The Negotiator: A Novel of Suspense Read online

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  The Negotiator: A Novel of Suspense © 2018 by Brendan DuBois.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2018

  E-book ISBN: 9780738755830

  Book format by Bob Gaul

  Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

  Editing by Nicole Nugent

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: DuBois, Brendan, author.

  Title: The negotiator: a novel of suspense / Brendan DuBois.

  Description: Woodbury, Minnesota: Midnight Ink, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018007504 (print) | LCCN 2018011425 (ebook) | ISBN

  9780738755830 () | ISBN 9780738754017 (softcover: acid-free paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. |

  Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3554.U2564 (ebook) | LCC PS3554.U2564 N44 2018 (print)

  | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018007504

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  Midnight Ink

  Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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  Woodbury, MN 55125

  www.midnightinkbooks.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  This novel is dedicated to my brother Dennis, world traveler and the finest real negotiator I know.

  Acknowledgments

  The author wishes to extend his thanks and appreciation to his fantastic editor, Terri Bischoff, as well as other members of the Midnight Ink publishing team. Thanks, too, to my wife and first reader, Mona Pinette, as well as to dedicated fans Ken Sullivan and Edmond D. Smith for their assistance.

  One

  I’m a negotiator, the best in the world.

  You won’t see my face or read about my successful work in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron’s or the Business section of The New York Times.

  That’s not how I roll.

  For years I’ve been conducting successful negotiations with a variety of dark characters and shadowy companies in all corners of the world. I was once flown by a private Gulfstream jet to Monaco, where I stayed at a penthouse suite in one of the famed casino hotels on Place du Casino, hammering out the sale of stolen bearer bonds from Serbian thieves to eager buyers from Indonesia. I once conducted another successful business deal near the corner of Woodward and West Robinwood Street in a burnt-out section of Detroit, where the lampposts were dark and feral dogs ran among the shadows, getting to a successful resolution of a deal involving rare motor parts for an even more rare demonstration model of a Ford sports car that never reached market back in 1959.

  I got paid fairly well both times. That’s how my business model works.

  Years ago I found—through a series of lucky accidents—that I had a gift of being able to instantly place an accurate market value on a wide variety of objects, from Ming dynasty vases of the fifteenth century to limited production line editions of Air Jordan sneakers. Somehow, I was born with a funky memory and the cognitive ability to make intuitive leaps to negotiate deals that would leave both parties happy when the wheeling and dealing was over.

  These particular talents served me well before I went out independent on my own. Oh. What did I do before I went independent?

  Perhaps I was one of those $500 an hour Wall Street lawyers working for a hedge fund, going line by line through financial documents, yawning desperately in an attempt not to toss myself out of a twentieth-floor window. Or maybe I was the best Toyota car salesman in Southern California, with a wall of plaques and a shelf full of trophies denoting the same, complete with my own private parking space and a host of envious fellow car salesmen who wished they could dine on my liver. Or maybe I was a Special Forces soldier, with a love of firearms and the canny ability to be dropped into whatever Third World hellhole was making the news that month, and being able to reach an agreement between tribes that have been at war since the time of Charlemagne over a stolen goat.

  Take your pick. All I know is that when I went out on my own, I knew I could end up on one of the PBS shows that appraise various bits of attic junk for supposedly unsuspecting middle-Americans, or I could give in to the seductive dark side and see the world and meet interesting people.

  I chose the dark path, with open eyes, a new suit, and a fine collection from the best that Beretta, Colt, Remington, and Sig-Sauer had to offer.

  But there’s rules. There’s always rules, otherwise you don’t thrive and you don’t live.

  The big three, if you please: no drugs. A real nonstarter. Not necessarily because it’s inherently evil, but because it attracts an entire class of people who are dopey, dangerous, deranged, and any other word beginning with d that suits your fancy. If they feel insulted or dissed or if you step on their $700 Manolo Blahnick shoes, they’ll slit your throat without bothering to put down a plastic tarp beforehand to contain the mess. Drug dealing also attracts a good collection of bottom-feeders who will turn you in or hurt you or kill you if they’re bored or feel out-of-sorts. Not that I’m particularly concerned about those bottom-feeders, but I figure, why waste time, energy, and mental health over who they are, and also, the time it takes to dispose of their bodies if it comes to that?

  The second rule is no human beings, which definitely crosses the border into evil. Nope, no people, not even those who have unfortunately been kidnapped, either child or adult. Way too many emotions involved, sometimes you’re not too sure who the good guys or bad guys are, and speaking of attractions, it can easily attract a high number of law enforcement agencies. Who needs the hassle? And don’t get me started on anything to do with the trafficking of women. Not going to happen.

  And last rule, and not the least, is I won’t do anything I feel would be against the best interests of the United States of America. That means random bits of technology that could end up in the hands of those nations or organizations that have bugs up their collective asses about the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. Not that I believe the current administration is doing much of anything to prevent those rogue nations from getting what they need in the forbidden weapons realm, but I figure, what the heck, why make it easy for them?
r />   Besides, for all its faults—and I don’t lie awake at night worrying about them—it’s still a fine place to live, be an entrepreneur, and enjoy the very best BBQ in the world.

  On this early afternoon in May, I was in a motel on the outskirts of Lawrence, a crumbling and depressing city in northeastern Massachusetts. Decades ago it was a thriving city with a prosperous downtown and plenty of busy mills that had been built along the Merrimack River. Then the mills closed, lots of businesses shuttered as well, and now the city is trying each year to rebuild, a true and hopeful American story. Alas, the last time it tried to rebuild, its not-so-bright citizens elected a man for mayor who was later under a number of investigations for various charges of political corruption, including illegally shipping a garbage truck to the Dominican Republican, to impress some relatives there.

  A trash truck!

  Makes one long for the expansive days of Tammany Hall.

  The motel room I was in was small, made even more small by the four other men sharing it with me. There were two single beds—each sagging in the middle—a countertop bearing a television airing Univision and a window with its shades drawn that overlooked the parking lot, and another closed door no doubt leading to the bathroom. The light green carpet was worn, stained, and had several cigarette burns. Besides Univision, airing an early repeat of Sabado Gigante, the only other real noise was the constant hum of traffic from nearby I-495.

  The four men were Hispanic and heavily armed. Two sat on each bed. All four wore baseball caps turned around, leather jackets, white tank top shirts (I refuse to use that dreadful description “wifebeater”), jeans, and black sneakers. Two had highly illegal sawed-off shotguns in their laps, and the other two had semiautomatic pistols. At various times during my brief stay, the four would play with their weapons, slapping the stocks, pretending to aim at things through the sights, little macho games like that.

  I think they were trying to psych me out. Good luck with that.

  I had on clean pressed jeans, black sneakers, a checked flannel shirt, and short leather jacket. I dressed the best I could to blend in, while managing my own style. I’ve done other negotiations wearing my black-tie evening wear, and twice, wearing just a bathing suit. Whatever works is fine by me.

  I was sitting in one of the two uncomfortable wooden chairs in the room. The other chair was empty, and the chair and I were patiently waiting for my assistant and factor, who was currently outside making sure the other negotiating party was coming in on time and moving into an adjacent room.

  But my clients were nervous, were jumpy, and I just sat there and maintained an expression of disinterested cool, which, truth be told, wasn’t hard to project. I was armed as well, a Sig-Sauer Model P226 semiautomatic pistol tucked in a side holster under my coat, but I was depending on my attitude to keep things calm and on an even strain.

  Hard to believe from my vantage point—since I consider myself a sweet guy who doesn’t mind walking little old ladies or men across a crosswalk—but I guess I have a look around my eyes and face when I get exasperated. A few years back I had dated an assistant bank manager in Sun Valley, Idaho, a single attractive mom with a young son and daughter. One night I was involved in a disturbance in a combination pub/restaurant when a German skier made nasty comments about my friend’s bosom. Later, when I was washing the skier’s blood off my hands, she had gently kissed me and told me she couldn’t see me again, ever.

  “No offense, darling, but when you got angry, you had the look of ‘I am death, fuck with me not’ on your face, and that scares me,” she had said.

  So there you go.

  I still send her a Christmas card each year, so you can tell I’m not one to keep a grudge.

  The lead man in the group, called Ramon, spoke up and said, “Yo, so what happens if the buyers don’t show up?”

  “Then I leave and you guys have to go somewhere else.”

  “Don’t like it,” he said.

  “Not my problem,” I said. “I’m here to negotiate, not to babysit.”

  His three fellow amigos muttered darkly among themselves and that was all right by me.

  You see, the way it works, you have Party A that has something of value they want to sell to Party B. But maybe Party A’s not too sure what they have, or what its value might be. And they don’t trust Party B to offer a fair deal because they don’t know Party B’s background.

  That’s where I step in. I look at what the object is, evaluate it, and determine the fair price. If the two parties agree, I make the exchange and I get a 5 percent fee tacked on top of the price, paid by the buyer because a) the buyer has the cash and b), the buyer obviously has an incentive to make sure that none of the dealings ever get passed on to any authorities. And then I move on, more often than not, never to see them again.

  There are additional rules, of course. The negotiations have an end date: one meeting, and one meeting only. I’m not interested in spending hours or days dickering around. This isn’t a Bravo reality show about whiny young real estate agents who wouldn’t know hard times if it kicked them in their shiny teeth and gave them atomic wedgies with their Calvin Klein underwear. Both parties have to show up on time, though being a reasonable fellow, I give them five minutes’ grace time. If someone doesn’t show up, then I’m gone, never to come back. You have one chance with me, and only one.

  The door to the motel room opened up. A tall, broad man who looked like he’d be at ease on a rugby field or a state prison exercise yard came in, seemingly taking up every formerly empty square inch of space. He had on a dull-looking two-piece tan suit, white shirt, and brown loafers. The coat was baggy on purpose, to disguise whatever weaponry he was carrying. He had a strong chin, bald head, and a bristly gray and white moustache that looked liked it was trimmed with a chunk of pumice.

  “Our visitors are here,” he announced in a firm voice. “They’re getting settled. Should be ready in five minutes.”

  “Great,” I said. “Have a seat.”

  He did, and the chair creaked ominously, like he was going to break it. Clarence Briggs folded his large scarred hands and waited.

  “Your clients don’t look happy,” he observed.

  “They’re just worried about the deal.”

  “They hired you,” Clarence said. “You’d think that would give them some comfort.”

  “Yeah, but no accounting for taste,” I said.

  Ramon glowered at me. “Hey. Shut the fuck up, will you?”

  I just stared right back at him, and then he looked away. To Clarence I said, “You were gone for a while.”

  “I was.”

  “How did you pass the time?”

  “There were two working women at the end unit,” he said. “They made me an offer, I made a counteroffer, and a deal was reached.”

  “Clarence … ”

  “Hey, you should be honored,” he said. “I’ve learned to make deals from the very best.”

  “And what did you learn?”

  “To expand upon an original offer, to see if we could reach an agreement that would address both of our interests.”

  “I know what their interests are: to make money,” I said. “I’m not sure I want to know what yours was.”

  He flicked his thumbs together. “Pretty vanilla. I just wanted to be in their room, looking out the window, and to pass the time, I asked them to kiss each other.”

  “For real?”

  “Sure,” Clarence said. “I didn’t even ask them to take their clothes off. Just sit on the edge of the bed and make out.”

  “Well.”

  “Hey,” Clarence said. “For me, the sight of two women kissing is the most erotic thing in the world. So I paid them well, I sat there, they started kissing, and then the other party showed up.”

  “You plan on visiting them when we’re done?”

  “No,�
�� he said. “I need to take my ex and my boys to a Little League game later on tonight. Then we got an awards ceremony a couple of days later, want to make a good impression.”

  Ramon said something in Spanish, one of his mates did the same thing, and there was a knock at the door.

  Clarence stood up, and so did I.

  “Be back in a bit,” I said to Ramon. “Don’t fret.”

  The other room was identical, but there were only two men inside, both sitting on the chairs. The television set was off. They had on black suits, neckties, and white shirts. One was in his sixties, the other in his thirties. Both wore black fedoras and had long black beards. The younger one, who had knocked on the door and led us over, said, “Are you ready?”

  “Very ready,” I said.

  The older man said, “Well. So you’re the famous negotiator. Eh?”

  “That’s what it says on my business card.”

  With surprise, the younger man said, “You have a business card?”

  “No,” I said. “I was just messing with you. I’ll be back shortly.”

  The older man waved a hand, like he was dismissing a craftsmen or contractor, and I let the insult slide and let him live.

  Back through door number one, I said, “All right, Ramon, let’s see the merchandise.”

  From his coat pocket he took out a black velvet string bag, dumped a handful of cut diamonds on the countertop, which was smeared with furniture polish and old fingerprints. From my own pockets, I took out a pair of tweezers and a jeweler’s loupe, 10x magnification, and went to work, closely examining each of the six stones.

  I know, I know, it’s a particularly grim and criminal occupation, but without us folks working in the shadows, the insurance companies would fold up and all those widows and orphans depending on stock dividend payouts from said insurance companies would either starve or have to eat Alpo. Besides, in most cases when it comes to theft like this, it’s not an insult to blame the victim. Sometimes folks will have thousand dollar locks on their front door and a hook-and-eye securing the rear screen door. Or maybe a Nigerian prince, or a Venezuelan generalissimo or a Boston City councilor scams them.