Found money

57

Sheila was beginning to worry. Rusch wasn’t happy with her work. One little mistake — a stupid cocktail glass left behind in a Panamanian hotel. It was such a tenuous link to Kozelka anyway. Even if the FBI got a match on her fingerprints, they would still have to make her buckle under pressure and finger Kozelka. She was no snitch, but her roots as a hooker must have made Rusch nervous. Clearly he was assuming she would deal with the FBI the way she used to deal with him.

Everything was negotiable.

Her survival instincts were kicking in. When Rusch had said they would “reevaluate,” she knew what that meant. If the frame-up didn’t keep Ryan Duffy from taking that glassful of fingerprints to the FBI, Sheila was dead. One way or another, Rusch would make sure she was never subjected to FBI interrogation.

Sheila herself had been reevaluating things all afternoon, ever since she and Rusch had stopped to rest in a cheap roadside hotel. It was time to get out of Dodge. But not without a piece of the action.

Late Sunday afternoon, she picked up the phone in her hotel room and dialed Ryan Duffy. She tried his clinic, but no one answered. She tried his mother’s house and hit pay dirt.

“Remember this voice?” She used the same seductive voice she’d used in Panama.

Ryan felt a chill. He was alone in his mother’s kitchen, standing by the counter. “Where have you been?”

“Closer than you think. I’ve got something for you.”

“What?”

“Your father’s gun.”

His pulse quickened. “I want it.”

“How bad? Or should I say, how much?”

“Are you saying it’s for sale?”

“That’s a keen grasp of the obvious you’ve got there, Doc.”

“How much?”

“A bargain. According to my sources, you’ve got another two million dollars cash somewhere. Just a hundred grand is all I want.”

“How do I know you really have it?”

“Because I took it.”

“From Kozelka’s thug? Right. The guy’s a Goliath.”

Sheila glanced over her shoulder. Rusch lay naked on the bed behind her, flat on his back. He was still erect — a bigger stud unconscious than he was wide awake.

“He’s not so tough,” she said with a smirk.

Ryan’s interest piqued. He sensed a crack in the alliance. But he also feared a trap.

Sheila said, “What’s it gonna be, Doc? You want the gun or don’t you?”

“Of course I want it.”

“Then you gotta pay.”

He froze, undecided. Then an idea struck. This was a chance to pull it all together — to put Marilyn Gaslow and Kozelka’s goons at the same place at the same time. It would be telling indeed to see how they treated one another. “All right,” said Ryan. “Meet me at Cheesman Dam. Two A.M.”

“See you then,” she said, then hung up the phone.

Yeah, thought Ryan. See us then.

The phone rang in Marilyn Gaslow’s bedroom. She hadn’t moved from the edge of her bed since dialing Joe Kozelka’s pager. She checked the caller identification box on her nightstand. It was him.

“Joe, thanks for calling back.”

“What’s going on?”

“Trouble.” She told him about the faxed invitation to Cheesman Dam.

He was silent, the way he usually was whenever he got angry. Hundreds of times during their marriage, Marilyn had watched him internalize his rage. Joe was a pressure cooker that totally blew about every ten years. The first time, she’d forgiven him. The second time she’d decided not to wait for a third. She was afraid she wouldn’t live through the third.

“Who sent it?”

“It came from the seven-one-nine area code. I assume it’s from the Duffys.”

“Probably. But Amy Parkens was down that way this morning, too.”

“How do you know?”

“We know. Rusch put a tracking device on her truck.”

“Amy wouldn’t send a fax like this.”

“No, but she and Duffy could be cooking something up.”

“Let me call Amy.”

“No,” he said sternly. “Just let me handle it.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Leave your Mercedes in the driveway with the keys in the glove box. I’ll arrange for someone to pick it up this evening and drive it to the dam.”

Marilyn blinked nervously. “And then what?”

“Whoever sent this has to be taught a lesson. I had a deal with the old man. Frank got five million dollars. His family was never supposed to see the letter. He obviously broke his end of the deal. Now the family has to deal with the consequences.”

“Please don’t get carried away here.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he said, his voice tightening. “I’ve paid a lot of money to call the shots, Marilyn. Five million to Duffy. Millions more in campaign contributions to get you in line for some useful presidential appointment. It took a long time for the right opportunity to come along. To be honest, the Board of Governors was even beyond my expectations. But now that it’s for the taking, we are not going to be denied your one and only shot at the chair.”

“You mean your shot,” she said bitterly.

“I will never influence a decision of yours, Marilyn. I just want to know what your decisions are. Before anyone else does.”

Her stomach wrenched. A man as wealthy as Kozelka could make billions of dollars knowing that the Fed was going to raise interest rates a day before the public announcement. “Do you have to rub it my face? I’m well aware that you’re the one who stands to gain.”

“And if you resist me, you’re the one who stands to lose. That’s the real beauty of it, Marilyn.”

She said nothing, knowing it was true.

“I’m counting on you,” he said. “Study hard for your confirmation hearing. And leave the rest to me.”

The dial tone hummed in her ear. Marilyn felt numb as she hung up the phone. She was poised to assume one of the world’s most powerful positions, yet she was a puppet. Worst of all, a puppet under the control of her ex-husband. In hindsight, she would never have paid the extortion. Once she did, however, there was no going back. She knew of no public official who could survive a teenage rape scandal that involved the payment of hush money.

Back then, saving her career had seemed like the only thing to do. Right now, however, it wasn’t her career she was worried about. It terrified her to think that Amy might show up with Ryan Duffy at Cheesman Dam. Had she known Amy had been in Piedmont Springs this morning, she would never have called Joe. As it turned out, she might well have signed Amy’s death warrant. That was something she could never live with.

She reached for the phone, then put it down. There was too much to tell, too much to explain. She grabbed her purse and started for the door.

It was time she and Amy had a very frank talk.