The Trophy Wife (10 page)

Her mistake was in not letting the local wise guy in on the deal and cutting him in for half. So Mike had been dispatched to help Rita see the light of day. His real name was Milo. The “Mike” came from the first syllable of his last name, which was a nightmare of unpronounceable combinations of consonants. When he grabbed Rita, he liked what he grabbed, and she made it clear that there were other things he could do to her besides beating her senseless. He had taken fifteen hundred back to the Don and then begged out to visit his dying mother in California. Mike and Rita had been a thing ever since.

“She wanted to know how long we were going to hold her,” Rita said while she cut her chicken into slender strips.

Mike sputtered his beer. “Christ, I hope you didn't tell her.”

“Sure I did. It will keep her from getting antsy. I told her we'd be dropping her off someplace.”

“Into the harbor. Or into a sewer. It ain't gonna make no difference to her.”

“There you go again,” she said despairingly. “Thinking like a hood. Nobody is going to hurt her.”

Mike shook his head in disbelief. “What do you think … this is a practical joke? One of your two-bit scams. This is a real slick operation. She's been kidnapped by some serious players. I'll bet they're askin' for a bundle.”

“So,” she challenged. “She's got plenty of money. She'll pay.”

“It won't make a fuckin' bit of difference whether she pays or not. They won't want her walkin' around. Hell,
I
don't want her walkin' around. We're the ones she'll pick out of the lineup.”

“She won't know where to find us,” Rita argued. “She can't hurt us.”

“Well, the people who lifted her won't want to take that chance. And neither do I. Long about Saturday, we'll get a call tellin' us to get rid of her. And I'll be ready with a nice six-foot hole behind the garage.”

“Listen, Mike. We're not killing anyone. It's a lot tougher to walk away from a murder rap than from small con. I didn't sign up for a lethal injection.”

Rita was a changed person when she went back down to pick up the dinner plate. She was all business, reluctant to risk even a moment of eye contact with her prisoner. “Do you want to use the powder room before I lock up?”

“You don't need that shackle,” Emily reasoned. “I can't go anywhere.”

She held out the handcuffs. “We have better things to do than sit up listening to you climbing through the ceiling. But I'll only shackle one hand, just to be sure you stay in bed. Now, do you want to use the facilities or not?”

“You really think you know her?” he asked when Rita was back upstairs. His question had purpose. Something was stirring under the lacquered hair.

“I know I've met her. Or at least seen her picture. I just can't put a name on the face.”

He pointed to the newspaper he had been reading. “If she's so important, how come she didn't make the papers. When somethin' happens to important people, it makes the paper. But there's not a word about anyone gettin' kidnapped.”

Rita realized he had a point. But then she argued, “Probably the police don't want to put out her name so that they don't get a lot of crank calls. You know what happens when people find out that someone important is in trouble.”

“Well, maybe we ought to find out. We're the ones stuck with her. We ought to know who it is that we're mindin'.”

Rita thought for a minute and then decided, “It's not important. We're getting paid.”

“Could be damn important,” Mike told her. “What
are
we gettin' paid? A couple of lousy grand?”

“Ten grand. And there's nothing lousy about ten grand.”

“What do you think they're gettin'?”

“Who?” Rita said as she poured orange juice over a double shot of vodka.

“The guys runnin' this show. If she's some rich bitch, I'll bet they're askin' a coupla
hundred
thousand. But we're the ones takin' all the risks. We should be gettin' a lot more than ten.”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe fifty.”

She looked at him carefully, uncertain of whether he had gone completely crazy or whether, for the first time, he was making a lot of sense. “Mike, they said ten. I don't think they'd go as high as fifty.”

He smiled. “Bet her old man will.”

She squinted. “Are you trying to get us killed? Right now, no one gives a damn about us. But you know better than I what could happen if we get the wrong people angry. These guys don't plea-bargain. You take over their play and they take you straight to the river.”

Mike smirked at his own cleverness. “We're not goin' to cut anybody out. I know better than that. We're just goin' to set up a little side deal of our own. The people who lifted her won't know anythin' about it.”

“They'll know when they ask for the ransom and find out that it's already been paid.”

“You think they'll believe the guy? ‘Jesus, you already paid? Well, then just disregard this notice.' C'mon, Rita, they won't give a damn. We're peanuts next to what they're as-kin'.”

Rita thought for several seconds. There were always pretenders who tried to cash in on a kidnapping. The real players
wouldn't waste a second trying to find out who might have been paid pocket change. It wasn't a bad scam. All they had to do was find out who she was and then send a ransom note to her old man demanding $50,000. Whether he paid or not, they would still hold and release the lady just as they were told. So it was really just a side bet that no one would have to know about. If it didn't work, they lost nothing. And if the guy fell for it and paid their ransom, then they were fifty thousand to the good.

“It sounds too easy,” she told him. He was about to argue but she held up a silencing hand. “But maybe that's because it is easy. Maybe it could work.”

“What have we got to lose?” Mike laughed.

“Our kneecaps, or maybe even our brains. I'll tell you what. I'll find out who she is. I'm not saying we'll do this and I'm not saying we won't. But I'll try to get her to tell me her name and then we'll talk about it tomorrow. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed reluctantly. But I won't wait for Rita to coax a name out of the bitch, he thought. It'll take me no more than ten seconds to get her name and anything else we want to know about her.

“Mitchell Price was at the restaurant,” Walter said, as soon as Angela had opened her front door. “The son of a bitch was sitting at a table along the back wall, hiding behind one of those computer nerds he has lunch with. But I caught him peeking over the guy's shoulder. He had a clear view, right up the aisle, to my table in the window.”

He had left the bank at six o'clock and walked the fourteen blocks to her apartment, his legs pumping like the drive rods of a steam engine. Now he was ranting, venting his explosive anger.

“Calm down, Walter. Relax,” Angela said, trying to be comforting.

But Walter would have none of it. He fired his dark blue suit jacket at the sofa and charged to the bar in the kitchen where he splashed scotch on top of a tumbler of ice cubes. Angela retrieved the coat, brushed it with her hand and hung
it in the closet. When she reached the kitchen, Walter waved the scotch bottle in her direction. She shook her head and whispered, “No thanks,” trying not to interrupt his diatribe.

“The little prick was laughing at me, knowing he had me by the short hairs. I felt like going back to his table and driving my fist right through that bonded smile.”

“It couldn't be. He's too smart to do something that obvious,” Angela reasoned. “If he set the restaurant up as a signal, why would he ever let you catch him there?”

“Because he wants me to know that it's him. He wants me to know that he's the one who's ruining me at the bank. Hell, he may even plan to pick up the money and put it in his pocket so I can watch him spending it. And there's not one damn thing I can do about it.” He took a long swallow from his glass.

Angela moved next to him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Walter, I think you're overwrought. Please, sit down and try to relax.”

He gave her a grateful but tense smile and carried the drink to the sofa. Angela settled directly across from him. “Now tell me slowly. Why would you think it could be Mitchell?”

“Because if I wire that money, I'm in gross violation of bank rules. I'd be finished.”

Angela nodded that she understood his reasoning. “But, still, to go there himself and risk having you see him …”

“Dammit, he wasn't risking anything. He could sit there and smirk at me and what could I do about it? I can't have him arrested for having lunch at Casper's.”

“Still,” she wondered aloud, “it could be just a coincidence. Maybe there's some way we could find out when he made the date. Or maybe the other person picked the place.”

Walter sat thoughtfully for a moment and then agreed with her. Andrew Hogan could check it out. He told her about his meeting with the bank's security officer and explained that Hogan was bending the bank's rules to help him.

She was surprised and asked why Hogan would do a favor for any of the officers. Hogan didn't polish anyone's apple and he had no true friends on the executive floor.

“Why not?” Walter sneered. “It's only until Friday. So if he catches someone by Friday, he's a hero, and if he doesn't, he goes to the board and follows policy. He's not going to let any money leave the bank.”

He went to the bedroom phone and dialed Andrew's office. When he came back, Angela was in the kitchen, starting a potluck dinner.

“He wasn't in. And I didn't want to leave a message on his voice mail. Christ, Mitch Price wouldn't have any problem breaking into Hogan's voice mail. He's the one who designed the whole goddamned voice mail system.” He began fixing himself another drink while he regurgitated the tangled string of clues that he had thought up since the instant when he recognized his associate at the restaurant. “There are lots of things I should have caught onto,” he rambled angrily. “Wire the funds! No one knows more about our leased line situation than he does. It's another one of his electronic wonders. He could easily tap into it and he'd know instantly if I were to try to trick him. It's like the messenger said. If I went to the police, he'd know instantly.”

He poured a glass of wine for her and set it next to the cutting board where she was beginning a salad.

“Another thing,” Walter went on. “The guy who came to my house said he got his instructions from a computerized voice. Price knows how to do those things. Every time you call the bank, you talk to one of his computerized clerks. It would be a cinch for him to pull it off.”

She dumped the salad into a colander and rinsed it under the faucet, glancing at Walter to show her interest.

“Hogan says it's someone inside who truly understands my job. Mitch knows it. I have to describe exactly what I'm doing so that he can design the
perfect
computer and communications system for the job.”

Angela didn't seem to agree with him, but she didn't want to add to his obvious frustration. It was easier for her to just nod to show she was listening and shake her head to share his anger. She listened patiently to all the evidence that pointed toward Mitchell Price. There was no doubt that the
man had all the computer and communications skills needed to monitor all the details of Walter's business life. And he had sat through many long meetings with Andrew Hogan's underworld characters as part of the effort to build secure walls around all the bank's electronic records and files. He knew all the leaks. But when Walter finally lapsed into silence, Angela suggested that he was stretching the evidence too far. “It just doesn't make sense for him to risk everything in a criminal act so that he can beat you to the presidency,” she said. And then, when Walter seemed annoyed that she disagreed with him, Angela added, “Bottom line, Walter, is that Mitchell Price doesn't have the balls.”

Walter nodded thoughtfully and, for the first time since he had come through the door, cracked a half smile. “I suppose he doesn't,” he allowed. And then he seemed suddenly to realize exactly what Angela had been doing. She was fixing their dinner.

“I really shouldn't stay,” he mumbled. “I should be at home, waiting by the telephone. If anyone knew that I was here … when … Emily …”

She paused with the pasta in her hand, hovering over the boiling water. “Well, if you really think it's best …”

But instead of backing away, he pressed even closer to her. “God, but I need to be with you. I'll go crazy if I'm alone with nothing to do but think.”

She put her arms around his neck and kissed him more affectionately than passionately. “I wish I could help you,” she whispered soundlessly. “I want so much to help you.”

His kiss was more passionate. “Maybe I could stay for a little while,” he suggested.

Angela pulled back. “I'd like you to stay. But I guess you're right, it's not a very good idea. You might have to account for your time and if you're asked where you were the first day after your wife was kidnapped, you wouldn't want to say that …” Her voice trailed off, leaving the obvious unspoken. How would it look if his first reaction were to rush into the arms of his mistress? He might think of it as a needed moment of consolation. But to people who didn't know him,
it might seem a tawdry moment of adultery and evidence of his total disregard for Emily's life.

“Who would ask me?” Walter suddenly demanded. “Who would I have to account to?”

“Well, Andrew Hogan now. And later, maybe the police. I'm not saying it would ever come to that, but …”

He cut her off. “My God, you're not suggesting that someone might think that I …”