Greed: A Detective John Lynch Thriller (4 page)

Had to go under the knife for the nose twice, and it still wasn’t right. His agent kept telling him go with it, said it gave him some character. What the fuck did he know? When Fenn went to Darfur, he was
People
’s reigning Sexiest Man Alive, then his agent starts telling him to go with the Owen Wilson look?

Some scripts that used to come to him first didn’t come to him at all. Finally, a director who’d had a couple of arty films tank on him called Fenn in for a meeting. Guy needed another blockbuster so the studios would keep bankrolling his vanity projects. Fenn had played the lead in the guy’s two big paydays, so the man was reaching out. But the producers had written this anger management shit into Fenn’s contract – Fenn had to go see this shrink, had to get him to sign off that Fenn wasn’t going to bust anybody up.

Fenn figured he was an actor, right? He couldn’t convince some shrink he had his mind right, then he might as well hang it up. But at their first meeting, quack actually said one thing that made sense. Said that what you were angry at wasn’t why you were angry. Said you needed to reach down, find that main hurt and deal with it.

Just like that, Fenn saw a way out. Sat down that night, worked up a whole backstory – how some trusted family friend had abused him as a kid. Ran through the scenes in his head, even had a guy in mind, guy his dad used to know. Did his homework, and the guy had been dead better than a decade, no family left to dispute the story. And the guy’d gotten in some tax evasion trouble in the early Eighties, so nobody had him up for sainthood or anything. Once Fenn was sure he had it down, he dropped it in the session. Some of his best work – crying and furious all at once. Screaming at one point, tossing a chair. Curled up in a ball on the floor blubbering like a baby later. The shrink ate it up. Signed off, but not before priming his own pump, telling Fenn that they should continue therapy, that identifying the cause was just the start. Fenn figured what the fuck; it gets him back to work. So if he’s got to drop a few bills a month in this shrink’s lap, so be it.

Then Fenn’s agent cranked up the PR machine; started leaking the abuse shit to the right contacts, until finally they got the big cover story in the Enquirer – “The Dark Secret Behind Shamus Fenn’s Fury”. So the agent sets up a press conference, Fenn playing the reluctant hero – talking about how he had always been a private man, preferred to keep his business to himself, but then saying, maybe some other kid out there will know he can stand up, maybe some kid won’t let this eat him out from the inside the way it had with Fenn. Then they went on the charm offensive, even did the obligatory weepy gig with Oprah.

Fenn was back on top now. Nothing America liked better than a sinner come to his understanding, especially if you could throw in a little prurient sex in the back-story. Looked like he was finally going to get his Oscar, too. Oprah wasn’t daily anymore, but he had a sit-down with her a couple days back, her pre-Oscar special for that O network of hers. That interview was airing tomorrow. Meant he’d had to slip into his victim persona again, do the child abuse dance one more time. Old hat by now, had that down, even thought he sort of had a handle on the anger management thing.

Then he saw that fucker Hardin heading for the entrance to the luxury boxes. The one thing that had kept Fenn sleeping nights since the Darfur fiasco was knowing he’d fixed Hardin’s wagon. The studio types may not have been real pleased with Fenn after the Darfur thing, but the last thing they needed was this Hardin guy pissing on their parade. So the studios had leaned on the networks and the networks leaned on Hardin. What Fenn had heard, they had dried up that bastard’s pond but good. Fenn figured Hardin was over in some African shithole, begging for scraps. Now here he was in Chicago heading for the luxury boxes. The fucking shrink was right. You had to know what you were angry for, and Fenn was angry that this goddamn Hardin still had him doing the talk-show circuit, pretending he’d let some slimy bastard cornhole him all through junior high, while Hardin was upstairs playing footsie with the high rollers.

Fenn pulled out his cell and called Tony Corsco, mob guy who had consulted on
Cal Sag Channel
, the Chicago gangster pic Fenn had made maybe ten years back. Fenn got on with Corsco, and Corsco liked hanging with the stars. Helped out where he could, somebody needed a new coke connection or whatever. Hardin was the type of problem Corsco could solve.

 

 

CHAPTER 5

 

It was just past 11pm when Hardin checked into the downtown Hyatt on Wacker. Lots of rooms, lots of people coming and going, lots of exits, and it connected to some pedestrian tunnels. He’d stashed his rental in a huge public garage that stretched for several blocks under the fancy new park along Michigan. Short enough walk to the hotel, and he wouldn’t have to wait on a valet if he needed to get out quick.

Hardin had no illusions. It had been thirty-six hours since he bounced the couriers outside Kenema. He figured four, maybe five hours after that they were late in Freetown, and maybe another couple hours before their Hezbollah contacts had shit their pants. That meant some pretty bad guys had spent at least a day leaning on anybody who knew anything about the blood diamond trade – and those fuckers knew how to lean. Somebody would remember that Hardin had been nosing around. Hardin wouldn’t be the only name on their list, but he’d be on their list by now, so they’d be looking. For $150 million, they’d look hard.

At least he’d seen Stein. Stein set the meet at his luxury box at the Bulls game. Hardin waited until the game was almost over, watching Stein’s box for the crowd to clear out. When the Bulls went up big late and it looked like Stein was alone, Hardin made his way up to the suite.

Stein got up and shook Hardin’s hand as he came in.

“Long time,” Stein said.

“Yeah,” said Hardin.

“So,
Hardin
now?”

“My képi blanc name,” said Hardin. One of the perks of serving in the Legion – in fact maybe the only perk – was a new identity and French citizenship when you mustered out. Hardin had known Stein from his Marine days, riding shotgun on some weird-smelling Mossad deal in Kuwait (and well up into Iraq, though they weren’t supposed to have been there) just after Gulf War I.

“So, a drink? Some ribs?” Stein had quite a spread.

“Let’s just get to it.” Hardin had eaten breakfast at an IHOP somewhere on the way down from O’Hare earlier and still wasn’t hungry. His stomach was on Africa time, and the IHOP breakfast was more calories than your average African family might eat in a week.

“Straight to business with you, eh? OK, so you got some raw rocks, you got no Kimberley certificates on them, and you want to dump them on somebody who can cut them and get them papered up so they go from being useless gravel to being an actual asset. I’m straight on that?”

Hardin got up and started toward the door. “Didn’t realize I was wasting your time, Stein. Wouldn’t want to saddle you with any useless gravel. Maybe Hezbollah will want to buy them back.”

Stein laughed. “C’mon, Hardin. You really want to play footsie with that crowd, after what you pulled yesterday? I’d hate to fire up YouTube in a week or two and watch a video of you getting your head sawed off.”

Hardin shrugged. “Kimberley certs or not, you know I can find a buyer. And if these things make their way back to Al Qaeda, your buddies in Mossad aren’t going to be pleased with you.”

“Sit, sit,” Stein said, chuckling. “It’s a ballet. I say they’re worthless, you say they’re Solomon’s treasure. I say maybe a little, you say maybe a little more. We eat, we drink, we share the brotherly bonds of commerce–”

“Look, Stein, I was just a working-class kid before I went into the Corps, and I’ve spent that last couple decades bouncing around the less-civilized parts of the world, mostly with journalists. So what social skills I’ve got are rusty at best. I just wanna get this done.”

Stein held up his hands in surrender. “OK, OK. The customer is always right. So what have you got? A couple of ounces?”

“Eighteen.”

Stein’s eyes widened. “Eighteen ounces?”

Hardin nodded. “I would have been happier with two, if that makes you feel any better.”

Stein blew out a long breath. “How am I supposed to move that kind of weight? Dummying up the Kimberley certs on a smaller amount of carats is one thing, but this?”

“I know, OK? But I also know this is how you and your Mossad buddies keep the green out of Al Qaeda’s wallet.”

Stein was still for a minute. “You got a number in mind?”

“At $750 a carat retail? That’s $180 million and change. What I’d heard was you usually go ten percent.”

“I go ten percent when somebody brings me reasonable weight,” Stein said. “I’m gonna need a volume discount on this.”

“I just want my end. Give me a number.”

“Five million,” said Stein.

“You want me to get up and start toward the door again?”

“Ten.”

“Done,” Hardin said.

“You’ve got a sample, of course?”

Hardin had packed most of the stones into a compartment hidden in his bag. He’d left two stones in the canvas pouch he’d taken off the couriers. He handed it to Stein.

The pouch leaked some dirt onto Stein’s pants when he opened it. “Classy presentation,” said Stein, trying to brush off the dirt but just rubbing it in. He gave the stones a quick expert examination. “These representative?”

“Yeah.”

“And you want cash?”

“I don’t want a suitcase of it,” Hardin said. “Wire transfer.” Hardin pulled a slip of paper from the front pocket of his shirt and held it out toward Stein.

Stein shook him off. “A million or two I do out of pocket. Tel Aviv’s good for it. But they’re going to have to front the money this time. You can give me the account number when I get the cash.”

“How long?”

“Be a couple, three days,” said Stein. “How do I get in touch?”

“You don’t,” Hardin said. “Three days. I’ll call you.”

 

Hardin knew the Hyatt was really just an upper mid-level hotel in the States, but after a couple decades bouncing around the bush, it felt like the Alhambra. He’d been going pretty much nonstop for a day and a half since he hit the courier back in Sierra Leone. Flight from Lungi to Casablanca. Air France from Casablanca to New York, connection from Kennedy to O’Hare, then the meeting with Stein. He took a long, hot shower, made sure all the locks were set, put a chair up next to the door, and crashed.

 

Hardin woke up just after 9am and flicked on the set while he unpacked. Felt a little funny, his whole life crammed into one duffle. He’d grown up in America, understood the life-is-about-accumulating-shit gestalt, and yet everything he owned was stuffed into a four-foot canvas bag. He tried to think what he’d left behind that he’d miss. Nothing came to him. Well, his guns maybe. Had to leave those behind. So far as Hardin could tell, a nice weapon was the only thing that was easier to get in Ghana than it was here.

He took out his wallet, looked at the picture of the girl. Still had that. But he’d brought that to Africa with him, after the trouble with Hernandez. He thought for a minute about looking her up. Might still be in the area. She’d be forty, thereabouts, married probably, kids probably. And she’d invite him over because she owed him, and he’d come because he owed her. And there would be some husband trying to be the nice-guy host, wondering what this shit was about – or maybe knowing, if she’d told him – and her brother’s ghost in the room the whole time. Then Hardin would leave, and he’d know that picture was a just a picture now, not a possibility anymore. The picture was the only thing he’d brought from Africa he really cared about, so why fuck that up? If a dream is all you’ve got, why piss on it?

Hardin shook his head. Almost fifty and the only real relationship he’d had was with a wallet photo. Enough to make a guy think it was time to re-evaluate his life choices.

The TV droned on in the background; just white noise. Hardin dressed, ready to find some food. Just as he reached for the remote to turn off the set, the local station ran its teaser for the noon news show. Some spunky brunette trying to look serious. “This is Kathy McNally. Stay tuned for more details on the shocking murder of Chicago businessman Abraham Stein at last night’s Bulls game. That story, your Cubs spring training update, and the weekend forecast, all at noon.”

Hardin flicked off the set. Son of a bitch. Somebody’d offed Stein.

Hardin had no idea how Al Qaeda could be onto him this fast.

But maybe they weren’t. Stein had been killed at the stadium, and Hardin had been with him just a minute or two before the game ended. If Al Qaeda was looking for Hardin, why wouldn’t they have killed them both?

Either way, he had to figure his name was working its way up the hit parade. Fuck. This left him sitting on eighteen ounces of stones with no buyer and a short clock.

CHAPTER 6

 

Lynch was on his way into the office when McCord called him on his cell.

“Wasn’t expecting to hear from you yet,” Lynch said.

“No shit,” said McCord, mumbling through whatever he was eating. “Got done with you at what, eleven? I was over at the other scene until after two. But I got something you need to hear. That second stiff, looks like another .22. Haven’t chopped anybody up yet, and like I said, I’m not real optimistic on a good ballistics match with anything out of Stein’s noggin, so you might have to wait until we get the metallurgy back before we can make the tie for sure. But two guys getting popped with .22s half a mile from each other and maybe thirty minutes apart? Thought you might want to know.”

“Has to be the same guy,” Lynch said. “Can’t picture any of the gangbangers over on the west side using a .22.”

“Nah,” said McCord. “Anything smaller than a nine, they’d be afraid their pricks would shrivel up.”