Authors: Norb Vonnegut
“You flip-flopped. Before, you said they don’t negotiate.”
“We’ve got to try.”
“Waste of time, Father. I just hung up on my friend from the FBI. I’m calling her back.”
“You do that, and I’ll be offering up prayers at JoJo’s funeral.”
When it comes to investment advice, guys with all the answers scare the crap out of me. They’re dangerous. Because nine times out of ten, they’re wrong. Right now, Father Ricardo was jamming us, pushing too hard. He was too inflexible about police involvement.
“If we wire fifty million,” I said, returning to the money, “they own us.”
The priest looked at Claire. “Can he veto you?”
Biscuit cocked his eyebrow. He sensed that Father Ricardo had just lit my fuse. He was right.
“Go ahead,” I told Claire. “Get Huitt and his lawyer bees on the phone. You have a vote. I have a vote. And JoJo is recused for reasons beyond her control. Let’s see what the mouthpieces say about my veto.”
“You’re not being rational,” the priest said.
“The goons don’t get one dime till JoJo’s safe. I don’t care what you say. Or what the FBI says for that matter. There’s one thing I understand, and that’s money. How people behave when they have it. When they want it. Or when it’s slipping away. If we wire money, we lose our leverage.”
“You’re playing chicken with the wrong people.”
“It’s time we change the dialogue, Father. I fly wherever they say. Cook Islands, Cayman Islands, whatever. I open an account. Claire wires me two hundred million. The goons trade JoJo for me. Once she’s safe, they get the money.”
I stared at him until he averted his eyes. But I was no rock. I was a wreck. I had never been more conflicted in all my life. One wrong move, and JoJo was dead. One wrong move, and I’d live with the guilt that my intransigence had cost her life. More baggage in my growing collection.
“Just give me twenty-four hours.” Father Ricardo looked like he might add, “I’m begging you.”
I couldn’t take any more tears. That didn’t stop me from pushing back hard. “What, before I call the FBI? Give me a break.”
Claire slapped her palm on the conference room table. The thump sounded like an angry gavel. “Hear him out, Grove. Dad said you’re his ‘thousandth man.’ So act like it.”
I eyed Claire, her comment too personal for the setting.
Father Ricardo did not cry. Far from it. “Grove, last Tuesday you asked me for seven days. I’m asking you for twenty-four hours. That’s it.”
“To do what?”
“To reach my guy. To negotiate with the gangsters. To get JoJo back.”
“We’re talking about a woman’s life, Father. Not money.”
“Which is why I’m asking for twenty-four hours. Are you willing to bet JoJo’s life that my way is wrong?”
“Why wait, Father? Get your boy on the line now.”
“It’s not that easy. Time zones and the kind of man he is. Know what I’m saying?”
“Try.”
Father Ricardo dialed a long stream of numbers. His eyes flickered for a second. “Voice mail.”
“Leave a message, Father.”
“Call me.” He clicked off his mobile and turned to me. “Then we have a deal—twenty-four hours?”
“You can trade me for JoJo,” I repeated. “But no money until she’s safe.”
Nobody said a word. The silence grated on me. It felt intrusive. And I could tell we were all sharing the same sense of self-doubt and apprehension. The odd thing was, Father Ricardo never suggested a prayer.
He bowed his head once during the board meeting. Big deal. I’ve been around priests all my life. And there’s one thing I know for certain: when the chips are down, priests pull out the beads. There hadn’t been a Hail Mary all morning.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
THE STREETS OF CHARLESTON
Bong tossed his black gabardine jacket on the passenger seat. He slid into the rental, powered down all four windows, and cranked the AC. He could use a beer. Maybe a couple. Even though the Holy City was cool for early October, he was perspiring like a pig.
He was shaking.
It had always been that way. First came a delicious high from skirting the edge, the rush that accompanies fear. Because deep down, every actor is scared of being revealed as a fake. No problem this time. Bong had just delivered the performance of his life. And he knew it.
Next came the exit to accolades. There was no audience today—just players. But his heart was pumping, his adrenaline surging. And his glands were pouring out their sweaty applause. For a brief moment as he left the garage, he remembered the ovations from his theater days in school.
Near the corner of East Bay and Calhoun, Bong braked hard at the stoplight. As he rolled up his black shirtsleeves, a tan Mercedes pulled up to the right. The driver was blonde. Mid-thirties. Peach lips. She glanced over and smiled with enough wattage to light Yankee Stadium.
The traffic light was slow. The pleasant woman gazed ahead but glanced at Bong every so often. She appreciated his gentle features. Wavy black hair and reassuring, if not classic, good looks. Deep down, the adulation pleased Bong. A lot.
Returning to character, he etched a cross through the air. He assumed the blessing would make her happy. But when the woman spotted his spider-sun tattoo, her stadium-light smile disappeared. The body ink didn’t fit, nor did the careful white bandages wrapping Holly’s bites.
“I need to be more careful,” Bong muttered, noting her reaction, shaking his head, rolling his black sleeves down again. Soon enough he would be lounging on a beach, maybe at the Amanpulo resort south of Manila. There, he could chug Dom Pérignon a million bubbles at a time and drink the ocean air—assuming no more mistakes.
The light turned green. The Mercedes shot forward. The blonde never peeked over, no crinkle of her nose good-bye, no bat of the eyelashes sayonara. Bong continued straight and told himself to focus. He needed time to think. And the drive back to the beach was just what the doctor ordered.
His initial problem had been old man Kincaid. Palmer talked to Father Mike and figured out what was going on. Which jeopardized Moreno’s $33.5 million. Which turned the Colombian into a dangerous client. Which put Bong in a pickle. There had been no choice but to eliminate the Charleston developer turned philanthropist.
But now Bong considered the next generation—whether taking his chances with them had been such a good idea. Claire was the poster child for gullibility. She was not a problem. Nor was JoJo, who had always been full of herself. The issue was Grove O’Rourke, an insipid, unexpected, and inconvenient trustee. Bong wished he had never heard of the Palmetto Foundation.
If he let O’Rourke operate unchecked, then Moreno would come looking. And one thing was certain: The Colombian was a vindictive son of a bitch. He would never stop searching. No matter how often Bong moved, no matter where he hid, Moreno would find him.
Halfway over the new Cooper River Bridge, Bong pushed the car to seventy. Maybe closer to eighty. The damp ocean air rushed through the open windows.
The nerve of that O’Rourke.
Bong began muttering to himself: “Are you threatening me?”
Next time he saw the patsy-assed suit from Wall Street, he’d kick the shit out of him. Take out his legs with a sweep kick. Or snap a size 10 shoe to the guy’s speed bag. Then he’d stomp O’Rourke’s nose until oatmeal was draining through the nostrils. What was that word he kept using in the meeting today?
“Goons.”
The more Bong considered O’Rourke, the angrier he became. And Moreno was running out of patience. The Colombian’s muscle could arrive in Charleston any minute. And who knew what O’Rourke would say to the FBI? Or when the Feds would come storming through the doors?
He had worked so hard to build his business, the scrimping, the scraping, the long hours. He remembered the first pitch, which had been the mother of all opportunities, no matter how dangerous. “I’m here because you’re about to get caught.”
The crazy Colombian had shaken his head in disbelief. “And you’re about to get dead.”
“That would be a mistake.”
“You got balls, kid. I’ll give you that.” Moreno pronounced “balls” with a snaky, lispy sound.
“I can show you how to do the job right. And never worry again.”
“Who else knows what you know?”
“Everybody if anything happens to me.”
By the time Bong reached the Isle of Palms, just north of Sullivan’s Island, his face was beet red, his neck a coil of tense muscles. He attributed his best thinking to fits of violent rage. He was about to have one of those moments.
Near the corner of Rifle Range Road and the Isle of Palms Connector, Bong parked in the hotel lot. From the outside, the place looked okay. More likely to be clean than not. But inside, it was a dump. Breathing was the same as snorting mildew.
A few more days—$200 million in cash, of which $33.5 million went to Moreno—and Bong would never sleep in a shit hole like this again. Nothing but the Four Seasons. The Ritz-Carlton would be roughing it.
He charged down the hallway, choking back the fungus fumes, gaining fury with every step. He charged into his room and saw JoJo lying on the bed. Half asleep. Her right eye was closed from the beating last night.
Quietly, silently, he pulled a video camera from a blue canvas gym bag. Holly started to growl. And Bong started to tape.
The dachshund jumped off the bed, and Bong kicked her against the wall. Airborne at least twelve feet, the dog yelped and hit the floor with a thud. Bong was gaining more power every second.
“Guess who,” he announced, his voice halfway between game show host and crazed lunatic. “Bong or Father Ricardo?”
“Don’t hurt my dog,” JoJo gasped.
“I’ll give you a hint. Psalm 137:9. King James version. And I quote, ‘Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.’” He liked this priest shit.
“No, Father Ricardo!” she screamed, seeing his wrath.
“Wrong.”
With the back of his right hand, he smacked JoJo’s face. Hard. He could hear the sweet crunch of hand against cheekbone. Back and forth, he beat her with his open palm. Left. Right. Left. Right. And with every swing, he chanted the same four words:
“Happy shall he be.”
When he was finished, JoJo lay on the bed. Out cold. Her left eye was already swelling. Pretty soon it would match the right. She made such a pretty picture, her nose dripping like a leaky faucet, her left hand bandaged in a swath of bloody hotel towels and blue duct tape. Face gray, the color of death.
Violence, he decided, was a beautiful thing. The surge of adrenaline. The rush of oxygen. They delivered a one-two punch of mental clarity, and a video was so much more compelling than photos. “We’ll see who plays tough.”
With that, Bong pulled off his clerical collar. He had been hot before. Now he was boiling from the exertion, and the damn thing felt like an octopus around his neck. Plus, JoJo’s blood had splattered all across the white. He reached into the hotel’s refrigerator and grabbed the six-pack inside. He ripped one can from the plastic rings, popped the top, and repeated a mainstay from GI jargon when he was a kid:
“Now comes Miller time.”
One beer, two at the most, and he’d find O’Rourke. Push up the timetable. They weren’t expecting Father Ricardo to report back until first thing in the morning. Beer in hand, he looked down at JoJo and smiled.
I do God’s work.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE STREETS OF CHARLESTON
It took some doing.
We had all snapped at each other in the Palmetto Foundation’s conference room. But Father Ricardo, Claire, Biscuit, and I finally agreed on three actions. We were in a state of shock, each one of us sick with worry. JoJo’s life rested in our hands. And the responsibility was killing us.
We tried to rise above our limitations. To be efficient, we circulated phone numbers on contact sheets like the ones I-bankers use during initial public offerings. But our efforts were almost laughable. We were clueless amateurs, floundering over what to do. We lacked the street skills to negotiate with violent men who played by different rules.
Our plan, in my humble opinion, was crap. We were waiting to react, hoping events would turn our way. And the worst thing was, our strategy didn’t include the authorities for twenty-four hours.
One: Wait for Father Ricardo.
The minute his mercenary made contact with the goons, the priest would ring us. We’d meet and reassess. Negotiate. Trade me for JoJo. Whatever.
Two: Wait for five o’clock Wednesday afternoon.
That was the deadline in the ransom note. I said, “Screw that noise.” If we paid, we lost our leverage. If we held on to the foundation’s cash, one of the goons would contact us. I had no doubt. If they didn’t, we’d call the authorities no later than 5:30
P.M.
Three: Wait for tomorrow morning.
Which was more of an afterthought than anything else. Father Ricardo, Claire, and I agreed to reassemble at ten
A.M.
no matter what. Biscuit was not invited. He was not part of the Kincaid family, nor one of their friends. And the Catholic Fund could be at loggerheads with his clients.
I wanted Biscuit’s help. In my opinion, he had already proven his value as an ally. But I threw Claire and Father Ricardo a bone because they both wanted to pay the ransom. And I was firm.
No JoJo—no money.
* * *
Nobody agreed to a fourth action point.
Office politics being what they are, every stockbroker knows how to say one thing and do another. That includes me. I had my own agenda. As Biscuit and I walked back to our hotel, I realized so did he.
Jacket draped over his shoulder, the big man buried his left hand in his pants pocket. “You think it’s okay not to call the police?”
His words, opinion delivered through the interrogative tense of the South, translated, “Are you out of your mind?”
“Keeping silent is just plain stupid,” I replied.
“So you’re calling the authorities?”
“Yeah, without a doubt.”
“Good.” Biscuit smirked. His eyes sparkled. And for all our nagging fears, he found humor in the moment.