Читать книгу Andrew Gross 3-Book Thriller Collection 1: The Dark Tide, Don’t Look Twice, Relentless - Andrew Gross, Andrew Gross - Страница 56

Twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday, Ronald Torbor generally took his lunch at home. Those days Mr. Carty, the senior bank manager, covered his desk from one to three.

As assistant manager of the First Caribbean Bank on the isle of Nevis, Ronald lived in a comfortable three-bedroom stone house just off the airport road, large enough to fit his own family—his wife, Edith, along with Alya and Peter and Ezra, and his wife’s mother, too. At the bank, people came to him to open accounts, apply for loans—the position came, to the view of his fellow locals, with a certain air of importance. He also took pleasure in catering to the needs of some of the island’s wealthier clientele. Though he had grown up kicking around a soccer ball on dirt fields, Ronald now liked golf on the weekends over on St. Kitts. And when the general manager, who was soon to be transferred, went back home, Ronald felt sure he had a good chance of becoming the bank’s first local-born manager.

That Tuesday, Edith had prepared him his favorite—stewed chicken in a green curry sauce. It was May. Not much going on at the office. Once the tourist season died, Nevis was basically a sleepy little isle. These kinds of days, other than waving to Mr. Carty that he was back, he felt there was no urgency to hurry back to his desk.

At the table, Ronald glanced over the paper: the results from the Caribbean cricket championships being held in Jamaica. His six-year-old, Ezra, was home from school. After lunch, Edith was taking him to the doctor. The boy had what they called Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism. And on Nevis, despite the rush of new money and developers, the care wasn’t very good.

“After work you can come watch Peter play soccer,” said Edith, seated in the chair next to Ezra. The boy was playing with a toy truck, making noise.

“Yes, Edith.” Ronald sighed, enjoying his peace. He focused on the box score. Matson, for Barbados, wrong-foots Anguilla for six!

“And you can bring me back some fresh-baked roti from Mrs. Williams, if you please.” Her bakery was directly across from the bank, best on the island. “You know the kind I like, onion and—”

“Yes, mum,” Ronald muttered again.

“And don’t be ‘mumming’ me in front of your boy like I’m some kind of schoolmarm, Ronald.”

Ronald looked up from the paper and flashed Ezra a wink.

The six-year-old started to laugh.

Outside, they heard the sound of gravel crunching, as a car drove up the road to their house.

“That is probably Mr. P.,” Edith said. Paul Williams, her cousin. “I said he could come by about a loan.”

“Jeez, Edith,” Ronald groaned, “couldn’t you have him just come by the bank?”

But it wasn’t Mr. P. It was two white men, who got out of the Jeep and stepped up to the front door. One was short and stocky, with wraparound sunglasses and a thick mustache. The other was taller, wearing a light sport jacket with a colorful beach shirt underneath with a baseball cap.

Ronald shrugged. “Who’s this?”

“I don’t know.” Edith opened the door.

“Afternoon, ma’am.” The mustached man politely took off his hat. His eyes drifted past her. “Mind if we speak to your husband? I can see he’s at home.”

Ronald stood up. He’d never seen them before. “What’s this about?”

“Banking business,” the man said, stepping around Ronald’s wife and into the house.

“Banking hours are closed—for lunch.” Ronald tried not to seem unfriendly. “I’ll be back down there at three.”

“No.” The mustached man lifted his glasses and smiled. “I’m afraid the bank is open, Mr. Torbor. Right here.”

The man shut the door. “Just look at these as extra hours.”

A shudder of fear rippled through Ronald’s body. Edith met his gaze as if to find out what was going on, then moved back around to the table, next to her son.

The mustached man nodded to Ronald. “Sit down.”

Ronald did, the man flipping a chair around and pulling it up to him, smiling strangely. “We’re really sorry to interrupt your lunch, Mr. Torbor. You can get back to it, though, once you tell us what we need.”

“What you need …?”

“That’s right, Mr. Torbor.” The man reached into his jacket and removed a folded sheet. “This is the number of a private account at your bank. It should be familiar. A sizable amount of money was wired into it several months back, from Tortola, the Barclays bank there.”

Ronald stared at the number. His eyes grew wide. The numbers were from his bank, First Caribbean. The taller man had pulled up a chair next to Ezra, winking and making mugging faces at the boy, which made him laugh. Ronald glanced fearfully toward Edith. What the hell are they doing here?

“This particular account is no longer active, Mr. Torbor,” the man with the mustache acknowledged. “The funds are no longer in your bank. But what we want to know, and what you’re going to help us find out, Mr. Torbor, if you hope to ever get back to your lunch and this happy little life of yours, is precisely where the funds were wired—once they left here. And also under what name.”

Perspiration was starting to soak through Ronald’s newly pressed white shirt. “You must know I can’t give out that kind of information. That’s all private. Covered by banking regulations—”

“Private.” The mustached man nodded, glancing toward his partner.

“Regulations.” The man in the beach shirt sighed. “Always a bitch. We sort of anticipated that.”

With a sudden motion, he reached over and jerked Ezra up out of his chair. Surprised, the child whimpered. The man put him on his lap. Edith tried to stop him, but he just elbowed her, knocking her to the floor.

“Ezra!” she cried out.

The small boy started crying. Ronald leaped up.

“Sit down!” The mustached man grabbed him by the arm. He also took something out of his jacket and placed it on the table. Something black and metallic. Ronald felt his heart seize as he saw what it was. “Sit down.”

Frantic, Ronald lowered himself back into the chair. He looked at Edith helplessly. “Whatever you want. Please, don’t hurt Ezra.”

“No reason to, Mr. Torbor.” The mustached man smiled. “But no point beating around the bush. What you’re going to do now is call in to your office, and I want you to have your secretary or whomever the fuck you talk to down there look up that account. Make up whatever excuse or justification you need. We know you don’t get those kinds of funds in your sleepy little bank very often. I want to know where it went, which country, what bank, and under what name. Do you understand?”

Ronald sat silent.

“Your father understands what I mean, doesn’t he, boy?” He tickled Ezra’s ear. “Because if he doesn’t”—his eyes now shifted darkly—“I promise that your lives will not be happy, and you will remember this little moment with regret and anguish for as long as you live. I’m clear on that, aren’t I, Mr. Torbor?”

“Do it, Ronald, please, do it,” Edith pleaded, pulling herself up off the floor.

“I can’t. I can’t,” he said, trembling. “There are procedures for this sort of thing. Even if I agreed, it’s governed by international banking regulations. Laws …”

“Back to those regulations again.” The mustached man shook his head and sighed loudly.

The taller man holding Ezra removed something from his jacket pocket.

Ronald’s eyes bulged wide.

It was a tin of lighter fluid.

Ronald dove out of the chair to stop him, but the mustached man hit him on the side of the head with the gun, sending him sprawling onto the floor.

“Oh, Jesus Lord, no!” Edith screamed, trying to wrench the man off her son. He elbowed her away.

Then, smiling, the man holding Ezra took the crying boy by the collar and began to douse him with fluid.

Ronald launched himself again, but the mustached man had cocked his gun and raised it to Ronald’s forehead. “I keep remembering asking you to sit down.”

Ezra was bawling now.

“Here’s your cell phone, Mr. Torbor,” pushing Ronald his phone from across the table. “Make the call and we just go away. Now.”

“I can’t.” Ronald held out trembling hands. “Jesus God in heaven, don’t. I … can’t.”

“I know he’s a bit off, Mr. Torbor.” The man shook his head. “But he’s just an innocent boy. Shame to hurt him in this way. For a bunch of silly regulations … Anyway, not a pretty thing at all for your wife to witness, is it?”

“Ronald!”

The man holding Ezra took out a plastic lighter. He flicked it, sparking up a steady flame. He brought it close to the child’s damp shirt.

“No!” Edith shrieked. “Ronald, please, don’t let them do this! For God’s sake, do whatever the hell they’re asking. Ronald, please …”

Ezra was screaming. The man holding him drew the flame closer. The man with the mustache pushed the phone in front of Ronald and looked steadily at him.

“Exactamente, Mr. Torbor. Fuck the regulations. It’s time to make that call.”