THE TAINTED TRUST: A DOUGLASS CRIME AND ROMANCE THRILLER SERIES (THE KING TRILOGY Book 2) (18 page)

Brian nodded, his mouth within tongue distance of her breasts. “I’m here for the duration,” he said, then leaned back to watch the show.

Nick Bennedetti nursed a beer at the table next to Brian’s. He looked every bit the part, built like a bull-dog, dressed in black trousers, black silk shirt, opened at the neck to display a heavy gold chain and generous chest hair. His thick black hair was well oiled and combed straight back. He had begun to enjoy the assignment. Drinking beer and watching girls take their clothes off was substantially more pleasant than cold lonely automobile stakeouts, waiting for something to happen. “Walk in the park,” he muttered.

Dinner with Andrea and Miles Dennis exceeded Kerri’s expectations. It was served in the high ceilinged dining room of their massive three-story red bricked home in an upscale area of Glen Cove. The warmth with which Andrea had received and welcomed her quickly gave her the assurances she needed. She was glad she had agreed to Miles’s proposition. She placed her empty coffee cup in the saucer in front of her and smiled at Andrea. “Thank you for a wonderful dinner, Andrea. This is the first time I’ve been invited out since I came to New York.”

“You’re more than welcome,” Andrea replied, reaching for Kerri’s hand. “May I assume that you’ll agree to stay? Before you answer, I want to know that I’ll be extremely disappointed if you don’t. Now that the kids are gone, Miles is rarely home. You’ll be an very welcome addition. I get lonely rattling around in this mausoleum.”

Kerri could see why Miles had remained married to Andrea. Vivacious, extremely gregarious and instantly likable, she had retained a youthful figure, and her short auburn hair complemented her freckled smile. Andrea’s charm and infectious personality relieved the pressure of her torment. Kerri nodded and grinned. “How can I ever thank you?”

“You just did,” Andrea said with a radiant smile. “How soon can you move?”

Kerri was again confronted by her deep sense of responsibility to Brian. Then a frown gradually gave way to a smile. “Guess I don’t have to worry about getting anyone’s approval.”

“Tomorrow?” Andrea asked.

“Tomorrow night, Andrea,” Miles answered. He turned to Kerri. “I’ll take the car tomorrow. We can leave the office early and go straight to your apartment.”

“Do you have much to move?” Andrea asked.

Kerri shook her head. “Not much. Mostly clothes.”

“No furniture?”

“It all belongs to Brian.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Andrea said, raising her voice. “Half of it belongs to you. Just because he paid for it doesn’t mean a thing.”

“I told Miles I don’t want anything from Brian. Taking furniture would be like accepting charity.”

Andrea smirked. “Just give me a little time, my dear. I’ll change your mind about that.”

Miles rolled his eyes skyward, then turned to Kerri. “Andrea’s a big city girl from her head to her toes. Don’t let her corrupt you, Kerri,” he warned.

Andrea glared at him, sticking her tongue out in reaction to her husband’s invective. She turned to Kerri again. “I’m having a dinner party on Saturday night. I’d be delighted if you would join us.”

CHAPTER 49

Bennedetti watched Brian leaving Runway Thirty-eight with his arm around Tina DeSouza. He glanced at his watch. It was one forty-five. He removed a wad of bills from his right pants pocket, stripped off a fifty and dropped it on the table. He raced to the parking lot and climbed into his 1990 black Dodge Caravan. He drove directly to the building containing his newly rented office space. He took the elevator to the third floor. After fumbling with the keys in near darkness, he finally succeeded in unlocking the door, then hurried to the window facing Tina’s apartment. “Damn!” he shouted when he saw no lights on in the apartment. He unfolded his aluminum deck chair and sat to wait, his Exquisito Cuban cigar his only company.

He bolted upright when he saw a light in one of the windows of Tina’s apartment. Through the eyepiece of his telescope he saw Brian walking from the bedroom toward the washroom. He smiled. “Just goin’ for a whiz, Brian, baby? I want you to get real busy when you get back,” he said aloud.

His hopes were quickly dashed when Brian returned to the bedroom less than two minutes later and turned off the light beside his bed. “Too much booze tonight? Maybe you should sleep it off, then wake up, horny as hell.” He relaxed in his chair, blowing smoke rings into the darkness.

Bennedetti was awakened at six by the shrill beeping sound of a garbage truck moving in reverse. He looked through his Celestron Omni ZLT telescope. “Wakey, wakey,” he said when he saw Tina and Brian still asleep. With the approach of daylight, he could no longer rely on the lights in Tina’s apartment to signal him. Now he would have to monitor the telescope almost constantly.

His patience was soon rewarded. Activity began thirty minutes later when Tina moved closer to Brian and kissed his forehead.

Bennedetti smiled and whistled. “Come on Brian, baby! Wake up!” he shouted. His smile broadened when he saw Brian respond to Tina’s kiss by wrapping his arms around her and pulling her down on top of him. “Okay kids, it’s show time!” he urged, turning to his Nikon and zooming in on the happy couple.

Benedetti’s photo-op improved as Tina, naked, hurled the covers from the bed. She stood and straddled Brian’s head with her feet. Benedetti cheered while he watched her perform her exotic routine, utilizing the entire surface of the bed. The session culminated in a wild, passionate scene wherein Bennedetti’s subjects satisfied each other in a bewildering variety of exciting and provocative positions.

Long before the love making ended, he had accumulated far more photographs than he would ever need to complete Louis Visconti’s assignment.

CHAPTER 50

Toronto. Friday, March 23, 1990.

Karen, still in her pink silk nightgown and wearing no makeup, joined Mike for an early breakfast in the penthouse kitchen. She was on a mission. “Let’s talk,” she said.

Mike lowered his newspaper. “What about?” he asked.

“The trust. I think we’ve made an enormous mistake.”

Mike frowned and rolled his eyes. “Don’t do this to me, Karen.”

“I have to,” she insisted. “We’re sitting on over six hundred million dollars of stolen money, and there’s no way in God’s green earth we’ll ever spend it, or do anything with it, other than fret and worry about someone finding out that we have it. I can’t get it out of my mind.”

“So what do you think we should do?”

“Get rid of it.”

“Get rid of it!” Mike protested, then attempted to end the conversation. He stood, loosened his belt, unzipped his fly and lowered his jeans far enough to expose the scars created by the bullet from Servito’s gun over ten years earlier. He pointed to the scars. “This is my reminder of what happened in Caracas. The bullet that did this was intended to kill me in a very painful way. Fortunately it didn’t, but every day it reminds me of why it happened.” He pulled his jeans back to the original position, returned to his chair and glared at Karen, resolve burning in his deep blue eyes. “Don’t make me go there,” he hissed.

Unimpressed by Mike’s theatrics, Karen folded her arms and returned Mike’s stare. She persisted. “You’re sweeping it under the rug again, King. That history has been every bit as hard for me as it is for you. Besides, your scars aren’t the issue and you know it.”

“I really don’t. What is the issue?”

“The money. As long as you insist on keeping it, you’ll never be able to forget that part of our past. I don’t care how hard you try to hide it, it’ll always be there and it’ll always be tainted.”

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately,” Mike conceded, finally accepting the futility of avoiding a forthright discussion about a subject he knew had been tormenting Karen for a very long time.

“So what have you been thinking?”

“I’ve come to a conclusion. You want to hear it?”

“Not particularly, if it involves keeping even one penny of that money.”

“It involves something I said ten years ago, and it’s been on my mind ever since. I said we should use the money to do some good in this world. I still think we should. I want to give it anonymously to the World Agricultural Foundation. It’s one of the most efficient charities in the world. Instead of feeding hungry people, it teaches them to feed themselves.” Mike paused to give Karen time to consider his idea. “If you agree, we’ll get started fast, but if you want to give the money back to to the Feds, I’ll never agree.”

Karen smiled. “That’s a beautiful idea. Let’s do it.”

“Okay, we need to talk to Dan Turner first. We need to find a way of giving the money away without any possibility of anyone tracing the source. I don’t want us to go to jail just because we suddenly decided to wash our hands.”

Karen reached across the table and grasped Mike’s hand. “I can’t tell you how happy you’ve made me,” she said, delighted that she would soon be rid of the fruits of her former husband’s crimes, a curse that had plagued her for too long,

Phillip, standing out of sight in the hallway, no more than twenty feet away, had overheard the entire conversation, each shocking and disappointing word penetrating his heart like a dagger. His parents had lied to him about his inheritance. Ten years earlier they had told him it was returned to the governments of Canada and the United States. He was excited and stunned to learn that his birthright was still in his parents’ hands. He was horrified that they were planning to give it away. “I’ve got to stop them,” he said quietly to himself, then began to dream of a new life with his father’s millions.

CHAPTER 51

Glen Cove, Long Island. Saturday, March 24,1990.

“I don’t think there’s any question Poindexter’s guilty as hell,” Andrea Dennis postulated, contributing to the conversation at her small but intimate dinner party. “But I’m not sure about Ollie North.”

Charles Iacardi, the plump chain smoking partner in Iacardi &Sons, emptied his glass of brandy with one gulp, then turned to face Andrea. “If you listened closely to North’s secretary… What the hell was her name?”

“Fawn Hall,” Jerry Mara said.

Iacardi nodded. “Yah. Hall admitted she altered documents under orders from North, presumably to remove Poindexter’s comments.” He winked at Andrea. “Now why would an innocent man order her to do that?”

“North was acting under orders from Poindexter,” Miles said.

Andrea smiled. “And maybe Poindexter was acting under orders from McFarlane.”

“And Reagan sanctioned the whole scam,” Visconti added, chuckling.

Sally Ricci, a twenty-eight year old blonde bimbette from Queens and Charles Iacardi’s date for the evening, leaned forward and blinked. “Will somebody tell me what the hell you people are talking about? Who are all these people?”

Iacardi smiled. “Isn’t she beautiful? Every time I take her out she shocks me with her knowledge of current events.” He gave her a disparaging glare. “If you took time out from all those mind numbing soaps you watch every day, you might actually learn what’s happening in this world.”

“Don’t be nasty, Charles,” Visconti said, then turned to Sally. “We’re talking about the Iran-Contra Affair. It’s been alleged that a number of high-ranking bureaucrats in Washington have secretly diverted funds from the sale of weapons to Iran. The powers that be suspect the money was used to support the Nicaraguan Contras in their civil war with the Sandinistas.”

Sally nodded, pretending to understand.

Visconti turned to face Kerri. She was sitting directly opposite him and looking incredibly beautiful in the same formfitting white knitted dress she had worn to her mother’s wedding. “Kerri, Miles tells me you’re living here now. How do you…”

Andrea interrupted. “Louis, how could you be so insensitive?” she scolded, frowning at him.

“It’s okay,” Kerri said, then turned to Visconti. “I don’t think it would surprise you to know that Brian and I have split. Miles and Andrea have very generously invited me to stay with them.”

“Please forgive me,” Visconti pleaded. “It really was insensitive of me to mention it.”

“Not at all. It’s actually therapeutic to talk about it.”

After a tense pause in the conversation, Miles stood in response to an overt signal from Andrea. “My wife has asked me to invite you all to join us in the den for Irish coffees.” He blew a kiss to Andrea. “That was an outstanding dinner, darling.”

After thanking the hostess, the guests followed Dennis toward the den.

Visconti hurried to catch up with Kerri. Before she could enter the den he grasped her arm, causing her to turn and face him. “Can you forgive me for that comment? It really was out of line,” he said.

“There’s nothing to forgive. What you said wasn’t out of line at all. Obviously you didn’t know my husband and I had split.”

Relieved, he released her arm. “Do you mind waiting here for a second? I have something for you. It’s in my briefcase in the hallway. I’ll be back in a second.”

Puzzled and curious, Kerri nodded and waited.

Visconti returned with his briefcase, then removed the report given to him by Nick Bennedetti earlier in the day. He handed it to her. “Before you open this, I want you to know it’s probably going to hurt you. Please understand that I had it done because I care about you, and because I wanted to help.”