Chapter 4
Patterson’s secretary looked up as he walked in. “Sir? Rick Maxwell’s on the line from Alaska.”
“It’s awfully early for him to call. What is it? Five a.m. in Anchorage? I can’t keep the time difference straight.”
“It’s three hours behind Central time, sir,” she replied.
“Well, I'm busy. Tell him I'm in a meeting. All day.”
“Do you have a meeting, sir? I don’t show anything on the calendar for you.”
“No. I just can’t talk to Maxwell right now. He’s already ruffling feathers up there, and now I’ve been told to stonewall him for awhile until things cool off.”
“But, William … didn’t you just tell him to ‘lean on’ the authorities to get the information?”
“I know. He’s a good guy, but I’ve got my instructions, too.” Patterson went into his office, closing the door firmly behind him.
* * * * *
“Yeah, I understand. Ask him to call me as soon as possible.” Rick hung up the phone and looked around the hotel room. It wouldn’t be light for another 5 hours or so, but his stomach was reminding him that he hadn’t eaten in awhile.
He walked downstairs to the Longest Day Café. That’s its name? he wondered. Great - rub the lack of light in our faces by talking about the summer sun. He had noticed, though, that the lights in the hotel seemed unusually bright for that hour of the morning. The waiter who brought the menu told him, “Guests from Outside complain about the dark in the winter, so we turn everything brighter. It helps.”
Rick allowed as how that was so, and looked vacantly at the menu while his mind replayed the early-morning call which had gotten him out of bed at this hour.
* * * * *
“Maxwell? If you don’t recognize my voice, ‘no names’ would be a good policy.”
“Yeah, I remember you. You told me you had ‘nothing else’ for me.”
“Well now, that’s not exactly so. Let’s just say I couldn’t tell you anything then.”
“Okay, Lieut … er, okay. What’s so important at 4 a.m.?”
“Sorry, Maxwell, but this is important, and I'm due at HQ shortly. Your friend had some interesting things with him when his car went up. Do you know what HEI is?”
“You tell me.”
“High Explosive Incendiary ammo. It’s designed to pierce armor, fragment, and then ignite anything flammable in the area.”
Rick was wide awake now, his mind racing. “But what… why ..?”
Christakos’ voice was tense. “We don’t know, but there’s no way he should have had any of that stuff. The lab boys are telling me he had at least twenty 20mm shells.”
“Twenty millimeters? But – that’s crazy. Wouldn’t you need a cannon or something?”
“Yeah. You’d need a howitzer, or something like it. And you’re right: it’s crazy, not to mention EXTREMELY illegal.”
“I know how the D.C. crowd likes to make some things ‘more illegal-er’ than others,” Maxwell said.
“Well, trust me – this is something that only the military uses. It’s definitely not for civilian use, and that means it’s only a matter of time before the Feds get in the middle of it. I won’t be surprised if the ATF boys are already at HQ.”
“Wonderful. Anything else?”
“For crying out loud, Maxwell - ain’t that enough?” Christakos asked.
“Yes, that would about do it,” Rick replied. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
* * * * *
While he ate, Maxwell’s mind was a million miles away. Now that the “what” had been answered, the “who” was suddenly much more important. The list of suspects was pretty short, and most of them were named Ng.
He knew that the local cops had talked to the old man and his sons at least twice, but nothing useful had turned up. Not yet, anyway. Okay, I’ve got to find one of those ‘disgruntled former acquaintances and upset employees’, he thought. That shouldn’t be too hard.
* * * * *
Back in his room, Rick saw it was only 6:30. He had a couple of hours before local businesses began opening, so he tried HQ again. Patterson’s secretary was apologetic, but claimed that William Patterson was still busy, and just couldn’t be bothered.
Great.
He picked up his coat, which he’d tossed across the other bed yesterday, and started to hang it up. When he turned on the light in the entryway, he saw the edge of a manila envelope on the shelf above the clothes rod. He didn’t remember seeing it before.
Inside the envelope, he found copies of some yellowed newspaper articles. They described a business dealing from several years before, which had gone very, very wrong.
It was a development deal for the renovation of a former office building in downtown Anchorage. The announcement of the plan had claimed that the building would be remodeled into a mall on the ground floor, with offices on the second and third floors. Two of the principles were Ng and an older Alaska Native man. Rick didn’t recognize the third name at all, and added it to his list of things to check out.
The deal had apparently involved several offers, counter-offers, and a well-publicized war of words between Ng and the sellers. Snide remarks made to a business reporter had escalated to insults overheard in a restaurant – and then repeated to the reporter. There were lots of witnesses.
The statements attributed to Ng were certainly in keeping with the old man’s personality, Rick thought. The guy was not exactly a goodwill ambassador. “More like an artillery assault,” he thought. Wait a minute …
“No, that’s crazy,” he said out loud. “Why would Ng have access to incendiary shells? And why would anyone have thought Bob Corbett needed them?”
The most recent article described how the seller had been killed in a car wreck, and then there had been a couple of what the paper described as “fires of suspicious origin” in the unoccupied building. Ng and his partner had been quite vocal about all the failings of the seller, and the defects with the property after the fact, it seemed.
If it was so bad, why had they wanted to buy it? And why had they lost interest thereafter? Well, fire damage could explain why they lost interest, but still … more questions, Rick thought. I’m getting new questions faster than I'm finding answers.
He started to put the copies back in the envelope, but saw one more thing in the bottom which hadn’t fallen out when he first shook it. It was a business card for a vice-president of Frontier First Bank, and a local number.
* * * * *
“So, Mr. Maxwell. What is it I can do for you?” asked Thor Sigvaldsson.
Sigvaldsson didn’t look how Rick had imagined. Half-expecting a strapping fellow of Viking descent, he’d been surprised to see an older, smallish man in a pinstripe suit. “Please, call me Rick. I’ve been researching real estate transactions in Anchorage, and I see your name is connected to an article about the old Board of Realtors building, downtown. I have a couple of questions about that deal, if you can spare me a few minutes of your time.”
“Who did you say you work for, Rick?”
“I'm an independent consultant, researching marketing trends for a private client who’d rather remain anonymous.” Rick hated lying, but needed to keep any feedback from reaching the ears of the Ng family. He’d decided on this approach, focusing on the others in the deal.
“The Realtor building … oh yes, I remember that deal. Such a shame about the owner, too.”
Rick said, “That seemed like such a great building, and in a good location at a busy intersection. Why didn’t it sell?”
Sigvaldsson looked thoughtful. “It should have ... in my opinion, that is. The building needed a bit of work, like most older structures here, but that shouldn’t have stopped the sale. It was appraised, the price was right, and the deal was just waiting to be concluded.”
“Then I have to ask,” Rick said. “What happened?”
“The buyer and seller had words. Lots of words, it seemed. Mr. Ng apparently rubbed Johansen the wrong way. Mr. Ng rubs a lot of people the wrong way, but this time it turned ugly. They visited a restaurant on the same night, and got into a … let’s call it an intense discussion … which became a shouting match. It wasn’t long after that that Johansen was killed in a traffic accident, and then the building caught fire.”
“Didn’t any of that strike anyone as odd?” Rick asked.
“Well, there was some talk about the timing, but I don’t know that anything came of it. I mean, Ng’s been doing business here for a long time, and has that reputation as a hothead. No, that’s not right. A mean man who operates like a shark, rather, and a hothead to boot. He doesn’t break the law, but he may skirt it a bit. The thing is, he expects everyone at the table to be as sharp as he is – and he’ll eat their lunch if they’re not.”
“So you’re saying he’s on the up-and-up?”
Sigvaldsson sighed. “I didn’t say that, either. Let’s just say he’s never been charged with anything official. Very few people who have faced him across a table during a deal have walked away happy. Maybe it’s his fault, maybe it’s theirs, but that’s the rep the guy has.”
To be continued ...
Copyright 2011 - all rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment