Russell Andrews - Hades

"And how about your profits in the fund? Did they stay up?"

Bruno nodded. "Until recently."

"What happened?"

"He said that some of his other investors had gotten unhappy. And he said that a couple of people had gotten suspicious of the way he was playing fast and loose with their dough. I mean, I don't know exactly how he was working it, but he was basically taking profits from someone else and giving them to us."

"Did he say what people were suspicious?"

"He tried to keep things quiet but, you know, we're very inquisitive. I got the kind of face people eventually open up to."

"You are a charmer," Justin said.

Bruno shrugged. "He said it was his father. And a hotshot Wall Street guy. A guy who threw a lot of money his way, a guy connected big-time to China."

"Lincoln Berdon?"

Bruno nodded. "The guy who runs Rockworth and Williams, yeah. Berdon had put a lot of Chinese people, including the Chinese government, into the Ascension fund. He had a lot of Rockworth dough in it, too. And he wasn't happy with the results of his investments. Or the investments Harmon was making for his Chinese connections."

"Because a big chunk of the profits were going to you."

"Hey, he was givin' the Chinks what they needed-the platinum and the auto parts. He was just chargin' 'em top dollar and makin' a profit."

"So what did Evan propose to do about it?" Justin asked. "How was he going to deal with the pressure from his father and Berdon?"

Bruno raised an eyebrow. "He wanted to back off our deal for a while. Make sure a few other people got their big returns. He said he'd make it up to us in a few months. He swore it'd be bigger than ever. He said he had a scheme that would bring us into the whole Chinese car market, make us more than we'd ever dreamed about."

"And your reaction?"

"I told him we were capable of dreamin' pretty big. And I said, hey, it wasn't anything personal, we could talk about Chinese cars and shit all he wanted but we had a deal. Not for the future but for the here and now. And I explained that the people I work for like other people to respect their deals."

"So what happened?"

"I'm not exactly what you call a financial expert. But I know people. Harmon thought he could negotiate a deal with anyone. He was pretty surprised when he ran into someone who had a different kind of negotiating technique."

"Meaning you."

"Meaning me. And my technique is pretty effective. But I knew this guy Harmon was going to try to cheat us. And once that-how should I say this-once that bond of trust is broken, then we're not big on doing the repair work, you know what I mean?"

"Yes," Justin said. "I do. So what happened then?"

"We knew he'd invested us big-time in platinum. So before we… let's say severed our relationship with him…"

"You thought you'd make a killing. At least a figurative one. And drive the price of platinum way up."

Bruno nodded. "That's pretty much it."

Reggie stared at him openmouthed. "You sunk a ship with how many people on it? Fifty? A hundred? More than that? Just so you could make some money?"

Bruno didn't look as if he was offended. "I do what I'm paid to do," he said. "If you wanna know the truth, if things had gone right, nobody woulda died. I didn't know about that kid who'd hidden out."

"If you had, would you have cared?"

"You got me there," Bruno said. "I'm not really a sensitive kind of guy."

She couldn't sit still, couldn't look at the huge man sitting on the couch with a can of beer. Reggie got up, began pacing.

"Okay," Justin said. "You sunk the ship Hades, drove the price of platinum up, made whatever percent profit you made, and pulled your money out of Ascension."

"That's where it gets complicated," Bruno said. "We didn't get our money out."

"Why not?" Reggie said from across the room.

Before Bruno could answer, Justin said, "Because Evan sold all your platinum to someone else. He used you the way he'd been using his other investors. You didn't own it anymore because he'd shorted it so somebody else could make the profit."

Bruno quietly applauded. "Very good, Sherlock."

"Who'd he sell it to?"

"The bastard sold it to himself. He fucked us. We were buyin' the platinum and making money. But he'd bought the fucking company that was using all the platinum. The one we were selling to."

Justin said, "Bastard, is right. But he was a smart one." He remembered what he'd been told at the Ascension office. "Harmon bought the company that makes the filter device the cars need. And then he turned around and made an even bigger profit all for himself, by selling the devices to the company in Mexico that makes the final parts."

"The company he also owned," Reggie said.

"He had every base covered."

"You guys are pretty good at your job, I'll give you that," Bruno said.

"One thing throws me, though," Reggie said. "If he'd stiffed you and stolen from you, why were you still smuggling for him? Why agree to keep shipping the platinum to Mexico?"

"We weren't. And we didn't."

"But the truck that crashed… that had to be Evan's platinum."

"It was."

"But…" Reggie squinted. Her lips turned up in that crooked smile. "He'd started doing it on his own."

Bruno nodded. "He mighta done it legally at some point," he said, "but he starts moving it into Mexico on a regular basis, we're gonna know about it. So he had to keep smugglin' it in. He couldn't let us know what he was doin', takin' our goods and makin' a fortune."

"So when word got around about the truck-" Justin started to say.

"He knew Bruno and Lenny Rube would realize what was going on," Reggie finished. "He could have paid them back and even kept up paying them a profit on their investment. But they never would have realized what he was doing. Double dipping-giving them the small profit and taking the big one for himself and his other partners."

"Once the platinum was found in the truck," Justin said to Bruno, "Evan realized that you and Lenny would figure out exactly what he'd done: played you for suckers and taken you for a lot of money." He gave a half laugh. "And it would have worked, at least for a little while longer, if whoever was driving that truck in Texas hadn't gotten drunk and turned the thing over."

"Like I said," Bruno added, "I woulda killed the little prick. But somebody beat me to it."

"So we're back where we started," Reggie said. "Who killed Evan Harmon? And why?"

"Reggie," Justin said abruptly, "we have to see H. R. Harmon. And Lincoln Berdon."

"Jay, it's impossible. Their lawyers have blocked us every step of the way. Berdon's in and out of the country and Harmon's lawyers just keep talking about how he's so grief stricken. We haven't been able to get near them. We've been trying. They'll go right up to the attorney general, if need be-they've got a lot of clout and they're using it to keep us away from them."

He turned to her, his head cocked. "Say that again."

"What?"

"What you just said."

"I said they've got a lot of clout and they're using it to get off our backs."

"And they'll go up to the attorney general if need be."

"I'm sure they can even go higher than that."

Justin smiled bitterly, said, "Or lower." And when they both turned to stare at him, he said, "We have to see Harmon and Berdon. And we have to see them soon."

"I can't help with this," Reggie said. "You can't get in officially."

"Then we'll get in unofficially." Justin turned to Bruno. "You in the mood to do a little research?"

The three of them went through everything that Justin had printed up on H. R. Harmon and Lincoln Berdon.

Reggie said, "I don't see a way to do it, not in any way you're going to get them to talk. You're not going to be able to barge into their office and bully them into a confession."