Once a Killer (15 page)

“When’s it happening?” Rondell asked, barely containing his excitement.

“A couple of weeks. The due diligence is taking place right now, but it’s a done deal.”

Rondell pointed to his pad. “This is just the sort of thing I wanted, Danny Boy. High-quality information like this.” He rubbed his palms together. “Don’t forget, we’re going to cut you in. There’ll be a good profit on this one. Plenty to go around.”

Michael bolted upright. “I don’t want any of it. That’s not why I’m doing this.” He wanted to spit. Did this lunatic really think he was in this for the money?

“Something this good will be a real earner for us. You sure you don’t want a slice?”

The relief soon disappeared. Rondell’s greed was bound to blow the whole thing. If this mad man went in too heavily and took a huge bet on Collar Telecom’s stock, that would bring investigators crawling all over the deal.

“You can’t get greedy on this. If you do, the SEC will spot your pre-announcement trades from a mile off. They’ll be onto you.”

Rondell treated him to a knowing grin. “You don’t think this is the first time we’ve done this, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“We know how this works. The trick is not to get too greedy on any one deal so it doesn’t stand out. Don’t worry; I’m not going to blow things by screwing up on our first one. There’ll be plenty of others.”

Michael’s veins froze. “What do you mean, others?”

“There’ll be more deals as we work together. This is just the start of our relationship.”

Michael grimaced. “We’re not working together. There is no relationship. The Spar deal is all you’re getting from me. Once this one’s out of the way, we’re finished.”

Rondell shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you?” He pointed to his scribbled notes. “This deal will do for starters, but you’re going to have to keep feeding us transactions. I thought that much was obvious.”

“Are you crazy? This has to stop.”

“It’ll stop when I decide, Danny Boy. Not you.”

“The authorities are bound to find out if I keep showing you my deals. They’re not stupid.”

Rondell leaned forward onto his desk. “Then we’ll just have to be careful.”

“We’ll be found out. This can’t—”

Rondell slapped his palm flat on the top of the desk. “If you want our little secret kept from Caroline, you’ll do what I tell you.”

Chapter 18

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AINTAINING
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for more than twenty minutes when, finally, the captain announced they were clear for landing. Rondell raised the plastic screen and peered out of the window. The lights of London began to appear beneath the thick layer of low cloud. With a bit of luck, even with this delay, he’d be on the ground at Gatwick by eight a.m., which still meant he’d have an hour and a half to clear immigration and make his connecting flight—tight, as he’d also need to change terminals, but doable. If he missed this connection, he’d have to wait until this afternoon for the next direct flight to Guernsey. And being that late would not go down well with the man in St. Peter Port. He wouldn’t show his irritation, of course; the Brit was far too polite for that. But he’d sure find a way to pay Rondell back for making him wait. Anthony Liquorish, the pompous stuffed shirt who ran the show over there, would take quiet pleasure in his retribution. Why give him another reason to have a go when he already had some explaining to do? The Grannis Hedge Fund results had been slipping for months now—something, no doubt, he’d be reminded of several times later today. And with the people behind Guernsey providing all of Rondell’s capital, he’d have to have some pretty good reasons to justify this mediocre performance.

It was tight, and he only just made it onto the puddle-jumper before the gate closed. The bureaucrat at the immigration desk had given him a hard time about his frequent visits. Was it really that unusual to have American visitors fly in and out via London for Guernsey on a monthly basis? What was the point of the Brits having a tax haven in the Channel Islands if they were going to discourage foreign visitors from using them?

The turbo-prop was on the ground in Guernsey by eleven thirty. After a short cab ride, Rondell arrived at the offices of Skeffington Liquorish Asset Management on St. Julian’s Avenue ten minutes before his scheduled noon appointment. He paid the driver and then looked across at the harbor filled with expensive yachts. This was a pretty little island. He’d thought that ever since his first visit some eight years ago. Maybe one day, when he retired, he’d buy a place here.

He turned to enter the granite and glass building then took the elevator to the third floor.

“Mr. Grannis, how was your flight?” asked the receptionist when Rondell arrived.

“The jumbo was fine, but I’ll never get used to those turbo-props.”

She smiled. “You’ve mentioned that before. Mr. Liquorish is ready for you. I can take you right in.”

Anthony Liquorish was a pale man in his early fifties, just over six feet tall, with thick, wavy gray hair and bushy black eyebrows. Rondell had always thought it strange that his host had long black hairs sprouting from the top of his ears, strange because everything else about him was so elegant and well-groomed. Over the years, Rondell had met him many times, and Liquorish had always worn the same thing: bright red suspenders over a crisp, light-blue Jermyn Street shirt and no jacket.

“James, bang on time,” said Liquorish in his clipped English accent as he extended his right hand.

Rondell shook it. “How are you, Anthony?”

“Please—” Liquorish pointed to the comfortable sofas in the corner of his spacious office. “—take a seat.”

The sofas sat at right angles around a large glass coffee table. Rondell took one sofa, while Liquorish took the other and crossed his legs, revealing bright red socks above his shiny, black leather brogues.

Liquorish must have been expecting his visitor to arrive on time, as there was a pot of fresh tea and two porcelain cups waiting on the top of the table. Liquorish picked up the pot and poured them both a drink without asking. “Let’s get right down to business,” he said, adding a splash of milk to his tea. “So far this year, the market’s up eight percent, but you chaps are still showing much less than that.”

Liquorish had not asked a question, but Rondell knew exactly what the man was thinking. This was Rondell’s prompt to do some explaining.

“Yeah.” He forced some tea down his throat. Rondell was a coffee drinker, but he was not about to cause more aggravation by asking for one. “But we’re still in positive territory.”

“By a cat’s whisker, perhaps.”

“We’re up around two and a half percent this year.”

“We can get that by leaving our money on deposit. You chaps should be beating the market by a long chalk.”

“You know we’ve had some great years before this one.”

Liquorish cocked his head. “The past is the past.”

“Look, I accept that this year’s been disappointing, but we’ll get things back on track.”

Liquorish placed his cup back onto the table and sat forward on the edge of the sofa. “We need to get back there pretty bloody quickly. I’m beginning to get some heat from our friends in Prague and, frankly, I don’t like it.”

“What exactly have they been saying?”

“They’re worried you might be losing your touch. They’re asking some awkward questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Ought we to be moving the money you manage elsewhere?”

“Is that necessary? We’ve never let them down in the past.”

“All they are concerned with is the future and they’re nervous about the direction of your returns. And that makes me nervous.”

“I’m confident things are on the turn. We’ve got plans.”

Liquorish raised one of his eyebrows. “Go on.”

“We’ve had a couple of interesting breaks recently. One source, in particular, should be a real earner for all of us.”

“You hinted at that last time. In fact, I shared it with Prague. I felt I had to give them some good news. What else can I tell them now?”

“Well, the new source is starting to come through. We’re about to complete our first deal based on his information. You can tell them this one’s a winner, and I’m certain there’ll be many more from the same contact.”

“They will be pleased to hear that, not least because they have some more capital to be managed and right now, they’re looking for a safe home for it.”

“Are they thinking they might give it to us to take on?”

“It has been discussed, but only if I judge that you chaps have turned the corner.”

“You have my word, Anthony. There is no reason why our new contact can’t keep us fed with deals for many years to come. Let’s just say he’s very well-placed and I know him well. We have a history. He’ll be good for us.”

“You do sound confident.”

Rondell nodded. “I am.”

“Almost as confident as Nicholas Walker was before…” Liquorish poured another tea. “You did hear what happened to Mayfair Alpha?”

“No. I know you have a chunk of money tied up with them, but I don’t know any details.”

“We did have.” Liquorish sipped his tea. “Until their results continued to drift south.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“A few months ago, Walker was sitting right where you are now, telling me all sorts of reasons why his fund’s performance was about to start improving.” Another sip. “I told him Prague would hold him to it. Then he dropped the ball. He took a couple of very large punts on deals he said were sure to deliver. Within weeks, he’d blown a third of his fund. Turns out his source got it all wrong.”

Rondell chewed on the inside of his lower lip. “What did Prague say?”

“It’s not what they said so much as what they did.”

“I assume they withdrew their money?”

“Yes, what was left of it.” Liquorish narrowed his eyes. “But Walker didn’t live to see that. He was shot at his office a fortnight ago.”

Rondell forced down some more tea to ease his dry throat. “I hadn’t heard that.”

Liquorish leaned back into the sofa. “Of course, there is a silver lining in all this.”

“What’s that?”

“That extra capital I mentioned. It’s what’s left of the Mayfair Alpha fund. It’s coming over to you, as long as you’re still certain you’re not going to lose it.”

Rondell swallowed. He could hardly back down now. As long as he made sure Danny Boy kept delivering, then certainly he could raise the performance of the Grannis Hedge Fund. “I’m very confident of my new source. We’ll find a good home for that money.”

“I’ll inform our Czech friends of your positive outlook. They will be pleased.”

Chapter 19

M
ICHAEL
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at the Darien exit and drove north. The Sat Nav instructed him to take a right off Mansfield Avenue, where, a couple of miles farther on, he saw the parking area for the aging strip mall. As he parked, he spotted the shop, recognizing the red logo on its peeling fascia-board from the website. It looked older and tackier than he’d expected; certainly, the website photos weren’t taken in the last decade.

It was ten to nine according to the digital display in the Lexus, and the shop was due to open at nine. He had to be the first one in—get in before it became busy and out again before anyone noticed him.

Minutes later, a man with a shaven head and goatee beard drove by and pulled up in front of the store about twenty yards away from Michael’s car. The man was in a Toyota pickup truck with loud rock music blaring from its cab.

Don’t tell me he’s another customer.
Michael tried not to make it look obvious he was staring at the man.

Goatee man glanced at Michael before stepping out and bleeping the pickup’s alarm on his key fob. He had an athletic build and what looked like tattoos peeking above the collar of his short-sleeved shirt. Using one of the keys on the chain hanging from his leather belt, he opened the store and walked inside. Moments later, the metal shutters that had been hiding the windows rolled up. Michael looked at his watch—exactly nine o’clock. If he moved quickly, he could get this over with before anyone else turned up.

“Welcome to Forstmann Firearms,” said goatee man from behind the raised wooden counter facing the door as Michael walked in.

Michael scanned the shop. Leading from each side of the central counter were lower level glass cabinets full of pistols. Behind the man, and lining three walls, were hundreds of rifles of different shapes and sizes, all standing upright in open wooden display units.

“How can I help you today?”

Michael could tell he was being sized up as he thought about what to say. He’d never owned a weapon in his life. He didn’t agree with them and hated the fact that they were available to any member of the public in the same way groceries were. But now, for the first time in his life, he felt the need to have some protection for him and his family.