Ring of Lies (43 page)

‘
Nope.
Anymore
?
’

‘
Twenty
-
eight, ten, nineteen, eight, zero.
’

As
he
entered
the last digit
,
Jack
heard a
telltale
click
as
it
was accepted
.
He turned the handle and the safe opened.

‘
Was that your
s
?
’

‘
Catherine
’s.
Did I
mention
that Daniel left her some money in his will?
’

Jack kept his features composed.
‘
How much?
’

‘
Not a v
ast amount, five thousand pounds—
a
bout seven thousand dollars.
’

‘
Any idea why?
’

‘
They thought the world of each other.
I presume it
was because
Daniel
was like a big brother to
Catherine
and helped pay for her education
.
’

Jack blinked.
He had other ideas as to why Grace’s husband might leave his sister-in-law money, but he wasn’t ready t
o voice them, at least not yet.

He pulled a narrow spiral-bound notebook out of the safe, together with a small
plastic box
, a wad of cash,
and a bundle of papers
, and
carried them over to the desk.

He showed Grace the notebook.
‘
Is this Daniel’s handwriting
?
’

‘
Yes,
I can tell by the way he writes a seven, with that little wavy line across the down stroke.
And
Daniel was
left-handed
.
Whenever he wrote the letter ‘g,’ it looked as
if
he’
d written it backwards.
’

‘
I’ll need to study the notebook to see if I can make any sense of it.
’

‘
I doubt that you will.
Daniel had his own version of shorthand.
He tried explaining it to me once, but I never could understand.
He uses a mixture of letters and numbers—it’s a sort of code.
’

Jack opened the box.
It was empty
.
‘
I wonder if
this contained the disks
your m
ysterious man was looking for.
’
The cell phone on
hi
s belt vibrated.
He freed it
and looked at the
ID window
—his SAC, Mike Zupanik
.

‘
H
ey,
Mike.
’

‘
Bad news, Jack.
The police pulled Zachary Parous out of the Miami River
an hour ago
.
’

‘
Shit.
’

‘
His hands and feet were bound and he’d been
systematically
beaten.
The
medical examiner says it
looks as if someone
tossed him
in
then left him to drown.
We’ll know for sure after he’s done the autopsy.
’

‘
Grace and I saw Pete Jacobs again today.
He regularly flew Elliott down to an island near Marathon Key.
He said he didn’t know who owned
it
, but I got the impression he knew more than he was saying.
I’ve got the GPS co-ordinates.
It’s
not enough for a search warrant, but I wondered about satellite surveillance.
’

‘
I don’t know, Jack. That’s a big ask when we’ve got so little to go on. Let me think about it, talk to a few people.
’

Jack signed heavily.
‘
Okay.
What else do you know?
’

‘
I only know one thing for sure,
’
Mike said.
‘
You’d better keep an even closer watch on his client’s widow.
’

Spanish was the only language spoken in the La Bodequita del Medio bar in Little Havana, Miami.
The potent aroma of high-octane coffee fought with the smoky air and lost
, while th
e heady rhythm
of salsa music blared out from
the radio above the bar
tender’s head
.
Any tourist
entering,
expecting to find somewhere quiet for a meal and a
drink
quickly retreated
.

For Sergio Vasquez
,
it was
his
home
and his office
—the place where he
ate and
did business.
Despite his slight, wiry build,
other criminals in the city knew him as a man not to be crossed
.
No job was too big or too difficult.
What mattered was the money he
earned, the kind of cash that was impossi
ble to earn back in Cuba.
In recent years many Nicaraguans and Hondurans had moved into the area.
Those
who
frequented the ba
r knew to keep out of his way.

He ordered a plate of
ropa vieja
and a beer
,
and
sat down at his usual
table in the corner
, the surface scuffed and scratched from years of use
.
While the other inhabitants of the bar wore the traditional, locally produced, linen
guayaberas
,
the four-pocket men’s shirt
,
Vasquez preferred Armani or Gucci
and hand-made thousand dollar loafers when he wasn’t working
.

Last night’s hit had been easy.
He’d followed
the
Yuma
,
his American mark,
from his office to the underground
parking lot
.
As soon as
he heard the trunk of the Mercedes open,
Vasquez had
stepped
out of the shadow
,
struck
the guy
over the head and tumbled him
inside
,
along with his briefcase.

The Mercedes was a fine car
. H
e’d driven one like it before.
He
’d
thumbed away a smudge from its otherwise spotless white paint, hopped inside and nestled himself into the black kid leather driver’s seat, and
drove across town to
the
deserted warehouse
that served as his private torture chamber
.

It had taken a while, but he got the information he wanted.
Disposing of the body
was
simple; he’d
driven to
one of the slipways and dumped it into the
r
iver
, leaving t
he tide and the fishes
to
do the rest.

Although it had pained him to abandon the
lovely
Mercedes, he’d done as instructed, but that hadn’t stopped him from taking a memento of his night’s work.
He smiled, and straightened the
sleeves
of his shirt, pausing to admire the heavy gold
cuff
links and
Raymond Weil
watch on his wrist
previously worn by his victim
.

The bar girl brought his meal, along with another bottle of beer.
Barely out of her teens,
her hair was a sheath of black silk,
her body ripe and firm,
in a few years time she’d be stunningly beautiful
.
He gave her ass a squeeze
,
and was rewarded with a smile and an extra swing of her hips as she sauntered back to the kitchen.

He scooped up a forkful of shredded beef
in piquant
tomato sauce
,
and chewed.
The word
on the street was that some minion had
skimmed
money
f
rom the Banker’s
account.
No one messed with the Banker
,
not if they wanted to live, and especially not attorneys who
thought they were beyond
hi
s reach.