Finders Keepers, page 30
“Where are you staying?” Flash was thinking the Hyatt or maybe the Koa Kea. John liked expensive.
“An Airbnb up behind Kalaheo, in the hills, just ten minutes, not far.”
“You resisted the call of the beaches?”
“Yeah, well, the beaches are free, you may have noticed. You can see them from up in the foothills too. But you can get the spaciousness and privacy of a house and a pool up there. Someone spent a packet on this one, probably laundered money.”
Flash looked over at John—he wasn’t smiling.
“Are you alone over here?”
“Yup, just me, myself, and I.”
“Doesn’t sound like you.”
“Yeah, well, times change, and so do people, Flash.”
Again Flash looked over at John. That didn’t sound like the John he knew. His answer sounded, felt, out of place, like a steak entree at a vegan restaurant.
John seemed preoccupied with driving. His hands were on the steering wheel, at the ten and two positions. He leaned forward and looked both ways at the intersection of Koloa Road and Highway 50, even though they had a green light. Satisfied that the way was clear, he slowly accelerated across the intersection up into the hills. With no streetlights here, the world around them was impenetrably dark. And as they climbed, the houses were spaced farther and farther apart, many of them well back from the road, making the scene even darker.
With a glance at the dashboard, Flash could see they were only going twenty-five miles per hour. At that moment, it occurred to him that John was driving just like his dad, Tom. John, who a speed merchant, was always driving too fast. What’d happened to John? Tom was a sixty-seven-year-old widower, for God’s sake, and John was what—prematurely old at forty-four?
Then John spoke. “I recently discovered that I have pancreatic cancer. The type they can’t cure.”
Flash looked over at John, too shocked to say anything. He saw the unsmiling profile of a man he thought he had once known. The face was cold, stern, somber.
“I’ve been given six months, maybe a year to live. So saving for retirement didn’t seem like a high priority with whatever time I have left, know what I mean?”
Flash felt a pain in his stomach. Hearing the news hurt.
“Jesus, John, I’m sorry. Are you sure that—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure. The doctors are sure, everyone is sure.”
John didn’t look sick, but it was dark. Who could tell?
Flash thought back to that morning in Chief Forsyth’s office. John the accuser, not John the friend, and Chief Forsyth in full dress uniform, sitting in judgment, with John acting as the chief’s mouthpiece, passing a life sentence on Flash. To be spent either in jail or forever banished, branded as a thief and a traitor.
Flash said, “Why did you turn on me? You must have known I didn’t do it. I didn’t steal the money.”
John looked at Flash, then back at the road ahead. “The evidence, buddy, the evidence. It had to be you. You must have done it.”
“But I didn’t do it.”
“Oh fuck, Flash, let’s not rehash that whole thing.” John looked at Flash as if waiting for an answer. “Here, let me say it this way. At the time, it sure as hell looked like you did it. Nothing even suggested a plausible alternative explanation, so what the hell were we to do? There, is that better?”
Unbidden, the ease with which he could always talk to John flooded back again, the give and take between the two of them, thought patterns running side by side. Fifteen years of friendship and mutual support. Fifteen years of give and take, sharing and arguing, but always covering for each other, no matter what. And yet John had betrayed him.
“Did you steal the money, John?”
“Do I look like a ten-million-dollar man, Flash? No, I didn’t! We thought you did it, remember?”
“How can I forget? But do I look like a ten-million-dollar man to you, John?”
“Well, it’s a little hard to tell. You’ve been gone for what, six months? You could be a twenty-million-dollar man for all I know, don’t you think?”
“So you still think I stole the money, is that it?” Flash looked out into the dark and then back at John.
“What does it matter what I think, Flash? If I think you stole the money, then I’ll suck up to you like crazy, and try to get a little sunshine from my millionaire buddy. Maybe that’s why I came looking for you—who knows?”
“Yeah, but you’ve never been the sucking-up type, except with Forsyth, that is. I always wondered how he never saw past the relentless onslaught of obsequious bullshit you kept feeding him morning, noon, and night.”
“Fuck, Flash, as if you didn’t agree with me! Admit it, you thought he was a prick. He’s still a prick! As for the obsequious bullshit, well, it saved your bacon a couple of times.”
That was the showstopper. Because on that day in Forsyth’s office, John had been on the other side of the table, pushing Flash Finnegan Michael out of a job and out of his life. Flash didn’t need to look at John playing at being an old man driving. Flash knew what he looked like, then and now. This encounter didn’t make sense, John just happening to come to Kauai—unless…
Flash said, “You know, John, the last time we saw each other? No one was saving my bacon, least of all you. In fact, you were throwing me and my fucking bacon into the fire. Maybe you’ve forgotten that part.”
“Flash, if Forsyth could have had you shot for treason that morning, he would’ve done it. He was so fucking scared of a public relations fiasco, he would’ve happily burned you at the stake and had it televised. I’m the one who saved your ass. Of course, you didn’t read the situation very clearly, so you just kept saying, ‘I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it.’ How far did that get you, Flash? Huh? I’m the one who came up with the quid pro quo that freed you up to run away and hide out with a new life here on Kauai. The alternative was you rotting in a jail cell forever, which was Forsyth’s preference, by the way.”
John slowed and turned right onto a gravel drive blocked by a gate. John rolled down his window and entered a code. The gates slowly opened inward. A sign over the entryway read Hale kau lāʻau.
“What does hale kau lāʻau mean?”
“Treehouse, can you believe it? Treehouse, because the house is among many trees. It was built by a developer, some wealthy guy who hit it big in Lincoln, Nebraska. No kidding. Well, maybe Omaha. I forget. According to the Airbnb material, his daughter named it. Cute, huh?”
The driveway passed through the trees, bending to the right at the first twist, then bending left, then breaking out in front of an ultra-modern, open-beamed steel, glass, volcanic-stone two-story edifice. As the Jeep turned in front of the house under an overhang, the entire bottom floor lit up—outside and inside lighting, all ablaze.
Flash was shocked. Christ, the place is a mansion! The house belonged on the cover of Architectural Digest. Flash said, “So maybe you’re the ten-million-dollar man, after all. Where did all this come from? Renting it must have cost you a fortune.”
“Nah, this is the off-season, so it was relatively cheap. Besides, I don’t have to scrimp and save anymore.”
Flash opened his door and got out, stretched, and walked with John to the front door. Watching John enter a code in a keypad, Flash began to wonder again what the hell was going on with John. This house was so far out of John’s league, well, it was preposterous.
The front door clicked open, and John led the way, motioning Flash to follow him. Flash thought back on his impressions of John so far. He hadn’t detected any tics, no noticeable tells, except for the weird driving. He’d thought he knew John really well, and this seemed almost like the old John, though not quite.
They walked into the great room, and John said, “Have a seat over there. What do you want to drink?”
“Beer. Foster’s if you’ve got it. If not, any beer.” Flash looked around the room. The space was encased by glass walls, and an open staircase at the back led up to a second floor. The room had three seating areas, with modern European leather chairs as well as couches and one-of-a-kind tables. Each section featured not just furniture, but eclectic pieces of art, tastefully chosen. The whole space was lit from above.
Flash sat in one of two high-backed leather upholstered chairs placed perpendicular to each other with a smooth, green plastic cube table between. On the table were three glass bowls fired in rainbow colors, one filled with Belgium chocolates, another with lemon drops covered in powdered sugar, and a third offering colored marbles—or were they also candies?
John handed Flash a big Foster’s can and sat in the other chair. He was apparently drinking a G and T with lime. “Cheers. Here’s to better times, as long as they last,” he said, and held out his glass.
Flash clicked his beer against the glass and said, “As long as they last.”
They both drank, then sat in silence.
Flash said, “So, John, what’s all this about? You can’t afford this, or at least the John I used to know couldn’t afford this.”
“Nah, I told you it was cheap. Off-season.”
Flash squinted, seeking to make eye contact, but John looked down at the G and T in his hand. Then John put his glass on the table next to the bowl of marbles and nonchalantly reached behind his back, producing a Glock. He pointed it at Flash’s chest.
Flash took a deep, slow breath, smiled, then said, shaking his head in disbelief, “Oh. Now I get it. You are a stupid shit, aren’t you? You’re the one. You rigged it. You stole the money, didn’t you, John?”
John’s face was impassive. He said nothing, just sat calmly holding the gun steady.
Flash said, “You stole the money and framed me. So you really are the ten-million-dollar man, eh, John? Well, why bother with all this?” Flash indicated the giant great room. “And the cancer, John? You don’t look sick to me. What the fuck are you doing here, and why me, for God’s sake?” Flash folded his arms and sat back, his eyes drilling on John’s again.
In the silence that followed, John’s expression changed. His face went from impassive to uncertain, from stoic to startled.
Just like in the old days, Flash picked up on his old best buddy’s mood—he was awash in confusion and uncertainty too.
Why was John there in Kauai? Why, and why the gun? And why did John suddenly look as if he’d made some miscalculation?
CHAPTER 38
“What’s with the gun, John? Afraid I’ll steal your money?”
John grimaced.
“Or is this the gift you supposedly brought from my daughter?”
Flash was sick of this game. John had the gun, so Flash wrote it off as something he couldn’t control. What he could do was needle the bastard and see what developed, maybe grab the gun.
“So, John, you took the money and put it somewhere. You bulldozed me into taking the blame. I left town, changed my identity, and did my best to erase myself. That’s my story—so what’s yours? What have you been up to since I saw you last, huh?”
Flash was breathing faster. “Come on, John! I’ve shown you mine, and now you show me yours. What have you done, buddy? Tell me.”
John rested the gun on his right thigh, still keeping it pointed at Flash. He blinked erratically and swallowed twice before he said anything. Then, as if he had just decided, John nodded and said, “Okay, let’s do this. I stole the money, for about three minutes, I figure. Then someone else stole it from me.”
“What? What are you saying? Three minutes?”
John sighed. “For all I know, it might have only been one minute. Tilly Good. She was my accomplice. I set you up, and she set me up. You made the initial transfer, and the money arrived. Then she swiped it. She made it disappear into her hiding place, wherever that was. So, yes, one minute I had it, and the next, as things turn out, it was gone. Fucking magic. I didn’t even know it was missing until—well, recently.”
Flash had heard a lot about Tilly Good, mostly from John, but he had never met her, although he would have jumped at the chance to do so. At this moment, however, Tilly wasn’t the most pressing issue; Flash needed to keep the conversation going. As long as they were talking, he continued to breathe, a good thing.
“You always said she was wicked intelligent, but John, what the hell? Did she bewitch you or what?”
Glowering, John said, “I don’t know! Bewitched, bamboozled? If I knew, I sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting here holding a gun on you, would I?”
Flash smiled, a big gleeful smile. “You’re not going to blame all this on Tilly, are you? I mean you and the gun and double-crossing your best friend, violating your oath—all the shitty things that go along with being a deceitful asshole—that’s on Tilly? I don’t think so.”
John shook his head slowly, but he said nothing.
Flash pressed on. “Okay, so Tilly double-crossed you. I got it. What’s the next part? Why are you here?”
John shifted in his chair and grimaced again. That was a tell, the grimace. Flash said, “Did you hear me, John? Why—are—you—here?”
More silence.
Flash said, “Look at me, John! You certainly can’t think I have anything you want! I’m just an ex-cop, retired early, thanks to you, living like a beach bum on a half-pension, again thanks to you, asshole!”
John’s face was pink in the bright light, and Flash could see he was growing angry. Finally, John said, “A little birdie told me that you have my money, a little birdie I shot—with a gun just like this one, by the way. Where is my fucking money, Flash?”
Flash chuckled. “What little dead birdie are we talking about now, John?”
“Tilly Good, of course, the, the—the late Tilly Good!” John waved the pistol at Flash as if trying to push out the words. His lips were white, turned up at the edges, his front teeth half-showing, feral. Flash had never heard John stutter before.
“John—You realize I’ve never even met Tilly. All I know is she was a perp whose testimony supplied you with lots of convictions, an early promotion, and lots and lots of vainglorious stories. So given that I’ve never even spoken to this woman, how exactly did this little Tilly bird sell you on the idea that I, of all people, have the money?”
Flash sat waiting, his eyes locked in on John’s, watching for an opening, any distraction, something to give him a chance.
John said, “She took my money, and she told me she was giving it to you.”
Now Flash was really confused. He chuckled and said, “Really, John? Tilly, who already tricked you and stole the money out from under your nose, somehow convinces you that she gave it to me? How in hell does that work?”
John’s face turned a darker shade of red, sweat appearing on his forehead. He moved the gun up, aiming it at Flash’s face, and said, “It’s a long and complicated fucking story. Too long. I know you have my money, and you’re going to tell me where it is and give it back, or I’ll blow your fucking face off. Where is the money, Flash?” His gun hand shook, knuckles white with strain. The scowl on his face deepened.
Flash could feel his heart pounding against the inside of his chest. He wondered how long he could continue to poke at John without being shot.
Flash took a slow deep breath, gathered himself as best he could, and said, “So, John, let’s assume for a moment that you really believe I have the money. Then, what’s with the gun? We both know you can’t shoot me because then I’d be dead, and you’d never find the money. You’re really painting yourself into a corner, John. You’d actually be better off hightailing it out of here while you have the chance—because I don’t have the money. I will say one thing, though—Tilly Good sure screwed you up big time!”
John suddenly lunged out of his chair, shouting, “You son of a bitch, listen to me!” He pushed the Glock hard against Flash’s mouth, twisting the barrel, cutting Flash’s lip, and grinding it against his teeth. John was standing over Flash with one hand on Flash’s throat, the other holding the gun barrel, twisting it back and forth in the blood and spit as if trying to push the gun through his mouth, down into his throat.
In desperation, Flash brought his right leg up with all his force, pile driving his knee between John’s legs. John grunted and began to double over. Flash twisted his body out from under John’s and smashed at the gun with his fist.
Flash reached up with his other hand and punched his thumb into John’s eye as hard as he could. John screamed. This was the chance Flash was waiting for. Flash lunged for the gun, which had fallen on the floor. He reached it, turned quick as a snake, and shot John, then swiftly scuttled back out of reach. He held the gun on John, who was on the floor, screaming, holding his right upper arm, which was bleeding and limp. Blood was pouring out of his right eye.
Flash rose to his feet and looked around the huge room for something to restrain John. Over toward the kitchen he saw a large, blue, plastic tarp spread out on the white terrazzo floor with a chair placed in the middle. On the edge of the tarp was a roll of duct tape, a coil of rope, a bag of two-foot-long plastic zip ties, an aluminum baseball bat, and a plastic bottle of Drano. It was like the stage setting for a macabre play titled “Torture.” Jesus Christ.
Flash pushed the gun under his belt at the small of his back and moved quickly to the tarp, where he picked up a couple of the zip ties. He returned and bound John’s hands in front with one tie and his feet with the other, then zipped them both tight.
John was cursing, pleading, accusing, making a hell of a racket. Flash grabbed a flowered throw pillow from a nearby couch and placed it beneath John’s head, all the while thinking he would rather smash the bastard’s head in.
But the fight was over, wasn’t it? He felt relieved that he’d resisted the bloodthirsty urge, even though he now understood why John had sprung the big bucks for an immense, private, isolated, gated, Architectural Digest Airbnb: the perfect place to torture and murder someone.
John was cold from shock and bleeding. He was blind in one eye, his head felt as though it had cracked open, his right arm burned where he had been shot, and his shoulder had gone numb. The zip ties were cinched tight around his wrists and ankles. The combination of pain, shock, and despair was so toxic he couldn’t speak. He raised and dropped his head on the pillow and growled like an angry dog. The plan had been absolutely perfect; he had been so close!
