Clay was fifteen minutes early. The house was empty; its owners were now doing time in assisted living, according to the agent. He walked through a gate beside the house and admired the small garden in the back. There was no pool and no room for one; real estate was precious in Georgetown. There was a patio with wrought-iron furniture and weeds creeping in from the flower beds. Clay would have a few hours to spare for the gardening, but not much.
Perhaps he would just hire a lawn maintenance company.
He loved the house and the ones next to it. He loved the street, the coziness of the neighborhood, everybody living near each other but respecting each other's privacy. Sitting on the front steps, he decided he would offer one million even, then negotiate hard, bluff and walk away, and in general have a great time watching the Realtor run back and forth, but in the end he would be perfectly willing to pay the asking price.
Staring at the Porsche, he drifted away again to his fantasy world where money was growing on trees and he could buy anything he wanted. Italian suits, German sports cars, Georgetown real estate, downtown office space, and what was next? He'd been thinking about a boat for his father, a larger one of course, to generate more revenue. He could incorporate a small charter business in the Bahamas, depreciate the boat, write off most of its costs, thus allowing his father to make a decent living. Jarrett was dying down there, drinking too much, sleeping with anything he could find, living on a borrowed boat, scrambling for tips. Clay was determined to make his life easier.
A door slammed and interrupted his spending, if only for a moment. The Realtor had arrived.
Pace's list of victims stopped at seven. Seven that he knew of. Seven that he and his operatives had been able to monitor. Tarvan had now been pulled for eighteen days, and from the company's experience they knew that whatever the drug did to make people start killing usually stopped working after ten days. His list was chronological, with Ramon Pumphrey being number six.
Number one had been a college kid, a student at George Washington who had walked out of a Starbucks coffee shop on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda just in time to be spotted by a man with a gun. The student was from Bluefield, West Virginia. Clay made the five-hour drive there in record time, not hurried at all but rather as a race car driver speeding through the Shenandoah Valley. Following Pace's precise instructions, he found the home of the parents, a rather sad-looking little bungalow near downtown. He sat in the driveway and actually said out loud, "I can't believe I'm doing this."
Two things motivated him to get out of the car. First, he had no choice. Second, the prospect of the entire $15 million, not just one third or two thirds. All of it.
He was dressed casually and he left his briefcase in the car. The mother was home but the father was still at work. She reluctantly let him in, but then offered some tea and cookies. Clay waited on a sofa in the den, pictures of the dead son everywhere. The curtains were drawn. The house was a mess.
What am I doing here?
She talked about her son for a long time, and Clay hung on every word.
The father sold insurance a few blocks away, and he was home before the ice melted in the tea glass. Clay presented his case to them, as much of it as possible. At first there were some tentative questions - How many others died because of this? Why can't we go to the authorities? Shouldn't this be exposed? Clay fielded them like a veteran. Pace had prepped him well.
Like all victims, they had a choice. They could get angry, ask questions, make demands, want justice, or they could quietly take the money. The sum of $5 million didn't register at first, or if it did they did a wonderful job of deflecting it. They wanted to be angry and uninterested in money, at least initially. But as the afternoon dragged by they began to see the light.
"If you can't tell me the real name of the company, then I won't accept the money," the father said at one point.
"I don't know the real name," Clay said.
There were tears and threats, love and hatred, forgiveness and retribution, almost every emotion came and went during the afternoon and into the evening. They'd just buried their youngest son and the pain was numbing and immeasurable. They disliked Clay for being there, but they thanked him profusely for his concern. They distrusted him as a big-city lawyer who was obviously lying about such an outrageous settlement, but they asked him to stay for dinner, whatever dinner might be.
It arrived promptly at six. Four ladies from their church hauled in enough food for a week. Clay was introduced as a friend from Washington, and was immediately subjected to an all-out cross-examination by the four. A hard-nosed trial lawyer couldn't have been more curious.
The ladies finally left. After dinner, as the night wore on, Clay began to press them. He was offering the only deal they would get. Shortly after 10 P.M., they began signing the paperwork.
Number three was clearly the most difficult. She was a seventeen-year-old prostitute who'd worked the streets most of her life. The police thought she and her killer had once had a business relationship, but there was no clue as to why he would shoot her. He did so outside a lounge, in front of three witnesses.
She went by the name of Bandy, without the need of a last name. Pace's research had revealed no husband, mother, father, siblings, children, home address, schools, churches, or, most amazing, police record. There had been no funeral. Like two dozen others each year in D.C., Bandy had received a pauper's burial. When one of Pace's agents had inquired at the city coroner's office, he had been told, "She's buried in the tomb of the unknown prostitute."
Her killer had provided the only clue. He had told the police that Bandy had an aunt who lived in Little Beirut, the most dangerous housing ghetto in South East D.C. But after two weeks of relentless digging, the aunt had not been found.
With no known heirs, a settlement would be impossible.
Chapter Fourteen
The final Tarvan clients to sign the documents were the parents of a twenty-year-old Howard University coed who'd dropped out of school one week and been murdered the next. They lived in Warren-ton, Virginia, forty miles west of D.C. For an hour they had sat in Clay's office and held hands tightly, as if neither of them could function alone. They cried at times, pouring out their unspeakable grief. They were stoic at other times, so rigid and strong and seemingly unmoved by the money that Clay doubted they would accept the settlement.
But they did, though of all the clients he'd processed Clay was certain that the money would affect them the least. With time they might appreciate it; for now, they just wanted their daughter back.
Paulette and Miss Glick helped escort them out of the office and to the elevators, where everybody hugged everybody again. As the doors closed, the parents were fighting tears.
Clay's little team met in the conference room where they let the moment pass and were thankful that no more widows and grieving parents would visit them, at least not in the near future. Some very expensive champagne had been iced for the occasion, and Clay began pouring. Miss Glick declined because she drank nothing, but she was the only teetotaler in the firm. Paulette and Jonah seemed especially thirsty. Rodney preferred Budweiser, but he sipped along with the rest.
During the second bottle, Clay rose to speak. "I have some firm announcements," he said, tapping his glass. "First, the Tylenol cases are now complete. Congratulations and thanks to all of you." He'd used Tylenol as a code for Tarvan, a name they would never hear. Nor would they ever know the amount of his fees. Obviously, Clay was being paid a fortune, but they had no idea how much.