Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) Read online

  BIG MONEY

  An Austin Carr Mystery

  By

  Jack Getze

  Copyright 2008 by Jack Getze

  First eBook Edition 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Down and Out Books, LLC

  3959 Van Dyke Rd, Ste. 265

  Lutz, FL 33558

  http://DownAndOutBooks.com/

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover design by JT Lindroos

  ISBN: 978-1-937495-68-8

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Big Money

  Acknowledgements

  Bio

  Other Books Available from Down and Out Books

  A preview of Robert J. Randisi’s Upon My Soul

  A preview of A.C. Frieden’s The Serpent’s Game

  A preview of J.L. Abramo’s Chasing Charlie Chan

  For John, Jane and Patrick

  PROLOGUE

  The lady’s two-story house ranks as ancient, so it’s no surprise the pine floorboards creak. But do I detect a certain rhythm...as in footsteps? Hope I didn’t make too much noise going through her dirty laundry.

  I lean back on the blood red living room sofa and hold my breath to listen. A grandfather clock tick-tocks in the foyer. The oil-burning basement heater pops and rumbles. And yes, there...bare or stocking feet pad quickly toward me down the hall. My heart rate ratchets up to match the hurried footfalls.

  I stuff the DVD under my laptop and work hard to put on my three-o’clock-in-the-morning, full-boat Austin Carr grin. Not exactly a simple trick. And definitely not sincere. I mean, how am I supposed to be calm and forthright when this DVD suggests last night’s love interest may not be the innocent beauty I imagined? In truth, the lady headed this way could be a killer.

  Clever of me to wake her up.

  I don’t mention her name because...well, gentlemen do not identify their secret lovers, not even by pet handles. And seeing her march out of the murky hall into the living area’s yellowish lamplight strongly suggests the need for a new nickname anyway.

  I gasp. Oh, my. And oops. Oh, my because she’s wearing nothing but white athletic socks. And oops because she’s using both hands and all ten red-nailed fingers to grasp a pump-action, single-barrel shotgun.

  “You found the DVD, didn’t you?” Ms. Shotgun says.

  “DVD?” If it wasn’t for rhyming consonants, I’d be pretty much speechless. My gaze is tightly focused on her bare breasts and that shotgun in the same close-up. Visually and emotionally, it’s a lot to absorb.

  “I know you found it,” she says. “Wrapped in my black beach dress.”

  My lips move without sound. I suppose my throat might be choked with fear, but I’d rather think I’m distracted by the long curve of Ms. Shotgun’s hip, the loose weight of her breasts swinging below the carved gun stock.

  Watch me get a boner.

  “I just checked the bathroom,” Ms. Shotgun says. “You rifled the hamper, found the black dress. I know you have my DVD.”

  I try taking a deep breath. On tough stock and bond clients, this often works as a show of calm sincerity. “I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She racks a shell into the firing chamber.

  Maybe my pledge of innocence lacked conviction.

  I lift the laptop and offer her the DVD. My heart ticks to an even quicker time. My ego slips a notch. Time was, the full-boat Carr grin and a reasonable lie got me through bumpy spots with naked women.

  “Play it,” she says. “We’ll solve the murder together.”

  I slide the disk into the Mac and wonder if I’m really going to view what the Branchtown Sun calls the “MISSING HOTEL MURDER VIDEO.”

  The DVD’s first images show a thirtyish woman primping her hair before a gilded oval mirror.

  “Don’t you want to fast-forward?” Ms. Shotgun says. “Get right to the choking and burning?”

  On screen, the victim cracks open her hotel room door. My jaw drops as Ms. Shotgun’s digital image rushes inside, pushing right through the startled hotel guest and knocking her flat on the carpet.

  I turn from the laptop. “So it was you.”

  Ms. Shotgun raises the pump-action level with my nose.

  And I thought my future looked shitty last month.

  ONE

  One Month Earlier...

  The big thing about my pal Walter Osgood, Shore Securities’ biggest producer, he’s like a kid when it comes to his feelings. He just can’t hide them. So when I walk into Luis’s Mexican Grill, see Walter at the bar and notice his every other breath is a sigh, that he’s clutching his Grey Goose like a soldier headed for war, I know Walter’s worried about seeing me. He’s got news I’m not going to like.

  Great. A fitting end to a wonderful week. I’ve been taking it hard in the wallet, even harder in the shorts these past few days, ever since Monday morning’s appointment with the New York urologist.

  The name’s Austin Carr, by the way. Since my Series Seven stockbroker’s license is temporarily suspended, instead of Senior Financial Consultant, the slick expensive business cards in my wallet say I’m a Special Management Adviser to Shore Securities, Inc., Members of the American Association of Securities Dealers. In truth, I am really just a salesman—like Walter—and I work for myself. Straight commission.

  If we don’t sell, we don’t eat.

  I slide next to Walter at Luis’s horseshoe bar and touch the slick Gucci material covering my buddy’s shoulder. “What the heck’s bothering you?”

  Another sigh from Shore Securities’ number one producer of commission dollars. A bit girlish if you ask me. Maybe I’ve been living in Central New Jersey too long, but I find myself fighting an urge to smack him.

  A lot of us stockbrokers call ourselves investment counselors, or if we have a license to sell insurance, too, financial planners. We like to wear two thousand dollar suits, carry leather briefcases and think of ourselves as professionals, like doctors and lawyers. But really we’re more like car salesmen.

  “You worried about the business?” I say to Walter. “We’ll be okay without Mr. Vic. Carmela and I can take care of his accounts, keep the numbers coming.”

  Walter and I agreed to meet here after work, tune up before Mr. Vic’s Friday night dockside farewell party in Atlantic Highlands. Shore’s boss, Vic Bonacelli, Mr. Vic, sails with his family tomorrow for Tuscany. Only his daughter Carmela refused to go. She’s staying behind to help me run Shore.

  “Carmela’s like her old man,” I say. “Slick on the phone.”

  Walter shakes his head.

  I like to ruminate over the shortcomings of my profession with double margaritas and a positive setting: Luis’s Mexican Grill on Broad Street in Branchtown. The decor reminds me of home, the east side of Los Angeles, and Luis, the owner-slash-bartender, is mi amigo.

  “Shore’s a dead puppy without Vic,” Walter says. “You know it better than I do.”

  My jaw stiffens. “Whoa, Walter. Things aren’t that bad. A couple of lousy months.”

  “Shore’s toast,” he says.

  I lean forward, make him look directly at me. I need to see those expressive blue eyes. If Walter really believes Shore isn’t going to survive, then I can easily guess the nature of tonight’s bad news.

  “You’re leaving?” I say.

  Walter nods.

  Shit
. “Today was your last day?”

  He nods again, then bumps his shoulder against mine. “You know how this shitty business is,” he says. “Two minutes after I’m gone, the back office is passing out my account records and my old best friends start calling my clients, tell them I have AIDS and I raped my twelve-year-old babysitter.”

  Luis’s Mexican Grill is Friday-night packed, loud and oblivious. Walter still has his voice set on whisper.

  “By leaving on Friday,” he says, “I’ve got a weekend to prepare my clients for your assault.”

  Except for math, science, history and geography, Walter’s no dummy. Guaranteed he’s been tenderizing his good clients about this move for weeks.

  “You’re an owner, Walter. You have a piece of Shore. Why would you throw that away after only a few bad months?”

  When he shakes his head this time, not a hair moves. Walter Osgood pays a hundred bucks per styling. “Shore has lost money every month since you and I bought in,” he says. “With Vic leaving town, this AASD investigation, Sunny and Doppler taking a walk, well...the red numbers can only get worse. I’m bailing.”

  Sunny was a complainer and Doppler spent his days distressed over potential bad weather. They’ve had a piss-poor attitude since Mr. Vic sold me, Carmela’s fiancée Tom Ragsdale and Walter half of Shore’s stock. Then business got worse and the American Association of Securities Dealers surprised us with an audit. The combination must have been too much Sunny and Doppler.

  “Are you worried about this AASD investigation?” I say. “Is that why you’re leaving?”

  “No,” Walter says. “I’m leaving because Jaffy Ritter Clark is handing me a check for four hundred fifty thousand dollars when I show up for work Monday. But if I were you, I’d worry what that AASD cutie might dig up on Shore Securities’ marketing practices. Remember that St. Louis bond default last year? Mr. Vic’s sales contest to pump it before the default?”

  I turn Walter’s shoulder, make him look at me again. “You’re leaving me and Vic pretty much dead in the water, Walter. Without your numbers, we are in trouble. Can’t you give it another six months?”

  Walter’s pale, blue eyes turn cold. “What’s going to change?”

  TWO

  It’s bad, bad news for my kids’ future that Walter Osgood is leaving Shore. Walter is our ace, having earned over nine hundred thousand in gross commissions last year. The firm is definitely going to teeter without Walter. And therefore so is my dream of building a college nest egg for Beth and Ryan.

  After promising Walter I’ll keep my mouth shut until Monday, hugging him goodbye, I ignore the urge to self-medicate right there at Luis’s Mexican Grill and drive instead to Mr. Vic’s party in Atlantic Highlands. I owe the boss at least an appearance. And with all Mr. Vic’s single cousins and nieces there drinking like fish, there’s a decent chance I’ll get lucky.

  Of course, it crosses my mind I’d be helping my own business interests if I tell Vic about Walter leaving, bring in the guys on Saturday to work Walter’s accounts. But it’s only a fleeting thought. Walter is a close friend.

  I park, walk straight inside the bayside restaurant bar and bubbly flow of the Bonacelli clan and Shore Securities employees. At the bar, I order another martini.

  A disk jockey’s thumping disco to an overflow dance floor. Half the dancers are women bobbing and weaving with other women. I’d like my odds of taking one to bed later if it wasn’t for the black storm clouds hurtling down from the north. Through long windows behind the bar, I watch lightning flash the sky over Manhattan, and I can’t help wondering how big a storm Walter leaving the firm will cause.

  The world engineers me a tempest.

  When I’ve sipped my overflow glass of gin and vermouth down to transportable levels, I join the crowd of familiar faces. Another Shore broker, Bobby Gee, and I admire the size of Mr. Vic’s family and the widespread Bonacelli characteristic of large breasts. Particularly among the women.

  Someone grabs my shoulder. It’s Vittorio “Mr. Vic” Bonacelli himself, sole founder of Shore Securities. Thanks to this winter’s deal that brought me, Carmela’s now-separated husband Rags and Walter into the fold as partners, Mr. Vic’s current ownership is down to forty-nine percent.

  But Mr. Vic is our beloved leader. He’d be the boss if that number was two percent.

  “We need to talk,” he says.

  Mr. Vic drags me to a quiet eddy in the flow of music and people.

  “I want you to look out for Carmela while I’m gone,” Vic says. “I don’t want her going back to Rags.”

  One and a half see-throughs have tuned me up enough to tell Mr. Vic exactly how I feel. I have plenty to do around Shore Securities without watching over his butter-face daughter.

  “Isn’t taking care of Carmela one of Carmela’s jobs now, boss? Didn’t I just write her a big check for college graduation?”

  Great figure, Carmela. In fact, everything about her is sexy. Everything BUT HER FACE. Butter face. Oh, hell, that’s a mean joke.

  “You call fifty bucks a big check?” Vic says.

  Hey, fifty dollars was all I could afford, and I think generous considering my current financial prospects. I mean, I was barely back on my feet when I had to fork over a down payment on Vic’s darn stock.

  “Make sure you see Carmela every day,” Vic says. “She says she’s going ahead with the divorce, but she’s still nutty about him. If Rags comes back, goes ape-shit again...or you see Carmela with one puffy lip, you call my friend Tony. He knows what to do.”

  Except when he’s behind the wheel of his Jaguar, the recently married-and-quickly-separated Rags—my former sales manager—is a pussycat. Crazy, yes. But not the hand-to-hand combat type. We’ll never see him again.

  “And oh, yeah,” Vic says, “I told my mother to call you if she gets in any predicaments.”

  Now there’s a problemo. “Mama Bones” Bonacelli, among other nefarious enterprises, runs a chain of free senior-citizen exercise clubs as a front for her betting operations. For entertainment, she practices voodoo and shamanism. With Mama Bones, a predicament could easily involve the FBI, peyote buttons or flesh-eating zombies.

  “No whining about Mama,” Mr. Vic says.

  I must have groaned out loud.

  “You owe me big time for keeping you on a personal services contract until your AASD suspension is over,” Mr. Vic says. “And I’m letting you finish buying shares in the business out of your end of Shore’s profits so you can finally start building something for your kids.”

  I sigh and check the shine on my Florsheims. “You’re right, Mr. Vic. I’ll keep an eye on Carmela. Mama Bones, too.”

  “Thanks.” Mr. Vic clasps my hand. I feel a wad of paper pressed against my palm, and like a slick head waiter collecting his cash duke, I snag the paper from Vic’s hand in one smooth motion.

  Later, when I’m alone, I see Vic’s handout is a torn sheet of yellow notebook paper. The name Tony Farascio and a phone number are penciled in block letters. The seven-one-eight prefix tells me this Tony guy resides in Brooklyn.

  Wonder should I read anything into that? Vic’s emergency muscle comes from big time mob country?

  No way.

  THREE

  It’s a mournful, no-more-Walter Monday. The late winter storm that blew in Friday became a nasty northeaster Saturday, and the storm still howls wet pellets of ice and occasional snowflakes sixty hours later. Only our nickname for Shore’s newest rookie salesman—Dominic Defino (rhymes with albino) offers our bullpen any relief from a mirthless world.

  Wonder what these simultaneous telephone callers want?

  Damn Defino.

  Carmela informs me Mama Bones Bonacelli is on line one, some kind of confrontation with the Branchtown police. Oh, boy. Line two is that tight-assed cutie from the American Association of Securities Dealers, Ann Marie Talbot. Kind of a pretty-but-repressed schoolmarm type, Ann Marie wants to update me on her regulatory audit.

  I’d like to up
date her audit.

  I flip a coin to see who gets first crack at me. The nickel’s in my hand but I don’t look. My eyes drift to the empty desk where Walter sat for seven years. I smile remembering the time we sent phone sex into our new manager’s first sales meeting.

  “Hi, Mama Bones. What’s up?”

  “’Allo, Austin. I need-a your help.”

  Mr. Vic’s mom, Angelina Bonacelli, has lived in Branchtown, New Jersey, sixty-three of her sixty-eight years, but she still speaks English as if she’d heard our language for the first time last week. She does this on purpose, I’ve decided, to make herself sound helpless when in truth the woman is tougher than week-old tomato pie.

  I tuck the phone between my ear and shoulder, plop down in Mr. Vic’s padded swivel chair overlooking Shore Securities’ sales floor. “What’s the matter, Mama Bones. One of your zombies bite a cop?”

  “Up yours,” she says. “My boy Vittorio says I should call you if I need help. And I need your help. I’m under the arrest.”

  Sounds like she needs a lawyer, not a stockbroker. “Under arrest? You’re at the police station?”

  “I’m home now, but the policeman is here to take me there. He says I cheated on the bingo game.”

  “Bingo game?”

  “At the church. You know. I go every Sunday night. The policeman says the game is fixed, that I gotta go to jail. Can you believe such a thing about Mama Bones?”

  “Austin?” It’s Carmela, tugging on my sleeve. “Ms. Talbot said to tell you she’s finished the audit and that she’s leaving town. She needs to talk to you immediately. And Bobby Gee says you have to speak with one of Vic’s clients.”

  Screw Talbot, the AASD, Vic’s client and Bobby Gee. Bingo, huh? I’m really curious about this. The world of chance is Mama Bones’ oyster, and if there’s a way to cheat at bingo, she’s the one to have figured it out. His mother put Vic through four years at Rutgers playing the ponies.