“Five. It’s a big number. You won’t know how to spend it all. Or maybe live long enough to.”
“You had me right up until that point. It sort of dilutes the incentive.”
“Then let me fire it back up. If you can pull this off, I have no reason to wish you ill will. Your ideas?”
“I have several.” She sat forward. She did not mind getting lowballed on the finder’s fee for one simple fact.
Clarisse never intended to collect it.
About a half hour later, Trask walked her out. At the front door he said, “Someone visited my father recently. A woman. Know anything about that?”
“I may. But I need to be sure. She could be friend or foe.”
“I don’t need friends and I don’t like foes.”
“Then it may not matter.”
“It always matters. But just so we understand each other really well, you fall into the same category, business associate or not.”
“I never expected anything less, or more.”
“You’re a strange one. I can’t quite figure you out, and that’s unusual. I’ve seen just about everything.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it, Mr. Trask. I’m a little beyond ‘just about everything.’ ”
Chapter 42
Clarisse walked for two miles. If they were going to follow her, she was going to make them work for it. She entered a store from the front and went out through the rear, after a pit stop in the ladies’ room where she had previously left a bag underneath the bottom of the trash bag with some fresh clothes and other disguise elements, and her phone.
When she came out she was transformed, blond to brunette, skirt and jacket to torn jeans and a sweater, heels to flats, glasses, makeup and lipstick shorn from her face. She could pass for a fresh-faced teenager with AirPods in her ears and a vape in her hand.
She grabbed an Uber and took it to within two blocks of her hotel. She went to her room, sat at her desk, and opened her notebook.
Then her phone dinged as the email dropped in.
You haven’t matured a bit, it seems. Same old snark. If no leverage on Mommy then I guess she becomes superfluous. What a word. Didn’t expect me to conjure that one, did you, darling? A bullet to the head, or a ligature display? Poison down the pipe. It won’t take much. Huff and puff and blow the old bitch down would do it actually. What shitty care you took of her. Way I see it, I found HL. That was the big part. Your part, finish the job. Then we divvy. And don’t take your time. I’m tired of mops and little diamonds where the fence screws you over after you do all the planning and take all the risk. A faraway beach beckons. I want to get there. But I want to get there in unassailable style. Wow, another SAT word. But I see you’ve been keeping busy too. Poor Mr. Schmuck. How much did you take him for in the offices of Creative Engineering? Saw him giving your ass a rubdown. Hope you enjoyed it. You always were poor at relationships. Have you even had sex yet, whirly-girl? I mean, not against your will of course. Not sure you’re capable, but I could be wrong. Let me know on Mommy. She eats a lot and she snores and her gas, well, it’s a problem. Tick, tock, tick.
Cheers, hon.
Her bluff on Mommy had been called, it seems. So what to do, what to do? She consulted the appropriate notebook, even as her mind lingered on the “had she had sex” part. That had been a low blow, and she knew the bitch had meant every word of it.
I could say the exact same about you, babycakes. Isn’t that what they called you? Young and just meant to be eaten up, with no other purpose in life?
But no reason to antagonize, not yet anyway. And she had not even mentioned her comments on Oxblood’s murder. She would give it a bit. No need to rush a reply. She had obviously taken her time in answering.
Plus, I have other things to do.
She turned to another notebook and flipped through some pages, making notes and crossing out other ones.
What would I do without these? They allow me to make sense of my world. To put things in precise, logical steps to achieve a precise, logical outcome.
And they also prevent me from losing my damn mind.
Clarisse had told herself she was not going to do what she was just about to do. But things had changed. And when things changed, your plans must as well.
She looked at her computer screen and hit the key. A few seconds later Mickey Gibson answered.
“I wasn’t sure you would pick up,” said Clarisse.
“I almost didn’t.”
“Things weren’t left well, I know. But I have information pertinent to you.”
“Okay.”
“Just like that? No rehashing of what went down before?”
“Do either of us have time to play it that way?” asked Gibson.
Okay, unload H-bomb and see what happens. “Nathan Trask knows you visited his father.”
She thought she could hear Gibson’s breathing accelerate, but only slightly. The woman really did have stainless steel balls, Clarisse had to give her that.
“How do you know that?”
“He told me personally.”
“You mean you got in to see him? How?” asked Gibson.
“The only way I could. I had information that was relevant to him.”
“Relevant information such as?”
“Treasure,” replied Clarisse.
“You’ll need to flesh that out.”
“Harry Langhorne left a lot of mob money behind. We’ve gone over this.”
“So why does Trask care about that? Was he involved with Langhorne in that laundry list of crimes you told me about before?”
“Maybe not all of them, but enough. He also told me he built his fortress in Virginia Beach because Langhorne — or Pottinger, to him — was nearby.”
“And you believed that?” said Gibson.
“Doesn’t matter. His father is nearby, too. That could be the real reason, or it could be both. The point is, he was connected to Pottinger at some point and in some way.”
“So he doesn’t know who Pottinger really was?”
“I didn’t tell him, but I did reveal that he had taken a great deal of mob money from decades ago. Some of it he used to buy Stormfield. But the rest? It has to be somewhere. And I think that Pottinger ripped off Trask as well, at least he strongly intimated that was the case. So the treasure might even be larger than we think.”
Gibson said, “If Pottinger had ripped off Trask, how come Trask didn’t take care of him? He was right next door and had been for years. The man should have been dead a long time ago.”
“I asked him that.”
“And his response?”
“Something to the tune of just because he owned the place didn’t mean he actually lived there.”
“Well, he was killed there. Did Trask do that?” asked Gibson.
“We covered this before, too. The poison, the strange message left. Not his MO. And do you think he’d confess the deed to me?”
“Did Trask have any idea how much money he got ripped off for? Or how?”
“I’m sure he does, to the penny. And again, he didn’t exactly admit to being ripped off at all. But it was meaningful enough for him to agree to see me. And it’s not just money with those guys. It’s reputation. If they can get taken, it’s a sign of weakness. In that business, you don’t want the other sharks to see your blood in the water.”
“Trust me, I know that,” said Gibson.
“Did you find any clues to a treasure at Stormfield?” she asked.
“I found a note, in the man’s boat. It basically acknowledged that he was aware people would be looking for something, and suggested they try harder.”
Okay, her giving that up without a fight does surprise me. “Do the police know about this note?”