Payback (21 page)

Nikki directed her next comment to Derek Monarch. “We’re sending a year’s premiums back to all your subscribers and advising them to sign on with a PPO opposed to an HMO. All existing claims will be paid
in full
. We’re also ignoring the deductibles.”

It was Julia’s turn. She looked at the robust bottom line on Nikki’s chart. “Ten million to the Haggerty family. Mr. and Mrs. Haggerty used up all their savings and are currently in the welfare system because you denied the coverage that would have made him whole. Greed is a terrible thing.”

Derek Monarch started to drool when he realized what was happening. Ethan slumped in his chair as his millions were allocated to worthy recipients. Elaine wept noisily, so noisily Kathryn pointed the cattle prod at her perky silicone breasts. She shut up instantly and then hic-cupped.

“You raided this company for your own personal greed,” Nikki said. “We simply can’t allow that. We find you three, guilty as charged! Damn, I already said that, didn’t I? Well, that’s what we’re doing.”

“Oh, dear, Mitch wants to say something,” Julia said, walking over to her husband. She yanked at the strip of duct tape.

“I don’t know these people. If they did what they did then they deserve this but what the hell am I doing here? I hate HMOs. It’s the Republicans who love those HMOs. I’m a goddamn Democrat. I demand you let me loose immediately.”

“Demand all you want, Mitch. We’re going to deal with you later. Make another peep and the Ninjas can have you. Do I make myself clear?”

“Are we having fun yet?” Kathryn chortled.

“I didn’t know any of this,” Elaine Monarch sobbed. “I didn’t know those people died. How could you do such a thing, Derek?”

“Shut up, Elaine. Where did you think the money came from for…all of this?”

“Your salary. That’s what you told me. Oh, God, Oh, God!” She sobbed.

“Ooops, more company,” Nikki said when a knock was heard at the door. The two Ninjas stepped aside as Julia ran to open it.

“Refreshments!” Isabelle trilled as she trundled in a huge dolly laden with food.

Nikki stepped away from the computer to stand in front of the four bound figures strapped to the chairs. “OK, the fun’s over. Do any of you four have even one compassionate bone in your bodies? How could you knowingly withhold crucial medical care to those who need it the most? How? Do you have any idea how many deaths and crippling illnesses are lying on your personal doorstep?” She didn’t expect an answer and she didn’t get one.

“As of Monday morning, Monarch’s doors are closed. Every account that has your name or a family member’s name on it is now carrying a zero balance. We’ve only made a dent in what we plan to do to right all the wrongs you three made in the name of your greed. It’s going to take us weeks to notify and make restitution to all those you’ve damaged but it will be done. You are now going to sign off on some quit claim deeds to all the different properties you own. Everything is going to be sold and given to the people you bilked. All your cars, your boats, that fancy Gulfstream plane will go on the auction block. The whole ball of wax. But first the three of you are going to sign this power of attorney allowing me to dispose of your assets and the company’s assets. Kathryn, untie their writing hands then bind them back up.”

“Why am I here?” Mitch bellowed. “I’m a goddamn United States senator! I demand you release me immediately. You better not be thinking about murdering anyone!”

Isabelle, who was spreading caviar on crackers and handing them out with glasses of champagne, looked at Julia and said, “This might be a good time to tell your husband why he’s here.”

“I think you’re right. Take the tape off one of his hands so he can read my medical report.”

Kathryn, her hands shaking, undid the tape and handed him Julia’s diagnosis. She stepped back to watch the senator.

“What the hell is this? It says you…it says you have AIDS! I knew it! I knew you were screwing around! You bitch!”

“Oh, God! Oh, God! Did you touch me?” Elaine Monarch squealed in fright.

Julia closed her eyes and would have dropped to the floor but Nikki caught her. Kathryn handed the senator a second medical report. An evil grin stretched across her face. “Read it and weep, Senator!”

“You gave me AIDS! I’ll kill you for this.”

Isabelle was in his face in the blink of an eye. “Look at the dates, Senator.
You
gave AIDS to your wife. You’re the one. And you infected everyone you came in contact with. That’s why your wife wanted the list of women you slept with. You have AIDS, Senator Webster.”

“You’re lying! You’re all crazy! I didn’t have a blood test,” the senator blustered.

“You gave blood, you just don’t remember. I took a blood sample while you were sleeping. I am a doctor, you know. I had you tested. I’m more than willing to leak
that
to the
Post,”
Julia said.

Mitch continued to bluster. “I don’t believe you. I feel fine. I’m healthy as a horse. You’re lying!”

“I felt fine, too, in the beginning. The drugs will work for a while and then they won’t work anymore. Your immune system may be stronger than mine. You have it, Mitch, make no mistake about it.”

“I’ll throw all of your asses in jail the minute I get out of here. I am not without influence.”

“You aren’t getting out of here, Senator,” Isabelle said. “Caviar, anyone?”

“What the hell does that mean? Kidnapping is against the law. You can’t kidnap a United States senator. This scum,” he said, jerking his head in the Monarchs’ direction, “yeah, but not me.”

“Oh, well!” Kathryn said.

Nikki looked down at the stack of quit claim deeds in her hand. “Now, let’s tackle those trusts you think you’re getting away with. I’m going to need all of your signatures quite a few more times. Shame on you for not mentioning the trusts. I think you were just so agitated you simply forgot.”

The women moved toward the door, Isabelle pushing the dolly ahead of her. She closed the door behind her. They all walked down to the end of the hallway.

“We did it! We actually did it! Julia, honey, are you OK?” Alexis asked.

“I’m fine. Did you see his face? I will take that look of disbelief with me forever.”

Alexis and Yoko ripped off their black masks. “Now what?” Alexis demanded.

“Charles said we have to dismantle all the computers,” Nikki said. “He won’t care if we smash them up. We have to sanitize this place. Charles is working on something for the
Post
and it will hit sometime this week. By then, the four of them will be so far away no one in the world will be able to find them.”

“What about all these treasures, the paintings, what’s going to happen to them?” Alexis asked.

“They go with the house. Mr. Monarch signed off on everything. Everything will be sold. Charles has it all arranged. Private collectors, you know. We have to take all the money and the jewelry out of the vault and take it to McLean.”

“Alexis, you and Yoko take Junior and Senior out to Kathryn’s rig. Stick them in the car and use the handcuffs to shackle them to the door handle. Mrs. Monarch gets the passenger seat in front. The senator can bounce around inside the back of the truck for all I care. Tape his hands behind his back and his ankles as well,” Nikki said.

Kathryn led Julia over to a brocaded sofa and helped her to stretch out. “Take a nap, Julia. We’ll wake you when it’s time to leave.” Kathryn kissed her cheek and touched her hair with gentle fingers. Julia closed her eyes and was asleep within minutes.

As one, the sisters wiped at their eyes. “Time is money, ladies, let’s get to it,” Nikki said.

They worked feverishly as they trundled the dolly back and forth to the eighteen-wheeler. It was up to Nikki to sanitize the residence which she did with the air of a professional.

Two hours later, the Monarch mansion was swept clean. Kathryn took a crowbar from the back of her truck and proceeded to smash every machine in the Monarchs’ office. The women clapped with enthusiasm. Then they high-fived each other.

Nikki looked around the office. “Charles would be so pleased.”

“Did we get everything?” Kathryn asked.

“I went over it twice,” Nikki said. “I cleaned out all the other safes on Charles’s map and just threw everything in those garbage bags.” She held out her hands encased in surgical gloves.

“I’ll carry Julia. She’s still sleeping. I’ll put her in the backseat of the car they arrived in. You’re driving her, Nikki. Isabelle will be with Alexis, Yoko and myself. Can you handle it?” Kathryn said.

“Not a problem” Nikki replied. “Be careful, Kathryn, you’re carrying some strange cargo this trip. You’re going to Baltimore Washington Airport where Charles’s people will take over. I’ll see you back in McLean.”

“See ya!” Kathryn said as she picked up Julia and cradled her to her chest. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she carried her friend out of the house to the car for her ride back to McLean.

“Kathryn, be careful, OK?”

“You know it.”

Jack Emery looked down at the bottom of his computer monitor to see the date and the time. Then he fingered his battered face. It was healing much too slowly to suit him. He still wasn’t comfortable with the temporary caps on his front teeth. He felt like he had a mouth full of mush that made him lisp when he spoke.

He felt beaten, worn down. Ten long days since he’d been beaten to a pulp. He probably would have starved to death if it hadn’t been for Mark and take-out restaurants that delivered. The outside world no longer beckoned. He liked sitting on his chocolate colored sofa watching stupid shows on television and swigging beer from long-neck bottles until he fell asleep. He’d only been out twice, to go to the dentist and to pick up prescriptions.

Jack had no idea what was going on in the outside world. Ten days’ worth of newspapers was piled high on his kitchen counter along with ten days’ worth of mail. He hadn’t turned on a newscast in the same length of time. He knew his old-fashioned answering machine either wasn’t working or the little tape was full. He knew this because two red lights glowed on the square black box. One red blinking light meant there were messages, two blinking lights meant the tape was full. It simply did not matter in the scheme of things.

Jack clicked off the computer before he shuffled out to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He was stunned to see an array of food filling the shelves. Fresh orange juice, a new container of milk, a new twelve-pack of Bud, apples, cheese, a loaf of bread, lean-looking bacon, a dozen eggs. Cold cuts from a deli in individual plastic bags, hot dogs, some ground beef, cottage cheese, yogurt and salad greens. Mark must have been here during the night. Obviously, he’d tidied up while he was here, too.

Good old Mark. He felt bad that he’d sucked his friend into the mess he’d gotten himself into. He didn’t deserve a friend like Mark. Mark agreed. Jack found himself grinning at the thought.

He knew he had to get off his ass and join the world again. Some world where the bad guys got away with what they were doing and the good guys got the living shit beat out of them. There was something wrong with this picture. Something really wrong.

Jack headed back toward the chocolate colored sofa. Nikki had helped him pick it out, and the day it was delivered, they’d christened it by making love all night long. He looked over at the matching recliner where he liked to tilt back to read the paper. He eyed the sofa but opted for the recliner. His biggest problem right now was what to have for dinner. Maybe chips and salsa or maybe some of the pre-cooked pudding he’d seen in the refrigerator. Both would require little chewing.

Jack propped up his feet and swigged from the Bud. He should go back to work. Back to the grind where he tried to put away the bad guys so some smart-ass defense attorney could lie through his teeth to get his client off so he could do the same damn thing all over again. Where the hell was the justice he’d believed in all his life? Where? He felt like crying but big guys didn’t cry. That was a crock. Everything was a crock of crap.

Jack adjusted the volume on the TV set. He watched ten minutes of Montel Williams interviewing defiant, pregnant teenagers before he switched channels. Judge Sophie was railing against some guy who had stiffed his landlord. He switched channels again to a rerun of
Law and Order
where the good guys made things right in sixty minutes. Another crock. He finally pressed the mute button and reached down into the magazine basket to pull out last month’s issue of
Field and Stream
. Maybe he needed to go fishing so he could commune with nature and think about his life. He didn’t even know where his fishing pole was. He dropped the magazine back into the basket.

He thought about Nikki because when he came to this point in his daily thinking, memories of her surfaced no matter how hard he tried to block them out. Where was she? What was she doing? The image of her stunned expression when she saw him outside the armory would stay with him to his dying day. He knew then she hadn’t known about the beating he suffered. She might not have been privy to the actual details but his gut told him she knew something bad was going to happen. Otherwise…why did a doctor and nurse show up so conveniently?

He went back to thinking about what he was going to have for dinner when he heard noise coming from his small foyer. He moved fast, quicker than he’d moved in the last ten days, to the sofa and his gun that was between the cushions. It was in his hand in the blink of an eye, the hammer pulled back. He waited, his heart pounding in his chest.

“It’s me, Jack!” Mark called. “Man, it’s pouring cats and dogs out there. It took me an hour to get here but I did stop at Mozellie’s for some spaghetti and meatballs.”

Jack clicked the hammer back into position before he pushed the gun down between the cushions.

“You gotta stop doing this, Mark. I’m not some charity case on your conscience. Tell me how much I owe you so I can square off with you.”