The overhead florescents sputtered, casting them in brief darkness, and then blazed back into life.
“Damn storm,” Todd muttered with a glance at the ceiling. He blinked, looked at Corey, drew in a breath. “Anyway, so you probably figured out that the Feds were talking to me when you called earlier. Ass wipes. I told them I didn’t know anything.”
“Thanks,” Corey said. “I didn’t think you would.”
“I don’t think they believed me, but, whatever.” He shrugged. “Between what you said on the phone and what the FBI dickhead told me, I know some of what went down at Lenox. Can you fill me in?”
“Basically, they tailed me into the mall,” Corey said. “On Leon’s orders, I left the briefcase in a bookstore, and the agents popped up as I was walking away. I guess they thought they’d find him hiding in the store. Of course, he wasn’t in there, but wherever he was, he saw everything.”
Todd was tapping a pencil against the desk blotter. “Does he think you snitched?”
“He sure does, and he’s pissed. He’s upped the ransom.”
“He has? To what?”
“One million.”
“One million? Are you kidding me?”
“And he wants it by Friday morning.”
“This is nuts.” Todd pulled his feet off the desktop and snapped upright in the chair. “I never saw this coming. Christ, I’m so sorry.”
“I take full responsibility,” Corey said. He lowered his gaze to his lap, clasped his hands together. “I took a gamble, the best idea I had at the time, and it didn’t pan out. Now I’ve lost fifty grand and I’ve got the FBI thinking that I’m helping Leon.”
Todd hissed. “Fuck, this really sucks.”
Corey looked up at him. “Listen, I don’t care about losing the money. At the end of the day, all I care about is getting my wife and daughter home safely. I don’t have a million dollars, period. Leon’s living in a dream world if he thinks I’ve got that much to give him.”
“How much can you draw down?” Todd asked. “If you had, let’s say, a week?”
Corey shook his head, massaged the back of his neck. “Man, I don’t know. Minus the fifty grand I lost today? I’d guess somewhere in the range of a hundred and sixty-five thousand, if I liquidate all of our investments.”
“Not even in the ballpark.” Todd drummed the pencil against his chin. “At this point, since he’s big-time pissed and feels some heat from the law, he’s not going to settle for less. He’s willing to go for broke now. We’ve got to give him what he wants.”
“Todd,” Corey said in a low tone, steel in his voice, “I just told you I don’t have a million dollars.”
“You sure about that?”
Corey frowned. “What?”
“Remember Gates-Webb Security, LLC? Do you know what our company is worth? I’ll tell you-three point eight million dollars. As of last month. You know I love keeping tabs on the financials.” Todd twirled the pencil in his fingers, eyes bright, like a student who’d solved a perplexing algebra problem.
“So?” Corey shrugged. “I figured the value was in that range, but I don’t see your point. I can’t tap into company bank accounts for this. That’s highly unethical and probably illegal.”
Todd tilted forward in the chair, elbows on the desk. He jabbed the pencil at Corey. “That is true. But selling your interest in the business is perfectly legal. You could sell your fifty percent share to me, and the company could cut you a check. You’d walk away with one point nine million-that’s almost two million dollars, Corey. That’s more than enough to send this jerk-off packing and get your family back, and you’d have plenty left over, even after Uncle Sam takes his cut.”
A thick vein throbbed in the center of Todd’s shiny forehead. He was smiling broadly, capped teeth gleaming, an almost lunatic grin that made him look like a used car salesman desperate to close a deal.
Corey felt a greasy coiling in his stomach. He looked at the briefcase standing beside the desk. The briefcase that Todd had conveniently brought with him.
The briefcase that, undoubtedly, contained legal documents that would facilitate the sale of Corey’s share of the company to Todd.
His realization of the betrayal was so painful that he didn’t want it to be true. . but in his heart, he knew that it was.
“What’s in the briefcase, Todd?” Corey asked softly.
Todd winked. “After the FBI clown left, I started thinking through all of the options we might be facing. On the remote chance that you’d have to come up with some insane amount of money to get rid of this Leon thug once and for all, I took the initiative to pull together a few documents.” Rising, he grabbed the case, placed it atop the desk, and opened it. He withdrew a sheaf of papers held together by a butterfly clip and handed them to Corey. “If-big if-selling your interest in GWS is something you want to do, all the paperwork you need to sign is right there.”
“That was considerate of you, Todd, to bring all of this for me,” Corey said. His breath rattling in his lungs, he flipped through the pages, scanned the legalese-dense text. “Wasn’t it last summer that you’d first asked me about selling my share of the company? Hadn’t you said that you’d found some interested party willing to give us a few million?”
“I totally understand why you turned it down back then,” Todd said. “You wanted to build a legacy for your family, I get that. But this time. . you could use the proceeds from selling your share to actually save your family. How ironic, right?”
Corey glanced at the documents in his hand. “I’ll need to have my attorney review this, of course.”
“Oh, there’s no need for that.” Todd sat on the corner of the desk, crossed his long arms over his chest. “I wouldn’t try to screw you.”
“But business is business, right? We’ve gotta cross all of our t’s and dot our i’s.”
“But you need to move fast on this.” Todd stroked his upper lip, laughed nervously. “This thug, Leon. . he’s got your family. Can’t waste time while some overpaid attorney drags ass through the paperwork. If you sign these papers tonight, we could process a check tomorrow, Friday at the latest, and I’m sure Leon might be willing to give a little on the deadline, if he knows you’ve got the funds on the way.” Todd’s gaze was electric, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he spoke. “Think about Simone and Jada, Corey. Think about how you can finally bring them home safe. Tell me what kind of guy gives a shit about some company when the lives of his family are at stake, huh? You’re a loving husband, a great father. Do the right thing, for them.”
Corey pushed to his feet. His hands trembled as he dropped the papers on the desk. He was so angry he could scream, but in the calmest voice he could muster, he said, “Sorry, Todd, I’m not interested in selling out. I wasn’t interested when you brought it up before, and I’m not interested now. If this is your idea of a plan, we’ve got nothing left to talk about. I’ll see you around.”
Heart thundering, Corey turned on his heel and walked to the door. As he put his hand on the doorknob, Todd grunted and said, “Park it back in the chair, partner. We’re not finished here, yet.”
Todd had a gun, and he was aiming it at Corey.
46
Corey slowly raised his hands, gaze riveted on the gun.
“It’s a Walther PPK,” Todd said. Although he was holding Corey at gunpoint, pride flushed his face. “James Bond’s semi-automatic pistol of choice, a classic. Won it in a card game in Miami.”
Corey’s throat felt stuffed with shards of broken glass. “Listen, Todd, don’t do this. Please. Let me go.”
Todd’s sculpted face hardened. “Do you still have the piece you had with you earlier at the office? Put it on the floor, now. Move slowly.”
“Okay, just calm down, man.” Corey lifted his shirt and withdrew the.357 from his waistband holster. Kneeling, he placed it on the tile floor.
“Kick it over here,” Todd said.