Bob Morris_Zack Chasteen 02 (26 page)

“Why didn’t he?”

Whitehall shrugged.

“Don’t know, really. Point of honor, perhaps. I went to him face-to-face, dealt with him on the up-and-up. For all his foibles, felonious though they might be, Freddie plays straight with those with whom he does business. And he expects that in return,” Whitehall said. “Plus, I think I might have humbled him somewhat with my remittance.”

“Remittance?”

Whitehall nodded.

“Yes, that was
my
point of honor. Over the years that I did business with Freddie, I kept a loose running tally of exactly how much the resorts had benefited from his transfusions. A sizable amount, to be sure, but after I factored in certain operational costs—I was very generous on my side of the equation—I came up with a specific dollar amount that I felt I owed him. Somewhat less than Freddie might think I owed him but still a very considerable sum, mind you. I took that figure, put it under a proper amortization schedule, applied an interest rate to it—again, quite generous on my side—and began sending monthly checks to Freddie. All very kosher, of course, applying that sum to my business costs and using it as a deduction against corporate income tax. I’ve been sending Freddie Arzghanian checks on the fifteenth of each month, going on five years now. That’s my remittance. All at my own doing.”

“What was Freddie’s response to that?”

“Don’t know. He’s never mentioned it. But I tell you this much: he’s cashed every damn one of those checks.”

It gave us all a chance to laugh.

Whitehall said, “I looked at the books the other day. One hundred forty more payments, not quite twelve years, and I’m all cozy with him. Deal even.” He picked up the file he’d brought from his den, shook it. “So when this arrived, yes, it set me on a pretty good spin.”

“Who’d you think was behind it?”

“I didn’t know. At first, I thought it could have been Freddie actually, just doing something to keep the hooks in. Then I got the first phone call.”

“When was that?”

“Same day the file arrived, a bit more than a month ago,” he said.

“Monk was already here then, right?”

“Oh yes,” said Whitehall. “He was here for several weeks before all this got started.”

“How did he come to be here?” I said. “How did the two of you connect?”

“It was through the U.S. Embassy, actually,” said Whitehall.
“They sponsored a two-day gathering to discuss what action we resort owners in Jamaica were taking to protect guests against violence and threats of international terrorism. We were invited to attend. Actually, it was rather more than an invitation. It was more like, ‘If you intend to keep having paying guests from the U.S. fill your rooms then you damn well better attend.’

“So I went. The whole affair was rather ho-hum, though it did involve a bit of the scare treatment, giving us the idea that these terrorist sorts are lurking all about, ready to have a go at us at any moment. The embassy had brought in a couple of security consultants for the occasion. Monk was one of them. Some chap from the embassy staff introduced me to him.”

“The guy who introduced you to Monk, you remember his name?”

Whitehall shook his head.

“No, but he was a rather fresh-faced fellow, eager and well turned out, the very image of a diplomat,” Whitehall said. “He worked for your Homeland Security department, I do remember that.”

I caught Ali’s eye. We were thinking the same thing: Jay Skingle.

I said, “And you hired Monk shortly after that?”

Whitehall nodded.

“Yes, but first he spent some time here at the resort, giving it a thorough inspection, then submitting a report on what our weak spots were, securitywise. I was reasonably impressed. I mean, it wasn’t something I didn’t altogether know, but I certainly wanted to have the U.S. Embassy seal of approval, so I offered Monk a six-month contract. It helped that his salary was subsidized.”

“What do you mean subsidized?”

“I was told I wouldn’t have to pay him his standard rate because your government was footing the bill for half of it. Made it an attractive proposition, really. I would have been a fool not to hire him.”

I sat back in my chair, sifting through the pieces. The sun was a half-hour gone and the sky was sucking up the afterglow.

Ali asked if anyone wanted coffee. We all said yes, and she stepped into the kitchen to make it.

“Take me through the phone calls,” I asked Whitehall.

“There’ve been, let’s see, six of them,” he said. “As I mentioned, the first one came the same day I discovered the file on my desk.”

“And you couldn’t identify the voice?”

Whitehall shook his head.

“No, it sounded artificial, electronically generated, something not really human. But it was a man, definitely a man.”

Alan said, “They were probably using one of those voice-scrambler devices. You can buy them online for next to nothing.”

“What did the man say?” I asked Whitehall.

“He asked if I had received the gift. He called the file a gift. I kept asking who he was and he got angry, said I was not to ask any questions. He said many people would like to receive such a gift, a document that contained so much information—the newspapers, the police, Alan’s political opponents, the U.S. government—but I had the opportunity to make sure no one would ever see it except
me. He named his price—five million U.S. dollars. I told him to go piss in his pocket. And he hung up.”

“Did you tell anyone about the call?”

“No one.”

“Why not go to the police?”

Whitehall gave me a look, didn’t even bother to answer.

I said, “And you didn’t say anything to Monk about it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It was something personal, directed at me, nothing that would jeopardize the safety of the guests,” Whitehall said. “I would have had to reveal many things to him that I did not want to reveal. I wasn’t prepared to do that. Besides, I was keenly aware that Monk had connections with your government and, while I’ve done my best to tidy up the operation, the closet is something of a mess.”

“Did you ever suspect that Monk might be reporting to someone at the embassy about his work here?”

“Why yes, of course. Indeed, I considered it a distinct likelihood. After all, there was no subterfuge about the fact that he was on their payroll, too.”

“OK, let me ask you this: Is there any chance that Monk might have been the one making those calls?”

It threw Whitehall for a loop. Alan, too. Whitehall mulled it over before saying, “No, not a chance of that. He was sitting right where you are sitting when the second call came.”

“When was that?”

“The day after the first one. Alan, you were sitting here with us, as I recall.”

“Yes,” Alan said. “I remember the phone rang. You took it in your den.”

“What did the caller say this time?”

Whitehall thought about it for a moment.

“He said: ‘Have you decided to accept the gift in the spirit in which it was given?’ I told him he could go screw himself. And a few other choice remarks. Then I hung up. And I returned here to the living room.”

“And you didn’t mention that phone call to Monk?”

“No, not at all. Nor to Alan. Although I presume both of them might have heard me shouting into the phone. I was rather worked up about it.”

Alan smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “We did hear that. I remember saying something to Monk about how you must have been having a fight with one of your girlfriends.”

Whitehall looked at him, with mock offense.

“Son, you know very well that I would never speak to one of my lady acquaintances in such a manner. Besides, I never fight with them. Nor they with me.”

He looked at me.

“I remember that call distinctly because not five minutes after I hung up came the explosion in the maintenance building.”

I recalled driving past the burned rubble of the building in the golf cart with Otee on the evening I’d arrived at Libido.

“I thought it was a fire,” I said.

“An explosion, then a fire.”

“I didn’t know it was related to any threats.”

“Nor did anyone else. But, bright fellow that I am, I made the connection immediately.”

“And it happened just like that, right after the phone call?”

“Just like that,” Whitehall said. “I hung up the phone, came back here, sat down, and—kaboom.”

“And Monk was sitting right here when it happened?”

“Yes. We all jumped up and ran to the balcony. We could see the building ablaze from here.”

“You find any evidence what might have caused it?”

Whitehall shook his head.

“We were doing everything we could just to put out the fire and make sure it didn’t spread. Luckily it was far enough removed from the rest of the resort that it didn’t even register with the guests,” Whitehall said.

“What about the third call?” I said.

“Came later that night, after I returned to the house. The man said, ‘You’ve seen what we can do. Has this changed your mind?’ I told him, yes, I was prepared to negotiate. He said there was nothing to negotiate, the price was firm, five million
dollars. Said if I didn’t come up with the money then Alan’s political career was over and I’d be in jail. I told him it could take some time for me to gather that sum of money, and he said he’d give me two weeks,” Whitehall said. “I hung up with him and immediately called Freddie Arzghanian and made an appointment to meet him later that day. That’s when I proposed selling him the property off Old Dutch Road.”

“But you didn’t tell Arzghanian that someone was blackmailing you because of your dealings with him?”

“No, I didn’t want Freddie to know the details because, well frankly, I was scared. I was afraid that if Freddie knew about that file then he would see me as a liability, and Freddie has a way of, shall we say, reducing his liabilities,” Whitehall said. “So I just told him I needed the money and proposed selling him the property as a way of creating a framework for the transfer.”

“Didn’t Arzghanian realize he was paying way too much money for that property?”

“Of course he did,” said Whitehall. “But it didn’t matter. The deal wasn’t really about the land; it was about me getting the money and Freddie having an opening for running his pipeline through Libido again.”

“How long until the next call came?”

“Two weeks exactly, just like he’d promised,” Whitehall said. “I told him I was still working on all the logistics and that I needed more time. He accused me of stalling, said time was running out. Then we left for Florida and there was that incident in the skybox.”

“And you heard from him after that?”

“Oh yes, indeed, right way. Came on my cell phone as we were walking to the car outside the stadium. That voice again, the man asking if they had succeeded in getting my attention. I clicked off the phone without saying a word, didn’t want to discuss matters right there in front of everyone.” Whitehall paused, let out air. “I’ve beaten myself up about it ever since. Perhaps, if I’d just stepped away and spoken to the bastard, told him that I was doing everything within my power to make
things work, we could have avoided that horrific scene at the airport. And Monk would still be alive.”

“Not your fault. I think that was bound to happen no matter what,” I said.

“Oh, really?” Whitehall said, “What makes you think that?”

“Just a feeling in my gut. Can’t put words on it yet,” I said. “Then, what, you got the next call right after the bomb at the airport?”

Whitehall shook his head.

“No, that was the odd thing about it. All the other times, the calls came almost immediately after the incident, but after the airport they didn’t get in touch for almost two days. I kept waiting and waiting, but it didn’t come until the evening of what happened on the road from Benton Town, when Otee had to shoot those two men. This time the man on the phone was angry, said he was getting tired of waiting. He said I had two days to get the money. Then he hung up. I left first thing the next morning to go meet with Freddie Arzghanian again.”

“And Arzghanian was ready to give you the money then?”

“Oh, yes, he had it all gathered together in neat stacks in two duffel bags.”

“So,” I said, “this may sound like a stupid question, but why didn’t you just take it?”

“I was ready to, believe me. But then Freddie began laying out all the conditions that came with the money. And I just couldn’t accept them. It would have meant returning to the way things were with him before and I had vowed not to do that. I had worked too hard, trying to make things right, and I needed at least the semblance of propriety. Both for my own shredded sense of dignity and for Alan’s sake.” He looked at Alan. “I’m sorry for my past, son, sorry that it’s come to haunt you.”

“We’ll get beyond it,” Alan said. “You did what you had to do.”

I said, “So let me guess. You got another call this morning, about the two guards who were shot last night?”

Whitehall nodded.

“He thought he was being funny. He asked if I had seen the writing on the wall. Meaning, what they’d written about dirty
money, as well, I suppose, as what the future might hold if I didn’t get the money.”

“Did he give you any idea when he would be back in touch?”

Whitehall shook his head.

We sat there for a moment. Whitehall looked drained, exhausted. So did Alan for that matter.

That’s when we heard Ali in the kitchen.

“Omigod!” She appeared in the doorway, waving us to join her. “You’ve got to come see this.”

The TV on the kitchen counter showed some old footage of Kenya Oompong pounding a podium as she gave a speech. At the bottom of the screen, a red banner headline screamed: “Police Seek Bombing Suspect.”

Ali turned up the volume.

“. . . are searching for her in connection with last week’s bombing that killed four people at Sangster International Airport,” the announcer said. “Oompong is also a suspect in recent violence directed against Alan Whitehall, her opponent in the upcoming parliamentary elections.”

Then a new image appeared. This one showed police escorting someone else I recognized.