Authors: John R. Maxim
Moon set it back down, not bothering to wipe it clean
of fingerprints. He eased himself back outside and, sensing no other presence but that of the dead man, walked to the
garage. There, in a storage room, he found two plastic
buckets and a half-gallon can of paint remover. He poured
paint remover into two buckets, carried them to the gas
pump, and added several gallons of gasoline to each. He left the pump running.
Moon carried these back to the house, where he tested
the flow of air. He opened certain doors and closed others, creating baffles and chambers where the heat would build
before it spread. That done, he began pouring the mixture.
He had a match in his hand, ready to strike it, when he
thought of the man outside. The police and firemen will
find him dead and soon they will realize that he'd been throttled. Better to leave some doubt of how he died. Or,
more importantly, how long it took him to die.
He returned to the lounge chair and took the dead man's right hand. He wrapped the man's fingers around the Ber
etta, keeping the heavier weapon for himself. Next, he
took the man's head in his hands. Moon tilted it back,
exposing more of the throat.
He picked up the bat. He would begin with the throat.
The ankles would be next. He would then work his way
back up.
Moon stopped for the night near Cape Kennedy.
He found a motel in an all-black section where he would
not be especially noticed. There was a late-night laundro
mat nearby. He washed the blood and the gas fumes from
his clothing. He dozed off watching the dryer.
The next morning, he rose early and took a long quiet
walk on the beach, then found a pay phone where he
placed a call to the machine at Jake's condo. He tapped
out the code to hear messages.
There were several; all but one were from Brendan
Doyle.
”I fucking can't believe you,” said the last from Doyle.
He took that to mean Doyle had heard about the fire.
The one after that confirmed it. It was from Julie Gior
dano. It said, “You do nice work. But we really gotta
talk, okay?”
He tapped another code that left the messages intact. That made it harder to know when he called. He returned
to his motel room with a container of convenience store
coffee. He would head north soon; he had already mapped
his route. Before that, however, he would spend another
hour with Michael's laptop computer.
He still had Michael's watch and jewelry, which he had
taken from the apartment. It had to look like a burglary.
These he kept wrapped in a sock against the day when he might think of a way to return them. These and Bronwyn's photograph in its boxy little frame. He had wondered, idly,
why Michael chose a frame that was so deep-set that her
face was hard to see. A face like hers, you'd think he'd want to show it off.
At the hour of her service, he had slipped out of Mount
Sinai. Michael's building was directly across Central Park
from the hospital, five minutes away by taxi. Moon went
in through the garage;
he worked quickly and quietly, and
was back within twenty minutes more. He had Michael's
computer and a pocketful of disks but he had no clear
idea of what he hoped to find in them or even how to use
the computer. He knew only what Jake had always said.
“Someone dies unexpected, go look for his books. Al
ways look for the ledgers but do it quick. You're liable
to be in a foot race.”
When Jake was murdered, and Michael's fiancee soon
after, the coincidence was too much to ignore. The connec
tion, if there was one, might be found in Michael's files.
A twelve-year-old boy showed him how to use the lap
top. The boy, just down the hall at Mount Sinai, had come
in with bad headaches and the doctors found a tumor.
Tumor or not, it took him less than an hour to find a way past the code that Michael had used to keep his records
private. What he found there was a disappointment in
some ways, but a great relief in others.
Michael seemed to know nothing. One file, marked
Misc. Personal,
was filled with random musings. Michael
would use his computer the way some people use diaries. He would talk things over with himself. Private matters.
Most of the more recent entries had to do with Bronwy
n
.
Should he ask her to marry him? What might she say? If it's yes, then what? One of them would probably have
to resign. Lehman-Stone has a rule against couples. Screw Lehman-Stone. How about Europe for a while? Or maybe
she'd like to try San Francisco? Talk to Uncle Jake. Have
Jake and Moon over.
The “Screw Lehman-Stone” was comforting. It meant
that, to Michael, it was just another job.
Here and there, Michael would go on about how won
derful Bronwyn is. How perfect she is. No question he
was crazy about her. He would write
Mrs. Michael Fallon
or
Bronwyn Kelsey Fallon
just to see how it looked.
Fair breast,
was another notation. It was repeated sev
eral times.
Fair breast?
Moon had no idea what it meant.
A second file marked
Misc. Financial
showed that Mi
chael was doing well, real well, but he was far from get
ting rich. His income was about right for his age, his
education, and the kind of work he was doing. No suspi
ciously large bonuses. No big deposits. He wasn't black
mailing anyone. That, taken with Michael's willingness to
leave Lehman-Stone for love, made Moon ashamed that he had even wondered.
The rest of the files were all homework. All Lehman-Stone and AdChem business, much of it routine. For the
most part, Moon could penetrate enough of the Wall Street
jargon to get the sense of it.
There were musings in these files as well. Judging by
some of them, he liked the job well enough, he liked most of the people, but he did not seem to think much of Bart Hobbs. Michael wasn't so much hostile to him as he was
mystified. Hobbs, he observed, made a great deal of money
and Michael couldn't for the life of him see what Hobbs
ever did to deserve it. He traveled a lot. Played golf a lot.
And he jumped when AdChem said jump. And even when
Security said jump.
Michael didn't write
Parker.
He wrote
Security.
Moon took that to mean that Michael didn't know much about
Parker either.
His musings about AdChem were more respectful. He
seemed almost in awe. They were not the biggest, he
notes, in terms of research facilities but they certainly
make the most of what they have. Largest number of new drug patents in the industry. And, lately, the fastest FDA
approvals. They keep beating out competitors, often by a
matter of days. But those few days, he says, are worth
millions.
AdChem's not only good, it's lucky. Time after time,
says Michael, a major competitor was poised for a launch
but either had to recall its product, or the FDA changed
the language of an approval, or their research was called
into question.
Moon frowned. Thoughts of product tampering crossed
his mind. So did thoughts of moles inside the FDA.
The company, Michael notes, has huge cash reserves.
He says that's not unusual by itself. But he can't see where they came from and there's no way to find out. AdChem
doesn't open its books for anyone. No, thought Moon. I
guess I wouldn't either. Not if Julie Giordano is right.
What struck him about these musings, the ones about
AdChem, was
that
Michael must have wondered. It's like,
you wouldn't write down,
Gosh, Fat Julie sure has a lot
of money for someone who doesn't work. And people who
borrow some of that money and then stiff him sure seem
to be accident prone.
You wouldn't write that without
finishing the thought. Unless you just don't want to know.
Or unless you're only beginning to catch on.
Moon had been through these files several times, every
line of them, before Doyle called to say Michael was safe.
He was looking for the name “Rasmussen.” He could
feel it there. He just couldn't see it.
But then Giordano called and gave him another name. Philip Parker. Fat Julie had no home address for him. But
Moon would find him.
He also had those other names, the ones from the back
of that picture. Friends of Bart Hobbs. Guests at his house
up in Maine. And now he knew who they were. He found
them on memos in Michael's computer. Most were copied on almost every report he wrote. One was with Lehman-
Stone, one with AdChem's New York office, one with
their Washington law firm. And Moon had their home, business, and vacation home addresses from one of Mi
chael's disks.
Except the fat one. Victor Turkel. Moon did not see
that name anywhere. For all he knew, Turkel could have
been the caretaker of the house in Maine.
But the rest would do for a start.
Chapter 19
M
ichael now
owned the Taylor House.
The closing was held on the tenth of May. It was all
done in Boston through a
n
attorney who had been
retained for that purpose by Brendan Doyle. The Daggetts
were there but Michael was not. There was no need. The young lawyer, technically, held the deed to the inn but he
held it in trust for Michael.