The Finder

34

The profit margin on single-serving bagged potato chips was enormous. Most people had no idea. And that was the key to owning a gas station. You had to have the convenience store with it, because the absolute profit margins on pumped gasoline were very tight, perhaps four cents per gallon. The retail gas market was highly competitive and utterly transparent. People could see the price and literally look across the street to see who had the lower price. The margins on coffee, snacks, and other convenience store items-yes, he would sell porn, which was nothing compared to what kids were looking at on the Internet-were about five times higher. The Turk's place on Flatbush Avenue was a gold mine. Better than he expected. He had all the info now, thanks to the man who did the Turk's business taxes, a Pakistani guy who didn't mind selling out his fellow Islamic brother and making an extra thousand bucks just for photocopying a federal tax return. The accountant knew everything. The Turk was pumping about 125,000 gallons a month. His Dunkin' Donuts franchise, just started a few months earlier, was doing an average $50,000 per month, daily gross increasing every day. The convenience store on the other side of the property was averaging $23,000 per month, with additional income from the ATM, the AirVac machine out in the lot, the paid-in-place cigarette displays (the tobacco companies desperate to hook teenaged buyers), and the prepaid domestic and international phone cards. Two years into a ten-year lease. Blimpie sandwich shop additionally approved for the loca tion. And best of all, it was a great Lotto spot, people coming in and buying a hundred dollars' worth of tickets at a pop, fucking Mexicans and Haitians and Gambians and goddamned everyone, except the Hasidic Jews with their freaky wigged wives, but also including the poor old Italian women living off Social Security. The place was a money machine.

He knew all about the overall business now, too. The big oil companies were getting out of the retail gas station trade. Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, ExxonMobil, all selling off thousands of stations. At the same time, the big-box stores were getting into the business. Wal-Mart and Costco. But not in Brooklyn, folks. Very tough to get new gasoline tanks going into the ground, thanks to the state's tough environmental laws. What you see is what you already got, and what he was going to get was the station at Flatbush and Avenue J.

And his new best friend, the Chinese chick, was going to help hima lot. He had not expected to find her at the old detective's house, but hey, he got lucky for once, and as soon as she'd appeared coming out the door he'd known he needed her. Not only had she possibly seen him on the night that he and Richie had attacked the girls in the car, but, more important, he had a feeling that whoever had sent the white limousine looking for her boyfriend had the kind of money that Victor could use. It was just a matter of making a couple of phone calls to the guy and arranging a pickup for the money. He wasn't going to hurt her. A few whacks upside the head were no big deal, didn't count. He did like the way she looked, though, had trouble keeping his hands off her, and the idea that she was his captive, and that he could do anything to her, excited him. She had a legitimately hot body, and he knew what it would feel like beneath him. What a groaning good feeling to slide the beef up into her, especially if she struggled. Hell, she could bite him, kick him, anything. Eventually she'd just have to lie back and take it. Total domination. The idea of this sent some wood down south to where the wild thing lived.

But keep your eyes on the prize here, Vic. Be a businessman, not a sex fiend. His plan, formulated as he'd driven back to the lot, was simple. He had a dozen old clonephones-very hard to get these days because the manufacturers had gotten wise-and he was going to use them to call whoever and get the money from them.

Now he opened the floor door and climbed back down. The porcelain bathtub stood nearly full with the brown liquid, whatever was left of Richie's bones still dissolving away there. The odor was strong. He wondered how badly it bothered Jin Li. Well, she had other things to worry about. He'd loosened her up, and it was time to push things along. Jin Li lay curled in a ball on the mattress, the tape over her eyes. He'd put another piece of tape over her mouth.

What a nasty little room this is, Vic thought.

"Here's a bucket," he told her. "And a roll of paper. I want you to keep yourself clean."

He cut the tape holding her wrists together.

She pointed to the tape over her eyes, meaning that she wouldn't be able to see what she was doing.

This had to be some kind of trick. "You want me to take off the tape on your eyes?"

She nodded.

"That means you can see me. That might not be good for you."

She shrugged.

"You saw me before, however?"

She nodded.

"I'll think about it."

She shook her head. Combative.

He pressed the bucket and toilet paper into her hands. "I think you'll be able to figure out what to do."

She was silent. He leaned forward and ran his hand over her breasts. She jumped back in surprise and fear.

"You worried that I'll rape you?"

She didn't move. Not a muscle. But her breathing quickened. "Answer the question. Are you afraid I'll rape you?"

She nodded.

"Good. You should be afraid. It's a distinct possibility. I'm actively fantasizing about it. On the other hand, I need you to be mentally composed for my purposes."

She made no answer.

"Now, let's call your brother. You realize, of course, that no one, and I mean no one, has any idea that you are here or that this room exists." He watched her. He could see that behind the tape her forehead had lifted. She was crying-but making no sound.

He took the tape off her mouth in one rip. "Tell me the number."

She did.

"That's a weird freaky number."

"It's a global number," she said, coughing.

He dialed on the clonephone. A greeting came on, in Chinese. He didn't leave a message.

"He doesn't speak English," she said. "You need to speak in Chinese."

The language difference. You didn't think of that, Vic. You assume everyone speaks English. He could kick himself-or worse. But he was in it now. No aborting the mission. He redialed and handed the Chinese girl the phone.

"Tell him you are kidnapped and he needs to get his hands on five hundred thousand dollars by tomorrow morning at ten a.m."

When the message came on, Jin Li quickly said in Chinese, "Chen, I need help. I am a prisoner in some kind of sewage place in Brooklyn. The man's name is an English word for winner. I am in the place where the shit trucks are parked, I think. This guy wants a lot of money."

He snatched the phone away. "That's plenty enough." He tried calling back. No answer. "We're going to have to wait. Meanwhile we will explore other promising opportunities."

The Chinese girl fell back on the old mattress, dragged down there originally for sexual purposes. He and Violet, when they were seventeen, eighteen.

Yes, she was going to be very useful. He had by now emptied out all of the contents of the girl's purse and found, among other things, her business card. She was the vice president and manager, American operations, of some outfit called CorpServe. A big deal. Whoa! But more interesting was the call sheet that he'd found in her purse. It was on the stationery of a company called Good Pharma, which had headquarters in midtown Manhattan, close to where he'd waited for the car driven by the Mexican girls. Dated from the day before, the sheet had been generated by a specialized spreadsheet desktop application; at the top of the page was the recipient of the calls, one Thomas Reilly, and for him the secretary had typed in the name and a message; below it appeared the person's title, phone number, and identifying detail, such as the names of wife and children, and record of the last call made to or received from that person:

NAME: James Tonelli. Apologized for not calling sooner. Knows you wanted to speak to him urgently.

NAME: Ann Reilly [clearly the wife of Thomas Reilly]. Calling from her cell. Bill Martz called for you at home, please deal with him, she says.

NAME: William Martz, chairman and CEO of Martz New Century Partners Fund. Five calls. Tom, he is insistent you call him. He was making the call himself, not secretary. Frankly, he sounded sort of abusive.

NAME: Christopher Paley, in-house counsel, Good Pharma Corp. We have received an inquiry from the NYPD regarding the death of the two Mexican workers in our CorpServe cleaning service.

NAME: Ann Reilly. Martz again.

He was putting something together. The two Mexican girls had been employed by CorpServe, where this Jin Li also worked, as a boss of some sort. The two Mexican girls had serviced the Good Pharma offices. Jin Li had been in the Good Pharma offices yesterday. The Good Pharma big shot named Tom Reilly had been called by Tonelli and a guy named Martz. Maybe that was related, maybe not. All these folks, Vic knew, had access to a lot of money, and some of it was going to become his. He looked at Jin Li cowering. I'm going to turn this hot Chinese girl into a gas station on Flatbush Avenue, he told himself. He saw her watching him.

"Open your mouth," he said.

"Why?" she asked fearfully.

"Just open your mouth."

She did.

"Wider, all the way."

She did.

"I'm taking the tape off." He reached forward and pulled it away in one quick motion. "There. Keep your eyes shut!"

"I am," she breathed fearfully.

"Stick your tongue out."

She didn't.

"Do it!" he yelled.

The sound of his voice scared her, making her blink. But she did as he had commanded, eyes closed, mouth wide open, tongue out.

"Move your tongue, like you're licking something."

She did, tears appearing from beneath her eyelashes.

"Good," Vic said. "Very, very good."