Читать книгу When Angels Fail To Fly - John Schlarbaum - Страница 10

ALEXIS

Alexis Penney held the cashier’s cheque in her hand, which she noticed was shaking slightly. Was this due to the giddy excitement she felt about her pending investment or a subconscious neurological tick warning her to stop this madness?

She tried to recall when in her past she had handed over her life savings to a person she barely knew and came up with two such events: the day she purchased her first car, when she was nineteen, and the day she bought her first house, at the age of twenty–six. Both of those investments had worked out nicely, she reasoned, as she folded the cheque in half and placed it in her purse. Those payments of $988 and $12,000 were a pittance, however, compared to the $150,000 cheque in her possession. She was thirty-five, recently divorced, coming out of a relationship which had ended very badly and wanted to—needed to—feel independent. This venture seemed like the right opportunity at the right time.

Besides, she thought, as she exited the bank, Dr. Max was the man with the plan and could never lead me astray. What self-respecting therapist would set one of his patients up for failure?

***

The past year and a half had been the worst of Alexis’ life. During that period, she’d begun a torrid affair with a married man that, unfortunately, their spouses both soon discovered. When you live in the rural town of Ravenwood, if you didn’t know your neighbour’s business when you walked into the R.W. Café for your morning coffee, you would by the time you left. She and Randolph “Randy” Mayer had not been the most discreet adulterers and were exposed when they’d been seen together at the White Plains Shopping Mall, located an hour out of town. The grade school’s sixth-grade teacher and local busybody, Lizzie Cantner, had witnessed them kissing in the parking lot prior to departing in their respective vehicles. The Alexis-Randy scandal took hold of the small community about thirty seconds later.

Upon their return home, the whispering and odd glances they received were bad enough, but it was Randy’s wife’s premature death the same evening that really put a kink in their relationship. Poor Patricia Mayer had been bludgeoned to death with a shovel as she sat in her back yard, drinking iced tea by the pool. An elderly eyewitness told police she had seen a Chevrolet Malibu—a car similar to Alexis’—being driven out of the subdivision around 9:15 p.m. She could not say, however, with absolute certainty that Alexis was behind the wheel. The coroner concluded Patricia had met her maker roughly between 9:00 p.m. and 9:45 p.m.

Alexis did not help matters by refusing to give a credible alibi, not wanting to lead police to the mall’s surveillance videotape collection. When the tapes did surface, Alexis admitted to the affair but continued to deny her involvement in the murder. Unfortunately, Randy was a bit more forthcoming and Alexis was charged with being an Accessory to Murder. Randy would eventually take a plea bargain and was sentenced to twenty–five years in prison with a chance of parole in twelve years. In exchange for his light sentence (under the circumstances), he was required to testify at Alexis’ trial, stating she had handed him the shovel and encouraged him to end his marriage in a most remarkable fashion. Alexis’ defence lawyer was working on getting a similar deal when word came down Randy had been killed in the prison cafeteria during an argument over a pudding cup.

The newspaper headline the following day said it all:

FREE TO KILL AGAIN? MISTRESS WALKS

Prosecutor forced to drop all charges against Penney

It was a sad day for Lady Justice but a very good one for the soon-to-be ex-Mrs. Penney. Her husband—who just wanted Alexis out of his life as soon as possible—agreed to a swift divorce, settled her share of their vast real estate holdings and bid her a not-too- friendly fare-thee-well. Now loaded with cash, she headed west for a fresh start. Even the release of the quickie tell-all true crime book, The Murdering Mistress, written by a court reporter and her ex-husband, had not dampened her enthusiasm for a new life. She figured no one outside the three counties surrounding Ravenwood would even care or buy it. In case it did become a bestseller though, she made a few changes to her appearance, the first of which was dying her naturally strawberry-blonde hair—which figured prominently in the picture that adorned the book’s front cover—to a darker shade of red.

Once on her own, Alexis found herself dealing with bouts of depression and realized she should seek professional help. One day she flipped open the Santana Hills yellow pages and began her search. Coming from a small town, the only experience she had with shrinks was gleaned from TV shows. She had no idea of the difference between a “psychiatrist” and a “psychologist”—both of whom sounded very official and a bit scary. The term “therapist” however, produced no such adverse reaction. Quickly 90% of the listings were irrelevant. She focused on the remaining few ads until she came across one featuring a picture of an appealing-looking gentleman named Max Feldberg. She immediately dialed his office number and an appointment was set for the following Tuesday at 9:00 a.m.

Their first few sessions went smoothly. Dr. Max, as he preferred to be called, seemed to possess a very worldly persona and they clicked immediately. She told him about her upbringing, her marriage and the affair with the local married butcher. The related topics of murder, prison deaths, and exploitative book publications were never raised. Those were areas she had shelved away in her mind under “P” for “past” and had no interest in resurrecting. As the weeks went by, Dr. Max had been instrumental in helping her deal with the loneliness that came with moving to a new city—even if it was her choice to do so.

Their get-togethers became less and less formal, until Alexis felt their doctor-patient relationship had transformed into a friendship. He even began giving her stock tips that one of his other patients had passed along. “If you invest in this stock today, by tomorrow afternoon you’ll have recouped the money for today’s session,” he’d told her. Never having dabbled in money markets before, he convinced her he could buy the stock on her behalf and she could pick up the paperwork the following morning. She was at his office at 8:55 a.m., where he handed over her stock certificates and showed her an official looking printout indicating she had already made $106.

“I think my luck is about to change, Dr. Max,” she said with a wide smile.

“I think so too, Alexis,” Max had replied. “It’s not a lot of money but it’s a start. If you want, I could keep my ears open and pass along any other tips I think might appeal to you—and your bank account.”

“Really? You would do that for me?”

“There’s just one small catch.”

“What’s that?” she asked, thinking she might have to perform some sexual favour with the nice doctor in exchange for the tips—a requirement that she would not dismiss out of hand, mind you.

“Well, technically, getting tips from one patient and then giving them to you is a violation of the doctor-patient ethical code. A mild violation in my mind, as I could probably get the same information from a newspaper column or a financial channel. However, these kinds of tips,” he pointed to the certificates in Alexis’ hand, “are a bit more detailed. In legal terms, what we did here was a crime called insider trading. You’ve heard of that term, right?”

“People go to prison for that,” Alexis replied, suddenly terrified of the consequences of making a whopping $106 profit overnight.

“Only those making millions, not us small potatoes. Our buys are too low to make a blip on the government’s radar. We’re safe, trust me.”

“I do.”

“Good,” Max said. “I wanted to be completely up front with you. I am the only one taking the risk here anyway. You could have heard me talking in the hallway about this sure thing and decided to play along on your own.”

“Like playing a hunch on a horse at the track.”

“Exactly.”

She glanced down at the printout and said, “Small potatoes, huh?”

“The smallest.”

A month went by before Max started hinting that a major financial opportunity was on the horizon. He’d continued to give her sound advice on four more “small potato” stock buys, each one more profitable than the last. They were on a roll and she’d made it very clear she might consider a substantial investment if the right prospect presented itself. He advised her not to go too big too fast. “People lose their retirement savings that way. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Nevertheless, three weeks after making this statement, he had shown her stock certificates made out in his name adding up to over $300,000.

“I would never recommend any stock I had not checked out myself,” he told her, handing her five other certificates. “These are the same companies I advised you to buy. You can see from the dates that I purchased them prior to passing along the information to you.”

She was amazed by Dr. Max’s openness and confirmed these were the same stocks she had purchased. “I don’t know what to say,” she said, placing the stack of certificates on his desk. “But what happened to small potato stocks? Three hundred thousand dollars is only small potatoes to billionaires and sheiks.”

Max had been ready for this question all week. “This didn’t come from my patient. When I had lunch in the financial district a few weeks ago, I overheard two brokers arguing about these stocks in a booth at the Trader’s House Grill.”

“You overheard it? Really?” She remembered their earlier discussion about how an overheard conversation wasn’t insider trading.

“I swear to you, Alexis,” he said excitedly. “I checked them out and found this is a computer company jointly owned by Microsoft, Apple and IBM. They are about to launch a new system that will revolutionize the industry, if not the entire world.”

“Why haven’t I heard of this before?”

“It’s top-secret. If any of the three boards found out their research departments were working with their rivals, they’d get scared and pull out immediately.” She gave him a disbelieving look. “I know how far-fetched this sounds, but I verified everything. Do you think I would invest three hundred grand of my own money into some crackpot idea?” He paused and looked directly into her eyes. “I had hoped by now you would trust me about these things. If you don’t, I’ll understand.”

“No, it’s not that. You’ve completely gained my trust with your tips so far.”

HOOK.

“Then what is it?” Max asked slowly. “Like all the other investments, you don’t have to buy this one on my say-so.”

“No, I want to buy it.”

LINE.

“Okay, that’s good to know. Now, if you want to start with a low amount—say $500—that’s fine.”

“Actually, I wasn’t thinking about starting low at all,” she said with a savvy smile. “I did pretty well in the divorce and was wondering how much I could invest all at once?”

AND SINKER.