Due Diligence: A Thriller (40 page)

Rob felt as if he were going to hyperventilate. He stopped himself. He put his hands on the table and pressed down hard, to feel something solid. He stared at his hands, still pressing, until he breathed slower. Slower. That was better. Try to be rational, he thought. Try to be analytical. There were two possibilities. They wanted Greg, or they wanted him. Greg or him, he thought. Greg or him … If they’d wanted Greg, they’d gotten him. That was the end of it. If they’d wanted him, they hadn’t gotten him. That meant they would still be looking.

But only if they knew they hadn’t gotten him. They might not know that. They might think they had, because they’d gone ahead and killed Greg. So they probably thought the person who answered the door … the person who answered the door … who opened it …

Rob frowned hard. He had lost his train of thought. For an instant, it had all seemed so clear. But now, all he could see was that image of Greg standing at the door, opening it.

His gaze shifted to his cell phone. It was still sitting there, next to his coffee, where he had put it. He stared at it.

Suddenly he reached into his pocket.

Kelly jumped. She was ready to run out the door. But all he pulled out was a small white business card.

Rob put the card on the table beside the phone. He had meant to call, he remembered. He had a feeling that if he had called, if only he had called, none of this would have happened. It was irrational, he knew. The two things weren’t connected. He wasn’t thinking clearly. He was angry, frustrated. His friend was dead and it shouldn’t have happened. His story should have been published and that hadn’t happened, either. Why not? What was stopping them? He should have called already. He should have called yesterday or even the day before.

Abruptly, he punched the numbers on his phone.

He heard her answer. There was noise in the background.

“Why haven’t you published?” he demanded.

“Who’s this? I can’t hear you. Wait a minute…” Rob heard the background noise diminish. “Okay. Who is this?”

“Why haven’t you published?” repeated Rob in a low, deadly tone.

Standing on a sidewalk outside a bar twenty blocks away, Sandy Pereira froze.

“Answer me!”

“Is that you, Rob?”

“Don’t use my name! Why haven’t you published?”

“Have you got more information?”

“I told you everything I know. You said you were going to publish.”

“Rob … Rob, listen. My editor … he said we need more proof.”

“That’s not what you told me!”

“Well, I didn’t think we did. But we do. He says we can’t go with the story until we know for certain. We can’t go with one source. We need proof. I’ve been trying to get it.”

Rob held on. He didn’t know whether to believe her. “You said I could trust you.”

“You can.”

Rob didn’t reply.

“Rob?”

“That other story you published,” he said, “that was nothing. What did you have? Nothing! Innuendo!”

“That’s the problem. If we put out anything else now that isn’t a hundred percent right, they’ll sue us.”

“How do you know?”

“They’ve told us.”

“I’ve given you hard facts. I’ve given you names.”

“Just names, Rob. Not facts. I need more.”

“Go check.”

“I have.”

“And?”

“I can’t get anything.”

Rob shook his head. “You’re shitting me.”

“No, Rob. I’m not shitting you, I swear. I swear I’m not. You won’t find a newspaper in the country that would publish on the basis of what you’ve given me. I need more. Give me more. Keep digging. When you get more, we’ll publish, I promise. I just need to have—”

“My best friend’s dead.”

There was silence.

“Did you hear me?” demanded Rob.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s dead. Murdered. In my apartment.”

Sandy didn’t speak.

“Can’t you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“Two days ago. I found him this afternoon. In a pool of his own blood.” Rob waited. “My best friend. In my apartment.”

“What was his name?”

“What difference does it make? Greg Ryan. He’s dead. Go check.”

Sandy shook her head. His name made no difference. She hadn’t been able to think of anything else to say. “Have you called the police?” she asked quietly.

“No!” retorted Rob. “I thought I’d call the fucking
Herald
first.”

“Okay, Rob. What did they say?”

“They said he’s dead. Aren’t you listening to anything I’ve been saying?” Rob was boiling with rage. “Maybe I was lucky, huh? Maybe they got my best friend instead. Maybe they meant to get me.”

Rob waited.

“Rob—”

He pulled the phone away from his ear and disconnected. He stared at it. The phone shook in his hand. He was physically trembling.

He put it down. He had to get control. He put his hands on the table again, pressed hard.

Two possibilities, he said to himself. Two possibilities. He kept repeating it. Kept trying to get some clarity. Two possibilities. But he couldn’t get past those words, couldn’t figure out what they implied. Every time he tried, he kept seeing Greg, standing at the door of his apartment, opening it.

The phone rang. He looked at the number. Sammy Weiss. He let it ring and go to voice mail.

He got up. For some reason, the waitress was over by the door. He went to the counter to pay. She didn’t move.

“Two dollars,” she called out.

Rob looked in his wallet. “I’ve only got five. You want to come over here and give me some change?”

“Forget about it,” said the waitress. “On the house.”

Rob stared at her quizzically.

“Happy hour.”

“For coffee?”

The waitress nodded.

The other people in the coffee shop looked around in surprise.

Rob headed for the door. Kelly circled away from him as he approached. “Thanks,” he murmured.

He left the Bean of Content. His phone rang. He pulled it out and checked the number. Sammy again. He didn’t answer it. He couldn’t go back there today. Tomorrow, maybe.

He switched the phone off. He headed randomly up Second Avenue, trying to get the image of Greg out of his head.

43

Amanda Bellinger sat behind her desk and watched the two people who were sitting on the other side. One of them was a boyish-looking music star whose face was vaguely familiar to her. The other was his small, balding, worried-looking manager. Behind them, a full-wall window gave a view down Fifth Avenue. The lights of the cabs were beginning to glint in the gathering dusk.

The man-child in front of her wasn’t a major star, but his manager feared that he had just booked himself a one-way ticket to hasbeenhood. A video clip had appeared on the Internet showing him snorting cocaine. Actually snorting it. Through a hundred-dollar bill.

“I don’t know what this shit is,” said the star. “I’m a rock star. I’m supposed to do drugs.”

He had said this a number of times, possibly, suspected Amanda, because he had done what a rock star is supposed to do when he stepped out to go to the bathroom shortly after he and his manager had arrived.

“Well?” said the manager anxiously, ignoring him. “What do you think?”

“You can deny or admit,” said Amanda.

The manager nodded quickly, waiting for more, hanging on every word.

“Is it true?” asked Amanda.

The manager glanced helplessly at his client.

“I don’t know what all this shit is…”

“I’d be inclined to admit. Never compound an offense with a lie unless you know absolutely that you’ll get away with it.”

“We won’t get away with it,” said the manager.

“Then the lie will kill you quicker than the offense. If there’s one thing we can thank Richard Nixon for, it’s for teaching us that. Now, if you admit, you can show contrition or bravado.”

“What do you mean by bravado?” asked the manager quickly.

“You can be upfront and proud,” replied Amanda. “He’s right. He’s a rock star. Rock stars do drugs.”

“See, I don’t know what all this shit—”

“Shut up!” snapped the manager.

“But I’m—”

“You’re not a rock star! Hendrix was a rock star. Jagger’s a rock star.”

“Who?”

“You sing pop. Not even pop. Pap!”

The pap star stared at him, eyes slightly unfocused.

“Most of his audience are girls of twelve,” explained the manager to Amanda.

“Are they? No, Arnie, come on—”

“Shut up, I said!” The manager, whose name was Arnie Klein, looked as if he were going to hit him.

Amanda coughed discreetly. “Contrition,” she said, “can be done in a couple of ways. You can say you repented. Or you can say you’re going to repent. The choice depends on a number of factors. Now, how long ago was this clip taken?”

“Three days,” said Arnie Klein.

“Ah.” Amanda nodded. “I think we’re going to repent.”

“Damn right we are,” muttered Klein.

“We’re in crisis,” said Amanda, expanding on the theme. “We realize we’ve come to a turning point. We know we have to change our ways. We don’t want anyone else to make the mistakes we’ve made.”

“What mistakes have you made, Arnie?” the pap star asked.

“You, you moron!” yelled Klein.

“Me? Am I at a turning point? Is that good? That sounds really positive.”

“We want to be an example,” continued Amanda, ignoring the subject of her exposition. “We go into therapy. We emerge reborn. Our next album is poignant, deep, meaningful, reflecting the trauma we’ve suffered.”

Arnie Klein, who had been nodding enthusiastically to every point, scratched his head. He glanced at his client. Poignant? Deep? Meaningful?

“We start with a statement acknowledging the pictures.”

“They’ve just appeared,” said Klein doubtfully. “Maybe we should wait—”

“Perfect! We get to make an admission even before pressure builds up on us. Excellent. Honesty. Remorse. Put it all out upfront. We get big points for that, owning up before we’re forced to. Then we set up a TV interview, someone soft, sympathetic. Let me think about it. Print media, we’re looking for publications that like redemption stories, the fallen hero and his heartbreaking climb back to decency, nothing hard-ass.… We’ll announce he’s going in for detox, of course. Might even let slip which clinic.”

The star looked at her in alarm.

“Don’t worry,” said Amanda smoothly, “at most of these places it’s quite easy to keep using. Think of it as a vacation. Now, timing. Today’s Monday. We go with a statement first thing tomorrow. Then we play hard to get for a day, say it’s all private, there won’t be any further statements, whip up interest. Wednesday I’ll be trailing the interview—”

The phone rang. Amanda stopped. She picked up the receiver. “Yes?” she said brusquely. “I’m in a conference.”

“Ms. Bellinger, I’m sorry to interrupt you.” It was Saskia, Amanda’s PA.

“What?”

“I have a Sandy Pereira on the phone.”

For a second, Amanda struggled to place the name.

“She’s says it’s urgent.”

“Tell her I’ll call. Get a number.”

“She really does sound very—”

“Tell her I’ll call,” snapped Amanda.

*   *   *

The cab lights twinkled. It was dark outside by now. Amanda Bellinger watched the lights moving down Fifth Avenue.

Arnie Klein and his coke-snorting boy-client were gone. Right about now, Amanda was due at Lincoln Center for the National Petroleum Association’s annual dinner. Part of the program was the launch of the association’s social responsibility report. For the third year running, Hill Bellinger was publicizing it. But Amanda hadn’t even changed into her dress yet.

It took a lot to shock Amanda Bellinger. That was what she liked to think, anyway. Like most PR practitioners, she affected an air of worldly experience, as if she had seen and heard just about everything under the sun. This was partly because it encouraged people to talk, imagining that nothing they could say could shock her. And it was partly because Amanda Bellinger really did imagine that she had seen and heard just about everything under the sun. But in reality, the everything of which she had seen and heard such a large part was a limited, sanitized, controlled, and very small segment of the larger whole. The coke-snorting escapades of a man-child singer, the illicit love tryst of a Hollywood B-lister, a bribe paid by a supposedly upright corporation to a supposedly honest senator, or any of the other so-called crises that Amanda Bellinger was called upon to defuse were tame little affairs compared with the reality she could have seen had she just chosen to glance out the window of her limo from time to time. Her world, which she imagined to be so encompassing, was like a tiny, fragrant, privileged corner of a big, dark jungle. Violence wasn’t part of it, not real physical violence. Not a fist smashing into a face, a boot in a groin, a knife sinking into flesh.

Not a man dead on the carpet in someone’s apartment.

Sandy Pereira had been almost hysterical on the phone. And for once, Amanda Bellinger didn’t know what to say. The only thing that had saved her from a moment of hysteria herself was the journalist’s babbling incoherence and the need to get control of it.

Somehow, she had calmed her down. But now Amanda was left with her own suspicions and doubts, as if the journalist had infected her with fear. Three days earlier, Pereira had given her the details of the person who was leaking rumors about Louisiana Light. Not only his name, but his address. And Amanda Bellinger had passed on that information to only one person.

She looked at her watch. Time was ticking. Downstairs, her driver was waiting.

Amanda picked up the phone and dialed Mike Wilson’s number.

He didn’t answer. Amanda left a message. She sat behind her desk, watching the cabs going down Fifth Avenue, the thoughts in her mind getting darker and darker.

She glanced at her watch again. At Lincoln Center, the waiters would have started circulating cocktails.

*   *   *

The phone rang. Amanda grabbed for the receiver.

Wilson was cheerful, effusive. Didn’t let her get a word in edgewise. Things were going well. He’d just heard that the due diligence was complete. What did she want? Questions about the announcement? He had been planning to call her tomorrow to go over the details, but tonight would do.