Montaro Caine Read Online Free PDF Page A

are bona fide, triple-A players. Mega, mega bucks.” Buchanan hoisted his eyebrows for emphasis. “With genuine interest,” he added in a confidential whisper.
    Buchanan was a junior partner in Hargrove, Hastings and Dundas, one of the city’s most prestigious law firms. Their client roster included names long attached to old family fortunes, among them the Steven Phelps clan from the tobacco empire; the Vanderbilt family; the Bishops, whose fortunes had been made in automobiles; even rock stars. It was a client roster rich and powerful enough to camouflage any number of mysterious corporate raiders, Caine speculated.
    Caine listened suspiciously to Larry, who sounded as though he were narrating a PowerPoint presentation.
    “Finance is Carlos Wallace’s department. You know that,” Caine said.
    “I know. I told them Wallace was their man,” said Larry. “But, well—they know that things are sticky right now between you and Wallace, so they think you’re the one they should talk to.”
    “Who are ‘they’?” asked Caine.
    Buchanan hesitated, reached for his drink, and inhaled deeply. “I don’t know. The senior partners are handling this thing.” Twice he slid his index finger around the rim of his Bloody Mary glass, then looked up at Caine. “Whoever they are, they’re important clients. One of the seniors would’ve got ahold of you, maybe even old man Hargrove himself, except they know that you and I are friends from school days, so here I am.”
    For a long time, Caine said nothing, while holding Larry in an expressionless stare. Something about Larry’s story didn’t sit right with Caine—he sensed that there was either considerably more to it or considerably less. Most probably, Larry was unwittingly setting him up to meet with corporate raiders. He looked away. “I’ve got my hands full,” he said.
    “Please, buddy,” Buchanan interrupted with a note of sincerity that signaled an uncharacteristic vulnerability from the typically cocksure lawyer. “Being a junior in a sea of seniors has its disadvantages. Half an hour, no more. And I’ll owe you one.”
    Caine looked at Buchanan and remembered how irritating his friend had been throughout their time together in college. Unbearable. Plus, Larry was also a shithead in other ways, particularly where women were concerned.
    “Do you, at least, know their names?” Montaro asked.
    Larry’s face brightened. “Herman Freich and Colette Beekman. Thanks, old buddy.” Buchanan patted Caine’s arm appreciatively.
    Later that night, on West 52nd Street in front of the “21” Club, Caine watched Larry dart about in the middle of traffic trying to flag a taxi to Grand Central for his commuter train, then saw him suddenly race two elderly ladies in a sprint for an empty taxi, which he unashamedly commandeered after beating them to it.
    “Just you and the clients, O.K.?” Larry shouted before he got into the cab and it sped away.
    Hour by hour, over the following three days, Montaro’s mood darkened until it matched the threatening overcast skies that had blanketed the city for as many days with no relief in sight. The steady downpour that beat against Montaro’s office windows at Fitzer distortedhis view of the sprawling panorama of Manhattan, which stretched out before him all the way to the East River and beyond into Queens. To the right, in the distance, at the southernmost point of Manhattan Island, the empty space where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood was barely visible through the drenching rain. Montaro had seen those towers fall, had watched them helplessly through these windows and on TV. Watching that disaster, he felt as though he were witnessing a recurring nightmare, one that he used to have for years after his father’s death—Robert Caine’s jet exploding before it reached the runway in Kansas City.
    Montaro knew that he was steadily losing ground. By the late morning of the day when he would have to make