Once a Killer (43 page)

“Don’t worry about our friend Caravini. We’ve taken care of him.”

“You’ve killed him?”

Glass Eye laughed. “No. He’s worth much more to us kept alive.”

“I don’t get it.”

“We have all the leverage we need over him. Let’s just say he has an eye for the ladies. And that’s not good when you’re married and want to run for mayor. As long as he’s in office, we’ll have no more trouble from him. We have a free run.”

“Look, it may be some time before I can find another deal for you. The firm moved me off my assignments when they found out there was an FBI investigation involving some of my clients. It won’t be easy this time.”

“Nice try, Danny, but it won’t wash.”

“I’m just trying to explain why—”

“Cut the crap. You remember the file of press cuttings Rondell had? Well, I have that now. And I have a good memory of the events that went down when you two kids did what you did. Do you want me to wait here until Caroline comes home from church so we can have a little chat about the monster she’s married to? Maybe ask Hannah and Emily to sit in, too? I’m sure they’d like to hear about what their father got up to as a child. Oh, the memories…”

Michael rubbed his front teeth along his bottom lip. “No. I don’t want that to happen.”

“I didn’t think so somehow.”

Michael figured he would tell Glass Eye what he wanted to hear; anything to get this animal out of their home before Caroline returned with the girls. “Let me see what I can do about another deal. How do I contact you?”

Glass Eye threw a card across the table. “That’s my cell. Call me anytime on that number, but make it quick,” he said, rising to his feet. “Our investors are not what you would call patient people. Now that Rondell’s gone, they’re watching us closely to see if we drop the ball. I won’t let that happen.”

Chapter 62

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, Michael had exhausted every possible way to wriggle out of Glass Eye’s grip. Going to the authorities was impossible if Rondell’s people now had Caravini on the hook. Caravini would sell him out without hesitating. Then Glass Eye would go after his family. Michael had wondered whether Glass Eye was bluffing about Caravini, but it would be a massive gamble to test it. Besides, it made sense that they had something on him. Why else had he not heard a whisper from the FBI since his last meeting at Federal Plaza? By now, Caravini would have been rattling Michael’s cage, even if he had no evidence to use against him. Doing nothing was not an option, either. Glass Eye wouldn’t hesitate to use the information he had as leverage. Having protected Caroline and the girls from knowing everything while Rondell was alive, Michael was not about to let Glass Eye shatter his family. For a brief moment, he’d even wondered whether he could arrange to have Glass Eye killed, but he wouldn’t know where to start. Besides, after Rondell, he was bound to be the main suspect, and he wouldn’t put it past Glass Eye’s people to extract their revenge on his family. That was too risky. The unpalatable truth was that Michael had no choice but to comply. There really was nowhere else for him to go. He had to find them another deal, then another and another. After a brief pause, the nightmare had started all over and, just as before, it could go on for years.

Michael was staring at the mountain of client folders under his office window when the idea struck him. He stood up, walked across the room, and picked up two files. On their spines was printed the word ARUNDEL, which was the project codename given to this particular client assignment. Leafing through the files back at his desk, he made notes on his legal pad, stopping every now and then to check something on the Internet. An hour later, he had three pages of handwriting in front of him—an action plan.

There was a tap on his door, and Towers put his head around. “I’m heading off now, if that’s okay,” he said.

“There’s nothing that can’t wait until next week,” Michael said, smiling. “Have a good weekend, Glen.”

“Thanks. You, too.”

When Towers closed the door, Michael retrieved Glass Eye’s card from his briefcase and then hit the number on his desk phone. He slid the yellow legal pad into position so he could make sure he didn’t miss anything during the call. As the phone rang at the other end, Michael had an overwhelming sense of calm.
This is the right thing to do…No, it’s the only thing to do.

“Yeah,” said Glass Eye, taking the call.

“It’s Danny.”

“Got anything for me yet?” His breathing sounded even heavier on the phone.

“I think so, but you may be too late.”

“How’s that?”

“This one goes live next week so, if you want it, you’ll have to move quickly.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Okay. Do you want to meet tonight to go through it? I’m still in town.”

“No. Just give me the details on the phone. It’s not as though the Feds will be listening.” Glass Eye laughed at his own joke and then broke into a coughing fit.

“If you’re sure.”

“Come on. I haven’t got all night.”

“As I said, it has a short fuse. The deal closes on Wednesday morning.”

“We can move quickly if we need to. What do you have?”

“The target company’s called Caldora.”

“The social network?”

“Yes. They’ve been a client of mine since they started six years ago.”

“I’m impressed. What’s the deal?”

“They’re about to be bought by a Chinese group. Want me to spell their name?”

“No. I don’t need it anyway.” There was the sound of a keyboard being tapped. “Caldora was trading at eighteen and a half when the market closed earlier today. And I can see it’s drifted down quite a bit in the last twelve months. What’s the bid price?”

“Are you sitting down?”

“I am.”

“Forty-five bucks a share.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. “Fucking hell. Is this for real?”

“It’s going to be announced on Wednesday morning.”

“You understand what will happen if this turns out to be wrong?”

“You made that perfectly clear.”

“I don’t make idle threats.”

“Look, the deal’s going ahead next week. It’s up to you whether you acquire the stock or not. I really don’t care.”

“Anything else I need to know?”

“No.” Michael flipped through his notes. “I think we’ve covered everything.”

“You have a peachy weekend.”

Michael put the phone down then stood up and placed the notes in the shredder in the open-plan area outside his office. The place was quiet. At eight o’clock on a Friday evening, he didn’t expect to see anyone. Tomorrow morning, most of the associates would be back in here, dressed down because it was the weekend, but still putting in another ten to twelve-hour stint. Michael would not be joining them, however. He had other plans. While they didn’t know it yet, he planned to drive his girls up to Quonset Point and catch the fast ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, where he and Caroline had spent their honeymoon. The work piling up in his office would have to wait. He was going to enjoy the weekend with his family.

Glass Eye spent the rest of the night hitting the phone, briefing his dealers on the Caldora deal. Come Monday morning, he wanted to see a frenzy of buying activity. If the authorities picked up their trades, he’d get Caravini to deal with it. He told his team to go heavy on this one—very heavy. With Prague watching, he didn’t want to give them any excuse to pull the fund away. They’d already questioned whether the team had the expertise now that Rondell was no longer running the show. This was their opportunity to show their paymasters what they were capable of achieving. If they got the Caldora deal right, it would make Rondell look like a poor warm-up act.

Chapter 63

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at six forty-five Wednesday morning. Without opening her eyes, Caroline moaned and then reached across and hit the snooze button on her iPhone before pulling the quilt around her, leaving just enough of her face exposed so she could breathe.

“So this is what you get up to after I’ve gone in the mornings?” Michael said, lying on the pillow next to her and looking at her angelic face.

Caroline jolted and then opened her eyes. “What are you still doing here?”

“I’m not going into the office today. I have to go to Boston, so I’m taking the car.”

“How long have you been awake?”

“Since five thirty. I’ve been watching you sleep ever since.”

“Did I have my mouth wide open?”

“No. You looked beautiful.”

The alarm went off for the second time. “I can’t stay in here any longer.” She began to lift her head off the pillow.

“You hit the shower first,” he said, watching his wife’s naked body as she stepped out of the bed. “I’ll start breakfast for the girls. I don’t have to be away until eight thirty.”

By ten to eight, breakfast was finished, and Caroline started pulling the girls’ things together for school.

“Why don’t you leave that to me?” Michael said when he saw what Caroline was doing. “I can drop them at school.”

“Are you sure?” Her face was full of incredulity.

“I’d like to. I’m heading out that way, so it’s no trouble.”

Caroline grabbed her car keys and headed toward the front door. “See you tonight.”

“Don’t I get a kiss?” Michael caught up with her in the hallway.

“I’m sorry. I’m just not used to you being here this time of day.”

He hugged her and then kissed her on the lips. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said, turning to leave. “But some of us have unforgiving bosses if we’re late. See you tonight.”

Michael watched as Caroline climbed into the Prius, waving as she drove away. He returned to the kitchen and smiled at his daughters. “Come on, then, girls. Time for me to take you to school.”

“Mommy does it this way,” Hannah kept saying as she helped her father work out how to operate the child seats at the back of the Lexus.

They pulled up in front of the school at eight fifteen. Michael stepped out of the car and hugged each of them before letting them go.

“See you tonight, Daddy,” they said in unison.

Sitting in the car, he watched them walk through the gates, hand in hand, turning once only to wave goodbye. When they disappeared into the school building, Michael started the ignition.

By eight thirty, he was on I-95 heading northeast. The announcement was due at nine, so he turned on the radio and found one of the business channels that he knew would cover it. He tried to imagine Glass Eye sitting in Rondell’s leather chair, playing the big man. He’d be rubbing his hands together right now, thinking of the massive gain he was about to make for himself and his seedy investors. And without Caravini’s team watching them, Glass Eye was bound to have gone heavy into Caldora stock.

At nine, Michael turned the volume up and pulled into the slow lane so he could hear the details. The report he was waiting for started five minutes later:

Markets have been rocked in the past few minutes by a surprise profit warning by social networking giant, Caldora. The company blamed an accounting fraud in its European subsidiaries going back over a number of years. The stock has nose-dived and is now trading at three dollars a share, wiping tens of billions of dollars off its market value. There was no one available to comment from the company. Already, some analysts are saying they expect the heavily-indebted company to fail on the back of this huge loss of investor confidence. Also at this hour…

Michael smiled as he turned the radio off, visualizing the faces of the clowns sitting at their screens on Cedar Street. The massive trading loss on Caldora stock would wipe them out. Glass Eye and his henchmen would then feel the heat from their gangster backers in Eastern Europe. Rondell had always talked with an element of fear in his voice whenever he mentioned his shady investors.