At five minutes past nine, the elevator door opened. Robert stepped out of the lift with Lee at his side. The past few days had taken a toll on the normally stodgy lawyer. Rumpled clothes and dark circles under his eyes testified to his distress. His head jerked up to nod at her as he stepped into the foyer.
She tried to set him at ease by greeting him warmly. “Welcome, Robert. I’m sorry to take you away from home at this late hour.”
“I don’t mind, really,” he quickly replied. “Did you know men are watching your house?”
“Yes, they’re friends. Why don’t we have a seat in the living room where we can talk?”
She escorted both men into the living room where Robert took a seat on the sofa and Lee settled into a comfortable side chair. Robert set a manila folder carefully down on the glass coffee table and perched on the edge of the leather cushions, as if he might bolt at the first sign of danger. He pulled papers out of the folder to arrange them neatly in piles on the table. His hands trembled.
Bai took a seat across from him in an overstuffed chair to watch with interest as he sorted the papers—straightening and rearranging them until he had them precisely the way he wanted. When he’d finished, he looked up expectantly.
She glanced at Lee, who nodded his head in encouragement.
She turned back to face Robert with her face composed. “There’s no easy way to say this, Robert,” she said reluctantly, “so I’ll just come out with it. Benjamin is very likely dead. I’m sorry.”
He sat very still. His head shook and he looked confused. “What do you mean by ‘very likely’? He’s either dead or he isn’t. I wasn’t aware there was a middle ground.”
She looked at Lee, who shrugged to let her know she was on her own.
She took a deep breath before replying. “Let me start at the beginning.” She ran a hand through her bristly hair as she gathered her thoughts. “Benny somehow got wind of a secret bank auction—I’m assuming an invitation-only auction. When he purchased property at this auction, he became a threat to people who’d embezzled money in an elaborate money scheme. The fifty million dollars in loans for Golden Heights was never used for improvements. The property is still raw land. The money was siphoned off.”
“That doesn’t explain what happened to him.” Robert looked nervously from Bai to Lee then back again.
She continued. “I think he went to look at the land the day of the auction. When Lee and I went to see the property today, a car, which appeared to be Benny’s Mercedes, exploded. It isn’t confirmed yet that he was in the car, but there was a hand with his class ring in the debris. I think it’s safe to say Benny was in the car.”
His face caved in. He looked crestfallen. “So there’s no subdivision, no roads, no sewers, no utilities, and no Benny?”
Lee intervened gently, his voice soft. “They haven’t done anything to the property. He stepped into the middle of a swindle. The people who killed him thought they could recover the property if they killed Bai as well.”
Robert was silent a moment. “Who are these people?” He sounded incredulous. “What kind of person commits murder over real estate?”
“That’s what you’re about to tell us,” she said, pointing to the table covered with papers. “Who owned the property? Who made the loans? There had to be collusion to carry off the theft of millions of dollars. Banks have safeguards, so whoever’s involved had to have been someone high enough in management to subvert the rules.”
Robert reached for the papers on the coffee table. His hands trembled so badly he pulled them back to clasp them together.
“Could I trouble you for a drink, Bai?” He stared up at her, a distracted look on his face as tears started to roll down his cheeks. He seemed to be suffering from shock. “I don’t normally drink,” he said automatically, then seemed to reconsider. “But I think I could use a drink right now.”
She retrieved a brandy. When she handed him the snifter, he hesitated, looking at the glass before downing the contents in a single swallow. He took a deep breath, exhaled, wiped the tears from his face with the sleeve of his jacket and shook his head. Then he carefully put the glass down and continued sifting through the papers while he cried silent tears.
When he was ready, he took a deep breath. “Here is what you’re looking for, I believe.”
He handed her two sheets of paper.
While she read, Robert spoke. “The first sheet lists the directors of the bank. All large loans would have gone before them for approval. A loan officer wouldn’t have had the authority to handle such a large expenditure. One or more of them had to have been involved.”
Looking over the list, she wasn’t too surprised to see a familiar name. “John Romano is serving as president of the board,” she said aloud for Lee’s benefit.
He got out of his chair to stand behind her and read over her shoulder. His broken arm dangled in a sling made from a silk scarf with a pink flamingo emblazoned on it.
Robert continued. “The other sheet is a list of the principals in the development firm. You’ll notice Ray Martinez Junior and Oscar Martinez are the primaries in this firm. Ray, or rather, Raimundo Martinez, the old man, is not listed. Ray Senior is a major player in the real estate market and very much a political insider. His sons are reputed to act as his proxies. They’re all set to inherit his empire, or, at least, that’s the story. There hasn’t been any official announcement as such.”
“It’s all starting to tie together,” remarked Lee. “The Martinez family buys the land and applies for loans to the bank controlled by Romano. They pillage the bank then file for bankruptcy. They then buy the land back to cover their tracks and let the shareholders of the bank eat the fifty million. Nobody’s the wiser.”
“Unless, that is, some little schmuck comes along and horns in on their game. They must have gone ballistic when Benny outbid them,” Bai said. She was dismayed he could have been so naive. “He had no idea what he was getting into. They might’ve been inclined to buy the property back, but he went straight out to look at the development.”
She looked over the table at Robert. “Somebody probably panicked when Benny confronted them. I suspect they killed him on impulse then decided there was no turning back.”
Robert looked confused. “But old man Martinez is worth more than a billion dollars. Why would he risk everything for a quick fifty million?”
“Maybe it wasn’t the old man,” Lee suggested. “Maybe he’s protecting his sons.”
Bai looked at Robert. “Or maybe he found himself squeezed for capital. With real estate prices plummeting, he may have needed the cash to shore up his holdings. The reason doesn’t really matter anymore, at least not to Benny. Now that we know who, why doesn’t really matter.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Lee.
A plan was forming in her mind, but she wanted more time to think about the repercussions of what she considered. “I’d like to sleep on it.” She looked from Lee to Robert. “In the meantime, Robert, do you have someplace other than home where you can stay?”
“I don’t know.” Robert looked flustered. “Do you think I’m in danger?”
“At this point, I’m not sure. I think it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“I don’t really have anyone, now that Benny’s gone,” he said, sounding a little lost.
“How about staying with Lee?” she said. “A few days will be all I’ll need. By then, this mess should be cleared up. You’ll be safer here, in this building, than anywhere else I can think of.”
Lee looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. She ignored him.
Robert didn’t look reassured, but he nodded reluctantly. “If you feel that’s best.”
“Lee will take you downstairs and get you settled into his guest room. If you need anything else, let me know.”
“Thank you,” he replied, getting to his feet tiredly.
Lee accepted the inevitable with his usual graciousness. He smiled encouragingly at Robert and led the way toward the entry hall with the dazed and slightly drunk lawyer in tow.
She went to the kitchen to make drinks and wait for Lee to return. When he came back, the two settled on the couch to talk.
He speculated as he sipped iced vodka. “Do we kill them all?”
“That’s a lot of killing,” she observed dryly.
“They deserve it. They killed Benny and Park. Jia was nearly beaten to death. They definitely deserve it—an eye for an eye.”
“That’s very Catholic of you.”
“They’re evil men.”
“‘Crows everywhere are equally black.’”
“Your point being?”
“If I put a bullet in every greedy and selfish person I come across, I’ll run out of bullets long before I run out of jerks.”
Lee let his exasperation show. “So how do you want to handle it?”
“I’m not sure yet. That’s why I’m thinking.”
She placed her index finger against her temple and tapped.
“I thought I smelled something burning.” Standing, he waved his glass in her direction. “I need a refill. Do you want another?”
Bai shook her head to let him know she’d had enough. She continued to dwell on the problem while she listened to the icemaker grinding out fresh cubes. By the time he returned, she had a rough idea about how she wanted to proceed. There was only one problem.
“Jason’s back in town,” she stated.
He looked surprised to hear of Jason’s return. “When did that happen?”
“When I opened my eyes two hours ago and found him sitting on the edge of my tub.”
He looked alarmed. “Does he know about today? I mean . . . you know, the bomb, Benny, the FBI?”
“He let me know we’d bought the wrong car. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he knows what color underwear we have on.”
“That’s somehow disturbing and at the same time scintillating.” He appeared worried. “But I understand exactly what you’re saying. If he knows everything we know, what we think doesn’t really matter. He’ll take matters into his own hands regardless of what we decide.”
She drew in a deep breath. “Unless I can convince him otherwise.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?”
She stared at Lee blankly as her mind went over the different tactics she might use on Jason. One by one, she mentally discarded them. He wasn’t like most men. She couldn’t lie to him. And using sex was no longer an option unless she was willing to swallow her pride and whore herself, which she wasn’t.
“There’s really only one possible way to sway him.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’m going to have to beg,” Bai replied sadly, acknowledging her fate, “like a dog.”