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“Have you checked his assets?” said Clarisse.
“Why, is he a deadbeat and I need to find something to grab before he can hide it?”
“His net worth puts him at number eighty-nine on theForbeslist.”
“He’s not on theForbeslist. Ididcheck that,” said Gibson.
“That’s only because they don’t put suspected criminals on there, since their wealth can’t be verified using traditional measures. That’s why you won’t see Putin on there, but for some odd reason, theydolist a number of his oligarchs. I simply estimated his net worth and placed him within theForbeslist rankings.”
“Again, so what? That doesn’t help us find out if he had Pottinger killed. And Trask is only fifty. He’s really too young to have been much of a player in Langhorne’s mob days.”
“What did you learn about Trask’s past?” Clarisse asked.
“He was born in Chicago. He seemed to have a normal upbringing. Hell, his father was Sam Trask, an FBI special agent of some note. But then again maybe that’s a variation of the ‘preacher’s kids gone wild’ theme. Anyway, he got into some scrapes with the law, managed to dodge any jail time, and after that he headed to South America. Probably cartel business. Then he came back home flush with cash, and he built on that footprint to get where he is now. He owns a lot of businesses and properties.”
“Laundering fronts?” said Clarisse.
“Probably. He doesn’t tweet or post or say anything publicly. He just makes money and lives in a grand style. But there were a lot of gaps in the story. My thinking is those gaps represent the man’s true history, but people are afraid to post it, because they’ll get sued or, more likely, killed.”
“I’m impressed, Mickey. You’ve covered a lot of ground and your analysis is perfectly acceptable.”
She studied the screen and finally had a hit. The analysis of Gibson’s speech pattern showed stress and doubt and conflict.
Amazing that your words can show all that.
She wrote in her notebook:Speak far less.
“Okay, but I don’t see where it gets us.”
“Remember that I only threw out that list aspossiblybeing connected to Langhorne’s death. You’re right that Trask is too young to have really been part of the mob back then. But there are other alternatives that need to be explored.”
“If he did kill or have Langhorne killed, it seems far more likely it was connected to whatever Langhorne did as Daniel Pottinger rather than stretching back to the mob days. Maybe he screwed Trask over some deal and the guy decided to punish him for it.”
Okay, let the big one drop and see what it does to little old Mickey Gibson.“How is that reconciled with the phrase ‘Do as I say, not as I do’?”
She listened to the woman’s breathing, and waited for the words to come and be analyzed.
“If you knew about that, why not tell me?”
She looked at the stress meter.Oh, yes, straight-up pissed-off angry at me on that one.“I assumed you knew if you were in the room. And obviously you did.”
“Yeah, but only recently.”
“Youwerein the room with the body,” she repeated.
“I didn’t search the whole thing. I found the body, got out of there, and called the cops. They wouldn’t let me back in there—it was a crime scene.”
Still angry but mellowing.“But now you do know, so someone told you, or showed you.”
“Does it matter?”
“I suppose only to you.”
“What does that mean?” exclaimed Gibson.
“I don’t know. What does it mean to you?”
“I’m not playing the patient to your shrink, okay?”
