Cash Burn (37 page)

His heart charged in his chest.
Pump faster and faster. Get what blood’s left through these veins.

Diane would know what to do. Brenda would know. His cell phone had been in his good hand for a long time. He’d meant to call her before he’d become engaged in this staring contest with the unwinking, pitted eggshell overhead.

Another hour, maybe two, and the moon would pass behind that wall, and he would be alone. The water and oil puddled in the street wouldn’t glow any longer when the moon turned away.

He had her number stored in his phone. She could be here in ten minutes, her hands on him, helping him into a car. Maybe she would nurse him herself. Or maybe she would think it best to take him to a hospital. She would know what to tell the doctors to keep the police out of it. If that was possible.

He set the cell phone on the pavement and reached for his left arm. Adjusting it was like moving a piece of a cadaver. Someone else’s arm sewed onto his shoulder. He tried bending the arm with his right hand, as if he could pump sensation back into it by levering it back and forth. Finally, he gave up again. It was dead.

Like he would soon be. If he didn’t make the call.

But she might be with
him
again. Her mark. The one this job was all about. She might have lit candles again tonight. They’d be burned down to stubs by this hour. She’d hadn’t told Flip much about her plan, really. She never did. She just gave instructions and expected him to carry them out. That was his job. Stand by for more orders. Don’t call me; I’ll call you. Then we’ll be together.

Deep down, he always knew she was stringing him along. Since the first night he was back. When he’d read the letters she’d written to him while he was in Lancaster, something had told him that she had a reason to keep him on a hook. He didn’t want to believe it. He wanted to believe that a girl like her might want him. He thought maybe there was a chance that what he’d done for her over the years might have earned him something from her, even as she grew up and he had to grow meaner and meaner to survive. She liked part of his meanness, that was sure, but now, with the last drops of his life oozing through the sponge of his clothing and onto the blacktop, he saw it all clearly. Finally.

She had no desire for him. He was just another tool in her kit. Another piece to the puzzle of the life she was assembling for herself. What would the rest of the puzzle pieces look like? She’d shown up in the evenings dressed like any of the career women striding the sidewalks of Beverly Hills or Century City in their heels and skirts, entering office buildings or shops. She spent her days in that world and her nights plotting and planning how to set the next piece of the puzzle into the frame.

No, a wounded convict had no place in that puzzle. If he called her, she might not even answer. And if she did, she would have an excuse for not coming.

He could call his dad. Inglewood was only fifteen minutes away. The old man might drive over in his Buick. Flip pictured him covering up the seat with a towel to keep the blood off the upholstery. He imagined the words he would say. The disappointment. Again.

No.

And then there was Jason. Closest of all. That snug house in Cheviot Hills. The perfect little lawyer wife. The sweet little job handling other people’s money all day long.

Flip’s mind flashed on the familiar image of Jason as a boy, counting the cash from the paper route they shared.

He smiled. Kids playing with cash. Daffy Duck sitting at a folding table.

The walls framing the moon at the end of the alley were spinning now, a dizzy rotation around that glowing eye. The back-and-forth motion was hypnotic.

He closed his eyes. Very tired now. Very sleepy. He caught again the image of Jason at the summer card table, the fan blowing air at Flip, Jason not letting the fan blow on him for fear of ruffling the piles of bills he’d collected. Jason counting and recounting, as if the number could grow larger by repetition. Keeping a list of those he’d collected from and those who still owed him. And Flip poking fun. Calling him the cartoon character who was crazy for dough. Jason preferring to sweat rather than have anything interfere with the organized stacks before him. Beads of sweat standing out on Jason’s forehead like dewdrops.

Twelve-year-old Jason lifted a five from a stack. He pursed his lips like a lady and dabbed at his forehead with the bill to make his little brother Philip laugh.

And Philip laughed.

59

Jason inspected the signature. The
R
and
S
were the keys to pulling it off. The rest of the letters could be anything, the way they lumped together and trailed away. He compared it to one of Randy Sloan’s authentic signatures. Perfect. Even the size of the signature matched. And the way Randy wrote “CFO” on the title line underneath—Brenda had nailed that, too.

“Looks good.” It had to pass inspection in the loan operations department in a few hours, but if Jason didn’t see any flaws, they wouldn’t either.

Brenda handed him the corporate resolution of Northfield Industries, certifying that the company’s board of directors had authorized the CFO to execute documents borrowing $30 million from BTB. She’d had to forge a series of signatures for this one. Jason compared the scrawl of the corporate secretary and the signatures of the board members the corporation required to authorize a transaction like this. He saw no flaws.

“You’re talented, lady.”

Brenda winked. “Practice, practice. Check this one.” She slid the loan advance request to him.

The LAR contained the borrower’s instructions to the bank to disburse funds on the loan. The sum of $30 million was typed next to the words
Amount of Advance
. Since most loan advances went into the customer’s account at BTB, the form had a separate box that contained a set of instructions for wire transfers. The instructions in that box directed the bank to send the full amount by wire transfer to the offshore account of Nor-Dru Holdings, a shell corporation Jason had created with the help of a London attorney. The holding company was supposedly created for the purpose of facilitating Northfield’s acquisition of Drusseaux Industries. The attorney was delighted for the opportunity to do some work for Northfield, and Jason had to use all his persuasive energies to keep him from calling Northfield directly. Brenda’s forgery of Randy’s signature on the letters to the attorney and the account-opening documents two days ago had appeared as genuine as these.

He compared the account numbers. They were accurate.

The rest of the documents looked right too.

“Let’s take a look at how our bankers are managing our money.”

Brenda came around behind him. He’d brought his personal laptop to the hotel. When he gained Internet access through the cellular network, he connected with the account in Nevis he’d primed for the past three weeks with transfers of his personal funds. He’d taken loans against his retirement savings and moved that money into the Nor-Dru International Business Corporation in Nevis. Since then, he’d made a series of transfers to other accounts he’d set up in other names in Belize and Panama, everything ultimately ending up in the Swiss account. The banks would have no way of knowing he controlled every one of the accounts. He’d been shuffling wires back and forth in various amounts and had conducted a series of conversations with the bankers in those countries to prepare them for the big payday he’d promised when he opened the accounts.

He typed in wire instructions to the Nevis account that now contained most of his money, entered a PIN, and sent a chunk of it over to Panama. The wire fees and foreign exchange fees were enough to choke a lesser corporation.

Brenda leaned over his back and kissed his ear. “You’re a wizard at this stuff, Jason. You’re a natural.” She kissed his neck. “I can’t wait to get you on a beach in the Mediterranean.”

Jason checked the time in the corner of his screen—4:45 a.m. They’d been at it all night, but sleep was the last thing on his mind. He swiveled around, and Brenda stood away.

“We don’t have much time,” he said. “We need to get out of here. I’ll go into the office at eight. You come in at your usual time. Nothing can be out of the ordinary. Do you understand? This is just another workday. The day before Thanksgiving. We have plans with our families tomorrow. You’ll tell everyone you’re flying to Pennsylvania.”

“I already bought a ticket.”

“Good. What about the flight you’re really taking?”

“Orange County to New York. From there to Zurich.”

“Good. We’ll meet in Lucerne. My flight’s out of San Diego tonight. You have your new cell phone?”

She nodded. “Oh, Jason. It’s really happening. You and me. Forever.” She nestled into his lap and threw her arms around him. Her kiss transported him out of this cheap room and into a place of warmth and passion and freedom.

It was almost enough to make him forget the danger.

“Brenda,” he said. His hand pressed to her cheek, softness, heat. “Today is the most important day of our lives. Nothing can go wrong. Nothing. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “You’ve done everything so well. I’m so proud of you.”

“All right. Now go home. But when you go into the office, remember—nothing unusual. You’re packed for a weekend out of town. Nothing else. Got it?”

“I got it. I’m just so excited.”

“No. You’re not.” His grip on her wrist tightened. “It’s a normal Thanksgiving weekend trip. Turkey and cranberries. That’s all.”

“Right. Normal.” She tried to twist her arm away from his hand.

He let her loose. “Now go.”

She kissed his cheek, brushed her lips against his, and stood.

He watched her go to the door, soaked in the shape of her, the movement. This was what he was doing it for. This and revenge. As she slipped outside, he caught a glimpse of her profile, the upturned nose, the curve of cheek and chin in the glare of the light in the outdoor hallway. And she was gone.

Revenge. Vince and Mark had done everything they could to squash him under their petty rules and regulations. He’d endured the weight of them for years. For a long time he’d found ways of operating within the rules to do his job to his advantage. But over the past year, Vince had made the rules his personal weapon to destroy Jason. And Vince had wielded them more expertly than Jason could have ever expected. The fat man had even brought Mark along by the nose until the CEO was like his little puppy, whimpering, expectant.

It was time to make them pay.

Jason shut down his laptop. He rubbed his eyes. Another few hours. Work until 2:30 or 3:00, say Happy Thanksgiving to whoever might still be hanging around the office, and hit the freeway for San Diego. It would be a grueling drive in Thanksgiving Eve traffic, but he had plenty of time until his 9:00 flight. Jerome Michaels—that was his name on this flight. He would go by Jerry.

His cell phone vibrated. He checked the readout and saw Serena’s name again. What good could it do to answer? He clicked Ignore and tried not to think of her.

He didn’t want to love her anymore. He wanted a new start with Brenda, and he was going to get it. Serena and her cheating lies, her lawyerly self-confidence. The law game had made everything a negotiation with her, a bend of words, a twist of implication and blame. She was good at it. He had to give her that.

Let’s be honest. Here in a cheap hotel room with stains on the carpet and dust crowded into the corners, let’s be honest before we do this. You’re jealous of her, aren’t you? Jealous of her success, that she made partner and a lot more money than you. That her hard work and brains produced more results and respect than anything you’ll ever do.

Yes, why not be honest? Here and now, alone with your little plot, let’s strip away all the excuses. You’ve been looking for a way out for a long time, haven’t you? The backstabbing and politics were just a way to keep things interesting. The truth is, you’ve been bored to death with the forms and the rules and the regimentation. You’ve resented Serena’s success and the growing sense that she wasn’t your wife but that you were the lawyer’s husband. That was a big part of it, wasn’t it? Jealousy. Boredom. Resentment. Growing every day by millimeters, worming deeper and deeper into the soil of your soul until Brenda Tierney brought her eyes and her body into your office with a means of escape.

Serena. Denying that she’d written that letter when the penmanship was unmistakable.

He gathered the paperwork and slipped it into the envelope.

Well, they’ll never forget you.
That much was sure.
You won’t be another gray-haired banker shuttled off into retirement with a gold watch and a kick in the rear. No, not you. They’ll talk about you for the rest of their lives. You’ll give them something to spice up their cocktail parties, something to talk about over lunches and dinners. “Did you hear the one about the banker who stole $30 million?”

But how would their stories end?

He opened the envelope again. Something nagged at him. The signatures were perfect. For the loan documents themselves, he’d used old legal documents his attorney had prepared for other transactions, drafts e-mailed back and forth in formats easily manipulated. Just change the dates and dollar amounts. It was easy.

So what was wrong?

His eyes focused on the signatures. He compared them to the authentic ones.

They were perfect. Absolutely right. Not a curve, not an angle wrong. As if Randy and the others had themselves set their pens to these papers. Even the printed
CFO
could have been penned by Randy’s hand. Really, it was remarkable how she’d copied it so well.

He slid the documents back inside and ran his hands along the edges of the envelope.

Honesty, now at least. Before you get these fraudulent documents to loan ops. Before the wires fly. Before you step onto a plane a felon with $30 million and that blonde waiting for you. Let’s be honest.

Serena was right about you, wasn’t she? Everything always comes back to that night twenty years ago, back to Danah. Ending your marriage won’t change that. Thirty million dollars won’t. The memory will always haunt you no matter how much money you’ve got or whom you’re with or where you are. What you did to Danah will always be there. And come on, let’s really be honest here. What you did to your brother.