The Crimes of Jordan Wise Page 7

  "Good."

  "Did you make yours in San Diego?"

  "All taken care of. The name of the motel is—?"

  "Greenbriar."

  "Phone number?"

  She recited it from memory.

  "The name I'll be using?"

  "Philip Smith."

  "Name and address of the garage?"

  "Mainline Parking, 1490 Alvarado."

  "Details of your route?"

  "All memorized. I'll take the maps along, but I don't think I'll need to look at them again."

  "Time to call me?"

  "Six o'clock Saturday night."

  "Sooner if you're ready early," I said. "I'll make sure to be in the room from five o'clock on."

  "God, Richard, it's almost over, isn't it?" She had been calling me Richard for months by then, without a slip; Jordan Wise had already ceased to exist for her. "Almost over!"

  "This phase. There's still one more."

  "I know, but it won't be bad once you're here. I miss you like crazy."

  I said I missed her the same way, and we told each to be careful driving. Just before she hung up she said, "Richard, I want you to know . . ." and there was a pause, and then for the first time she said, "I love you."

  I held those three words close the rest of the day, took them to bed with me that night.

  Friday, September 30.

  Jordan Wise went to Amthor Associates for the last time, sat at his desk in Accounting for the last time, finished preparing for the annual October audit for the last time. He went to lunch with Jim Sanderson, exchanged the usual tired complaints with him and the other drudges. And throughout the long, busy day, he stood apart and looked down at them from his superior height and smiled at their dull normalcy and winked at their foolish weekend plans and gloated at the thought of their reactions when they found out what he had done.

  At five o'clock he said good-bye to them for the last time, rode the elevator down to the lobby, walked to the parking garage where he had left his car with his one suitcase and one briefcase already locked in the trunk, drove out into the Friday-evening-commute traffic.

  And disappeared.

  SAN DIEGO AND CHICAGO

  1978

  RICHARD LAIDLAW DROVE STRAIGHT through to Santa Barbara, with brief stops for gas and a coffee-shop sandwich. Good-bye, Jordan Wise.

  There was no hurry, but no reason to dawdle, either. The Plan called for me to be in and out of San Diego no later than Sunday morning. That would leave me another three days, of what I figured to be a five-day grace period, to put two thousand miles between me and California. My failure to show up or call in would not raise any alarm bells at Amthor on Monday or Tuesday, and the auditors weren't likely to catch on to the fraud, or the company executives to notify the authorities, until sometime Wednesday at the earliest. That meant late Wednesday or Thursday before a fugitive warrant was issued and the story broke in the media.

  An exhilarating feeling of freedom rode with me that night. I was completely relaxed; driving seemed effortless, the usual Friday-evening traffic snarls a source of amusement rather than irritation. All my senses were heightened: colors and the light-shot darkness intensely vivid, night smells crisp, the classical music on the radio as tonally clear and stirring as if I were sitting close to the orchestra during a live performance.

  It was after ten when I stopped at a motel on the southern edge of Santa Barbara. At eight A.M. Saturday, I was back on the highway. Traffic through the San Fernando Valley and LA was relatively light and I made good time. I stopped only once, for gas in Orange County, and rolled into San Diego shortly past noon. I had lunch in Old Town, drove around for a while to kill time, and checked into the Greenbriar Motel as Philip Smith at three thirty.

  Annalise called fifteen minutes early, at a quarter to six. She sounded relieved when I answered promptly. "Everything went all right, then?"

  "Just as I drew it up."

  "I knew it would, but you can't help worrying a little."

  I smiled at that. "No, you can't."

  "I should've left Phoenix a little earlier than I did," she said. "Desert driving really wears you out."

  "What time did you get in?"

  "After three."

  "You're at the airport motel now?"

  "Straight from the garage."

  "But you're not calling from your room?"

  "Come on, Richard, you know I wouldn't make a mistake like that. I'm in a pay phone in the main terminal lounge. I took the motel shuttle over here."

  "What kind of car did you buy?"

  "Nineteen seventy-three Mercury Cougar. Blue and white. I had to pay a little more than we planned—almost thirteen hundred dollars. I could've bought something cheaper from one of the smaller lots, but you said there was less risk of getting a lemon from a large dealership."

  "The price doesn't matter," I said. "The important thing is that it's reliable."

  "Well, so far. Good gas mileage, too."

  "Parked where in the garage?"

  "Second floor, space number two fifty-six. The keys are in a magnetic holder under the right front fender, the registration's locked in the glove compartment, the parking ticket is on the dash. And there's a full tank of gas. I filled up just before I parked."

  "That should do it, then. You're booked on the nine o'clock flight to Chicago?"

  "I've already picked up my ticket. Richard?"

  "Yes, baby?"

  "I hate being this close and not seeing you. I want you so much."

  I wanted her, too. But my hunger was not as great as hers after the long separation, not at this point. It was still a long way to Chicago, and there was plenty to do before I got there. First things first. We'd be together soon enough, and I said as much.

  "I know we will," she said, "but that doesn't make it any easier now. Get to Chicago as quickly as you can, okay? Take a more direct route."

  I said, "I will," but I knew I wouldn't. Every factor to that point had been carried out with perfect precision. There was no compelling reason to change any of the remaining moves. If I did that, I might be inviting bad luck.

  Before nine A.M. on Sunday I packed my suitcase, leaving out the theatrical mustache and spirit gum and the bottle of dark-brown hair dye I'd bought in San Francisco. The suitcase went onto the backseat of my car. I put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign and locked the door to Philip Smith's room, keeping the key. Then I drove the short five blocks to the Mainline Parking Garage.

  This early, the second floor had no sign of life and was mostly empty of parked cars. I pulled into the space next to the one marked 256. The Mercury Cougar had a coating of dust, but was otherwise nondescript and in good condition for its age. The tires had plenty of tread, I noticed as I went around to the front and collected the keys. I opened the trunk, transferred my suitcase inside, locked it again, and then drove my car down to the first-floor exit. The sleepy attendant took my money without even glancing at me.

  From the garage I headed to the airport, which in San Diego fronts on the bay and is virtually downtown; flights in and out pass over and between some of the taller skyscrapers. I left the car in long-term parking, locked but with the keys on the floor inside and empty of anything I didn't want found in it. A shuttle bus took me to the main terminal, where I boarded another bus that brought me back into the city center. By then I was hungry; I took the time to eat breakfast in a cafe on Broadway. It was a short walk from there to the Greenbriar Motel.

  In Philip Smith's room, I washed and dyed my hair, dried it, combed it. Put on the mustache and the tinted contact lenses. Tucked the bottles of dye and spirit gum into my jacket pocket. Left the room key on the dresser; I'd paid cash in advance, so there was no need to go through the usual checkout ritual. The courtyard was deserted when I stepped out of the room. I walked the five blocks to Mainline Parking. When I drove the Mercury down, the attendant in the exit booth paid no more attention to me than he had earlier.

  Like Annalise, I had memoriz
ed all the necessary street and freeway routes. Even after twenty-seven years, I could tell you my course out of the city with reasonable accuracy. It was a few minutes past noon when I turned off Highway 8 onto Highway 15, heading north—right on schedule.

  The long drive from San Diego to Chicago was one of the y factors in the equation. The unexpected is always a possibility during a two-thousand-mile cross-country driving trip. A chance accident. Some sort of mechanical problem with the car that couldn't be fixed. Annalise had bought the Mercury from a reputable dealer, it had performed for her on the desert drive from Phoenix, and it seemed to handle well enough for me as I wheeled north through Escondido and Riverside. But it had 67,000 miles on the odometer and there was no way of knowing whether the engine and transmission had been mistreated by a previous owner or whether it would hold up for the duration.

  All I could do was take normal precautions and trust my judgment and my instincts. Which meant driving carefully and defensively, keeping to a sedate twenty-five on city streets, never exceeding the posted freeway speed limits, observing all traffic laws to a fault. And I checked oil and water levels and tire pressure every time I pulled into a service station to refill the gas tank.

  That first day I followed Highway 15 on its eastern loop through Barstow and across the Mojave Desert into Nevada. It was late afternoon when I reached Las Vegas. I wasn't tired and the car continued to run smoothly; I could have kept on going all the way through Nevada, maybe even across the southwestern corner of Arizona into Utah. Instead, I stopped at a motel on the eastern outskirts of Vegas, and had dinner before putting through a collect call to Annalise from a pay phone to make sure she'd gotten back all right and to let her know where I was.

  The run to Chicago took four more days. I could have made it in three if I'd pushed it, but the Plan called for four. Too many hours behind the wheel invites mistakes in judgment.

  Monday: across Nevada and the northwestern corner of Arizona, then up the middle of Utah to Salt Lake City and Highway 80. I found a bookstore in a shopping center near my motel and bought a new, comprehensive Virgin Islands guidebook and another book on Caribbean cruising, to replace the ones I'd had to give up. Appetite-whetters, and far more enjoyable nighttime diversions than anything television had to offer.

  Tuesday: straight across Wyoming and southern Nebraska. In a motel coffee shop outside North Platte, the young waitress and the middle-aged cashier both smiled at me—genuine smiles, not the meaningless lip-stretch variety most women give male strangers. Jordan Wise had been insubstantial, as transparent as a jellyfish; women of all ages looked right through him, never saw him at all. Richard Laidlaw was solid, with the kind of self-assured swagger that comes from a strong nature. Women saw him, all right, and felt his power, and responded accordingly.

  Wednesday: northeast to Omaha, through Iowa to Des Moines. The Merc was still running smoothly, the time spent on highways and city streets uneventful.

  Thursday: Chicago.

  It was late afternoon when I reached the city, almost five by the time I got to the South Side apartment. I'd called Annalise the night before, with an approximate arrival time; she was waiting for me with champagne on ice and candles burning and her fine body naked under a terrycloth robe. Thirty seconds after I walked in, the robe was off and she had my fly unzipped and my cock in her hand.

  The story had broken in the media that morning. Annalise had scouted a newsdealer not far from the apartment that sold out-of-town newspapers, and all week she'd kept an eye on the Chicago papers and on both San Francisco rags, the morning Chronicle and the afternoon Examiner. The crime hadn't made much of a splash in the Midwest; the Tribune carried a brief account on an inside page. In the Chronicle, of course, it was front-page news. We lay in bed, sipping champagne as I read the account.

  Boldface headline: HUGE AMTHOR EMBEZZLEMENT. Smaller sub-head: "Accountant Vanishes with Six-Figure Sum." Jordan Wise's driver's license photo hadn't been released yet, just his Everyman description. The auditors had discovered the theft on Wednesday, confirmed the scope of it by late afternoon, and were still working to assess the total amount of the loss. Both the local authorities and the FBI had been called in and a fugitive warrant had been issued. Amthor officials were shocked, stunned. A vice president was quoted as saying, "There is no way we could have anticipated anything like this. In the ten years Wise worked for Amthor, he had a spotless record."

  Annalise clung to me, her eyes as bright and hot as the candle flames. "It says the theft might run upwards of three hundred thousand."

  "Early estimate. It'll take them a while to come up with the full amount."

  "How much is it, exactly?"

  "Six hundred and two thousand, four hundred and ninety-six dollars."

  "My God!" She jabbed her finger at the boldface headline. "You did it, Richard, you did it!"

  "We did it," I said.

  "No, all I did was what you told me to. The Plan was yours. You made us rich!"

  "Did you ever doubt I would?"

  "Never. Sometimes I wished the time would go by faster, but that's all. I thought the year would never end."

  "You won't have to wait much longer."

  "Six more weeks," Annalise said. "And six hundred thousand dollars. Just thinking about all that money gives me chills." She wasn't exaggerating. Her arms were covered with goosebumps. "Tell me the details. You said you would."

  "Right now?"

  "I'm dying to know. Everything. Don't leave anything out."

  I explained each of the factors that I'd kept from her. She pouted a little when I told her about the two Cayman accounts.

  "You didn't put my name on them? Why not?"

  "Same reason I withheld the details. For your protection in case anything goes wrong."

  "But we can add it now, can't we? After we get to St. Thomas?"

  "There's no reason to," I said. "We'll have a joint bank account and I'll arrange for regular transfers of funds—more than enough to cover anything we'll want or need."

  "Well. . ."

  "Just let me handle the financial end. You reap the rewards. And keep making me happy in and out of bed."

  "Oh, I'll do that, all right," she promised. She reached down for me again. "You'll be the happiest man in the entire Caribbean."

  The crime remained front-page news in the San Francisco papers for two more days. I can still quote those headlines verbatim too: AMTHOR THEFT TOPS HALF-MILLION MARK. WISE MANHUNT INTENSIFIES. The Chronicle carried the driver's license photo on Friday, the evening Examiner in their Saturday edition. Annalise laughed when she brought the Chronicle and pointed out the photo. "That doesn't look anything like Jordan," she said, "much less Richard." She was right. The newsprint reproduction was grainy, the oh-so-average features made even more indistinguishable. I barely recognized the face myself.

  Grudging superlatives littered the articles. Bold. Daring. Ingenious. Brilliant. And my favorite: audacious. Each was like a sip of strong wine. So were the quotes from law enforcement officials and Amthor executives and employees. "Pursuing several strong leads to Wise's whereabouts." "Won't rest until he's apprehended." "Prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law." One, by Jim Sanderson, made me laugh out loud: "I worked with Jordan for nearly ten years. He was such a quiet, unassuming guy. I still can't believe he had the nerve to do something like this."

  News stories the next two days, mainly rehashes, ran on inside pages. Then Jordan Wise was back on the front page again, down toward the bottom with a smaller headline: "Embezzler's Car Found." FBI officials, the account said, were working to trace Wise's activities after his car was found abandoned at San Diego International Airport. Speculation as to his present whereabouts ran along the false trail I'd laid: he had either taken a flight under an assumed name or used some other means of transportation to leave the area, with Mexico his most likely destination.

  That was the last of the front-page stories. Inside pages off and on again for a time—"No New Leads i
n Wise Case"—and then, less than two weeks after the story broke, nothing at all. The FBI doesn't advertise its frustrations; neither do other law enforcement agencies. And there are too many new crimes, too many world crises and natural disasters, too much political chicanery for one man's white-collar crime, even one that has netted him $600,000, to feed the public's hunger for sensationalism for long.

  We were home free.