Buzzard Bay (26 page)

“Most of them were scared of Ginter,” Rona answered her, “and so was I.”

Greta finished her beer. “I’m off,” she said. “I think Rona needs a good fuck to get over her mourning. I can find my own way back.”

Henekie looked a little embarrassed.

“Do you have anywhere to go?” Rona asked.

“No,” he answered.

“Then you might as well stay,” Rona got up to get another beer.

Henekie woke up a totally satisfied man, not only sexually but mentally. He had been so wrapped up in what he was doing he’d not had a woman in a long time. Rona had settled that problem; he was totally fucked out. He looked over at Rona lying beside him. She was sleeping with a very satisfied look on her face.

Henekie placed his hands behind his head letting what he had learned sift through his mind. After two weeks of frustration, he’d had two days of incredible luck. He was gaining more confidence every day in his ability to function on his own. He felt now that Rona was the key; he just had to find out what her mind had locked up.

Over the next couple of days, he and Rona became very close. They had both been under Ginter’s thumb. The better he got to know Rona, the more he realized how much of an arrogant asshole Ginter had really been.

“I know Ginter has money,” Henekie told her, “I can’t believe he wouldn’t confide in you as to where it was.”

“I know he had money,” Rona agreed. “I know he has a Swiss bank account, but that’s all I know.”

he was very good to her kids, Henekie realized. He became very upset with the way Ginter had treated Rona and decided he would set things right for her. In fact, Henekie was very comfortable here with Rona. He could have Ginter’s business and his wife, if only he could find Ginter’s contacts. Rona tried to help him in any way she could, trusting Henekie to help her find some of Ginter’s money.

“He always fucked other women from the gang,” she said. Even Greta, I could handle that, but when he started meeting women behind my back, I was very upset.”

“Did you see him with these other women?” Henekie asked.

“Only one.” Rona told him, “when he was home we usually did the bars together except every Tuesday he would go off by himself. So one day, I followed him. He went to a bar two blocks from here. At first he just sat inside, drinking, but then a woman sat down with him. I recognized the woman from a biker party Ginter and I attended. Ginter fucked her from behind on the couch that night, I thought nothing of it. He did this at parties all the time, then I found out this broad was Greta’s mother, Ginter always had a soft spot for Greta, so I figured something was going on.

omething clicked in Henekie’s mind. “Let’s go over to that bar tonight,” he told her.

Henekie was running awfully low on funds. It was time to see if he could pawn the necklace he’d found on Alf’s body. “First,” he thought, “I’ll get it appraised and take it to a small jewelry shop not far away.”

The jeweler looked bored until Henekie showed him the necklace. It was an exquisite piece of work, the best he had ever seen.

“Did you want to sell it?” the jeweler’s eyes showed his exuberance.

“No,” Henekie answered. “It’s been in the family for years, I just want to get it valued.”

“It’s a very authentic piece,” the jeweler told him. “There’s one piece missing,” He showed Henekie where the medallion had once been fastened to the main strap. “Even so, it is very valuable, I would say at least twenty thousand euros,” and he looked up to see if Henekie was interested. Henekie whistled, he had no idea the value would be anywhere near that. He decided to keep it for a while longer.

That evening he and Rona went and sat in the same bar where Rona said Ginter had met Greta’s mother.

“Is that the same bartender that was here when you saw Ginter talking to the woman?” Henekie asked her, “I think so.” Rona didn’t sound exactly sure so Henekie decided he’d have to find out on his own if the bartender knew anything about Ginter.

It was after two in the morning when the bar closed. Henekie sent Rona home and then followed the bartender. As he unlocked his door Henekie moved up behind him, “Let’s go inside.” The bartender was scared. “Please all I have is ten euros in my pocket, you can have it.” “You’ll have a hundred euros in your pocket if you give me the information I want,” Henekie told him.

They stepped inside, Henekie told him and to stay where he was and not to turn around. “No one gets hurt if you tell me all you know about a man who only came to your bar on Tuesday afternoons to meet with a woman.”

The bartender sounded worried, “I know the one you’re talking about but I don’t know anything about him.”

Henekie decided he was going to have to get rough, then the bartender added, “I do know the woman.”

“Okay, the woman might do,” Henekie told him. “What do you know about her?”

“She lives in a swanky apartment near here. When I was younger I used to hang around with her daughter, Greta. Sometimes Greta would take a bunch of us guys over there and we’d all get high then we’d gangbang her mother, I think her name was Mona,” the bartender added.

“Can you show me where this apartment is?” Henekie wanted to know.

“Sure, or I can give you her phone number and address if you want.”

“That sounds very convenient,” Henekie told him. “Why would you have that?”

The bartender shrugged. “My girl friend left me and I’ve been getting a little horny lately so the last time she was in I asked her if I could come over sometime. She gave me her number and address and told me to make sure I phoned first. The address is in my pocket here.” He began to reach in his pocket but Henekie stopped him and fished it out himself.

“Okay,” Henekie told the bartender, “let’s hope your telling the truth.” He stuck a hundred euro note in the bartenders pocket and left.

Mona was reluctant to turn the phone over to Grundman but when he heard her say the name Ginter he grabbed the phone from her.

“Ginter,” it was a man’s voice.

“No,” Henekie answered, “I’m Ginter’s friend, Henekie, he sent me to talk with you.”

The voice on the other end of the phone sounded suspicious. “Where’s Ginter?”

“He’s dead,” Henekie told the voice. “I must meet with you to tell what’s happened.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” the voice asked.

“I was in Canada with him, how else would I know this phone number?”

“Okay,” the voice said, “I’ll meet you at the Oka Bar tomorrow at seven. Do you know where it is?” Henekie told him he could find it.

Now that he had found Ginter’s contact, things were going very well. He rode Rona hard, making love to her well into the night. Grundman had told Henekie to meet him at seven o’clock, but he was there long before that. He wanted to get a look at this person before he committed himself.

Grundman sniffed a shot of coke up his nose then walked into the bar. It was nearly empty; there was a man and a woman sitting at a table and a couple of barflies watching TV at the bar. He took a seat at the bar and began his vigilance.

Grundman did not like what he heard coming out of Canada. Something had definitely gone wrong, but then Ginter worked in mysterious ways, and he didn’t know what to believe. Waddell had sent him a coded fax congratulating him on the Holmes job. Ginter had not contacted him for two weeks in a row, and now this Henekie guy had answered the phone throwing a whole new twist into the scheme of things. Waddell’s next fax had not been so complimentary. He had to have heard the job had not gone well. What bothered him was that Waddell now claimed the cartel had sanctioned the Canadian job. Waddell bullshitted a lot, but still this did not look good for Grundman; the cartel did not like botched work. He hoped he could find out exactly what happened from this Henekie, if indeed he was who he said he was.

The bar began to fill up. A couple of guys came in by themselves. One of them stood in the doorway looking around before he sat down. Grundman decided he might be worth watching. Grundman had hired a man to hold the bar stool he had told Henekie he would be in. Grundman had decided to wait till his man made a contact with this Henekie before committing himself. With all the bad luck he’d had over getting caught in the crack house and now this girl going after Lena.He wasn’t going to stick his neck out any further than he had to.

His man was talking to a man beside him and a woman on the other. He looked over and shook his head; Grundman looked at his watch—seven twenty. Where in hell was this guy? The couple who had been sitting at a table got up and walked toward the bar. Grundman thought the woman looked familiar but couldn’t place her, as the couple sat beside him. Grundman didn’t pay them much attention until the man turned to him.

“Hello, Grundman,” he said, “I’m Henekie.”

Grundman laughed, “That’s something like Ginter would do.”

Henekie didn’t laugh, “Maybe that’s not a very good compliment, Mr. Grundman. Ginter was careless, now he’s dead.”

Grundman’s smile faded, “I was afraid of that, so what happened?”

Henekie told him the whole story. “We had misinformation,” Henekie concluded, “especially on this Green fellow. He’s a lot more dangerous than we were ever led to believe. As far as I remember our informer said he was just an ordinary schmuck like the rest of them, only he was supposed to have a hot wife,” Grundman said.

“His wife wasn’t with him, so I know nothing about that,” Henekie said. “All I know is that I want that Green son of a bitch, and I think you do too.”

Grundman said nothing. “What I have here is a diamond in the rough,” he thought. After all his bad luck, finally something was going his way. “Who’s your friend?” Grundman looked at the woman.

“I’m Ginter’s wife,” she told him and “I was at a party at your house once a long time ago.”

“This man is very good,” Grundman thought, “he already knows too much about me.”

“I need some time to put together the information I now have,” Grundman said, “I will meet you in two days. I will pick you up in my car outside the Reo at six o’clock.”

Henekie nodded his head, and then he and Rona got up and left. Grundman looked over and smiled; his man was still holding his seat at the bar. Grundman faxed all his new information in code to Waddell. In effect, he warned him that Green had survived and could be coming after him.

Waddell in return faxed all the new information he had. “Our police informant tells us every police force in the world is looking for Green. However, we are sure they don’t have him. It is imperative to many people that we get to him first. I have an ace in the hole. We have his wife. We are sure he is headed this way. If he gets into the Bahamas, we have him. Put your new man onto the trail. If we can get someone to chase him, it will flush him out.”

Henekie got into Grundman’s car, and they pulled out into the traffic. Grundman told him what he had found out about Green.

“Shit, I was sure the cops would have him,” Henekie lamented, “and then at least we’d know where he is.”

“We don’t know where he is,” Grundman told him, “but we know where he’s going. The trouble is we don’t know how he plans to get there.”

“If you know where he’s going, so does everyone else who’s looking for him,” Henekie said. “How in hell am I supposed to find him?”

“You found me, didn’t you?” Grundman stated. Henekie just grunted. “Before we go any further, we have to get down to business, Henekie. Do you have any money?”

“No, I’m tapped out,” Henekie told him.

“How about Ginter’s wife?” Grundman asked. “He must have left her some, he had lots.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Henekie, “but the bastard never left her a cent.”

Grundman was surprised at this, “He had lots, I know because I deposited over a million dollars in a Swiss account for him over the years.”

“Well, there’s no way we can get at that unless we know the number,” Henekie said, looking at Grundman hopefully.

“Ginter wasn’t that stupid,” Grundman said.

“I have no idea what his account number would be.”

“Look,” Grundman told Henekie, “before we go anywhere, I need some collateral from you. Otherwise, I could finance you to run off and have a good time with my money. I don’t know you well enough to do that.”

“How much do you expect me to put down?” Henekie asked.

“Oh, US$20,000 would be minimum,” Grundman said.

Henekie thought about mortgaging Rona’s house. “I do have something valued at that amount,” he told Grundman, “but if I pawn it, I know they’ll pay me far less. I wonder if you’d be interested in having a look at it.”

Grundman shrugged, “Why not?”

The next day, Henekie brought him the necklace. “I will get it appraised,” Grundman told him, surprised at the quality of the piece.

The goldsmith that Grundman went to was another of his friends who lived on the edge. He ran a little shop downtown, but most of his income was from fencing stolen gems to rich collectors around the world.

“Where did you get this, Grundman?” he asked.

“It’s been in the family for years,” Grundman said.

The goldsmith smiled knowingly; it was the only answer he ever got. “This is an exquisite piece,” the goldsmith told him. “Sixteenth-century Austrian, look at the work,” he showed Grundman the inset diamonds. He could have told Grundman much more but knew he was interested in only one thing, the value. “There’s one problem, though,” he pointed out to Grundman the broken chain link where a medallion had once hung. “Still, I know people who would give you at least $60,000 US dollars for this piece.”

Grundman’s mouth fell open, “No thanks,” he said, “I think I will hang on to it for a while.”

“Okay,” he told Henekie on their next meeting, “I don’t like it, but I have no choice. We need each other. I will take the jewelry as collateral.” Henekie hated to part with it but knew he had no choice.

“Here’s the information you asked for about Green’s family and friends.” Grundman handed Henekie the dossier. “I am moving to the Bahamas for good next week. Before you go after this Green, Henekie, I have a little job for you. I’ll pay you well to do it, and we’ll call the money you make a retirement fund for Rona.”