Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [98]
He sighed. “I know. Let’s you and me just get through this shit, okay? Maybe things still won’t be the same, but who knows? They might even be better.”
Slowly I nodded.
“So what d’you think went down at Fontes’s place, McCone?”
I’d been puzzling about that all the way here. “A medical emergency or a shooting. Knowing who his houseguests were, I’d opt for a shooting.”
“Which guest was it?”
“The shooter or the victim?” I shrugged, thinking back to my predawn speculations. “Hy, Salazar waited till Tuesday before he flew down here?”
“Uh-huh. Tuesday night around eight.”
“Why wait all that time? Why not bring the L.C. to Fontes as soon as he took it off you? I presume he brought it because it was drawn to a company owned by Fontes’s family.”
“Maybe he didn’t know what he had at first, or what to do with it. He was one disappointed dude when he saw he’d held Brockowitz and me up for a piece of paper.”
“So it took him till Tuesday to figure that out, and then he contacted the wrong Fontes.”
“Salazar probably knew Emanuel wouldn”t deal with a punk like him. And he”s probably known Gilbert for a long time. I’ve heard that when the Corona Fleet puts into San Diego, there’s more being taken off those seiners than tuna.”
“Drugs?”
He shrugged. “That’s what they say.”
“Okay, Gilbert sent his plane for Salazar. Salazar came down here and did what? Offered to sell the L.C. to Fontes, I’ll bet.”
“Sounds like the way he’d operate.”
“But Gilbert couldn’t put the L.C. through; he holds no interest in Colores.”
“So what would you do in Fontes’s place?”
I thought. “I’d resell the L.C. to the company whose account it’s drawn on. He contacted Diane Mourning, who by all rights should have gone straight to RKI.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No, instead she went to Ann Navarro. Why?”
“You say Navarro buys her merchandise from Colores. That probably means she’s the one with the contact at Colores—somebody who can activate the L.C.”
“How would Diane know that? How would she know her husband set up his kidnapping in collusion with Navarro and Brockowitz?”
He frowned; then his eyes grew thoughtful.
I said, “Last night, just before you came up to me on the beach, I watched Salazar’s bodyguard bring Timothy out onto the terrace. Mourning looked bad, worse than in the photo that was sent to RKI. He was stumbling, obviously disoriented. He saw Diane and started toward her. Natural: his wife, safety. But what did Diane do?”
Hy raised an eyebrow.
“She threw up her arms,” I said, “as if to fend him off. As if she was afraid he meant to harm her.”
“And that means …?”
“There’s only one thing it could mean: Timothy didn’t arrange for the kidnapping. Diane did. And she was afraid he’d figured that out.”
Hy considered.
I went on, “Diane had two reasons for doing so. One Brockowitz told you: Phoenix Labs is about to go into Chapter Eleven. Quite a different picture than their chief financial officer presented to me when I talked with her on Tuesday. The second Gage Renshaw told me: he sensed Timothy was going to move on and not take Diane with him. Pretty soon he wouldn’t be any good to her alive, so why not cash in on his death?”
“Insurance?”
I shook my head. “Renshaw says Timothy didn’t believe in it, either keyman or anti-terrorist. A ransom that would bleed away whatever cash was left in Phoenix’s accounts was how Diane chose to go. She probably had to give Brockowitz a hefty cut of the two million for his part in the kidnapping, but what was left would still have been better than nothing.”
“How did she know Stan would arrange something like that, though? As far as I know, he’s always stuck to white-collar crime.”
“When this is all over, maybe we’ll know. Tell me about Brockowitz,” I added. “What was he like?”
“Out to get whatever he could for himself. At first he wanted to be a star in the environmental movement. When that didn’t work out, he got petulant and said fuck the environment. Founded his firm to get back at the people who’d ousted him. Along the way he discovered he liked money. Not what it could buy, from what people tell me,