Five

Now I had to call upon all my acting skills. With an effort, I kept my voice level as I asked, “What did Ripinsky do to you?”

Renshaw shook his head. “That’s confidential—like your business dealings with him.”

I thought for a moment. “All right,” I said, “I’ll tell you what I think happened. You or your partner hired Ripinsky, possibly to deal with a situation that required his specific talents. Ripinsky screwed up or double-crossed you. You say you want to find him, so you probably don’t have any more of a clue to his whereabouts than I do. That’s why you agreed to see me; you thought I might give you a lead.”

Renshaw regarded me with narrowed eyes.

“That’s where I can help you,” I added. “If you tell me what went down, I can find him. You see, Ripinsky and I used to be lovers; I know how he thinks.” Two lies there, McCone.

Renshaw raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “You were lovers, and now you’re willing to turn him over to me?”

I shrugged. “Situations change. People change.”

“That’s cold, Ms. McCone.”

“You were a friend of Ripinsky once?”

He nodded.

“Well, then, you ought to understand. Why should I feel any differently than you, now that it’s over?”

That gave him pause. He got up, began pacing again. I watched him carefully. This man wanted to kill Hy; if I were to prevent that, I’d need to know him.

“Ms. McCone,” he said after a bit, “I understand you’re a good investigator, and I suppose you have the inside track if what you say about your former relationship with Ripinsky is true. But I still doubt you can find him when our operatives haven’t been able to locate him since Sunday night.”

Sunday night—not Saturday, when the rental car had been dropped off. “We’ve reached a stalemate, then.”

He faced me, hands on hips. “You realize I don’t believe a word of your story—the business deal, the other investors who require confidentiality, Ripinsky cheating you. I’m not sure I even believe what seems more logical—that he dumped you and you’re attempting to use me to get back at him. All of this seems like a smoke screen for some private agenda that I’m not going to try to guess at.”

“My motives don’t matter. What does is that I can be bought to do what your operatives so far haven’t managed.”

Renshaw didn’t respond, but his eyes moved swiftly—calculating. He cocked his head as if listening to some internal debate. Then he nodded, said, “Okay, come with me,” and started for the door.

I got up and followed. “Where’re we going?”

“Downstairs. There’s a lot of material I need to familiarize you with. Afterward we’ll discuss your price.”

*    *    *

Five minutes later I was seated in the front row of a projection room off the building’s lobby. Renshaw pressed a switch on a console between us; the lights dimmed. He pushed another button, and a man’s picture appeared on the screen.

“Timothy Mourning,” Renshaw said. “CEO and chairman of the board of Phoenix Labs.”

Phoenix Labs. Where had I …? Oh, yes—the company whose initial public offering of stock had abruptly been canceled; I’d tried to read the article about it in the business section this morning, and damned near fallen asleep. I studied the man’s face. He was young for a CEO and board chairman, perhaps in his mid-thirties. On the plump side and mustached, he had a slightly receding hairline topped by a wild mop of dark blond curls. I was willing to bet that in high school his classmates had labeled him a nerd; now, while many of them remembered those brief years as their only time of glory, Mourning was head of a corporation. His unabashed grin and the gleam behind his wire-rimmed glasses told me he possessed both a sharp intellect and a zest for living.

Renshaw pressed the button, and the picture changed. “Diane Mourning,” he said. “Tim’s wife of eighteen years, and chief financial officer of the labs.”

Diane Mourning’s face was thin, with high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and wide-set hazel eyes. Her shoulder-length blond hair also curled, but in a more disciplined fashion than her husband’s. Unlike Timothy, she apparently considered posing for a photograph a serious matter: she stared uncompromisingly at the camera, her small mouth set in a firm, straight line. Not much humor there, I thought, and wondered how they got along.

Again Renshaw changed slides, to a sprawling one-story stucco building surrounded by a chain-link fence topped by barbed wire. Open fields lay on either side, and an oak-dotted hillside rose in the background. A guard shack sat next to the gate, and a sign on it said: Phoenix Labs, Inc.

“The company’s facility in Novato,” Renshaw explained. “Basic utilitarian plant, but someday there’ll be an office tower next to it. Phoenix is one of the hot firms in the biotech industry. You know anything about biotech?”

“Not a great deal.”

“I’ll give you a background file; you read up on it. Basically it’s the wave of the future—genetic engineering, disease prevention and cure. Real growth industry here in the Bay Area. Nine months ago Phoenix announced they were developing a drug called Enterferon-One that can retard the growth of the HIV virus. They’ve planned an IPO of stock to finance the final stages of development.”

“I read in the Chronicle that the IPO was withdrawn. Why?”

In answer, a new picture appeared: a narrow road with wild vegetation on either side; a red Mazda sports car sat nose down in the right-hand ditch.

Renshaw said, “This is where Timothy Mourning was kidnapped. At approximately seven-ten A.M., Tuesday, June first. On the road leading from his home outside Novato.”

So Phoenix Labs was an RKI client. “Was there anti-terrorism policy on Mourning?”

“No. He was extremely wary of that kind of coverage.”

“Why?”

“Because, much as the existence of such policies is supposed to be confidential, leaks occur. And a leak is a direct invitation to violent fringe groups. Mourning believes in good security and contingency planning rather than insurance. Doesn’t like insurance much, isn’t even covered by keyman or any other kind of life policy. Apparently, though, he operated on the mistaken assumption that nothing could ever happen to him, because he ignored the advice we gave him.”

“And that was …?”

“Standard: Vary your route to work. Vary your routines. Do not stop your car to help anyone, no matter what the circumstances. If stopped, do not unlock your doors or open your windows. Use your car phone to summon help. Granted, he couldn’t vary his route to work; he lives on an isolated road—Crazy Horse—and there’s only the one outlet. But he could have changed the time he left home, if he wasn’t such a stubborn creature of habit. As for the rest …

Renshaw switched slides. A close-up shot of the car appeared, the driver’s-side door wide open. “We assume he was forced into the ditch. He either got out of the car on his own or was driving with the door unlocked and taken out forcibly.” Another slide, the car’s interior, phone still in its cradle. “Either he didn’t go for the phone or had no time to use it.”

“When was the kidnapping discovered, and by whom?” I asked.

“Diane Mourning left the house at seven twenty-three. At least one of them varied the routine. She found the car and called us.”

“Why not the police?”

“Our agreement with the client is that they call us first. If we feel it’s in their best interests, we notify the authorities. As you probably know, there’s no statute on the books that requires citizens to report kidnapping or extortion attempts.”

“And did you feel it was in Mourning’s best interests to report it?”

“No. Initially there was some speculation that Mourning might have staged his own disappearance, and no ransom demand was made that day or on the following two. From the first, though, we proceeded on the assumption that it was an actual kidnapping. There had been threats from lunatic-fringe animal-rights groups against the labs and the Mournings personally.”

“Why?”

“Because the production of the new drug, Enterferon-One, requires the extraction of a substance from the cartilage of dolphins. A group called Terramarine has made several bomb threats, and both Mournings, plus other key employees, have received written and telephoned death threats.”

“All from the same group?”

“That isn’t clear. But from there it was only a short step to a kidnapping.”

“I assume you brought Ripinsky in because of the environmentalist angle.”

“Ironically, no. I’d contacted him several weeks before that about joining the firm. We need someone of his abilities. He and I were to meet in La Jolla on Wednesday; I was prepared to offer him an ownership percentage if that’s what it would take. But by then the Mourning kidnapping had gone down, and I was already here in the city. I brought Ripinsky in on it, figuring he could help us deal with the environmentalists, if necessary. It was also in the back of my mind that giving him a taste of the old action might persuade him to come on board.”

I wished I could ask about the “old action”—where he’d known Hy, what they’d been involved in, why Renshaw wanted him to join RKI. But I couldn’t do that without undermining my claim that I knew him so well I could easily find him.

“All right,” I said, “what happened then?”

“We waited until the kidnappers finally made contact on June fourth. Still no way to tell if they were Terramarine or one of the other nut groups. The contact woman spoke with a Hispanic accent; Ripinsky thought she might be a Mexican national. They wanted two million in small unmarked bills. You know how much that weighs, how cumbersome it is?”

“Very, I imagine.”

“Some two hundred and ninety pounds, enough to fill a couple of trunks. We tried to talk them into a wire transfer to a Swiss or Bahamian bank account. No dice. They know governments and foreign banks cooperate against extortion attempts. They wanted cash, and they were very nervous. We did get them to send proof that the victim was still alive.” Another slide appeared on the screen: Timothy Mourning, holding a copy of the June 4 New York Times.

Renshaw went on, “Finally Kessell—Dan Kessell, my partner—hit on the idea of an irrevocable international letter of credit drawn on Phoenix’s bank account here to whatever foreign company they specified. And they went for it. Apparently they knew somebody they could trust at a firm, Colores Internacional in Mexico City.”

“You checked them out, of course.”

“Yeah. Fairly good-sized operation, makes silk flowers, crap like that. Privately held by a member of one of Mexico’s wealthy families, Emanuel Fontes. Fontes is an environmentalist, has donated to a number of causes, particularly ones having to do with the protection of marine mammals.”

“Dolphins. Interesting.”

“What’s even more interesting is that Fontes’s brother, Gilbert, owns a large tuna-fishing fleet headquartered in Ensenada. Diametrically opposed viewpoints there, and bad blood between them.”

“Bad enough blood to make Emanuel an extremist?”

“We’ve kicked the thought around.”

“Have you tried to get the Mexican authorities to lean on him, find out if he’s connected with any of the fringe groups?”

Renshaw looked at me as if I’d taken leave of my senses. “Down there, where you never know who’s involved in what? No, we backed off and set it up. The objective was to get the victim back alive; then we’d let the authorities go after the kidnappers—that is, if we didn’t take care of them first.” He smiled grimly. “Ripinsky was to make the drop; we hoped he might be able to identify somebody. They went through the usual nonsense: go to this phone booth, wait for another call. Finally they named the location—that turnoff in San Benito County.”

“What happened down there, do you know?”

“I know. And that was the first time I had a funny feeling about Ripinsky. According to him, there was another car in the turnoff when he arrived. Its driver panicked, forced him into the boulder, and took off. Ripinsky waited, but nobody else ever showed.”

“But you don’t believe that.”

“At the time I did, but like I said, I had a funny feeling. Anyway, Ripinsky came back here and we waited some more. Didn’t take the kidnappers long to reestablish contact. They wanted to move the drop south, said Ripinsky should check into a place on Hotel Circle in San Diego and they’d call him on Sunday. That gave us real cause for concern.”

“Why?”

“Because it indicated they might’ve taken Mourning into Mexico. If they reneged on setting him free once they had the L.C., there’d be no way we could recover him by force. In most foreign countries, we work either with or around the authorities, but not down there. After last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it’s okay to snatch criminals from foreign jurisdictions to stand trial here, Mexico quit cooperating completely. The political situation’s just too damned volatile for us to go in on our own. Company policy says we don’t set foot south of the border.”

“I see. So Ripinsky flew to San Diego that night?”

“Uh-huh. One of our operatives dropped him off at SFO and returned his rental car.”

“He had the letter of credit with him?”

“Damn right he did.”

“Did he contact your people in La Jolla?”

“He did not. Too risky, in case the kidnappers had him under surveillance. We know he checked into the motel, the Bali Kai, and on Sunday he sent a message through a woman friend of mine on Point Loma, saying the drop was set for eleven P.M. And that’s the last we ever heard. Ripinsky checked out of the motel with the two-million-dollar L.C. and vanished. His rental car didn’t even turn up.”

I masked my surge of concern by asking, “Has the L.C. been drawn upon?”

“No. We’re monitoring Phoenix’s bank account minute by minute.”

“Any chance Ripinsky met with foul play before he could make the drop?”

“That’s possible, but not too damn likely. Ripinsky can take care of himself. The assumption I’m acting on is that he made a deal with the kidnappers—or was in collusion with them from the first.”

“You mean since before you brought him in on the case? How could he have known Phoenix was your client?”

“Because among the materials on the firm that I sent him several weeks ago was a complete, confidential client list. Sheer stupidity on my part. I ignored what you pointed out earlier: situations change, people change.”

Renshaw paused, his face pale and drawn. “Because of my stupidity, Timothy Mourning is probably rotting in a ditch somewhere with a bullet in his brain, while Ripinsky’s sitting back and waiting until he thinks it’s safe to draw on Phoenix’s two-million-dollar L.C.” His eyes glittered against the darkness that surrounded us. “Ripinsky’s going to pay for this.”

I looked away, glad he couldn’t see me all that well. Stared at the slide of Mourning holding the June 4 Times. The laughter was gone from his face, leaving it a rigid mask of fear. The gleam in his bespectacled eyes had been replaced by a sheen of horror. Timothy Mourning had known he was going to die.

But not because of Hy’s actions. Imperfect as my understanding of him was, I knew he would never have colluded with the kidnappers or cut a deal. Would never have caused this innocent man’s death. On the surface, the circumstantial evidence against him looked bad, but if I dug deep, I knew I’d uncover a different set of facts. And I would dig. Gage Renshaw was not going to make Hy pay for something he’d had no part in.

Renshaw asked, “Are you still with us, Ms. McCone?”

I hardened my expression as the lights came up. Turned to him and said firmly, “Yes, I am.”

“Then let’s discuss your price.”