The Bridge to Caracas

  The door to the kitchen opened again and Martha Perkins appeared. “Oh! I’m sorry,” she said, eyeballing the stranger in her kitchen. She turned to leave.

  “Martha, please stay,” Karen coaxed. “I want you to meet Mike.” She turned to Mike. “This is Mike King, a dear friend of mine. We’ve known each other for a very long time.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mike,” Martha said, smiling politely. “Karen just told me what happened to Phillip today. I’m so glad you’re with her.”

  “So am I,” Mike said.

  Martha turned to Karen. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. If there’s anything I can do… ?”

  “Thanks, Martha. Before you go, I want you to know that we’re going to get Phillip back, and I plan to continue to employ you as Phillip’s nanny for so long as he needs one, and whether he’s here or not.”

  “You’re very kind, Karen. Good luck to both of you.” Martha turned and left the kitchen.

  Mike returned to the telephone on the wall and dialed his office number. “Hi, Margaret. It’s Mike. I’m in—”

  “Thank God you called, Mike,” Margaret said. “We’ve got big problems. We heard on the radio today that the police identified the other two men who were killed in the explosion at Amerada. One of them was Bob Bushing. Empire State Oil and Reserve Oil are out of business—now we’re short over thirty million gallons.”

  “Who was the third?” Mike asked, shaken and demoralized.

  “His name was Earle Langston. I couldn’t believe it… the Director of Customs and Immigration.”

  Mike stared at the ceiling in anguish. He had suspected Servito had someone on the inside, someone who allowed his trucks to cross the border unopposed. Langston was the missing link. And now he was dead.

  “Mike, are you still there?” Margaret asked.

  “Yes. Please listen carefully. I’m going to try to find replacement supply as soon as possible. In the meantime, I want you to do whatever you can to allocate all existing supply among the outlets we still have operating. I know it’s going to be difficult, but we have no choice. When an outlet has sold its allocated supply, I want it closed until it gets its next allocation. I want every outlet to post prices at one penny above the market. Also, I want you to advise every employee that our payroll will continue, without interruption.” Mike knew that he was administering a death blow to his business, but he had obligations to meet.

  “Is that it?”

  “No. I’m sure the media is going to call. They’re going to ask all kinds of questions about contaminated gasoline. Give them nothing. Tell them we have no comment at this time. Do you understand everything I’ve told you?”

  “Yes, sir. By the way, Mike, Dan Turner called several times today. He’s extremely anxious to talk to you.”

  “Thanks, Margaret. I’ll call you again in an hour.” Mike hung up and immediately called Dan Turner.

  “I’m glad you called, Mike,” Turner said. “I have some rather bad news for you.”

  “Why not? So does everyone else,” Mike snorted, clenching his teeth and stiffening his lips. “What is it?”

  “The feds are doing some very heavy breathing. They want to start discoveries next week. If they can, they’ll push this thing into court in less than a month. I know I told you and Karen it would take longer and I’m sorry for that. For us to try to stop them at this point would be like trying to stop a hurricane with an umbrella. At best, we can only slow them down. I want you and Karen to meet me in my office some time tomorrow. We have a lot to talk about.”

  “Tomorrow’s fine. What time?”

  “Can you get here by ten?”

  “Sure. See you then.”

  “Mike, are you okay?” Turner asked.

  “Why?”

  “You sound different. Tired.”

  “Karen and I have had a tough day.”

  “Anything you want to tell me about?”

  “We just spent the day chasing Karen’s husband. He took their son out of school today and left the country with him.”

  “He did what?” Turner shouted.

  “He kidnapped Phillip and left the country.”

  “Where did they go? Do you have any idea?”

  “We think they went to Caracas.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s a long and complicated story. I’ll tell you the whole thing at ten tomorrow morning.” Dejected, Mike hung up and walked to one of the massive floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room. He stood in agonized silence as the rush-hour traffic crawled by below. Slowly shifting his eyes to the horizon, he saw a long, narrow strand of blue sky separating the horizon from the dense gray clouds that had covered the city with a half an inch of cold rain earlier in the day. His eyes focused on a low flying stretch DC-8 moving sluggishly westward over Lake Ontario.

  The warmth of Karen’s body interrupted his thoughts. “What are you thinking about?” she asked, tightening her arms around his waist.

  “Us,” Mike said. He turned to face her. “Let’s go to Caracas,” he said.

  Karen frowned. “You can’t be serious.”

  “How can I not be when our lives are on the verge of total destruction?”

  “We still have lots of time,” Karen pleaded. “If we stay here and keep digging, I’m sure we’ll turn up something.”

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have lots of time. Dan Turner just told me the feds want to start discoveries as soon as next week. He said they’ll probably haul us into court in a month. We don’t have a chance, babe. They’re going to fry us.”

  Karen persisted. “I think we still do have a chance. If we—”

  “Karen, we’re screwed. Your husband has murdered everyone who could possibly help us. My secretary just told me Bushing was identified as one of the three men who died in the explosion at Amerada Tank Lines. The third was Earle Langston. He was the director of Customs and Immigration at the Peace Bridge. And the fat man’s dying as we speak.”

  “If we go to Caracas, we’ll never be able to come back to Canada.”

  “Screw it, babe! I’d rather leave the country than stay here and face this bullshit lynching. If we stay here, we lose. We’ll both go to prison and sit there hating ourselves for not taking the only chance we had left…”

  Karen was deeply troubled. The idea of escaping from the charges and the problems was appealing, but it conflicted with her sense of responsibility, not to mention justice. “Suppose we did go to Caracas, and suppose we were lucky enough to find Phillip. How on earth do you expect to get him and convince my beloved husband to give up?”

  Mike shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. The only thing that’s certain is that going to Caracas is our least worst option. Besides, we’re going to be a lot better prepared than we were today.”

  “How?”

  Mike reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew the chrome plated Colt Karen had given him earlier. “I’ll have this when I see him again. In his case, I wouldn’t be bluffing.”

  “Sure,” Karen declared with a sarcastic smirk. “You’re going to point the gun at him and order him to give us everything we want. Right?”

  Mike wrapped his arms around her and fixed his reddened blue eyes on hers. “I’ve spent a lifetime building a business while I waited for you. I don’t have the strength to make it all happen again. I’d rather die than sit on my hands and watch everything fall apart. We have a chance to get it all back, and we’ve got to take it. We could lose it all, but at least we’d have tried.”

  Karen could see the determination in Mike’s eyes. She knew it was impossible to change his mind. The thought of being incarcerated once again and losing both Mike and Phillip had tempered her fears. She was still terrified of the risks, but conceded. “Let’s do it,” she said. She closed her eyes and held Mike tighter.

  CHAPTER 55

  Phillip pressed his nose and hands against the dark blue airport Lincoln limousine’s window. He stared at his father’s enormous Palm Beac
h mansion. “Is this place really yours?” he asked as the vehicle came to a full stop in the circular driveway of the oceanfront home.

  “Yup, and someday it’ll be yours,” Servito replied. He paid the driver from a fat wad of bills—then he and Phillip stepped out into the warm, late afternoon Florida sunshine. Numerous tropical birds chirped and squawked in nearby trees while the constant drone of a lawn mower disturbed the natural tranquility. Servito opened the massive wooden front door, ushering Phillip through the atrium and out toward the ocean. Phillip dashed ahead to stand at the edge of the beautiful, kidney-shaped swimming pool. He stared longingly at the pool’s cobalt blue water.

  “Why can’t we live here, dad?” he asked.

  “I told you, son, my new business is in Venezuela. We’re going to get a good night’s sleep here. Then we’ll be fresh for the flight tomorrow.”

  “Is Venezuela far from here?”

  “Hell, well we’re almost half-way there. We’ll be making just one more stop before we get there.”

  “Where is Venezuela?”

  “It’s a beautiful country in the northern region of South America. It’s bordered on the west by Columbia, on the east by Guyana, on the south by Brazil, and on the north by the Caribbean Sea. You hungry?”

  Phillip nodded.

  “Then follow me. We’re going to eat our hearts out.” Servito led the way to the kitchen. He was about to open the massive refrigerator when the kitchen door was pushed open by a slim, middle-aged black woman. Her graying hair was swept backward to a tight bun and she wore wrinkled gray slacks and a white blouse. A freshly lit Marlboro dangled from her lips. “Mr. Servito!” she declared, and then jerked the cigarette from her lips.

  Servito flashed a smile and hurried toward the woman. He hugged her and lifted her from the floor. “It’s been a long time, Rose. How the hell are ya?”

  “Jus’ fine,” Rose replied with a deep Georgian drawl. “But I don’t keep track of time no more. It don’t do no good… who’s the boy?”

  Servito lowered Rose to the floor and turned to Phillip. “The best thing that’s ever happened to me. He’s my son.”

  Rose gave Phillip a critical stare, and then winked at Servito. “He’s a whole hell of lot better looking than you.”

  “Smarter, too.” Servito chuckled as he turned again to face Phillip. “Son, this is Rose Jackson, the official queen of this house. She looks after it when I’m not here.”

  “How old are you, son?” Rose asked.

  “Ten.”

  Rose smiled with pursed lips and shook her head. “You’re goin’ to be a heart breaker, boy. That’s for certain.”

  “Chip off the old block,” Servito said with a wink.

  “Where’s his mother?” Rose asked.

  Servito rolled his eyes skyward. “Uh, she decided not to join us.”

  Aware that her boss wanted the subject terminated, Rose nodded with a smirk. “Y’all hungry?”

  “Starved,” Servito replied.

  “Then y’all take a swim or whatever. I’ll make us dinner. It won’t be fancy, but I’ll have it ready in a jiffy.”

  CHAPTER 56

  Mike glanced at the stately grandfather clock in the corner of the ornate boardroom of Turner, Peterson, Greenwell, and Worthy. It was 10:05 a.m. In two ticks of the second hand, one of the double oak doors swung open and a neatly dressed, curvaceous young brunette appeared. “Good morning,” she sang, smiling warmly. “My name is Kate Daniel. I’m Mr. Turner’s private secretary.” She placed a silver tray and urn filled with hot coffee on the polished mahogany table in front of Mike and Karen. On the tray were two gold rimmed coffee cups and saucers, along with matching cream and sugar bowls. “He asked me to tell you he’ll be with you very shortly,” she said before leaving the room.

  Mike had barely filled Karen’s cup when the door burst open and Dan Turner rushed in. He closed the door behind him and hurried to a chair on the opposite side of the table. “Good morning,” he said as he placed his black briefcase on the table. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Let’s get started. We have a lot to do.”

  “Dan, Karen and I have something to tell you. Before we do, I want it clearly understood that we enjoy lawyer client status,” Mike cautioned.

  Turner stared at Mike over his spectacles, and then gave him a barely perceptible nod.

  “Is that understood, Dan?” Mike said, demanding a verbal response.

  “Of course it is. What is it?”

  “Karen and I have decided to leave the country.”

  Turner winced and jerked his head sideways. “Sure you have! You need to relax from the stress and pressure of it all, so you’re going to trundle off somewhere on a nice little vacation.”

  “It’s not a holiday, Dan.”

  Turner gave Mike his patented penetrating stare. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in? Do you have any idea how much trouble you will be in if you leave the country? In the unlikely event you make it out, you’ll immediately forfeit your bail bonds and you’ll be the subjects of international extradition agreements. When they catch you, they’ll have you back in this country before you know it. Then they’ll have you both incarcerated with no possibility of bail.”

  Mike continued as though Turner had never spoken. “Dan, we’re absolutely convinced that Karen’s husband has set us up, and we don’t think there’s any way we can prove it if we stay here. We would rather risk it all than stay here and allow this travesty of justice to continue.”

  “Did you tell me that Karen’s husband has gone to Venezuela?” Turner glinted steely eyes, preparing to bargain now that he realized how very serious Mike was.

  Mike nodded.

  “How do you know you’re going to find him there?”

  Mike handed the piece of paper containing Servito’s Caracas address to Turner. “Take a look at this.” Turner examined the paper for several seconds, and then looked up at Mike. “It’s obviously an address in Caracas. What’s the significance?”

  “Karen recognized the writing. It’s her husband’s.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “When we found out that Servito hadn’t taken Phillip to school, we guessed that they had gone to his farm. So we decided to go there. On our way, we spotted Servito’s limousine in a service station. We chased it until it crashed into a retaining wall in North Toronto. The driver was Jerrold Allison, a bagman for Servito. We found that piece of paper inside Allison’s false passport.”

  “So you’re going to Caracas on the basis of that information?”

  “It’s a long shot,” Mike conceded. “But we think it’s our only chance.”

  “Okay. You’re obviously still convinced that Jim Servito set the two of you up. Help me to believe you’re right.”

  “Well while Servito was staring down the barrel of his gun at us and pushing Karen’s little boy onto his private airplane, he made it very clear he knew that Karen and I had been charged by the feds. That wasn’t public knowledge, Dan. He also asked how I liked the new performance improving additive in my gasoline. There was only one way he could have known… he put it in there.”

  “Wait, when was this?” Turner exclaimed.

  “Yesterday.”

  “You really did have an exciting day.” Turner grimaced. “I have a question for you, Mike. I want you to give me an honest answer.”

  Mike shrugged his shoulders. “I have nothing to gain by giving you a dishonest one.”

  “Have you ever evaded the payment of taxes to any government?”

  Mike replied without hesitation. “I’ve avoided but never evaded. Why?”

  “During the last several days, I’ve been communicating informally with the attorneys who are acting for the feds in your cases. I was astounded when they told me they have enough evidence to charge both you and Karen with gasoline tax evasion.”

  “Unbelievable!” Mike said, shaking his head in disgust.

  “Well, you had better believe it. I don’t thin
k they’re bluffing.”

  “Let me ask you a question. Are you aware of a large explosion that occurred in Fort Erie four days ago?” Mike asked.

  Turner nodded. “I read about it in the newspaper.”

  “There were three people killed in that explosion. Let me tell you who those three people were—then you can draw your own conclusions.”

  “Okay,” Turner said. He leaned back in his chair and lowered his spectacles to the end of his nose.

  “One of them was Dave Lasker, the president of Amerada Tank Lines. Amerada’s the company that hauled most of my gasoline. Another one was Bob Bushing, the president of Empire State Oil. Bushing was the broker who introduced me to Reserve Oil and sold gasoline to me through that company. The third was Earle Langston, director of Customs and Immigration on the U.S. side of the Peace Bridge.”

  Turner leaned forward. “That is very suggestive, but not conclusive. You need something more, something linking Karen’s husband to the explosion. If you don’t have that, you’re just blowing smoke. One might just as well say that you killed those men.”

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me the feds want Karen and I for arson now, too!” Mike roared.

  “No, I’m not going to tell you that.”

  “Then for God’s sake, Dan! Who else could have done it?”

  “That’s not my point. I merely said that you have to prove it was Servito. You need tangible evidence.”

  “How about two hundred and sixteen thousand dollars, cash. Is that real?”

  “I’m sure it is, but I don’t have the slightest idea what it proves.”

  “We found two large canvas bags in the front seat of Servito’s limousine. Those bags were packed with cash, Dan. Two hundred and sixteen thousand dollars that we can link directly to Servito.”

  “How do you propose to do that?”

  “It’s obvious. Allison works for Servito and he was found carrying a ton of cash in Servito’s limousine.”

  “Did you leave the cash in the limousine?”

  “No, we took it. We still have it.”