Deal Gone Bad - A Thriller (Frank Morrison Thriller Series Book 1) (8 page)

Elena’s Bakery was a local
institution. The kind of place where politicians made sure to be seen when
there was some election up in the air. State, federal, local. Any of them. The
reason was simple. Everybody went there. Throughout the day, you could see old
folks lounging with a newspaper and a Danish, young mothers coming in and out with
their strollers to pick up a fresh loaf of bread or two, workers refueling with
a thick sandwich on their lunch break, students picking up buns on their way to
school. Most of what Elena’s baked was really good. They hadn’t been open for
more than fifty years for nothing. But for Morrison, what stood out above everything
else were the cinnamon buns. They were spectacular. Whenever he thought about
them, he started drooling. Right at that moment he was. And he was happy to. For
on this morning, he was standing third in line at the counter, only minutes
away from getting reacquainted with them.

When his turn came, he
ordered two buns with a cappuccino. But he didn’t ask for his coffee in a paper
cup and the buns in a bag. That had been his first intention. Now, he said he’d
be having everything right here. The girl ducked behind the counter for a few
seconds and came back with his two cinnamon buns on a big plate. God, they
looked good. So good his saliva glands were hurting. He laid out a few dollar
bills on the counter, including a generous tip. The girl said she’d bring him
his cappuccino at the table. Morrison picked up the big plate, grabbed a paper
from the rack on the way and headed for a quiet table at the far end of the
seating area.

There, he pulled out the
phone from his coat pocket and flipped it open to call Johnson.

“There’s been a change of
plans,” he said. “I won’t be bringing you buns after all.”

“What about the money?” Johnson
said.

“Not either. I can’t go to
your place right now.”

“How come?”

“I need you to do me a
service.”

“What kind?”

“Can you trace a license plate
for me?”

Johnson sounded surprised
by the mundane request.

“A plate?” he said. “Don’t
you have your own contacts at DMV?”

“Sure I do. But I haven’t
had time to renew them yet and I need this ASAP.”

“Why the rush?”

“A car’s been tailing me
this morning.”

Johnson let out a small
laugh. “Morrison,” he said, “you sure have a knack for getting into trouble.”

“It’s nothing personal.
I’ll explain it to you later, but I really need to know whose car that is.”

Johnson’s voice showed
some concern. “Were you being followed when we met last night? I don’t want any
kind of trouble, Morrison. I’m laying low and I want to keep it that way.”

“No, no, don’t worry.
There was nobody last night. And that’s why I don’t want to meet with you before
I know who’s tailing my car.”

Johnson sighed. “OK,” he
said. “But I’ll have to push your other stuff aside.”

“Of course,” Morrison said.

“And it’ll cost you.”

“Sure, put it on my bill.”

“What’s the plate number?”

Morrison recited the
number from memory, then he hung up. It coincided with the girl bringing him
his cappuccino, a small one, sprinkled with cinnamon on top of the foam.

The first bite into the bun
was unbelievable. The dough was warm and soft, the glazing melting. Totally
decadent. Even better than he remembered. And he had two of them right there, just
for him. A bun in one hand, he buried his head in the newspaper, beginning with
the sports section as he always did. Then he moved to Arts & Life, then the
general news, working his way in parallel through the buns and the cappuccino.

From time to time, he
looked up to take in his surroundings. Nothing special was happening. Just
people coming and going. Some doing exactly what he was, dragging on a coffee
and a pastry. Whenever he checked, he saw no trace of the gray Impala’s driver.
Not surprising. The guy must have been lying in wait behind the wheel of his
car, ready to resume his tail whenever Morrison was finished at Elena’s.

It took Johnson a full
hour to call him back. For a hacker of his caliber, Morrison found that a
disappointing performance. He had expected no more than thirty minutes. At the
same time he flipped his phone open and put it to his ear, he couldn’t help
thinking,
So is this a car from the sheriff’s department? From the Feds? Or
has Mike made new enemies in the business?

“Took you some time,
Johnson,” he said.

“Had to outsource it.
Don’t ask me why. Long story.”

“As long as you don’t
charge me double, I don’t mind.”

“That’s the last thing I
do for you this morning. I’m going straight to bed right after. I’m tired.”

“Fine. So whose car is it?”

“Have you ever heard about
the Harris Corporation?”

“Business address on Chambers
Road in Acton?” Morrison said.

“Yep,” Johnson said, “One
twenty-one Chambers Road.”

Harris Corporation. This
came as a surprise to Morrison. A big surprise.

“I know about them,” he
said. “I really do.”

“The car has been
registered with them since it was bought new two years ago.”

Morrison stayed silent
while he pondered this. Johnson was the one who resumed the conversation. “So is
this good or bad for you?” he asked.

“Certainly not good,”
Morrison said. “I just don’t know how bad yet.”

“You heard it here.”

“Thanks, Johnson. Don’t
worry about your money. I’ll find a way to give it to you pretty soon.”

“What about the buns?”

“Sorry to say this, but
they’re still delicious.”

“They?”

“I just had two of them.”

“Pig,” Johnson said before
hanging up.

Morrison closed the phone with
a wry smile for his famished friend. Then he got serious again. He squared the newspaper
and moved it out of his view. Then he pushed his plate and cup aside. He wanted
nothing to trouble his concentration.

Harris Corporation.

He had some deep thinking
to do before setting out of Elena’s again.

Maybe Morrison had
overindulged with the second cinnamon bun. It was delicious of course, but it left
him feeling all bloated. At least the coffee had produced a nice jolt to even
things out. His mind was still as sharp as ever.

After Johnson’s call, he
spent a half-hour contemplating his next move. As ever, all the alternatives
that passed through his mind rested in either of two camps: fight or flight. The
eternal quandary. In the end, he was pretty sure he’d made the right decision.
But when he stepped outside of Elena’s, he still paused for a moment under the
dark green awning to reaffirm his choice. That pause allowed him to take in a
view of downtown.

It was now almost 11:30
a.m. The morning shoppers were thinning out and leaving the area, on their way
home or perhaps to school to pick up the kids and then fix some lunch. For its
part, the lunch-hour crowd had yet to arrive. That left roughly half the angled
parking spots empty. Morrison’s big black Navigator was five spots down on his
right. Then, a further ten places down, on the same side of Main Street, lay
the gray Impala. In between the two were half a dozen cars of all shapes and colors.
Given the sheer size of the Navigator, the gray Impala’s driver had an easy job
of keeping it in check. That whale of an SUV must have been the world’s easiest
vehicle to tail.

Morrison got going again.
He strode across the wide sidewalk toward the Navigator. But when he got there,
he didn’t step down on the blacktop to go for the door. Instead, he just kept walking
straight past the SUV on the sidewalk.

Toward the gray Impala.

The angle in the parking
spots meant that Morrison had a better view on the guy behind the wheel than the
guy had on him. To look in his direction, the driver had to crane his neck way
more to the right than looked either casual or natural. So, in order to remain
inconspicuous, he had to do it in short bursts at varying frequencies and rely
as much as possible on his peripheral vision so he didn’t have to veer his head
too far away. While he did this, Morrison could afford to keep his head straight
as a rod and his gaze focused on the man. In his mind, the guy was doing a
decent job. Didn’t look too eager. Reasonably calm.

Now was the time to change
all that.

While the guy was looking
away, Morrison covered the width of the remaining five car spots at a brisk
pace. He didn’t run, but he kind of leapt on his toes all the way to the
Impala. Hurt a bit whenever he landed on the key, but he kept going.

Morrison caught the driver
flat back on one of his right-aiming routines. He could see the bewilderment in
the driver’s eyes when he skirted the Impala’s front bumper and came knocking
on his side window. For a moment, the driver seized up, like he couldn’t
believe he had just been caught red-handed. Morrison knocked again.

With a thin smile on his
face. Seeping with arrogance.

The driver sighed and
rolled down his window.

“Hi,” Morrison said. “Can
I help you with something?”

“I beg your pardon?” the
driver said.

“Don’t play dumb. Although
I can see you doing that really well.”

The driver furrowed his
brow and made another half-spirited attempt at it.

“What are you talking
about?” he said.

“Cut the crap,” Morrison
said. “You’ve been tailing me for two hours, from the countryside to the
shopping center to here. You’ve followed my every move for two full hours.
That’s no accident.”

The driver seethed. He ruminated
his defeat in silence and then said, “What do you want, asshole?”

“Tell me my name,” Morrison
said.

The driver sneered. “Why?
You’ve forgotten it?”

“Tell me my name,” Morrison
said again.

The driver frowned. “I
don’t feel like playing games,” he said.

“Right, you can’t. Because
you don’t know it. To you, so far, I’m just the guy who’s driving the black
Navigator, right?”

Morrison paused for a beat.
Then he said, “But we can turn the table. You want me to tell you your boss’s
name?”

The driver frowned again. His
face said,
How could he possibly know that? I’m the one tracking him.
After
a moment, he even verbalized his puzzlement. “Who’s my boss?”

Morrison responded
immediately. “Roger Harris. President of the Harris Corporation. A bit pompous
for a company name, but you’ve got to give it to him, he’s not a business
midget either. He just makes it sound bigger than it really is.”

The driver shook his head.
“Christ,” he said. “I’m gettin’ out of here.” And he raised his right hand like
he wanted to start the engine, but Morrison stopped him in his tracks.

“Wait,” he said, “I’m not
finished with you.”

Morrison had established his
ascendency. Instinctively, even though he could have just started the engine
and reversed his way out of the parking spot, the driver complied. Morrison had
used this kind of trick countless times. If you wanted somebody to do something
for you, the first order of business was to establish your superiority. Imply
that some embarrassing consequences were in store if the person failed to
comprehend the importance of what you asked of him. Then you could start
milking the cow.

“I want you to call your boss
right now,” Morrison said.

The driver seemed less
than thrilled at the prospect. Morrison pushed on.

“Trust me,” he said. ”It’s
always better to be the bearer of bad news about yourself. It’s much worse when
it comes from somebody else. After all, who knows how the other guy will spin
it, right?”

The driver mumbled a s
onofabitch
between his teeth, then he took out his mobile phone and called the boss. After
a long pause, somebody finally answered the call.

“Mr. Harris,” the driver
said, “I’ve intercepted one of the Navigators from Mike’s compound.”

On the other end, Harris
spoke loud enough for Morrison to hear his voice through the mobile phone’s speaker.

“What?” Harris said, “You
were just supposed to tail it, not make contact!”

“I know,” the driver said.
“But I was following him on the road and he stopped with a flat tire. He was waving
for help when I drove up to him so I had to stop too. By talking with him, I saw
that he knew you.”

Morrison saw the lie as an
honorable attempt to save face. He said nothing about it. Be gracious to those
you’ve defeated. Another thing he’d understood a long time ago. Besides, that
was pretty well thought out for a spontaneous nugget of bullshit. That driver
had some street smart in him.

With Harris now on the
line, Morrison initiated a three-way conversation. He spoke in a voice loud
enough for Harris to hear him through the driver’s microphone, and not too much
so Harris wouldn’t place him straight away. First he said, “Tell Harris I’d
like to see him.”

“Who’s that guy?” Harris
said. “Who’s talking?”

“I don’t know,” the driver
said. “Don’t know his name.”

“Describe him,” Harris
said.

The driver looked up to
Morrison, who nodded his approval.
Go ahead, buddy
. The driver scanned
him from the waist up.

“He’s short,” he said. “Big
Rolex on his wrist, medium build, kind of wiry. Ordinary clothes.” Then he got
to his face. “Bit of a prick face, brown hair, rather short. Likes himself a
little too much.” Then he interrupted himself and squinted like he had trouble
believing what he saw. “And he’s got eyes of different colors,” he said. “One
green. One brown.”

“Not a bad description,” Morrison
said. “Save the face thing, of course.”

“Frank Morrison!?” Harris
said louder than previously. “What are you doing there?”

At first, don’t speak to
him directly. Establish your ascendency. Let him know that you can use his guy
against him too. That you’re driving the show. Morrison looked at the driver
and said, “Tell Harris that it would be a really great idea for him to be
available. In about fifteen minutes. At his office. And also tell him that your
services will no longer be required for the day. As a matter of fact, you can
get out of your car right now and go have a cinnamon bun at Elena’s. I assure
you, they’re delicious.”