to someone else in the organization which was one of the reasons he had survived so long at Bushings. McAlister’s eyes took on a wild look.

Glaring at Turnbull, he said, “Enough of this crap. You’re not helping me. Something better get figured out soon. Austin’s young. Who knows what else he’ll do. The damage could be limitless.”

35

A
dusty old silver Hyundai pulled up to a parking spot at “The Conch Shack.” When Bill Owens finally managed to maneuver himself out of the driver’s seat, the car rose two inches from the ground and you could almost hear it hissing air in relief. Owens was wearing black wrap-around sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt that featured dice, martini glasses and hula dancers in an assortment of jarring colors. The shirt had to be a XXL, but it was barely able to stretch around his protruding belly. A camera hung low from his negligible neck and rested soundly on his gut. His face looked like a sunburned jack-o-latern. Owens was hungry. Sizing up the little roadside take-out joint, he tried to determine how likely it was that he’d get food poisoning if he ordered any of the fish specialties. He read the handwritten menu which was posted at each of the three take-out windows that were equipped with slide-up screens to keep the flies out. The word “fresh” appeared next to almost every item on the menu—even the hamburgers and hot dogs.
What does that mean?
he wondered.
A fresh hot dog?

Finally, he said, “I’ll have a bowl of the conch chowder, and the fish and chips. How fresh is that?”

The old-timer behind the take-out window wore a white apron that looked like it had been new ten years ago. “Caught this morning. That’s what we’re famous for.”

“This place is famous?”

“Everybody knows you come to The Conch Shack for the freshest. We’ve been here before most, and we’ll be here when the others pack it in.”

“Is this your place?”

“Yup. Built it myself from scratch. Over twenty years ago. Of course, it wasn’t always this big.” Turning his head from side to side, Owens estimated it was under nine hundred square feet.

“So you’re the owner?”

“I’m the owner, the chef and sometimes the fisherman too.” Let me get movin’ and cook your food. Listen for your number.”

Walking back toward his car, Owens snapped a few photos of the front of the Conch Shack and then walked around the side and back, taking a few more. The Shack was located in Islamorada on the Overseas Highway, a 127 mile section of Route U.S. 1 which runs the length of the Florida Keys and connects them to the U.S. mainland.

After eating his meal, Owens walked back to the take-out window.

“That was delicious. You’re right. It was incredibly fresh. I’m Bill Owens, by the way.”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Alan Gottschalk.”

“You live around here?”

“Just two miles down the road,” Alan said. “Used to be my only neighbors were gators. Now everyone lives here”.

“Do you have a menu I can take back home? I’ll spread the gospel.”

“I can even sell you a T-shirt.” Alan laughed as he handed Owens a copy of the menu, which was stained with tartar sauce. “Just kidding about the T-shirt. Maybe we’ll get to that next year.”

Before pulling out of the parking lot, Owens surreptitiously took a few close-up shots of Alan in the take-out window as he wrote down orders from some more customers. Owens had driven in from Miami two days ago at Rollie Carter’s request when Bay Colony’s research over the prior four weeks indicated that Alan might live in Islamorada.

He had already photographed Alan’s house on Madiera Road, including shots of Alan coming and going. Owens’ search of the town’s property records showed that twenty five years ago, Alan had purchased a run-down two room cottage on an over-grown acre of water-front land. In those days, Islamorada was just a sparsely inhabited pit-stop on the road to Key West. Alan had paid fifty-five thousand dollars cash for the house, which at that time, was considered a lot of money. Owens couldn’t find out where Alan had obtained the purchase money, but Rollie had determined that already.

Over the years Alan had hacked through the
tropical vegetation surrounding his cottage, planted a garden and fixed the place up and expanded it to two bedrooms and one and a half baths. It was his little slice of paradise that he owned, free and clear so no one could ever take it away from him. And now, two decades after his purchase, Islamorada had become known as “The Sport Fishing Capital of the World” and resorts, marinas and real estate developments had sprung up throughout the area. His small house was in the midst of an upscale luxury development that had grown up around him and although his home was not much bigger than the garages of some of his neighbors, his full acre of waterfront property was the envy of the community.

A year after he had purchased his cottage, Alan bought the quarter acre fronting the highway on which he, with the help of itinerant workers, built The Conch Shack. He paid twenty thousand dollars for the land, and built the Shack for six thousand. Running the Shack himself over the years and acting as cook, waiter, busboy, dish washer and food procurer, Alan was able to eek out enough of a living from the Shack to support his modest lifestyle. And in recent years, with Islamorada on the radar of tourists, business had picked up. Life was slow on Islamorada and the climate was tropical. The Keys were the only place in Florida that never get a frost. Alan had had enough of cold weather and big cities.

Owens emailed his report to Rollie Carter including photographs of Alan, his house and The Conch Shack, copies of the official Islamorada property records, Alan’s driver’s license, his home phone number, the phone number for the Shack, copies of three years of Alan’s telephone bills, a copy of the Shack’s menu, and his description of Alan which was as follows:

“The subject is six feet two inches tall. His driver’s license indicates his age to be 69. He’s clean shaven, has mid-length thinning grey hair, brown eyes, displays erect posture and is lean in build. He wears tortoise-shell
eye glasses. He appears to be vigorous and is alert, talkative, and displays what might be described as a wry sense of humor. There was nothing in his superficial physical appearance or observed behavior to indicate substance abuse. My further investigation over a three day period in the community of Islamorada indicated that he’s a well-known personality in the town, prone to being outspoken on matters that interest him and is regarded by some as cantankerous. However, his reputation is good, particularly as a result of his involvement for many years in relief efforts for the needy. I wasn’t able to find any evidence of current romantic or familial relationships. An examination of the decorative contents of his home (conducted from the outside) did evidence in his bedroom, framed old looking photographs of two children, approximately three years and five years of age. My examination of three years of his telephone bills showed no calls to or from outside the local area code. He has no criminal record in the State of Florida. No unusual items were found in the contents of his garbage. There are no liens on any of his real or personal property, and no judgments against him.”