The Fixer Read Online Free PDF Page A

this.”
    “Ah, but there’s every reason, Gordon. Celeste knows how clever you are. She’s had years of experience watching you spin your deceit and wiggle out of responsibility every time. You even convinced her the women you screwed so often and so openly were because she wasn’t woman enough for you.” The Fixer tossed her strawberry blonde hair behind her shoulders. “She doesn’t think that any more, Gordon.”
    “Please,” he whispered. “Please don’t do this.”
    “Seven are dead, Gordon. Five suicides from people who lost everything when they trusted you. One man shot his wife and twenty-three year old Down Syndrome daughter before turning the gun on himself. He invested the money that was supposed to take care of his little girl after they died with you. And you put it straight into your own pocket.”
    “I can’t be held accountable for their weakness.” Gordon still hoped someone would believe that. “Investments come with risks. Everybody knows that.”
    “But you never had investments, Gordon. You had schemes. Clever complicated schemes with no other purpose than to make you rich.”
    “Take my money! Give it to the lawyers and the tax man. Hell, give it to the fucking suicide prevention folks if that’ll make Celeste happy. Just untie me and let me go home.” Gordon tried another futile tug on the silk that imprisoned him.
    “Celeste knows your plans, Gordon.”
    He stopped struggling. “What are you talking about? What plans?”
    “Celeste knows about your secret accounts. Nearly twenty million dollars offshore waiting for you.” The Fixer twirled a hand in the air. “And this place? Well, I’m here, aren’t I? Celeste knows you planned to sneak away if it looked like you were headed for jail. She knows about the new identity you’ve been working so hard to establish this past year. She knows your plan to leave her humiliated and all your investors denied the satisfaction of seeing you come to justice. She asked me to fix things.”
    Gordon’s breathing was shallow and he heard his blood throbbing in his head. “What’s your plan?”
    “Simple.” The Fixer stared off into space, unfazed by the naked sweating man struggling less than ten inches away. “Celeste emptied your buried accounts while you were feeding me lobster off your fork. She’ll meet with prosecutors after your body’s found. The grieving widow will cooperate fully. Nearly three billion dollars of the money you stole will be returned to try to make whole what you’ve broken. Of course, the seven who died can’t be fixed. She’ll have to live with that.” She turned her cold stare back to Gordon. “You’ll be found by the maid tomorrow. The desk clerk will remember the woman you picked up tonight. The police will see this scarf tied so lovingly around your neck and come to the only conclusion that makes any sense. You died in the middle of a dangerous sex game that got tragically out of hand.”
    She opened a drawer in the nightstand and pulled out a pencil. Gordon watched her fashion a noose of black silk, wrapping the ends around the short piece of wood. “Please,” he whispered. His bladder let loose as she turned toward him. His bowels followed as The Fixer pulled the noose over the Wizard of Wall Street’s head. She was so focused on turning the pencil tighter and tighter she never noticed the stench.
     
     

Chapter Five
    “We got a job.” Jim De Villa last used that tone when he responded to a call on Seattle’s south side. A twenty-three-year-old meth head was high enough to believe the voices in his rotted-out mind telling him My Little Red Caboose Pre-School was actually a front for Al Queida and it was his patriotic duty to burn the place to the ground. Six kids were put in the burn unit. One didn’t make it past the emergency room. Mort remembered how the mother of the dead little boy pounded Jim’s chest over and over as she screamed out her grief. Jim stood there and took it. Yes,