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CHAPTER TWENTY
As o this one had to be an eleven on a ten-point scale I was back in the rear seat of a car with my hands cuffed behind my back, exactly how I started in Jacksonville thirty-six hours ago Only this ti to jail, I was headed east on US 441 to God knohere
Jansen sat in the front seat and had not saidI wondered what had happened to the Fosters and company, but realized that I’d only be told what he wantedrealization had taken hold Benjamin Foster had definitely wanted this to happen Is that why he alerted uard? To et food, with the files conveniently in the trunk and the coin in ood at being bait
Still, I thought I’d try, “You do know that I reported in to the Justice Department”
“Ever heard of Jimmy Hoffa?” Jansen asked
I got the lades just a stone’s throay it would not be all that difficult to accomplish
“We saw you ents disappear all the time It’s an occupational hazard Which explains why pains in the ass like Stephanie Nelle recruit young, stupid hotshots like you”
Good to know
We passed a lot of citrus groves, sugarcane fields, and cattle pastures before finally crossing under Interstate 95, cruising farther east into don West Palm Beach From its inception the town had always lived in the shadow of Palhbor across the Intracoastal Waterway One was created for people with money, the other for those orked for the people with money I’d visited both a couple of ti to Mars I saw that ere headed straight into outer space as the car veered right and drove across the bridge
Tall pal watch We stopped at an intersection, then turned north on the old A1A highway that bisected the narrow spit of island north to south Past a stretch of churches and high-end businesses, houses appeared
Big ones
“We headed to your mansion?” I asked Jansen
He shifted in his seat and turned around to face un that he nestled to my forehead
Then he cocked the hammer
I will say, the experience was unnerving Never had I felt a weapon that close to er Making it worse,I could do about it
“I’ you,” he said
“Just not yet, right? Soher on the food chain wants me delivered in one piece?”
His silence confirht
“It’s a bitch to be a peon, isn’t it?” I asked
He released the haun, then turned back around in his seat I exhaled, realizing I’d been holdingtime
We kept driving, traffic ed artery The ocean was no ht, but invisible, shielded by the trees, the es There ed everyone to grow theirs thick to the sky Here and there the road nestled close to the shore Old money hummed a loud and obvious tune Side streets radiated every couple of hundred feet in defined blocks and we turned down one, a narrow lane that passed between e as their oceanfront companions, but nonetheless impressive
We finally stopped at a two-story brick Colonial with a portico supported by colues screened the front yard from the street We stopped in a forecourt, enclosed on three sides by a stone balustrade topped with urns Flowers filled the lavish beds a more shrubbery
Waiting at the front door was a ray hair and a face as slasses I was led fro sounds on the soft stone steps as we entered a vestibule doray marble that reached up to a second-floor balcony I aiting for the queen or the president to descend aht We walked across a floor inlaid with black s—the seal of the FBI
Glasses led the way to a pair of carved wooden doors that opened into a spacious library But a quick perusal showed it was in name only, the shelves stocked with the kind of nondescript leather bindings that interior decorators used to make a room appear important
Scores of fra with others I caught Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Warren Burger, J Edgar Hoover, Robert Redford, Charlton Heston, and Walter Cronkite MostOthers while holding drinks One on a golf course, another a sailboat But at the center was always the sa equal to whohtened and receded through the years but was always immaculate I had a sense of an indexed life, collected and stored right here on this trophy wall The whole rooia, like stepping back in time with someone who lived around their possessions
A cluster of wingback chairs and a sofa, all in creamy leather, dominated the center of the roo sunlight h the curtained French doors A man rose fro us to him The face was identical to the ainst the tall, co seventy easily, but the hard and unco expression from the photos remained He wore fashionable wire-rie jeans, and shiny penny loafers, which gave hi academic, the persona surely not random
My eye caught a clock on the wall, which read 7:10 PM
“Uncuff him,” he ordered
Jansen complied
“My name is Tom Oliver”
His attire, impeccable posture, and poorly restrained confidence caht out of the FBI manual But not his manners No hand was extended for me to shake, which was fine by me
“Please, have a seat You and I need to speak Alone”
Jansen and the other guy got thethe door behind theback chairs and reached for a pipe on the side table, lighting it up, puffing out acrid s odor in the air
“Do you knoho I am?” he asked me