Then flinched at the sound of the wooden door scraping the dirt.
“Close that thing,” Hawkins yelled. “I got this one.”
But the door didn’t close.
Hawkins glared into the darkness at an unmoving charcoal gray figure framed in black.
“Who the…?”
The man stepped forward, but his head and torso remained in a shadow that cut him off at the knees.
Hawkins’s eyes alerted to the pressed Levi’s, then widened in terror as they fixed on dusty alligator-skin boots poised at the threshold. His scream choked in his throat as his erection died in the girl’s mouth.
D id he have a heart attack when he saw you?” Marc Anston asked during Boots’s call from India.
“Not immediately.”
“What about the body?”
“The Indian police will have it cremated.”
“Do they know who he is?”
“No. Just a white guy who could’ve been from anywhere and collapsed while getting a blow job. Dead men don’t have accents.”
“How much did Gage find out?”
“Gage knows Hawkins got a million dollars from Pegasus. He knows TIMCO understood from the get-go why the valve blew. And he knows Hawkins believed you were behind Palmer-but dead men don’t have beliefs either.”
“Any way to control the fallout?”
“Not easily,” Boots said. “Gage made a tape.”
“So removing Gage won’t solve our problem.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Gage has been telling pieces of what he knows to too many people,” Anston said, “but I’m not sure any of them would be able to put it together but him.” He fell silent for a few seconds, and then said. “We need to go after Gage’s weakness.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s like a bloodhound. We just need to keep dragging the scent down the wrong path.”
“Why not just take him out?”
“Gage is too well connected. And his pals Joe Casey and Spike Pacheco would never let it go. Especially Pacheco. He’s like a Gila monster. You’d have to cut off his head to separate his jaws.”
Chapter 63
" Look Quinton,” Gage said, “we’ve got two dead people linked through Pegasus. Charlie Palmer and the OSHA inspector.”
Cayman Island barrister Leonard Quinton, QC, pressed his fingertips together on the top of his desk in his office overlooking Hog Sty Bay in George Town, Grand Cayman. He looked back at Gage with the dead-eyed gaze of British ex-pat lawyers trained to keep secrets.
“That’s no concern of mine,” Quinton said. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told you when you were here chasing after Phillip Charters. What companies do is their business, not mine. That would be like Citibank telling their clients what they can and cannot buy with their credit cards.”
“Good analogy.” Gage reached into his black leather folder, then pulled out a sheet of paper and slid it across Quinton’s Victorian mahogany desk.
“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” Quinton said.
“Look at it more carefully.”
Quinton slipped on his horn-rimmed glasses, then picked up the page.
“I don’t see the relevance. I’ve never had the pleasure of the acquaintance of a person named Brandon Meyer. More importantly, I don’t control to whom Citibank Cayman issues credit cards.”
“But you do control how the money flows.”
Quinton slid the page back across the desk.
“You’re attributing powers to me that I don’t possess.”
“I’ve analyzed Charlie Palmer’s telephone records. He didn’t make a financial move without a call to this office. Never to anywhere else on the island. Not to any other lawyers. Not to any other accountants. Not even to the Cayman Exchange Bank.”
“That will not advance your investigation. We manage dozens of companies. You saw their names posted outside. Which one do you suppose he was calling?”
“Do you really want to travel down this road again?”
“It’s not my decision. Cayman Islands law limits what I’m allowed to reveal about companies, clients, and accounts. Unless you have some legal authority, there’s really nothing more I can say.”
Gage reached into his folder, withdrew Charlie Palmer’s death certificate and a power of attorney signed by Socorro, and set them on the desk.
“This is all the authority you need to disclose information about Pegasus.”
Quinton glanced at them, then shook his head.
“U.S. documents have no authority in the Cayman Islands. They’re merely pieces of paper. You’ll need to make a visit to the U.S. embassy to have them certified. You do realize, of course, the embassy with jurisdiction over the Caymans is in Jamaica.” He studied his watch. “Just an hour flight, but this late in the day… And you do know inheritance laws can be particularly complicated. It may take quite some time, perhaps many years, for this to work its way through our courts, and I’m not sure what you’re looking for will be there to be found.”
Gage watched Quinton adopt a posture of self-satisfaction: a half smile, shoulders squared, head tilted upward, eyelids lowered. Gage felt like smashing in his face, except he believed he’d gotten at least one of the answers he came for: Charlie Palmer didn’t own Pegasus.
“That’s a round-trip to nowhere,” Gage said.
Quinton didn’t react, except to say, “Then let me propose something you can pass on to your client.”
“Legal advice is always welcome.”
“This isn’t legal advice. It is merely a suggestion. She would be wise to settle on being happy her husband’s investments-by whatever means they were made-paid off so handsomely, and leave it at that.”
Chapter 64
The middle-aged Canadian wearing the Savile Row pinstriped suit stood by himself on the smoking terrace of the Silver Palm Bar. From just inside the entrance, Gage watched him turn and face toward Seven Mile Beach, his forearms resting on the white wooden railing, a cigar in his right hand, a half-finished martini in the other.
The early October sun had just set over the second day of the Offshore Trusts and Financial Instruments Conference at the Grand Cayman Sapphire Resort. It was the annual meeting of bankers, attorneys, accountants, and government officials who managed the money flows through and around the Caribbean. Its attendees had just flooded from the meeting rooms to the poolside bars and wine lounges and had eddied up to form their dinner groups.
Daniel Norbett was the only one drinking and smoking alone, just as Phillip Charters had predicted he would be. Norbett was the real reason Gage had traveled to Grand Cayman, as he had little hope that he’d learn much from Quinton. He was still surprised he’d come away with anything at all.
Norbett blinked as the breeze sweeping inland blew smoke into his deep-set eyes, then he moved the cigar into his left hand so the light gray stream would slip past his face. He took in a long breath and exhaled, eyes fixed on the cobalt blue of the horizon. He then shook his head, as if rejecting an internal command or disagreeing with an unspoken proposal.
Gage worked his way through the crowd toward the slumped figure, dodging tray-laden waitresses and the gesticulating arms of cigar smokers. He came to a stop next to Norbett, then joined him inspecting the nearly invisible sea. Norbett stiffened when he sensed someone next to him, then pasted a smile on his face as he turned. The smile turned to a grin when saw it was Gage.
“I didn’t do it,” Norbett said. “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”
It was Gage’s turn to smile. “I know you didn’t.”
“Didn’t do what?”
“Whatever it was you said you didn’t do.”
Norbett straightened up, stuck his cigar in his mouth, and then reached out his hand.
“I think we’ve had this conversation before.”
“Three years ago, almost to the day. And you really didn’t do that one.”
Gage shook his hand, then glanced around for a cocktail waitress.
“Forget it,” Norbett said, “let’s get out of here.” He ducked his head as he scanned the crowd. “I don’t want to ruin my reputation by being seen with you.”