Palm Beach Nasty (27 page)

“And we’ll be the welcoming committee,” Crawford said, grabbing a pen and tapping it on a coffee mug.

Ott looked away and didn’t say anything.

“Okay, Mort, what’s going on in that big, lopsided head of yours? It’s almost smoking.”

“Sure you don’t need to run this by Rutledge?”

“Don’t go soft on me now, Mort,” Crawford said, shaking his head slowly.

“I just—”

“You just what?”

“It’s just . . . we got ourselves a real high-stakes game goin’ here.”

Crawford put the pen down and smiled up at Ott.

“Yeah, no kiddin’ . . . just the kind of game a gnarly, old fuck like you was made for.”

FORTY-FOUR

W
hen the blackmailer called, Jaynes was shocked to hear a woman’s voice.

“I’m the one who sent the pictures,” the voice said. “Meet you at your house at twelve.”

Jaynes knew it was time to grab the wheel.

“No, my office. 12 Philips Point.”

“Fine,” the woman said.

“Tell the guy at the parking garage you got an appointment with me. Save you a couple bucks.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Jaynes.”

“C
HARLIE
,” D
OMINICA
said on her cell phone, “meet’s set for twelve.”

“His place?”

“His office, told me to park in his parking garage.”

“He’s gonna bug your car there.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“No, that’s a good thing.”

“Why?”

“Just trust me. I’ll tell you later. I want you to leave your cell phone in the passenger seat, too.”

“Why?”

“So they can bug that, too.”

J
AYNES GOT
the call from the gate attendant a few minutes before twelve.

“Mr. Jaynes, your visitor’s in a dark gray Camry, license plate 1Z55431.”

“Thank you.”

Jaynes dialed a number. “Dark gray Camry, plate number 1Z55431.”

He hung up.

Jaynes looked at his watch. Five minutes later his secretary buzzed him. It was not unusual for her to work on Sunday. He paid her a big salary and she had no life. She told him his visitor had arrived.

A minute later she knocked on his office door. Jaynes was writing something. He didn’t look up until after his secretary had left the room and closed the door. A beautiful woman was standing there. She had a dark complexion, a body that looked hard and tight and an expression of focused enmity.

“You’re not exactly what I expected,” he said.

Her eyes drilled into his.

If she was nervous, Jaynes couldn’t see it.

“I was expecting someone with a shiny suit and thin black tie.”

He was trying to charm her. It didn’t take.

“My name is Jennifer Montell, I’m Misty Bill’s sister.”

Jaynes didn’t let his face show anything. Her sister? The girl and this woman didn’t seem to have anything in common except very dissimilar good looks.

“Not the same father,” the woman said, like she was in his head. “Mine had an IQ.”

Jaynes laughed and pointed to a chair.

She shook her head. “Let’s take a walk outside.”

“What? You think I have a listening device in that pen or something?” Jaynes asked.

“You probably do.”

He shrugged and they walked through the reception area and out into the corridor.

“This okay?” Jaynes asked, stopping. “We could always go onto my roof garden. Or are you afraid I might have something planted in a potted palm?”

She was close to him now.

“No, that you’d throw me off.”

Jaynes laughed.

“If I was that kind of guy, I’d have some goon do it for me.”

“You saw the pictures?”

“Of course,” he said, and without warning he stepped into her space. “Open your blouse.”

She smacked him in the mouth.

“Meeting’s over,” she said, starting to walk away. “Photos go out after I call my sister.”

“Whoa, whoa,” he said, touching his mouth, looking for blood, “just wanted to make sure you weren’t wearing a wire.”

Her hands went to her top button. She undid it, then the other three. She pulled open her collared top.

“Okay?”

“More than okay,” Jaynes leered.

“Asshole.”

He laughed. “You’re a feisty one.”

“You’re gonna pay for taking my brother’s life.”

Jaynes took out his wallet, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, and dangled it.

“Price just went up $5 million,” she said. “I want $25 million now.”

Jaynes chuckled. “Who doesn’t?”

“In unmarked hundreds.”

Jaynes smiled and held up his hands. “Let’s just say I play along. Agree to give you something—”

“Not ‘something’ . . . $25 million.”

“First of all, where would you suggest I get that kind of money? It’s Sunday. Think I got it under my mattress?”

“Not my problem. Just get it to me by eight tomorrow night. Last time I checked, banks are open on Monday. I did some math. If you’re worth $4 billion dollars, like I read, $25 million is around half a percent of your net worth . . . so just look at it as a tip.”

“You’re a piece of work. Sure you’re related to that girl?”

“That girl? You mean the sixteen-year-old kid who you—”

“Please, spare me,” Jaynes said, raising his hands. “Best thing that ever happened to you and her.”

Dominica’s face quickly morphed from a frown to a smile.

“You know, you might have something there.”

“You’re good, very good. Somebody I’d actually hire.”

“Thanks,” she said, heading for the elevator, “but I’ll be retiring soon.”

F
ULBRIGHT
was reading the
Palm Beach Press
. About the hotshot New York homicide detective who liked to kick Spanish guys when they were down. Right after getting the call, they had driven west on Okeechobee, past the tree farms and evangelical churches, and located the house where the girl lived. They weren’t surprised to find nobody there and the girl’s closet half-empty. They tossed the place anyway, looking for phone numbers or any sign of where she went. All they found were a couple of pictures of the girl.

The subcontractor told them the guy who ordered the job wanted them to go to a parking garage in an office building in West Palm at quarter past twelve. They’d have fifteen minutes to break into a car, plant bugs.

“A no-brainer,” Fulbright said, as Donnie drove them into the garage, “so we know the whereabouts of our intended . . . at all times.”

Donnie thought it was classy how Fulbright used words like “whereabouts” and referred to someone who would soon be dead as “our intended.”

“What kinda car again?” Donnie asked, as he drove up the ramp.

“Dark gray Camry, tag 1Z55431.”

It still impressed Donnie the way Fulbright would hear something just once, then memorize it for life. Ten-digit phone numbers, anything. Donnie was only good up to three numbers for about two minutes.

Fulbright pointed to a car, “There.”

Donnie parked right next to the Camry and popped the lock in under two minutes. This was another specialty of his, along with driving fast and shooting straight.

He saw the cell phone on the front passenger seat.

“It’s like they’re trying to make our job easy,” Donnie said, pointing to the cell phone.

“Awesome,” Fulbright said, “I got the perfect size bug for that.”

Fulbright opened the cell phone and put a fingernail-size chip in it, then found a spot under the dashboard and taped a bug there.

At 12:21 they were done and had wiped the Camry clean.

Donnie got behind the wheel of Fulbright’s new Navigator and calmly drove down the ramp of the parking garage, putting his Aviators back on and pulling down the bill on his Seattle Mariners baseball cap. Fulbright slumped down in his seat and held the paper up over his face. Donnie paid the attendant on the ground floor, nodded and drove out.

O
TT WAS
handy with a camera and even better at making sure he never got spotted. He and his telephoto lens were fifty yards away when the two drove up. He watched them from behind a dark-tinted rear window. He got twelve good shots of the two. They reminded him of Mutt and Jeff on a bad day.

D
OMINICA
,
STANDING
next to Jaynes, pressed the elevator button. Within seconds the high-speed elevator hummed to a stop. Dominica got in and pressed the button, but the doors didn’t close. She looked out at Jaynes. He had his hand on one of the doors to prevent it from closing.

“You sure you know what you’re doing, Jennifer, or whatever your name is? That you’re not in over your head?”

The predatory look on his face chilled her, but she forced out a smile.

“It would be terrible for something to happen to that beautiful face.”

“Just worry about getting my $25 million,” she said, then leaned back casually against the rear of the elevator.

“Give me your cell number.”

Without moving a muscle, she recited it as he wrote it down.

“Tell you what, I’ll give you ten million. You bitch about it not being enough, I drop it a million for every word you say.”

She didn’t hesitate.

“Twenty-five million.”

“That makes it $7 million. Take it or leave it.”

“Leave it,” she said, pushing the elevator button.