16
Sammy Barber had used the weekend to do some serious thinking. The guy he was dealing with was big-time. When he’d arranged the meeting in the diner, he had not given his name, only his cell phone number, and of course that was one of those prepaid untraceable ones. But it was obvious he wasn’t used to making this kind of deal. The stupid guy drove to the diner in his own car and thought he was being smart by parking it down the block!
Sammy had followed him and used the camera on his cell phone to photograph Douglas Langdon’s license plate, then, through one of his contacts, traced down his name.
He had not told Langdon that he knew who he was when he had called to raise the price for the hit on Dr. Farrell because he had wanted to decide his next step first. When he had called Langdon, Sammy had phoned the cell number he had been given. But over the weekend, Langdon had ignored his demand, so Sammy knew exactly what he would do next.
Langdon was a shrink, but better than that he was on the board of the Gannon Foundation and that was worth millions and millions of dollars. If he was desperate enough to order a hit on that doctor, he must be in big trouble, Sammy reasoned. He ought to be able to dip into that foundation and get a million-dollar grant approved for Sammy Barber’s favorite charity. Meaning myself. Of course, it wouldn’t be put that way. Langdon could skim a million off a legit grant. It must happen all the time.
Sammy bitterly regretted that he had not taped his meeting with Langdon, but he was sure he could make Langdon think he had. And of course at their next face-to-face meeting he would be sure that a tape was running.
On Monday morning at eleven o’clock, Sammy showed up in the lobby of the Park Avenue building where Douglas Langdon’s office was located. When the security desk phoned to confirm his appointment, Langdon’s secretary, Beatrice Tillman, emphatically said, “I have no record of an appointment with Mr. Barber.”
When the person at the desk passed the word to Sammy, it was the response he was expecting. “She doesn’t know that the doctor talked to me over the weekend and told me to come in. I’ll wait till he’s available.” He saw the mistrust in the security officer’s eyes. Even though he’d worn his new jacket and slacks and his one tie, he was fully aware that he didn’t have the look of someone who had thousands of bucks to throw away on a shrink.
The guard gave that message to Tillman, waited, then put the phone down and reached for a pass. He scribbled Langdon’s name and suite number and handed it to Sammy. “The doctor isn’t expected for another fifteen minutes, but you can go upstairs and wait for him.”
“Thanks.” Sammy took the pass and sauntered over to the elevator bank, where another guard allowed him to go through the turnstile. Mickey Mouse security here, he decided disdainfully.
Nice offices, though, he thought when he entered suite 1202. Not big, but nice. It was clear that the shrink’s secretary still wasn’t sure if she bought his story but she asked him to sit down in the reception area near her desk. Sammy took care to settle himself so that Langdon would not see him when he opened the door.
Ten minutes later Langdon came in. Sammy watched as he started to greet the secretary, who interrupted him and, her voice too low for Sammy to hear, said something to him. Langdon turned and Sammy chortled to himself at the look of sheer panic that crossed his face.
He stood up. “Good morning, Doctor. It’s really nice of you to see me on such short notice and I do appreciate it. You know how sometimes my head gets all messed up.”
“Come in, Sammy,” Langdon said abruptly.
With a cheerful wave at Beatrice Tillman, whose face was a study in curiosity, Sammy followed the doctor down the hall into what he guessed was his private office. It was carpeted in deep crimson. The walls were lined with mahogany bookshelves. A handsome leather-topped desk dominated the room. A wide leather swivel chair was behind it. Two matching chairs finished in a red and cream fabric faced the desk.
“No couch?” Sammy asked, his tone bewildered.
Langdon was closing the door. “You don’t need a couch, Sammy,” he snapped. “What are you doing here?”
Without being invited, Sammy walked around the desk to the swivel chair and sat down on it. “Doug, I made you an offer and you didn’t get back to me. I don’t like to be disrespected.”
“You agreed to a twenty-five-thousand-dollar price and raised it to one hundred thousand,” a shaken Langdon reminded him.
“Twenty-five thousand for murdering Dr. Monica Farrell isn’t very much, I figure,” Sammy commented. “She’s not like some intern nobody ever heard of. She’s what would you say… distinguished?”
“You agreed to that price,” Langdon said, and now Sammy could hear the panic he’d expected in Langdon’s tone.
“But you didn’t get back to me,” Sammy reminded him. “So that’s why the price has gone up again. It’s now one million, payable in advance.”
“You’ve got to be crazy,” Langdon whispered.
“I’m not,” Sammy assured him. “I taped you the other night in the diner and I’m taping you now.” He opened his jacket and exposed the wire he had attached to his cell phone. With a slow, deliberate movement he buttoned his jacket and got up. “What you or someone you know has on me wouldn’t mean much if it came to a trial. The cops would drop that charge in a minute in exchange for this tape and the other one. Now listen real carefully. I want one million dollars, then I do the job. I’ve figured out how to make it look like a burglary gone sour. So get the money, and you can sleep at night. You have to be smart enough to know that when the job is done, I won’t be sending any tapes to the cops.”
He got up, brushed past Langdon, and put his hand on the doorknob. “Have it by Friday,” he said, “or I go to the police myself.” He opened the door. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said, in a voice loud enough that he hoped the secretary could hear. “You’ve been a big help. Like you say, I can’t blame all my problems on my old lady. She did her best for me.”
17
Esther Chambers had had a dismal weekend. Her visit from Thomas Desmond of the Securities and Exchange Commission and his partner had thoroughly unsettled her. When she had found them waiting for her in her lobby on Wednesday evening, she had allowed them to come up to her apartment as Desmond had requested.
There, in the privacy of her home, he had told her that her boss had been watched for some time by the SEC and that criminal charges against him for insider trading might be forthcoming.
He had also told her that she had been thoroughly checked and that her finances had shown that in no way was she living beyond her income, so they felt confident that she was not engaged in any illegal activities. They told her that they wanted her to work with them and provide them with information about Greg’s business dealings. They stressed that confidentiality was of the utmost importance and that she would almost certainly be called to testify before a Grand Jury.
“I simply cannot believe that Greg Gannon would be guilty of insider trading,” she had told Desmond. “Why should he? The investment firm has always been very successful, and for years he’s received a big salary as chairman of the board of the Gannon Foundation.”
“It’s not a case of how much he has, but how much he
Desmond had not been happy to learn that she had just submitted her resignation. He’d asked her if she could rescind it, then corrected himself. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. My bet is that right now he’s afraid to trust
