Mackay Scam at Old River

1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-923601-28-4
Verlag: Vivid Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 310 Seiten

Reihe: Scam at Old River

One night. One woman. One mistake that puts him in the crosshairs. Computer forensics expert Jack Rhodes thought he was helping someone in trouble. By morning, armed enforcers are breaking down his door-and a powerful criminal network believes Jack has something they want. Now he's running. The woman has vanished. The data she took could expose a multimillion-dollar operation built on fraud, corruption, and violence. And the men behind it don't ask questions. They eliminate problems. To stay alive, Jack must go undercover in the shadow world of San Francisco's criminal economy-where every move is watched, every ally is suspect, and one mistake means disappearing for good. They're hunting the file. Now they're hunting him.

Mike has always wanted to tell stories. Possibly due to his Scottish/Irish Heritage. These stories have taken many forms; novels, short stories, poems, and spoken. They are now seeing the light of day via his publisher In his work as an independent contractor in the IT Industry, he has created businesses, owned a five-star game farm, a one-star pub, driven trucks for his horse transport business, worked for a gangster, made money, lost money and made it again.. He is a fisherman, a hunter, a surfer, a water-skier, a scuba-diver, a polocrosse player, a black belt karateka, a tournament fighter, and a daily writer in his journal. He has worked on every continent and every business sector. He has been married three times, has five biological children, three step-children and eight grandchildren. They live in England, South Africa, Australia and China. Mike now lives back in the land of his birth, Australia

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mackay, Mike

Leseproben

CHAPTER TWO

Jack unlocked and opened the door. He could hear the clomp-clomp of the four sets of cop boots pounding up the stairs. At the top they saw Jack, slowed down to a walk and followed him into the apartment.

The cops undid the jump rope securing Conti and removed the laundry bag blindfold. When Conti saw the four SFPD uniforms, he stood still and waited while they handcuffed him. Jack asked for an evidence bag. They sent the youngest of the four. Upon his return, Jack deposited Conti’s possessions into the bag, including the transponder. Conti’s cousins could now track it all the way to the police station. The four cops walked him out the door. One each side, one front and one behind.

The oldest cop said Freddie had ordered him and the youngest cop to wait there until Freddie and Kenny arrived. Jack thanked them, closed the door, walked to the bathroom door and knocked.

“They’re gone.”

Debbie came out, still draped in the robe and blanket, holding the tea towel encased frozen peas to her face. She sat on the bed and pulled her knees up under her. He walked to the closet, found a dark-blue T-shirt and pulled it on. He reached into the clothes rack for the tracksuit top. Debbie could see There were yellow, four-inch block letters on the back of the T-shirt.

“Rhodes? Jack Rhodes?”

“That’s me.” Jack turned and said, “I don’t know your surname.”

“It’s Fothergill.”

“Debbie Fothergill. Deborah Fothergill.” Jack let that roll across his tongue. “That has a very English sound to it.”

“It does, doesn’t it? That’s because it is.”

Debbie smiled, making the uplift at the corner of her eyes more pronounced. He pulled on the tracksuit top with the hoodie that now hung down his back.

He saw Debbie glance at the jacket’s front: SFPD in two-inch yellow letters, then a badge, then OFFICER.

“Are you a cop?”

“No, not me. Freddie is. He’s a lawyer. They let me train with them ‘cause I’ve helped them with some stuff. Kind of an honorary status thing.”

“What kinda stuff?”

“Computer stuff.”

“You don’t seem like a computer geek.”

“Well, there you go. You caught me out,” said Jack, smiling and holding his hands wide. He sat on the bed facing her. There were answers he wanted.

“If this file is so important, why would they send just one guy?”

“They only ever need Conti. I still can’t believe what you did.”

Jack knew he’d had the element of surprise in his favor when he first smashed Conti’s face into the wall. Without that, it may not have ended well at all. He wondered if all the cousins were as tough as Conti. As he watched, Debbie looked him over, like she was evaluating him in a different light. As a fighter, not a lover. Her gaze came to rest on Jack’s eyes.

“I’ve got you into a lot of trouble. I’m so sorry, Jack.”

“You need to tell me more about these people and this file they say you took. I need to understand what danger we’re in.”

“Okay, maybe I should start with Evelyn.”

“Or maybe just tell me what’s in this file they’re after.”

“It’s insurance.”

“Insurance? It’s not working very well. Your friend Conti was quite happy to grab you and take you to this Rizzo character, his boss, his cousin. There I guess they planned to make you tell them where this file is.”

Debbie shivered.

“I’m repeating myself, but you don’t understand how sorry I am that you have been caught up in what is my problem.”

“It’s difficult to worry when I don’t even know what I’m involved in.”

“Perhaps it’s better that way.”

“Don’t they know where you live?”

“I’ve got a new address and a new job, starting on Monday. You’ll need to do the same after what’s just happened. I was leaving my current job just an hour before I met you.”

“And as you’ve mentioned without submitting a resignation letter.”

“Correct. My plan was to simply disappear.”

“Why were you working on a Saturday afternoon?”

“Often happens. It’s a busy place.”

“OK. But why were you even at their party?”

“I’d left work with some of my colleagues. I told them thought I was coming down with something. This was to buy me time, so when I didn’t arrive on Monday, they would assume I was ill. They said I looked OK and pushed me to go to the party. Normally, I would have gone with them, so to be true to form, I agreed.”

Snapshots of last night’s partying skipped through his head. Late in the afternoon, he’d gone into the Financial District to report to a client. The client had been concerned with what he’d uncovered and asked for the meeting to be held on Saturday when their offices would be closed. Only the CEO and the chairman were present. They expressed their concern at what Jack had uncovered, but glad he did. It was now their problem to deal with, and they felt a bonus was in order. He would invest most of this like all his other earnings, taking him another step closer to not having to work. A celebration was called for, even if by himself. There he could sit with his phone and search the Internet for 1000 acres of wilderness. The dream that had emerged on flights to other countries, where he would turn off the movie and search the Internet. Nothing matched the image in his head. It had to be wild country, untouched, and definitely no house.

He’d found a bar on Kearney Street. It had a circus theme. A hundred different bottles of liquor on glass shelves behind the bar. Porcelain clown faces with clown hats, interspersed with harlequin figurines covered the walls. The double-vaulted ceiling was made of what looked like punched tin with an outsized single chandelier consisting of sixteen glass balls holding center stage casting a glow like a fireplace.

There was a party going on. Someone offered him a tequila. He asked what was going on. The month-end Magna Real Estate sales celebration, he was told. Held once a month on a Saturday, after the salespeople finished their sales efforts for the day.

They pointed the top salesman out. A compact little guy in a tailored jacket with designer jeans. He’d jumped up onto a table and was doing a gyrating victory dance. Everyone clapped, and he bowed. The manager of the bar told him to get off the table. “Let the games begin,” someone said, like they were gladiators in the Colosseum. Magna was Latin for ‘Great’, but no one called their company ‘Great Real Estate.’

Mental flashes of last night were appearing as he scanned through who possibly could have seen them together. She’d arrived at the entrance of the bar at the same time as him with two friends. He remembered holding the door open for them. Her friends seemed to know the people at the party and climbed right into the festivities. She seemed to be an outsider as she hovered on the fringes.

When Jack got there, most of them were drunk already. Debbie’s friends were throwing down tequilas from the get-go. Debbie was in the shadows. Jack kept on the periphery as he was not part of this crowd.

“My plan,” said Debbie, “was to stretch out one drink until my colleagues got a bit drunk and started mingling. Then to quietly slip away.”

He remembered there was a drunk who hit on Debbie and wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’d groped her. Jack recalled he chased off the groper by grabbing the offending arm on the top of the drunk’s bicep and asking him to leave her alone. He ignored Jack, so Jack drove his thumb into the brachial plexus in his armpit where the pain was great and always unexpected. It was a move that went unnoticed by the rest of the room. Debbie asked Jack if he would like to go to another bar. Jack said yes, as he did when invited by a beautiful woman. Debbie had suggested a bar near Chinatown. It was a darkly lit, local-feeling lounge that drew a diverse crowd. They sat on well-worn chairs at a wooden table. There’d been a lot of laughter and talking he recalled, but not the content. It had been good to celebrate with someone.

“C’mon, Jack, Kenny’s also downstairs.”

The thumping of a fist on the door accompanied the booming bass-baritone of his cousin. The light through the window told Jack dawn was not far away.

“Freddie! Give me two minutes. I’ll see you downstairs.”

Jack returned to his cupboard, extracted a tired pair of running shoes, and sat on the bed next to Debbie. He pushed his bare feet into them.

“Is this the same Freddie? The cop?” Debbie said in the careful voice of someone who did not want to see more violence come through the door.

“Same one.”

“Where did he spring from?”

“He lives two floors up. But he was at work when I phoned. Freddie’s more like an older brother by one year than a cousin. His parents raised me from when I was five.”

“What...