"I think we could have some fun, Frank."
"I think we've already started." She didn't work on him, but Thorpe was impressed. She used everything she had to claw her way up the food chain. So did he. "Do you have a PDA? Vlad and Arturo were always checking their PDAs."
A little confused, Missy dipped a hand into her purse, brought out her wireless PDA. "Do you really think Guillermo has an inside man?"
Thorpe took his time answering, waited until she inclined her head toward him, an inadvertent sign of vulnerability, but enough. "I'm not sure. He might have been just fucking with me. Maybe he let me get away, thinking I'd come to you with the story, and set you worrying about who was about to betray you. No better way to ruin an operation than from within." He shrugged. "I don't know if Guillermo was lying, but I know how to find out the truth. It will cost you one hundred thousand dollars." He slid the number of his offshore account across the table to her.
"Do you expect me to trust you?"
"No, I'll trust you instead." Thorpe smiled. "Just before I came here today, I contacted Guillermo and made him an offer. I said unless he paid the balance due on my contract, I was going to tell you that he had compromised your organization."
Missy looked down her nose at him, waiting. "Well? What did Guillermo say?"
"He said he wanted to think about it. He also asked for his car back."
"So all I have is your word that-"
"Log on to your PDA. Send an e-mail to everyone in your operation. Everyone in your address book. Tell them it's a test, that you want to make sure they're monitoring their messages, and that they should send you an e-mail response immediately." Thorpe stood up. "I'm going to take a stroll, give you some privacy. I'll be back in ten minutes. That should be enough time."
"For what?"
Thorpe started walking. He didn't need to look behind him to know she was already sending out the e-mail. He took twenty minutes to return. Never let anyone be able to clock you-that was one of the first things Billy had told him when he signed on. Returning in five minutes would have been just as effective.
"You're late," said Missy. The PDA was on the table.
Thorpe sat back down. "Has anyone gotten back to you?"
"What do you think? I said I wanted a response immediately. "
"Then you'll know soon enough who's the inside man." Thorpe looked just past her, watched the reflection of the passing shoppers in the cafe window, all the pretty people on parade. "After I spoke with Guillermo, I sent him an e-mail with my offshore account number. Inside the e-mail was a doomsday virus that bypassed his fire wall and corrupted the hard drive. Anyone Guillermo sent an e-mail to in the last hour had their computer infected. Anyone he contacted had their system fried." He tapped Missy's PDA. "I figured that after I spoke to Guillermo, the first thing he would do is contact his inside man. So, anybody who doesn't answer your e-mail… that's the guilty party."
Missy stared at her PDA.
The waiter appeared. "Hi. Can I-"
Missy waved him away.
"How many of your people still haven't responded?" asked Thorpe.
"Three."
"Kind of exciting, isn't it?" Thorpe stood up. "You owe me one hundred thousand dollars. Send it to my account as soon as you're down to one no-show. I work on the honor system." He kissed her hand. "Strangely enough, no one ever stiffs me."
37
"I can't do it." Vlad ran a hand across a rack of brightly colored shirts, the hangers going clickety-clack under his fingers. "I can't."
"Come on, it's not like you haven't done this kind of thing before," said Clark. "This is your function, man, the fucking prime directive."
"Arturo is my friend."
"Your friend sold us out," said Missy. It was the day after Thorpe had surprised her at Fashion Island, and she was ready to get started, but all Vlad wanted to do was make excuses, and Cecil giving her that "I told you so" face, which made her want to kick him. As soon as this thing with Arturo was settled, she was going to ship Cecil back to live with their uncle. He could see how well that attitude worked at the filling station.
They were standing in the salesroom of the Huntington Beach Camp Riddenhauer, the smallest store in the CR chain, ostensibly managed by Vlad. Located in a failing minimall on Warner Boulevard, it'd had almost no foot traffic since the used-CD shop next door had closed five months ago, but it still maintained an air of imminent success. The shelves were fully stocked, carrying the complete CR line of jackets, shorts, shirts, sandals, tanks, and tees. Surf posters covered the interior walls-tiny surfers riding mountainous blue waves, and black-and-white blowups of classic Hawaiian postcards from the 1930s and 1940s, beefy kahunas staring into the camera, their longboards planted in the sand behind them. Reggae music pounded out of the speakers, but they were the only ones there to hear it. Only 5:00 p.m., but, as usual, Vlad had sent the staff home for the day. Every few weeks, a step van would come and take most of the merchandise away to an incinerator, then come back and refill the store with fresh designs. It wasn't Clark's fault if the public had no taste.
"Arturo was the one who decided not to go after Guillermo," Clark explained to Vlad. "He sold Frank down the river, and he didn't ask for my okay. You don't think that's suspicious?"
"Arturo hates Frank," said Vlad. "I don't understand it, but he does."
"Don't forget, Arturo needs money big-time," Cecil piped up. "I heard him bitching to Vlad about all the cash he lost in the stock market, going on and on about how he wasn't never going to be able to retire now. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Arturo probably didn't even know I was in the room. Nobody pays any attention to Cecil. Cecil is just part of the furniture. Put your foot up on Cecil's face and get comfortable."
"Talking about yourself in the third person is the first sign of insanity," Clark said to him. "One word, dude… lithium. Make the molecule your friend."
Cecil had a nasty answer, but he kept it to himself. Instead, he held a geometric Aborigine-print shirt against his chest for Missy to see. "How do I look?"
"Go jiggle the handle of the toilet," said Missy. "Somebody left it running."
Cecil threw the shirt down, stomped off to the rest room.
"It was Arturo didn't think I was doing my job," Clark said to Vlad. " 'Too much surf, not enough turf,' that's what he said." He glanced at Missy. "He's not the only one who thought I was backing off, but he was the only one who tried to fuck us over."
There was a wind roaring through Vlad's head, a static storm, but he could hear every word they said.
"Arturo was the only one who didn't respond to my e-mail yesterday," said Missy. "The only one. When I finally got him on the phone, he said his PDA was shot. No idea how it happened." She jabbed a finger at Vlad. "You know what happened. We all know what happened. Frank talked to Guillermo, then Guillermo tried to send Arturo an e-mail and crashed his PDA. Arturo is the inside man. What more do you need?"
Vlad didn't move. No one could tell that he was even breathing. "I believe you," he said at last. It sounded soft as a surrender. "What Arturo did was wrong, very wrong… but I can't take his life."
"What, you expect me to do it?" said Clark.
"I'll do it," said Cecil, back from the rest room.
Missy and Clark laughed, and even Vlad smiled.
"What's so funny?" demanded Cecil.
"Seriously, man, thanks for the offer," said Clark, "but killing Arturo… it's not like running down a little old lady."
Cecil just stood there. His red hair looked like it was about to catch on fire.
Vlad stared at his hands, turning them over as though they didn't belong to him. He wiggled his fingers. In just the last day, his cuticles had turned black. He hadn't noticed until now.