The Lazarus Trap (42 page)

“Glad to hear it.” Vince gave him a careful once-over. “I don't see any open wounds. You meet any trouble?”

“Some.”

“There ain't no partial when it comes to trouble. Either you did or you didn't.”

“Yes.”

“And you came out on top?”

“Sort of.”

Vince gave that flicker of a smile, like he tasted something alien. “You come walking in here without a limp, I say you did okay.”

“So would I.”

“Way to go.” He glanced at the wall clock. “You got my money?”

Val took out the zippered pouch supplied by the bank and set it on the counter between them.

The final transfer request Val had given to the Jersey banker had been in regard to Marjorie Copeland's funds. It had been her idea for Val to have signatory rights over her account as well. Just in case, Marjorie had said, asking only that Val make sure her child was taken care of. Just in case. The majority of the funds, after this sum for Vince and their expenses on Jersey, was now safely resting in a trust established in her son's name.

Vince opened the pouch, peered inside, zipped it closed, and made it disappear. “What do you know. Looks like I was right to trust you, Mr. Smith.”

“The name is Val. Valentine Haines.”

“This trouble you were in. It's officially over?”

“Getting there.”

“Which means you won't need to be staying uptown again. You're moving back to the other side of the park, right?”

“I'd still like to drop in from time to time, if that's all right.”

Vince gave a fractional head-shake. “You don't want to hang with me. I'm street. It might rub off.”

“Not a bad thing. Especially where I'm headed.”

“Yeah? Where's that?”

“Looking for trouble.”

Vince liked that enough to offer his hand. “Feel free. You hear what I'm saying?”

The man's touch was surprisingly light, as though Vince did not want to connect too heavily even through a handshake. “Thanks. For everything.”

“You're not a bad guy, for a sucker. You need something, you say the word.”

Val sat in the outer office, surrounded by New York bustle. He might as well have been invisible. Which he did not mind. A moment to rest in the eye of the storm was fine by him. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. The image was there again, the same one he had carried since traveling to New York by way of a certain Miami waterfront condo.

Val had stood by the living room window and stared out at the waterfront palaces and the floating wealth as Stefanie had cried her way through Terrance's on-camera performance. Val had remained mute and motionless while she regained control. There were a num- ber of things that would have to be said. A multitude of legal matters to be rewritten, a myriad of issues to be resolved anew. But not this time. Val did not want to mar this moment with anything other than the reason for his coming. Which was not revenge. Nor to tell her that he had been right all along. None of that mattered. He could see just enough of his reflection in the sliding-glass door to know that this was not merely fatigue or momentary ruminations. He stared into eyes that seemed full of the day's sunlight, a translucent image so powerful he could almost blank out the sound of his ex-wife sobbing behind him.

When he was certain the tears were over and her composure restored, Val turned around.

He said, “I'd like to see my daughter now.”

The aide ushered Val into the office. The SEC's chief investigator eyed him with open curiosity. “You're Haines?”

“Yes.”

“Valentine Richard Haines?”

“That's right.”

“You got some ID?”

Val handed over his recently recovered passport. The man inspected it carefully. “You want coffee?”

“No. I'm good.”

He tossed Val's passport onto his desk. “Now this is real interesting. First off, funds you supposedly stole suddenly wind up in Insignia's petty cash account. Then, if that's not good enough, a guy who's supposed to be fully dead calls me up and says he wants to stop by, talk to me about a job.”

“That's right.”

“With me.”

“Right again.”

The chief slung one arm over the back of his swivel chair. “So talk.”

Val opened his leather portfolio and extracted a set of documents. “You're concerned about possible financial improprieties at a major Florida-based telephone company. But you don't have the required evidence to go in with a full investigation.”

The chief unslung his arm. “Who says?”

Val offered the papers. “These might help you move forward.”

The chief studied them intently. From behind the man's desk, a silver-plated clock ticked precise New York minutes. That and the flipping of pages, a ringing phone, and the sounds of Wall Street traffic rising from far below were the only sounds.

“Where did you get these?”

“I've got eleven in the business,” Val replied. “I know all the tricks. I can help you.”

The chief picked up his phone and punched in a number. He said, “Get in here. I don't care. Come here
now.
”

A harried young woman entered without knocking. “You of course realize we are due in the mayor's office in three hours, and I am two weeks from ready.”

The chief handed over Val's documents. “Tell me if we're looking at the real deal here.”

The woman went through them with rising delight. “Where did you get this?”

“Is it real?”

“Looks that way to me.”

“Is it enough?”

“It's a ton more than what we've got now, I can tell you that much. The rest will have to wait.”

“Call the mayor's office and cancel. Have the team in here and ready. One hour.”

“You know the mayor. He won't like this.“

“Move.”

The chief waited until they were alone again to say, “You've got an inside source.”

“One that will move from project to project,” Val agrees. “One that answers only to me.”

Val and the chief talked through the entire hour. Only when the woman returned to get the chief for the meeting did the man say, “When can you start?”

“It looks like I already have.”

The chief nodded acceptance. He shook Val's hand, ushered him from the office, and finally said, “One thing I don't get. What's the motive here?”

Val did not turn back to reply, “Penance.”

an excerpt from elixir

TAYLOR AWOKE TO DARK AND PAIN AND A SEWER'S stench. He did not rise. His head thundered so that even the slightest motion nauseated him.

Even clawing his fingers through the slime caused star bursts behind his eyes. Taylor drifted in and out of consciousness. His clearest thought was that this made as fitting a place as any for his tomb.

When he next awoke, he was far more alert. Which was not altogether a good thing. Because with the keener awareness came a greater sense of fear.

Taylor opened his eyes but saw nothing. Even in the pitch black, he knew exactly where he was. The smell alone was enough to take Taylor back to earlier times. He had played here for years. He knew it well enough to know that his fear was justified. The water sloshing below his slimy perch was all the warning he needed.

He was positioned on a stone ledge scarred by decades of carvings and lumps of old candle wax. The slime came from the sea that twice each day rose to cover his shelf.

Slowly he pushed himself up to a sitting position. Everything hurt, especially his head. He touched the back of his skull and felt a sticky warmth where the attackers had struck him. But he was far more troubled by the seawater that drenched his feet when he swung his legs over the ledge.

Taylor felt along the damp wall behind him. He extracted a loose brick that had been used as a hiding place by generations of local children. He pulled out the waterproof container of matches and the larger one of candles. He struck a match. Even before he got the candle going, he knew he was in very serious trouble.

The Minorcans' first task for their Spanish masters was to build the fort where Taylor now sat. The Castillo de San Marcos was a star-shaped masonry fortress, the oldest in America. It was positioned upon a
camino cubierto
, a man-made spit of land between the outer islands where St. Augustine Beach and Vilano Beach now stood. The fortress looked directly into the open waters between them, situated where it could protect the deepwater channel and the empire's maritime fleet.

The fortress dungeons had two ways in. The main door was nail-studded and ancient. Tourists were brought to the tight stone stairs, shown the door and the rusting chains, and told of the Spaniards' cruelty to their indentured Minorcan slaves. But there was a second way in, a tunnel whose secret was passed on from one generation of kids to the next. Three centuries back, seawater had entered the dungeons and cleared away the refuse with each tide. Nowadays, however, sinking foundations and rising tidal currents meant the chamber filled to the top. Taylor felt the water edge higher up his shins and knew the tide was coming in. Waves boomed against the outer opening, sloshing water through the chamber with the noise. It was only a matter of time.

Holding his candle high, he dropped off the ledge. The water was almost waist deep, the currents strong enough he needed his free hand to keep his balance. He waded across to the stairs leading up to the door. Of course it was locked. He turned and stared at the opposite wall. The tunnel through which tides surged was completely underwater. But he saw it anyway.

For kids of nine or ten, the tunnel was a tight run of maybe forty feet. The last time he had crawled through was at fourteen, lured by a girl who promised him enough to make him do the impossible. He had been a skinny kid, little more than bones and muscle and testosterone. Even so, he had scraped away skin coming and going.

Driven by desperation, he waded toward the opening. The closer he came, the stronger surged the currents. He found a handhold on the slimy wall. Bracing himself so as to keep the candle aloft and alight, he measured with one foot. The aperture was impossibly small. Hot candle wax encrusted his fingers as he made his way back to the ledge. He wrapped up the remaining matches and candles and fitted the brick back into place. If he didn't make it out, he'd want to face his demise with at least a trace of flickering light.