Follow the Money

30


Because I was sleeping so hard, I didn’t hear it at first. In fact, I didn’t hear the jingling of burglar tools or the clicking of moving metal parts until the lock popped open and the door swung back. I opened my eyes and sat forward in a daze, as surprised to see a cleaning guy in his long blue coveralls as the cleaning guy was to see me.

We stared at each other for a moment. The realization slowly came over me as my sleep receded. I recognized the bald head and moustache. It was Gary Rollins, right there in my office. I started to get up, but he was quicker to react and he bounded into the room, drew an automatic pistol, and closed the door behind him.

“You little son of a bitch,” he said, quiet but forceful. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“What the hell do you want, Gary? Or is it Ray?” I stuck my hands up, instinctively, and spoke loudly — although the answer was obvious. I knew what he wanted.

“Don’t bother, everyone on your side of the building is gone. But if you keep it up, you’ll end up just like your newspaper buddy.” His eyes darted around the room, he clearly hadn’t planned for me to be there and was busy formulating a Plan B. He saw the chest on the floor, lifted the lid with his foot and peeked inside, only taking his eyes off me for half a second. A grin broke out on his face.

He said, “You just leave everything out in the open, don’t you kid?” Then he pointed with the gun. “Pick it up. We’re going for a ride.”

“Hey man,” I tried to reason. “Just take it and walk out, I don’t want any part of this.”

Gary put the gun in my face. “You think this is a f*ckin’ game?” He reached over with his free hand and grabbed my shoulder, tossing me forward and out of the chair. He forced my face down onto the desk, his free hand twisting my arm up behind my back and the other hand jamming the gun into my neck. His thick body was strong and uncompromising. There was no chance I could overpower him. Gary leaned in close and his foul breath hit my face as he spoke.

“Listen up. You and I are going to walk out of here with that box. If we run into someone you know, you brush them off and keep going. I want to make it out of here quietly, but don’t think for a second I won’t gut you from balls to brains if you do anything, and I mean anything, out of line. I’ll kill every motherf*cker in this place if I have to.”

He backed off, pulled me up and pushed me forward toward the chest. “Now pick it up and walk slow.”

We saw no one in the hall. We met no one in the elevator. When the elevator doors opened in the lobby, Gary whispered, “Quiet and slow. Through the doors and into the parking garage.” I went out of the elevator and thought briefly about bolting, but the floor was slick and the corridor created by the elevator banks was too long. I’d take three slugs in the back before I made it to the corner. But would he really shoot? Ed Snyder’s severed head flashed in front of my eyes and answered the question.

I saw the black car four spaces down from the doorway when we entered the garage. Where were all these f*cking cops Wilson had been talking about? The guy they were looking for walked right into my office. Jendrek had once joked that the safest place to commit a crime was in the parking lot of the police station. No one looked in the obvious places. So here I was, in my own building with a gun in my back.

I walked to the black Taurus without being directed. Gary unlocked it and I set the chest in the backseat. Then he tossed the keys at me. I didn’t see them coming and they bounced off my chest and fell to the ground.

“You’re drivin’. Now get your ass in the car.” He motioned with his gun and I climbed in. Gary got in the passenger side and I could see beads of sweat running from the top of his naked scalp. “You ain’t too smart are you kid?” he asked rhetorically. “You don’t even go home when you’re supposed to.”

I started the car and backed out of the stall. “Where to?”

“Just drive.” He kept the gun down low, but pointed at me at all times. At the gate, he handed me a twenty. I paid the attendant and gave the old guy a wide-eyed look, wiggling my eyebrows to signal trouble. The old man paused for a second as he handed me the change, and then sneered, muttering about dope fiends and perverts as we drove away.

He ordered me to get on the ten west. He sat quietly, running his hand over his head, smoothing out the sweat lines. I could tell he was thinking of what to do next. I figured I could lobby for myself before he committed to a plan.

“What do you want with me? Why don’t you just let me go?” I asked, surprised by how freely I was talking. But why not talk? What did I have to lose at this point?

“You know too much.”

That was probably true, but I protested anyway. “I don’t know a damned thing. I don’t know where the money came from. I don’t know who the hell you are. I don’t know shit.”

“You know my name. You’ve seen me.”

“I have a bad memory.”

Gary laughed. “You’re a funny kid, too bad it’s gotta end like this for you.”

“How’s it gonna end?”

“I’m still working it out. But no matter what, it won’t be good for you. I can assure you of that.”

“Thanks for the assurance. I feel better now.” I turned onto the onramp of the one-ten and headed south, staying to the right. “So what’s the money for?”

“What?” Gary sneered at me, incensed. “What the f*ck do you care?”

“Well, shit, if you’re gonna kill me anyway, you might as well tell me. I’m curious. I think I’ve figured some of it out. I just don’t understand where the money came from and why you met Steele in the Fairbanks Hotel twelve years ago.”

His eyebrows lifted with surprise. But he brushed it off. “Shit, kid,” he muttered, shaking his head. “You don’t know a damned thing, do you?”

“People keep telling me that lately. But it doesn’t bother me much. I’m getting used to it.” I merged onto the ten freeway and headed for Santa Monica. “But really, did Steele kill his wife for the money? Is that it?”

Gary laughed again, louder this time. “Shit kid, Steele’s old lady never even knew about the money. That’s the f*cking problem. Steele hid the money in the chest and then she moved it out of there the next day. He didn’t know it was gone until after he was arrested and I went into the house to get it. Shit, man, I didn’t even know she was planning to divorce him until I cut your little buddy’s head off and read his file.”

The casual way he admitted decapitating Snyder sent chills through me. I drove on, unable to maintain the ease of the conversation. It was only at that moment that I let myself realize that I might actually die. But Gary went on, entertaining himself with the story.

“But the money? The money was a bribe. You don’t think you get an environmental activist like Steele to suddenly start promoting drilling for oil in a national park for free do ya? Nope. That kind of shit’s expensive. Andersen was the guy who arranged it and I made the payoff. Brought him a big ol’ suitcase full of cash. You should have seen the slob, I thought he was gonna nut all over himself and me. Apparently, that wife of his held the purse strings pretty damned tight. He was all for drillin’ wherever Andersen’s clients wanted once he realized how much money he could make.”

Gary glanced into the backseat and then reached over with his free hand to pat the chest. “Shit kid, you got no idea how hard I’ve looked for this thing.” He laughed and shook his head, almost nostalgic. He talked loud, a near shout over the road noise in the car.

“I mean, you don’t think five million dollars in cash just disappears do you?” He slugged me lightly on the shoulder, as though we were old drinking buddies remembering better times. “Hell no it doesn’t. I made that payoff and Steele got arrested three days later. I knew that money was still laying around somewhere. After I couldn’t find it in the house, I was sure some dirty cop walked off with it. But most cops ain’t smart enough to hide that kind of money very well. They do stupid shit like buy speedboats and stuff, you can spot a cop who skims a mile away. I looked at every damned cop who investigated and none of them took it. So I knew it was still around. So I waited, biding my time. And then you showed up.”

The car was approaching the 405 freeway. The sun would be setting soon and we drove westward toward a sky painted in vast swaths of pale pink. Gary motioned for me to keep going, all the way to the end, to the ocean, and up PCH.

“So Steele didn’t kill her for the money?” I asked, a hot delirium of worry beginning to engulf me. My hands were shaking on the wheel, my stomach quivered. I wanted the conversation to continue forever, onward and endless, so that it might stave off whatever was coming next.

“Not as far as I know. Like I said, she didn’t even know about the money. No, they got in some kind of fight over her threatening to tell everyone what kind of real cocksucker he was. Hell, the only thing that saved him was the fact that his little ass buddy Andersen happened to be a shit-hot lawyer.”

I uttered a lugubrious laugh and slowed as the freeway ended and then merged onto PCH.

“What’s so funny?” Gary asked.

“Well, I was just thinking that Steele really got screwed, since Andersen didn’t do anything to get him off. Andersen must have wanted to get the money too.”

“What?” Gary responded incredulously. “Look man, Steele is guilty as hell, and, as of a few days ago, he was out. I don’t know about you, but twelve years seems like a light sentence for a guy who stabbed his old lady a hundred times. What, you think you got Steele out? Kid, any moron would have found the evidence you found. Especially since we made sure you had something to find. That was the whole goddamned point.

“Andersen told Steele how to f*ck up the crime scene on the phone before the cops got there. He told him what to do with the 911 call, told him to blame the boyfriend, everything. Shit, he knew Steele was guilty, all he could do was create enough problems so some little f*ckwad like you could come along years later and get him out. It still took some help from me though. Dan Kelly was expensive.”

Gary laughed again, delighted. “Shit, you ain’t nothing but a pawn, kid. Turn at the light.”

I took a right off PCH and went up Sunset. “So did Matt know you guys were framing him? I found a note under my door, and two guys roughed me up in the parking lot.”

Gary laughed again. “You really don’t get it, do you? You’ve been played. We had to get you motivated somehow, and a little reverse psychology was just the ticket. Actually, I can’t take credit for that. That part was Andersen’s idea.”

I thought about the way the bearded guy’s words had seemed too polished, and it all seemed to make sense. It had all been theater, and I had been an unwitting participant. I was hoping this drive was all part of the act and we would all go to an after party when the show was over. But the way Gary was holding the gun on me, I figured the party was already over. Now he was cleaning up the mess.

We wound around up through the same tight curves Liz and I had driven down the day before. Then we turned up the hill and drove deep into the Palisades. The road went along the cliff, back toward the ocean with Sunset Boulevard winding down the canyon below us. The houses facing outward were massive Spanish style homes with views of the ocean stretching outward to the light blue rim of the earth.

“Slow down,” Gary finally said. “Here.” He motioned with the gun. I pulled into a wide driveway and around the high shrubs and brick wall that shielded the house from the street. I recognized the cross beams on the windows from the pictures I’d seen of Andersen and Steele together. There was a convertible Jaguar parked outside with the top down.

“Out,” he ordered. “And bring the chest with you. I’m afraid this is the end of the line. You and Andersen are gonna kill each other for the money. Maybe Steele too, if he’s here. I’ll leave a few hundred grand laying around, just to make it look good.” He winked at me and smiled. His eyes were cold and focused, flat and distant.

I leaned over into the backseat and nearly vomited. My arms trembled with fear and my body was wired with adrenaline. I searched the yard for a way out, something to make a run for, but there was nothing — just mortised wall. The exit to the street was too far away; just like the elevators, I’d never make it. I told myself there was still time. Still time, still time, still time, breathe, breathe, breathe, watch and listen, watch and listen.

Gary walked behind me with his gun held out and pointed at my back. I pushed at the heavy door and it swung open to reveal a lavish tile foyer.

“Go,” he ordered from behind. “Into the living room.”

I continued on, into a massive room with twenty-foot ceilings and bay windows stretching the length of the house. There was a wide deck overlooking the cliff and the ocean. Beyond that there was nothing but blue sea and a blazing orange sunset. The entire room glowed with the waning fire of the day.

I heard footsteps coming down some stairs behind me and I turned to see Andersen coming around a spiral staircase, dressed in a light gray sweat suit, his arms at his side and his bottom half shielded by the solid stucco banister. Then Steele came down behind him. Our eyes met and Steele grinned, giving me an almost embarrassed look, like he’d committed a breach of etiquette.

Gary turned too. He held his gun at his side, as if he was trying to avoid drawing attention to it.

“What’s all this, Gary?” Andersen asked, smiling, surprised and almost effusive, as if walking in on a party. Gary started to speak when Andersen raised a gun that was concealed by the banister and fired two shots. Gary fired once as he fell. Andersen’s body jerked back against the white wall, a red spray exploding behind him. Gary fell to the floor. Steele stood by, a horrified expression on his face.

I was stunned by the swift movement, flashes of light and overwhelming noise. I hesitated for a second, then my body sprang in a single fluid movement, dropping the chest and diving behind a brown leather couch. I crouched there, looking for an escape.

I could hear Gary struggling on the floor, thrashing like a wounded animal. Then he let out a yowling, inhuman wail as he got to his feet and clamored over to the hope chest.

Then Steele screamed, “You killed him, you son of a bitch!” And then shots rang out in the room. I could hear bullets tearing into the couch, but nothing hit me. I couldn’t see what was happening. But a second later I saw Steele limping out of the house, back the way I came in, with a bullet in his stomach and another in his thigh. He drug the chest behind him.

I wanted to look, but I couldn’t. There was still movement in the room. I heard the jag start outside and then saw Gary hobbling out after Steele, the gun in his one good arm and the mangled remains of his other shoulder slouching against the wall. He staggered from the house, leaving a wide, bloody brush mark on the wall, slowly bleeding to death and bent on revenge.

I heard the Jaguar speed away. Then the Taurus started and did the same. Squealing tires and racing engines faded into the distance. I listened to the overwhelming silence in the room. There was nothing to hear. The house was empty.

When I stood, I saw the misty red splatter running down the wall where Andersen had taken a bullet through the chest. There was another spot drying on the carpet where Gary fell. I waited for something bad to happen. But the silence remained.

Unsure what to do, I went over to the sliding doors, opened them, and stepped out onto the deck. I could see Sunset Boulevard below, lying like a concrete serpent in the bottom of the canyon. I looked closer and saw the two cars sliding through the corners and racing toward the ocean. Where did they think they were going? I watched other cars, commuters on their way home, diving for the side of the road, making way for a reckless chase into the final curve. But it was a ninety-degree turn onto PCH and the intersection was filled with cars. Parting the lanes, the Jag slowed, beginning to thread its way through, but the black sedan could not make the turn, nor could it slow quickly enough. Rather, it plowed into the slowing Jag, pushing it though the intersection and into the concrete barrier where both cars flipped and tumbled like tiny dice over the road, across a parking lot, off the embankment and out along the rocky breakwater.

Traffic stopped in all directions. Moments later the twisting, tortured sound of the collision finally reached me, softened by the distance. I watched the stopped drivers run from their cars, but not to pull the dead from the wreckage. Instead, they clamored, crawled, and climbed over one another in mad panic, groping wildly in the air, hoping to capture the cloud of money drifting aimless and indifferent through the light of the late-summer sunset.