"Exactly. I've got leverage on him. I'm the last guy on earth he ought to fuck with."
"I don't know," she said, with skepticism. "You've been with him a long time…"
"Ten years."
"Right. Which means you know a lot more than I do."
"So?"
"So if he stuck it to me, he can stick it to you as well. Believe me, the trap's there. You just can't see it at this point any more than I saw what he was doing to me until it was too late."
"I got no beef with Beck. The guy takes good care of me. Ten years, you know how much money I've managed to sock away? I could retire anytime I want, walk out tomorrow and still be living like a king."
"It may feel cushy, but it's a trap all the same."
Marty was shaking his head. "No. Uhn-uhn. I'm not buying it."
"What if they lean on you?"
"They, who?"
"The feds. What do you think I just got done telling you. The FBI, IRS, what's the other one?" she asked me, snapping her fingers impatiently.
"Department of Justice," I said.
She turned to me and frowned. "I thought you mentioned a couple more."
I cleared my throat. "Customs and Treasury. And the DEA."
"See?" she said to him as though that explained that.
"Why lean on me? Based on what?"
"Based on all the shit they've picked up so far."
"From who?"
"You think they don't have agents in place?"
He laughed, albeit uneasily. "What 'agents'? That's bull."
"Sorry. I misspoke myself. I said 'agents' in the plural. There's really only one."
"Who?"
"See if you can guess. Here, I'll give you a hint. Who in the company has gotten close to Beck in the last umpty-many months? Hmmm." She put a finger against her cheek, deep in mock thought. "Starts with O."
"Onni?"
"There you go," she said. "Talk about a break. I get sent to prison and that gives her the chance to slide right in."
"She works for the feds?"
Reba nodded. "Oh yeah, for years, and trust me, Little Miss Onni wants his ass on a plate."
"I don't believe it."
"Marty, this is her golden opportunity. You know how it is with women in these shit government jobs. Sure, they get hired. The guys let 'em do all the grunt work, but forget about promotion. There's no upward mobility without a coup of some kind. She doesn't pull this off, she'll be stuck where she is."
"Doesn't sound right. Are you sure? This makes no sense at all. The girl's dumb as a post."
"That's the impression she gives, but she's wily as they come. I'm telling you, she's good. You watch. This lady can write her own ticket, provided she nails Beck first. I mean, look at it this way. Does anybody in the company suspect? You sure as shit didn't and Beck doesn't have a clue. If he knew what was going on, he'd be out the door like a shot. Wouldn't he?"
"Well, yeah."
"You better believe it," she said. "Meanwhile, there she is with a finger in every pie, access to everything. What a sweet deal for her."
Marty seemed to be getting annoyed, though I noticed two blotches on the front of his shirt where the sweat was soaking through. "Look, Reb. I know you're pissed at him and I don't blame you -"
"Sure, I'm pissed at him, but I'm not pissed at you, which is why I'm here. I'm trusting you to keep your mouth shut. I haven't breathed a word of this to anyone else. She's after his balls. She's so gung-ho she's willing to screw the guy to get the drop on him."
Marty was silent. I could hear him breathing as though he'd just finished running six blocks. "You can't just make claims -"
"I know. You're a man of common sense and you're hard to convince, which is why I brought these." She slid the black-and-white photos from the envelope and passed them over to him.
Marty leafed through them. "Jesus."
"See what I mean?"
"What's he thinking?"
"He's not thinking. He's got his brain between his legs. Really, you hadn't guessed he was screwing her? You knew he was doing me."
"Yeah, but you made no secret you had the hots for him. This, I don't know. Shouldn't somebody tell him what's going on?"
Reba raised her brows and gave him the big eyes. "You want to do that? Because I sure as hell don't."
"Poor guy."
"'Poor guy,' my butt. Are you kidding? If he was willing to work me over, why not you? Thing is, the stakes are bigger this time. You tell him about Onni, the only effect is giving him more time to cover his tracks."
Marty held up his glass and rattled the ice. The bartender caught the gesture and began to make him another drink. "Onni. I can't believe it. Beck must have walked right into it."
"Of course. Minute she makes her move, he'll turn right around and lay it off on you. He'll claim you acted on your own. He never authorized you to do anything. You took it on yourself."
"But it's his signature. Loan aps, incorporation papers -"
"Marty, get serious. He'll say he's never had a head for the financial end of things. That's how I was able to get away with the money I stole. Gosh. Guess he should have wised up, but some guys never learn. You told him to sign so he signed. He trusted you and this is what he gets for it. Shamey-shame on him. Meanwhile, you're under federal indictment."
Marty shook his head. "I don't know. This is freaking me out." The bartender brought his drink. Marty took out his wallet and extracted two twenties. "Keep that," he said. As the bartender left, he was well on his way to draining his glass.
During the brief interchange between the two, Reba shot me a look. It's your show, I thought, before she glanced away.
She patted Marty's arm, her tone brisk. "Anyway, ponder the implications. That's really all I ask. Even if you decide I'm making it up, it wouldn't hurt to cover your ass. Once the subpoenas are issued and all the warrants are in place, you'll be shit out of luck. In the meantime, if you're on your way upstairs, how about the two of us tagging along?"
Chapter 19
I'd passed the entrance to Beck's office building half a dozen times without ever taking in the sight. The façade was thickly overgrown with ivy, integrated seamlessly into the architectural conceit of an ancient Spanish town. Flowering trees had been planted along the front. To the left of the entrance were side-by-side stairs and escalators, giving access to the additional parking structure at the corner of the mall. A high-end luggage shop occupied a portion of the ground floor, presumably paying Beck a big whack of high-end rent.
We pushed through glass doors that swung closed soundlessly as we entered. Windows stretched upward the full four stories to a slanting glass roof. The interior atrium was oblong, done in a mottled rosy granite, floors and walls forming a hard canvas on which natural and artificial light played according to the time of day. High on the wall, there was a clock with long brass minute and hour hands and six-inch-diameter brass dots representing the hours. A curtain of dark green ivy and philodendron hung from a miniature oasis above the clock.
There were two elevators on the wall dead ahead. To the right of these, in an alcove, there were two more elevators, facing each other, one with a much wider door, which I assumed was designed to accommodate freight. A digital readout next to each elevator showed that all were at lobby level.
In the center of the lobby, a perfect circle of granite was sunk in the floor, sloping sides washed with a constant Niagara of water spilling from a six-inch channel around its rim. The sound was soothing, but the look, I fear, was closer to toiletlike than the restful pool it was meant to suggest.
A uniformed guard sat at a high polished-onyx desk. A lean man in his sixties, he had salt-and-pepper hair and a blank handsome face. Briefly I wondered what curious set of circumstances had landed him here. Surely there was little to guard and less to secure. Did he simply sit for the whole of his eight-hour shift? I saw no indication he had a book in his lap discreetly shielded from view. No radio or pint-size television set. No sketch pad or crossword puzzle book. His eyes tracked us, his face turning slowly as we clattered across the cold expanse of polished granite floor.