The cops would now know that Pottinger was Langhorne. From secretive, reclusive rich guy to secretive, on-the-run former mob accountant. But that was not all Harry Langhorne was and had been. He had been a lot more than that, as well she knew.
Men like Harry made women stutter and shudder. And every woman would know exactly what she meant by that.
So would she wait for Gibson to engage, or would she insert herself back into the conversation? To drive this mission forward with speed and urgency? People needed to be pushed. Otherwise, the human tendency was to slow everything down. People hated change. And they hated to make decisions. Her job was to turn those tendencies on their proverbial head.
The surveillance device she had placed on Gibson’s property showed that the babysitter was there, the kids were engaged with her, and Gibson had driven off in her van an hour before. If she had to guess, it was back to Stormfield because her phone log showed a previous call from Wilson Sullivan.
They would discuss the revelation of Daniel Pottinger’s being Harry Langhorne. Perhaps Sullivan would want to use the Jersey girl’s knowledge of Garden State mobsters. If they teamed up, wonderful. But then it would all be about the timing at the end.
Because this would have a definite denouement. And it had to terminate on her terms and to her benefit, and Clarisse would sacrifice anything or anyone to make sure that would be the case. She had worked too hard, filled up too many notebooks, played too many different people to be denied that.
And after this is over? Do I retire to that lovely villa in Aixen-Provence that I saw in the magazine? Or the hilltop estate in Tuscany that was in that foodie show with the adorable Stanley Tucci? Or the other lovely residence on Costa del Sol that I actually went to? I could see Africa from my villa, although it was really just Morocco. Do I give my fantasy up to be a poor little rich girl in splendid retirement?
Probably not, but so cool to have the choice. Right?
She winked at herself in the vanity mirror and shook her fake, fabulous blond locks.
She hit the speed dial on her super-duper, compartmentalized Mickey Gibson burner phone.
“Hello?” said Gibson.
“Action,” cried out Clarisse, at least in her mind.
Chapter 20
“It’s your favorite phone pal.” She looked at her notes, which read: Keep tone fresh, appealing, and casual. To start. And play off her energy, if she has any.
“I’m busy right now,” replied Gibson as she steered her van.
“Out and about on our case, or home web-sleuthing the next pesky billionaire who refuses to pay his bills?”
“You have a funny way of putting things.”
“Is it incorrect in any way?”
“Not at all. It’s spot-on, actually. That’s why it’s funny.”
She’s getting more comfortable, Clarisse wrote in meticulous penmanship in her notebook. Work that for a bit before dropping the hammer. “I thought our last conversation ended badly, so I wanted to reach out.”
“Ended badly? You mentioned the next murder and then hung up on me.”
She flipped back two pages in her notebook: Spin this positive before it flips negative. Stakes are high. Impress that. Do not end conversation. That will be on her. “I also mentioned that you were out there, the public face as it were. Knee-deep in it. That makes you vulnerable.”
“Meaning you made me vulnerable.”
“There was no getting around that, Mickey. It was always going to come to that. The only question was the timing.”
“So what exactly do I get out of all this?”
“I thought I made that clear before. You solve this, you are a girl who calls her own shots. Unless you want to work for ProEye until you drop dead from boredom. And if so, we can do a full stop here because half-ass won’t cut it. I think you can already see that, can’t you?”
“But I also do not want to die prematurely.”
“You want to see your kids grow up. We talked about that before.”
“But you still want me to see this through, and maybe not see my kids grow up.”
Clarisse brought up pictures of Tommy and Darby on her screen. They were absolute cuties, innocent, still forming in every way. They were clueless about how much shit life had in store for them. And that was if they had a normal life, whatever the hell that was.
“I don’t like going over old ground. Did you find out how the man died?”
“Poison. And he was restrained.”
“So they watched him die?”
“Apparently, yes.”
“Okay, now can we talk tactics and strategy?”
“I thought that was up to me.”
“I can help you get there, faster.”
“And what do you get out of this?”
Page one of the Mickey Gibson notebook.
“I might get to live a little longer, Mickey. I might get to see my kids grow up.”
“You said you didn’t have children.”
“But I still could.” Pour on guilt, because why not? “Anything wrong with that?”
“Nothing at all,” replied Gibson. “Just be prepared not to sleep or eat a decent meal for about eleven years. And I hope you enjoy the comingled smell of Cheerios and banana puke. It’s quite unforgettable.”
Clarisse turned to page twenty-four. “Tactics and strategy? Shall we?”
“Okay.”
“The man I knew as Daniel Pottinger, businessman with his fingers in lots of pies, both legal and illegal, has now been revealed as Harry Langhorne, an accountant for the New Jersey mob of yesteryear. I know you know this,” she said because she could sense Gibson was about to interject. “But it doesn’t hurt to lay out everything precisely and in order. Now, whoever killed him did so for specific reasons. And I don’t think it was related to his mob activity.”
“Why not?”
“The mobsters who went to prison for the crimes Langhorne provided information on are either still in prison or dead. Without exception.”
“Not all of them went to prison.”
“The ones who did not go to prison are also dead, either from old age, ill health, via police shoot-outs, or at the hands of their fellow gangsters. As an interesting factoid, did you know the life expectancy of a mobster on the East Coast from 1950 to 1990 was forty-nine years?”
“Where the hell did you get that statistic?”
“I put together a database and ran the numbers myself. It was forty-six years on the West Coast and in Nevada during that same time period. Now that Lake Mead is drying up they’re finding lots of mob murder victims from long ago.”
“If not the mob, then who?”
“It could be the business he did later on.”
“The ones you were involved in?”
“I was all legit, as I told you before. But he wasn’t. Which is what put me in the crosshairs. Which I also told you before.” She glanced at her notebook. “Don’t you write this stuff down?”
“I do write it down. But that doesn’t mean I believe it unless I can corroborate it by other means that to me are unimpeachable.”
“Are there really any unimpeachable sources anymore? I’m not being facetious, I really want to know.”
“I suppose you want me to think you are an unimpeachable source?”
“That was a nice touch, Mickey. I could almost feel the tip of your foil against my chest. Look, all I can do is provide information to you. You, in turn, have to evaluate its veracity and arrive at your own conclusions.”