The Brethren

The ad ran for exactly sixty seconds, cost very little to make because Teddy already had the footage, and would start running during prime time in forty-eight hours.

"I don’t knowTeddy;" York said. "It’s gruesome."

"It’s a gruesome world."

Teddy liked the ad and that’s all that mattered. Lake had objected to the blood, but came around quickly. His name recognition was up to 30 percent, but his ads were still disliked.

Just wait, Teddy kept telling himself. Wait until there are more bodies.

Chapter Eight

Trevor was sipping a carry-out double latte from Beach Java and debating whether to add a generous shot or two ofAmaretto to help soothe away the morning’s cobwebs when the call came. His cramped suite had no intercom system; one was not needed. Jan could simply yell any message down the hall, and he could yell back if he wanted. For eight years he and this particular secretary had been barking at each other.

"It’s some bank in the Bahamas!" she announced. He almost spilled the coffee as he lunged for the phone.

It was a Brit whose accent had been softened by the islands. A substantial wire had been received, from a bank in Iowa.

How substantial, he wanted to know, covering his mouth so Jan couldn’t hear.

A hundred thousand dollars.

Trevor hung up and added the Amaretto, three shots of it, and sipped the delightful brew while smiling goofily at the wall. In his career he’d never come close to a fee of $33,000. He’d settled a car wreck once for $25,000, taken a fee of $7,500, and within two months had spent all of it.

Jan knew nothing about the offshore account and the scam that diverted money to it, so he was forced to wait an hour, make a bunch of useless phone calls, and try to look busy before announcing he had to take care of some crucial business in downtown Jacksonville, then he was needed at Trumble. She didn’t care. He disappeared all the time and she had some reading to keep her occupied.

He raced to the airport, almost missed his shuttle, and drank two beers during the thirty-minute flight to Fort Lauderdale, then two more on the way to Nassau. On the ground, he fell into the back of a cab, a 1974 Cadillac painted gold, without air-conditioning and with a driver who’d also been drinking. The air was hot and wet, the traffic slow, and Trevor’s shirt was sticking to his back by the time they stopped downtown near the Geneva Trust Bank Building.

Inside, Mr. Brayshears came forward eventually and led Trevor to his small office. He presented a sheet of paper which gave the bare details: a $100,000 wire originating from the First Iowa Bank in Des Moines, remitter being a faceless entity named CMT Investments. The payee was another generic entity named Boomer Realty, Ltd. Boomer was the name of Joe Roy Spicer’s favorite bird dog.

Trevor signed the forms to transfer $25,000 to his own, separate account with Geneva Trust, money he kept hidden from his secretary and from the IRS. The remaining $8,000 was handed to him in a thick envelope, cash. He stuffed it deep into his khaki pants pocket, shook Brayshears’ soft little hand, and raced out of the building. He was tempted to stay a couple of days, find a room on the beach, get a chair by the pool, and drink rum until they stopped bringing it to him. The temptation grew to the point that he almost bolted from the gate at the airport and raced to get another cab. But he reached deep, determined not to squander his money this time.

Two hours later he was in the Jacksonville airport, drinking strong coffee, without liquor, and making his plans. He drove to Trumble, arriving at four-thirty, and he waited for Spicer for almost half an hour.

"A pleasant surprise," Spicer said dryly as he stepped into the attorney-conference room. Trevor had no briefcase to inspect, so the guard patted his pockets and stepped outside. His cash was hidden under the floor mat of his Beetle.

"We received a hundred thousand dollars from Iowa;’Trevor said, glancing at the door.

Spicer was suddenly happy to see his lawyer. He resented the "we" in Trevor’s announcement, and he resented the healthy cut he raked off the top. But the scam wouldn’t work without help from the outside, and, as usual, the lawyer was a necessary evil. So far, Trevor could be trusted.

"It’s in the Bahamas?"

"Yes. I just left there. The money’s tucked away, all sixty-seven thousand of it."

Spicer breathed deeply and savored the victory. A third of the loot gave him $22,000 and change. It was time to write some more letters!

He reached into the pocket of his olive prison shirt and removed a folded newspaper clipping. He stretched his arms, studied it for a second, then said, "Duke’s at Tech tonight. The line is eleven. Put five thousand bucks on Tech."

"Five thousand?"

"Yep:.

"I’ve never put five thousand on a game before."

"What kinda bookie you got?"

"Small time."

"Look, if he’s a bookie, he can handle the numbers. Call him as soon as you can. He may have to make a few calls, but he can do it."

" all right, all right."

"Can you come back tomorrow?"

"Probably"

"How many other clients have ever paid you thirtythree thousand bucks?"

"None."

"Right, so be here at four tomorrow. I’ll have some mail for you."

Spicer left him and walked quickly from the administration building with only a nod at a guard in a window. He walked with a purpose across the finely manicured lawn, the Florida sun heating the sidewalk even in February. His colleagues were deep in their unhurried labors in their little library, alone as always, so Spicer did not hesitate to announce: "We got the hundred thousand firm old Quince in Iowa!"

Beech’s hands froze on his keyboard. He peered over his reading glasses, his jaw dropping, and managed to say, "You’re kidding."

"Nope. Just talked to Trevor. The money was wired in exactly as instructed, arrived in the Bahamas this morning. Quincy baby came through."

"Let’s hit him again,"Yarber said, before the others could think of it.

"Quince?"

"Sure. The first hundred was easy, let’s squeeze him one more time. What could we lose?"

"Not a damned thing," Spicer said with a smile. He wished he’d said it first.

"How much?" asked Beech.

"Let’s try fifty," Yarber said, pulling numbers from the air as if anything was possible.

The other two nodded and pondered the next fifty thousand, then Spicer took charge and said, "Look, let’s evaluate where we are now. I think Curtis in Dallas is ripe. We’ll hit Quince again. This thing is working, and I think we should shift gears, get more aggressive, know what I mean? Let’s take each pen pal, analyze them one by one, and step up the pressure."

Beech turned off his computer and reached for a file. Yarber cleared his small desk. Their little Angola scam had just received a fresh infusion of capital, and the smell of ill-gotten cash was intoxicating.

They began reading all the old letters, and drafting new ones. More victims were needed, they quickly decided. More ads would be placed in the back pages of those magazines.

Trvor made it as far as Pete’s Bar and Grill, arriving there just in time for happy hour, which atPete’s began at 5 P .M. and ran until the first fistfight.

He found Prep, a thirty-two-year-old sophomore at North Florida, shooting nine-ball for twenty bucks a game. Prep’s dwindling trust fund required the family lawyer to pay him $2,000 a month as long as he was enrolled as a full-time student. He’d been a sophomore for eleven years.

Prep was also the busiest bookie at Pete’s, and when Trevor whispered that he had serious money to place on the Duke Tech game, Prep asked, "How much?"