Джозеф Файндер - Vanished

I expected that in the time since I’d called him from the Albany airport, pretending to be Marty Masur, he’d done his due diligence. Which in his case probably meant not much more than asking around to find out what kind of money Stoddard Associates paid, then drooling when he found out.

Just when I was about to leave the bar, a compact, muscle-bound guy with ridiculously broad shoulders and a scruffy goatee approached my booth. He had the look of a tough guy gone soft. He wore a black nylon body-hugging muscle shirt that zipped up at the top. The point was probably to show off his shredded biceps and pecs, but it had the unfortunate side effect of displaying his muffin top.

“ Hola, ” he said. He didn’t even try to make it sound like Spanish. He reached his hand across the table and gave me a bone-crushing shake. “Neil Burris.”

“Marty Masur,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

“Real sorry I’m late. Couldn’t find parking.”

“It’s bad around here,” I said.

He slid into the booth across from me. Looked at me for a long moment. “Funny,” he said. “You don’t look like your picture.”

“I’ve been working out.”

He stared a little longer, then smiled slowly. His teeth were small and pointed and discolored. The brown was probably from chewing tobacco. “Listen, man,” he said. “This is, like, between us, right? I don’t want–”

“You don’t want anyone at Paladin to know we’re talking. Gotcha. We don’t either.”

“Good.”

I signaled for the waitress. “Koblenz won’t let you go without a fight, what I hear.”

“Well…” Neil said with a shrug and a slow, embarrassed smile.

“I mean, it is Koblenz who’s the real power there, right? Not Allen Granger?”

“Never met Granger, you wanna know the truth. He kinda keeps to himself down there in Georgia. Like a hermit or something. No one ever sees him.”

“Why, do you figure?”

His eyes slid from side to side, and he leaned closer. “What I hear, there’s guys who want to kill him.”

“I don’t get it. He runs the world’s largest private army. He’s got all the guards he needs, right?”

“Doesn’t help if the guys who wanna wax you work for you.”

“What do you mean?”

He nodded. “Oh yeah. For real. Remember a couple years back when there was that big mess over in Baghdad, eight or ten towel heads got shot, right? Civilians? Coupla Paladin guys got some serious heat for that.”

I vaguely remembered. Some Paladin security guards had fired at Iraqi civilians and killed them. “The victims’ families filed a lawsuit in U.S. courts, wasn’t that it?”

“Yeah. Screwed up big-time, man. Pentagon was threatening not to renew our contract, so Granger handed over the guys.”

“Handed over?”

“He coulda fought it if he wanted. But he made some deal with the government. Like, he said these guys are just bad apples, you know? Take ’em and do whatever, and that kinda crap won’t happen again. Well, a lotta Paladin guys just went whacko. We figured they’d always protect us, something bad happens. Like always.” He shook his head. “Way I heard it, some buddies of those guys, working Paladin security down in Georgia, tried to off Granger.”

“Off him? Like, kill him?”

“I don’t know, man. Just what I hear. Screwed up, huh?”

The waitress, a pretty young girl with spiky blond hair and multiple piercings in her earlobes, took our order. Burris introduced himself and attempted to flirt with her, but without success. Maybe it was the name. “Neil” is a perfectly good name, but not for a tough guy. He probably wished his name were Bruno or Butch or at least Jack.

“So here’s the deal, Neil,” I said. “Old Man Stoddard wants to expand. Build the brand. He wants to get into the Paladin business, and he’s looking for someone to spearhead that effort.”

“Spearhead it,” Burris said.

“Set it up for us. Means we need someone who knows the lay of the land.”

“The lay of the land,” Burris repeated. He was looking nervous. I could almost see the thought balloon floating above his head, as if he were a cartoon character: You got the wrong guy. I’m just muscle. I don’t know that stuff.

But he didn’t want to miss out on a chance like this. So maybe he wasn’t qualified. Let the buyer beware.

I went on, “Business like this, you got one main customer, right? The U.S. government.”

“Right.”

“You gotta know who the players are. How to approach them. Know what I’m saying?”

He nodded. “Absolutely.”

“Gotta know the right palms to grease, you know? The old baksheesh.” I rubbed my fingers together to underscore the point.

“Speaking of which, you know, Paladin pays me in cash.”

“Cash? You serious? All you guys?”

“My guess, they don’t want records all over the place. Cash doesn’t leave a trail.”

“Cash? For real?”

“Not all of us. I don’t know, I think it has to do with, like, the fact that we’re independent contractors, not employees. I always figured it was some kinda scam, some way for them to avoid paying taxes, but I don’t ask too many questions. I like cash.”

“Can’t blame you.”

“That a problem for you?”

“I’m sure anything can be arranged,” I said.

A couple of minutes later, the spiky-haired waitress set two draft beers on the table in front of us. Budweisers. Thin and watery and almost flavorless, just the way I liked them.

We toasted each other, and I said, in a confiding tone, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Jay Stoddard’s real desperate to get into this business, and soon. That means, if you can show me a sample of the wares, I can probably hold him up for a lot more than I told you on the phone. I mean, we might not be able to pay you in cash. Maybe, maybe not. But we’re talking three-quarters of a mil to start. Plus stock options.”

He was in midswallow, and some of the beer must have gone down the wrong way, because he started coughing, and his face turned red. He held up his palm to let me know he was okay, or maybe to tell me to hold on a minute. When he finally stopped coughing, he said, “I’m at your service, uh, Marty.”

“So what kind of sample you guys looking for?” Burris said.

“Names, mostly. Something I can take back to Stoddard so he can feel confident you know who the real players are.” I smiled. “See, you don’t need to do a résumé. All you need is a name or two.”

“I could probably find out,” he said.

“You don’t know?”

Hastily, he said, “I’m kinda like – I like to leave that kinda stuff to others, you know? But I can ask around.”

“Sounds like you’re out of the loop.”

“Nah, nah, it’s not like that. I just focus on other stuff, mostly.” He was making it up and not doing a particularly convincing job of it. He didn’t know.

I sidled out of the booth and made to stand up. I threw down a twenty. “Beer’s on me, Neil. Sorry I wasted your time.”

He reached out, grabbed me by the elbow. “Slow down, there. I can find out anything for you.” He waved me close. “Like, there’s all kinds of dirt.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Seriously. I can ask around,” he said.

“Ask around?” I said. “Come on, man. Anyone can ask around.”

Burris shook his head emphatically. “Not if you want the good stuff. The serious, secret stuff – that’s real protected, like.”

“Protected,” I scoffed.

“For real.” He lowered his voice still more. “Koblenz keeps this, like, smart card in his office safe. He uses it to get onto the secure part of the network, so he can make payments and transfers and so on.”