Lorrieann’s World

* * *

M. Robert Kohler

“Are you ready for your messages, Mr. Kohler?”

M. Robert Kohler, Fortune 500’s Corporate Man of the Year, turned his contemplative gaze away from the window of his penthouse office on the twenty-seventh floor of the glass tower bearing his name. “Yes, Julia. Come on in.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kohler caught his reflection on a polished bronze plaque awarded to him from some Japanese mogul hoping to garnish his favor. If nothing else, it makes a good mirror, he chuckled straightening his tie, and smoothing a graying wisp of hair at his temple. To bad I had to liquidate them a month after I acquired them, but only a-hundred mill in earnings is small potatoes. But the plaque is nice.

“Ahem.”

Kohler looked away from his image to see his secretary standing in front of his desk, a bulging calendar book and a stack of pink ‘while you were out’ slips in her hand. “Fire away, Julia.”

“Your accountant, Fred Pederson, wants to know what to tell your wife, sorry, ex-wife—”

“Which one?”

“—the last one—about the stipend fund. Should he go ahead and send her another hundred-thou this month or wait for new instructions.”

Kohler rocked back in his imported leather chair, thoughtfully turning a solid gold letter opener in his hand. “The woman took eight-mill in the settlement and she still needs my hundred-thou?” He shook his head, laughing. “Ah what the hell, tell Fred to send it, along with a note that she should spend every dime on plastic surgery. She looked a bit puckered last time I saw her. Next?”

Julia’s lip curled slightly as she took the note. “Mr. Ludlow from Arthur, Davies and O’Neil has left four messages since yesterday asking for a meeting to discuss your decision to dissolve your interests in Medireach Health Services. He insists the clinics cannot subsist without the funding—”

“Next.” Kohler waved his hand impatiently. Julia understood, crumpling the Ludlow messages in a single wad, dropping them into the chrome wastebasket next to the desk.

Kohler chuckled. He appreciated Julia’s cool detached manner with his decisions. He had all the dealings he could stand with the bleeding heart advocates for this group or that; the environmentalists, the animal rights zanies, and every special interest group in between who besieged him daily, waving their banners of injustice and exploitation, calling him everything from corporate bastard to warmonger. They attacked him daily as though it was his own personal fault that a silly little owl in Idaho was dying for lack of a particular tree that was cut down by one  of his subsidiaries, or that some old woman in Tucson died because some doctor didn’t know the drugs he’d prescribed were not available any longer because Kohler Pharmaceuticals had spun off the research lab developing the drug. Couldn’t they understand the simple concept of wise business decisions?

“Anything else?”

“Combank . . . .”

He sat up straight, anticipating news he had been waiting to hear. She looked down, her grin broadening as she placed the slip of paper on the desk before him. “Congratulations.”

He slapped his knees, his face splitting into a gleeful chortle. “Yes!”

“Ravencroft Savings and Loan has already switched over to the corporate accounts and should be fully integrated in the national system by the end of the month,” she reported. “Assets approaching eight-hundred mill. Not a bad day’s work.”

“A month in the family, we keep the bigger loans, sell off the rest, then dump it off to a smaller holding firm and let it build again.” He clapped his hands together, rubbing them eagerly. “The beauty of it is, Julia, that I can buy them back in about ten years and do it all over again.” He jumped from his chair suddenly, heading to the bar on the far side of the office. “This calls for a toast.”

“It’s only ten am, Mr. Kohler.” Julia chuckled. “And you’ve a pretty full schedule for today.”

Kohler laughed and pulled a can from a small refrigerator. “Julia, you wound me.” He held the can, displaying the label. “V8. Good for the heart, you know.” He winked, and poured the contents into two martini glasses, then carried them across the room, handing one to her. “Cheers.”

She laughed quietly, and took the glass, clinking the rim with his before taking a polite sip. “Thank you.” She placed the glass down, and opened the calendar book to the ribbon that marked the current day. “You have a board meeting in a half an hour, small agenda, not everyone could make it.”

“Who’ll be missing?”

“Jack Ramsey is in Myrtle Beach, golfing, and George Ballard is in Aspen.”

“Again?” Kohler laughed. “I suppose he’s claiming that to be business related? Checking out the corporate condo for us?”

“Of course,” she replied, and went on, efficiently, “after that you have a press meeting at city hall to discuss the stadium construction—we put a great spin on that one, even the EPA is happy.”

Kohler grinned and downed his drink, heading back to the bar to pour another.

“Lunch with the mayor after that and you have an invitation from your son . . . ”

Kohler stopped cold, can poised over the glass. “My son?”

Julia looked up over the rim of her glasses, her tone suddenly changing to something less than businesslike. “It’s the fourth one he’s sent, Mr. Kohler.” She hesitated for a moment, then went on. “I went ahead and fit him into your schedule after the mayor. . . you had the opening, and you’ll be in that part of town anyway—”

“I can’t, Julia. Not today. Send him my regrets . . . I’ll fit him in . . . next month. I promise.”

Julia bit her lip, and scratched a note onto the calendar. Good girl. Just do your job and don’t argue. Oh, don’t look at me that way, I said I’ll see him next month . . . on my terms. Is it my fault the kid has no head for business? English lit! God, what sort of degree is that to have in this day and age. He’s lucky I pay his tuition . . . He turned away, but still felt her disapproving gaze on his back. He chided himself for his waffling where his son was concerned. Surely a man who had built the empire he had from the ground up, had the wherewithal to make sound decisions regarding his own family—four failed marriages notwithstanding. Four marriages that had yielded him only one son to place his hopes of lineage on, and that one had utterly turned his back on everything M. Robert Kohler stood for.

He went to set the V8 down when a movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he glanced toward the sliding doors to the balcony. “Did you see that?” he asked.

“What, sir?”

“There’s a man on my balcony . . . I just saw him walk by the glass.”

“I didn’t see anyone.”

He pushed the door open and stepped out onto the balcony, looking both left and right. The door quietly slid closed on its automatic spring. At finding no one out there, he laughed to himself. “Must have been a bird.” He turned to go back into his office, reaching for the latch on the door, then jumped back, suddenly startled by the reflection of the black bearded man he saw in the glass, who appeared to be standing right behind him. He spun on his heal, losing his balance in the process as he grasped at the railing—too late to keep himself from toppling over the edge.

* * *

Maggie Coughlin

“God, I hate stakeouts,” Maggie Coughlin groaned, resting her head on her bent wrist in the front of the non-descript sedan they’d been issued for the assignment. She glanced at the glow of her digital watch. “Ten o’clock and alls . . . dull.” They’d been parked in the lowest level of an inner city parking garage for more than five hours, staring at the door to the stairwell that led to the Medireach Clinic. An informant had given them a tip that one of the most notorious drug-dealers in Ravencroft, a man known only by the moniker ‘Jade’, found that lonely stairwell the perfect place to do business. Even though the information had been sketchy, and the source dubious at best, Maggie had lobbied for the assignment of staking out the garage.

Her partner of eleven months, Ted Baylor, had been fresh out of the academy, and as wet behind the ears as a newborn pup when he’d been partnered with her. Maggie had resented being paired with him in the beginning, but he’d proven his grit a couple of times, and she begrudgingly had to admit that they worked fairly well together. Perhaps not as well as she’d worked with John Knight, her former partner, but good enough.

Ted yawned and reached over the seat for the thermos of coffee. “Refill?”

She pulled the lid off her travel mug and held it out while he poured. “Thanks.”

He drained the thermos into his own mug. “Make that one last. We’re on empty, chief.”

Maggie huffed, shaking her head. “Why do you call me that, Baylor?”

He smirked a little. “Just showin’ respect for my elders. You do have ten years on the force over me, you know.”

“Rookies,” Maggie groaned, rolling her eyes, and they both chuckled a little. “Be careful you don’t trip over my walker when we make the collar, sonny.”

“Right,” he replied with a chuckle, sipping his coffee.

Maggie turned her attention back to the stairwell, staring in both anticipation and dread, waiting for something to happen. Where are you, Jade? Come on, you bastard, don’t disappoint me . . . A flicker beside one of the darkened pillars caught her eye. A tiny flame shot up from a lighter, then disappeared behind a cupped hand and was magically replaced by a glowing orange dot. “You see that?” she whispered.

Ted nodded, instinctually placing his hand on his service revolver. “Is that our boy?”

“No . . . too short, but I’d bet the baby’s college fund that he’s here to do business. No one walks down three levels of garage just to stand in the dark and have a smoke.”

“They do if they ain’t smoking cigarettes,” Baylor pointed out. “The place wreaks of weed.”

“Uh uh.” She shook her head. “That’s a cigarette. Watch, when he drags  Just in and out . . .  no toke to that smoke.”

“Well done, Holmes, I suppose next you’ll tell me what he’s had for breakfast, and how many whores he’s laid in the past week,” Baylor joked. Maggie allowed the sarcasm, recognizing the nervousness in her partner’s voice. This was his first undercover work, and if all went well, his first major bust and his first exposure to the dangers of working drug enforcement.

Maggie could not deny her own trepidation. She’d worked the hard cases before, but not with Baylor, and not since her last encounter with Jade—the day he shot John Knight.

The cigarette tumbled to the floor, leaving a small trail of embers. The man in the shadows pulled up his collar, and started walking slowly toward the stairwell. He flashed his cigarette lighter once, then doused the flame, dropping it back into his pocket. The signal was answered with another flicker from behind the glass window on the stairwell door, and the shadowman quickened his step.

“Show time,” Maggie whispered as she drew her revolver slowly out of its holster. The door latches of the sedan had been heavily greased, allowing the pair to open the doors silently. They slipped out on either side of the car, each crouching as low as possible while holding their revolvers at the ready. Maggie skittered from behind the car door, to a pillar across the lane. She stood up tall, her back pressed against the pillar, and signaled for Baylor to move to the pillar opposite her to flank the stairwell.

Baylor moved as stealthily as a cat, nimbly taking his post behind the pillar. They were close enough to hear the muffled voices coming from the stairwell. Maggie’s hands trembled slightly in anticipation; she had to force herself to wait for the right moment to move, she needed the proof that a deal was going down or Jade would be out on some technicality before the ink on the arrest ticket was dry. Come on, bastard, make the deal. She held her breath when she heard Jade’s familiar, smooth voice.

“You’ve got company,” Jade was saying, in his ever calm, yet dangerous tone, followed by the breathless stammering of the contact.

“No . . . I d’n’t see no one. Honest . . . no one caught my scent comin’ down I swear.”
Maggie signaled Baylor that it was time to move before Jade withdrew. Baylor jumped out from behind the pillar, pistol raised, shouting, “Police! Freeze!”

Shadowman started to run, Maggie jumped out and tripped him, sending him sprawling onto the concrete floor. Jade slunk into the shadow, seeming to melt into the darkness. “Baylor, go!” She shouted. Baylor raced into the darkened stairwell, while Maggie deftly cuffed the shadowman’s wrist to loop of re-bar that protruded from the pillar.

She was two steps from the doorway when she heard the shot, the groan and a series of thuds as Baylor tumbled down the stairs. She was at his side in a flash, shouting obscenities to the darkened stair. “Baylor! My God, Ted . . . Ted!”

Baylor coughed. “I’m . . . it’s ok. Just a fall . . . vest held,” he groaned rolling slowly to his knees, then stood up.

A door slammed on the next level, accompanied by the sound of running feet, and Maggie was certain she’d heard Jade’s smooth, mocking laughter echoing with it. Satisfied that Baylor was okay for the moment, Maggie went back into action. “Go call for back-up, now!” Before he could move to stop her, she was running up the stairs, following the sound of the laughter. The door on the first landing was still swinging when she rounded the stairs. She pushed it open with her hip, emerging into a lime green corridor in the morgue level of the clinic, all the while keeping her gun in front of her. The hallway was dingy, and shadowed at the far end, and all was silent. He’s not here, the door was a decoy . . . she was about to turn and go back into the stairwell when she saw the shadow at the end of the hall. There you are, you son of a bitch.

She raised her gun, and ran down the hall yelling, “Freeze!” She was stunned to see it wasn’t Jade who stepped out of the shadow, but a tall, dark haired man, dressed formally in old fashioned clothing. Before she had a chance to wonder who he was, or why he was there, the shot came from behind, and she saw nothing more.