Murder at the Foul Line (7 page)

“Biding my time in Indianapolis. I switched motels, by the way.”

“Good.”

“And found the bug they put on my bumper, and switched it to the bumper of another Ford the same color as mine.”

“That should muddy the waters nicely.”

“I thought so. So I’ll do what I have to do, and then I’ll be a couple of days driving home.”

“Not to worry,” she said. “I’ll leave the porch light on for you.”

It was a full week later when Keller drove his rented Toyota through the Lincoln Tunnel and found his way to the National
garage, where he turned it in. He went home, unpacked his bag, and spent two full hours working on his stamp collection before
he picked up the phone and called White Plains.

“Come right on up,” Dot said, “so I can turn the light off. It’s attracting moths.”

In the kitchen of the house on Taunton Place, Dot poured him a big glass of iced tea and told him they’d done very well indeed.
“I was wondering at first,” she said, “because I bought a big chunk of Indy Fi, and the first thing it did was go down a couple
of points. But then it turned around and went back up again, and the last I checked it’s up better than ten points from when
I bought it. I bought options, too, for increased leverage. I don’t understand how they work exactly, but I was able to buy
them, and this morning I sold them, and do you want to know exactly how much we made on them?”

“It doesn’t have to be exact.”

She told him, down to the last decimal point, and it was a satisfying number.

“We’re about that much ahead on the actual stock we bought,” she said, “but I haven’t sold that yet, because I kind of like
owning it, especially the way it’s going up. Maybe we can sell half and let the rest ride, something like that, but I figured
I’d wait and see what you want to do.”

“We’ll work it out.”

“My thought exactly.” She sat forward, rubbed her hands together. “What really kick-started things,” she said, “was when Clocker
killed himself. His hedge fund had been shorting Indy Fi’s stock all along, and he was behind the lawsuit they were going
through, and when he was out of the picture, and in a way that put the cloud right over his own head, well, the price of Indy
Fi’s stock could go back where it belonged. And the price of his hedge fund…”

“Sank?”

“Like a stone,” she said. “And we sold it short and covered our shorts very cheaply and made a killing. It’s nice to make
a killing without having to drive anywhere. How did you know how to do all this?”

“I had advice,” he said. “From a fellow who couldn’t do any of this himself because it would be insider trading. But you and
I aren’t insiders, so there’s no problem.”

“Well, I’ve got no problem with it myself, Keller. That’s for sure. You know, this isn’t the first time you’ve wound up killing
a client of ours.”

“I know.”

“This one brought it on himself, no question. But usually it costs us money, and this time we came out way ahead. You’re going
to be able to buy a veritable shitload of stamps.”

“I was thinking about that.”

“And we’re a giant stride closer to being able to retire, when the time comes.”

“I was thinking about that, too.”

“And you bonded with what’s-his-name.”

“Meredith Grondahl.”

“What do his friends call him, did you happen to find out?”

“It never came up. I’m not sure he’s got any friends.”

“Oh.”

“I was thinking I ought to send him something, Dot. I had an idea of how to make money in the market, but he spelled the whole
thing out for me. I didn’t know a thing about options, and I never would have thought of shorting the hedge fund.”

“How big a share do you want to send him?”

“Not a share. He’s pretty straight-arrow, and even if he weren’t, the last thing he wants is cash he can’t explain. No, I
was thinking more of a present. A token, really, but something he’d like to have and probably wouldn’t ever buy for himself.”

“Like?”

“Season tickets to the Pacers home games. He loves basketball, and a pair of courtside season tickets should really do it
for the guy.”

“What’s it cost?” Before he could answer, she waived the question away. “Not enough to matter, not the way we just made out.
That’s a great idea, Keller. And who knows? Next time you’re in Indianapolis, maybe the two of you can take in a game.”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Leave me out of it. I hate basketball.”

Jeffery Deaver

H
e’s stupid. And he makes three million a year.”

“And you won’t feel guilty getting a stupid man mixed up in a deal like this?” T. D. Randall asked.

Andy Cabot shook his head, sipped more beer and glanced out the greasy window as an ambulance eased through Mid-town traffic.
“I don’t feel guilt. Never have. It’s inefficient.”

“Yeah?”

“The point I was making is, since he’s stupid he’s going to be more likely to go for it.”

Cabot and Randall were in Ernie’s, a small bar near Madison Square Garden. The place, a total dive, was a relic; there used
to be dozens of these old sports bars in the neighborhood but they’d been squeezed out by the same fast-food franchises populating
strip malls all over the country. Andy Cabot didn’t really like it here but he couldn’t see planning a deal like they were
working on now while sitting next to the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday.

Randall called for another Stroh’s. “I hear you talking, Andy. But the thing is, I don’t know sports that good. Is this guy
really the one we want? Danny Wa—”

“Shhh.” Cabot waved his hand to shut the man up. Ernie’s was a bastion for serious sports people and the name Danny Washington
would turn a few heads, the sober ones at least. If the deal went south and people heard that Washington had been caught up
in a scandal, someone might just remember that these two skinny white guys, unshaven, dressed in scuzzy jeans and T-shirts,
had been whispering about the player.

“I mean, how good is he?” Randall asked.

“Don’t get any better than him when it comes to free throws and treys.”

“What’s a trey?”

“Three-point shot. You know, from outside the arc.”

“Whatever.”

Cabot was amazed that Randall didn’t know about Washington or about treys. He probably didn’t know what the arc line was either.

“But how do you know he’s stupid enough to go for it?”

“I joined the gym where he works out. And I got—”

“You’re in a gym?” Randall laughed, glancing at the man’s scrawny frame.

Cabot ignored the put-down. “I got to talking with him. Washington can hardly hang a sentence together. He lifts iron, he
jumps rope. He stands on the free-throw line on the half-court and lobs basketballs for, like, two hours straight. Never gets
bored. You ask him a question and he looks at you for a minute like you’re from Neptune or something. And it takes him another
minute to figure out an answer.”

“But didn’t he go to college?”

“Nope. He got drafted right out of high school. And he’s a free agent. There’s nobody looking over his shoulder.”

“You think this deal’ll work?” Randall asked.

“I
know
it will.”

Andy Cabot, lifelong resident of Hell’s Kitchen, on the west side of New York, had had three or four dozen jobs in his life.
He’d tried his hand at a hundred different hustles. Some worked out, some didn’t. He’d made some good money, lost more. He’d
owned two houses, lost one to an ex and one to the bank. And, having just stepped blindly into middle age, he’d recently spent
copious time reassessing his life situation and had come to the conclusion that he wanted more out of life than a disability
payment of two thousand bucks a month for a faked back injury and twelve thousand in the bank. This introspection, goosed
by massive quantities of Old Milwaukee one night, led ultimately to his asking the question: How do people make real money?

And the answer, he realized, was that it didn’t matter exactly
what
they did as long as it involved something they loved. That was the key to success.

So Andy Cabot came to a decision. He abandoned the slip-and-falls, the shoplifting, the rigged poker games, the real estate
hustles, the knockoff polo shirts… Fom now on, his only “deals”—his word for scams—would be in a subject he loved and knew
a lot about: basketball.

One day when he’d been channel surfing, he’d watched an ESPN interview with Danny Washington, who’d just thrown more than
two thousand free throws in a row as part of a benefit for St. Vincent Hospital’s Children’s Unit. When asked why he didn’t
try to shoot another four or five hundred and beat the world record, the big man had said, blinking, that he’d thought it’d
be more fun to go hang out with the kids.

Stupid, thought Andy Cabot, irritated that while the man probably had the skill to break the world record he simply didn’t
have the brains.

But then Cabot got to thinking that the fact that this rich basketball player was stupid was a good thing, something he could
use
. And he’d come up with the plan he was now pitching to T. D. Randall, a wannabe mafioso from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, he’d met
last month here at Ernie’s.

Cabot now ordered another beer and continued. “He doesn’t know squat about
any
thing. All he cares about is his mother, grandmother, brother and sister. They live in Maryland, where he grew up. He doesn’t
hang out with the rest of the players, doesn’t have a girlfriend. There’re three things he feels passionate about: his family,
playing basketball and…”

Randall looked at Cabot, who’d let the sentence dangle tantalizingly. “What?” Randall asked with faint exasperation.

“… and complaining about taxes.”

“He complains about taxes?”

“We’re shooting the breeze the other day and the next thing I know he’s going on and on about taxes. Sounds to me like when
he started making real money he never knew the government’d take so much. I mean, maybe he never had a job before this and
didn’t even know about taxes. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Is that, like, a significant fact? About him and taxes?”

“Oh,” Andy Cabot said slowly, “it’s very significant.”

Andy Cabot opened the door of his apartment on West Forty-fourth Street, near the Hudson River. The skinny five-foot-six man
looked up into Danny Washington’s eyes, way above his, and said, “Hey, Danny, come on in. You want a beer?”

“Don’t drink.”

The player, in workout clothes, followed his host down the
corridor of the old, dusty apartment, looking around with cautious eyes as if he were staring at Donald Trump luxury. A ceramic
eagle Cabot had bought at a street fair on Columbus Circle and a three-foot-high cigar store Indian—plastic and made in Taiwan—got
approving looks. One print, in a Wool-worth’s frame, stopped Washington cold.

“I like that,” the player said in his infuriatingly slow voice. “The guy who did it, he live ’round here?”

“Van Gogh? No, he’s dead.”

Washington leaned forward, studied the stained picture. “Man, too bad. What happened?”

“He lived a long time ago.”

“Oh. You know, I don’t like pictures of flowers as a rule. But that one’s okay. You ever wanna sell that, you let me know.”

“I will, Danny. Come on in the living room. This is my friend Tommy Randall.”

The big man folded his massive hand around Randall’s.

“T. D. lives over in Brooklyn.” Cabot said this with special emphasis on the borough. Suggesting that Randall had some connections
with one of the crime organizations there—to impress Washington. But the player didn’t get the connection. He said slowly,
looking at the floor, “Brooklyn. I been there a few times. To see the Mets.”

“That’s Queens,” Randall said, glancing uncertainly at Cabot.

Washington paused a moment. Then he frowned. “I thought Shea Stadium was on Long Island.”

“It
is
on Long Island. Queens and Brooklyn’re both on Long Island.”

“Oh.”

Another man, older, with thinning curly hair, sat in the corner
of the living room. He was dressed in a navy-blue suit, white shirt and tie. Two briefcases sat in front of him. The man didn’t
say anything and Cabot didn’t introduce him.