Free Big Mango (9786167611037) by Jake Needham Page A

proposition.” Rupert bent
forward and lowered his voice, although there was no particular
reason for it. “We understand that you and your company commander
were pretty close. We want you to talk to Captain Austin for us.
That’s it really. Just talk to him.”
    Boy, is this guy in for a surprise ,
Eddie thought, but he said nothing.
    “We think Austin either has the money himself
or he knows who does. We also think that most of the money is still
intact.”
    “Why do you think that?” Eddie asked.
    “It’s impossible to get that much money into
circulation quietly, unless of course you possess technical
knowledge and means which we are confident Captain Austin
couldn’t.”
    Eddie nodded, but he didn’t say anything.
    “That’s why we want you to offer Captain
Austin a deal. We’ve established a completely legal structure for
moving the entire sum very quickly into the international banking
system without attracting any attention whatsoever, and we want to
form a partnership with him for that purpose.”
    “What you’re saying is that you can launder
$400,000,000.”
    “Yes.”
    “You’ve got a big laundry.”
    “The biggest.”
    “Why not just call Austin up and tell him
that yourself?”
    “We think that’s a bad risk. Put yourself in
Austin’s position, Eddie. Some stranger rings up one day and says,
‘We hear you probably have ten tons of currency that once belonged
to the Bank of Vietnam and we wonder if you’d like to make a deal
with us to launder it into bank deposits and legitimate
investments.’ What’s he likely to do then? What would you do? If he
panics and runs, we might never find him again. To minimize that
possibility, we think that someone should contact Austin whom he
knows and trusts. You’re the perfect guy.”
    The man’s story made more sense than Eddie
had expected it to. It might even have been moderately persuasive,
if he hadn’t known that Captain Austin was already dead, of
course.
    “I am here, Eddie, to offer you a fee of
$100,000 for contacting Austin and trying to convince him to do a
deal with us. Your fee will be paid in advance. Even if you fail,
or if it turns out that Austin has nothing and knows nothing, you
keep the money. What have you got to lose?”
    A hundred grand?
    Eddie’s mind raced. If he just told the man
right now that Austin was dead, there all that money went. If he
didn’t tell him, if he took the fee, crapped around a while, and
then announced that he had stumbled upon a small problem putting
his case to Austin, he would get to keep it, wouldn’t he? That was
what the guy just said. He got the money whether he was successful
or not. On the other hand, if he took the guy’s money knowing that
he couldn’t do anything that was the same as stealing from him,
wasn’t it?
    Before Eddie decided what to do, the man
added one more thing.
    “Furthermore, if Austin enters into an
arrangement with us, we will pay you an additional $1,000,000.”
    For a moment Eddie wasn’t certain he had
heard right.
    “How much?”
    “$1,000,000.”
    “$1,000,000? Are you goddamn kidding ?”
    “You’ll never meet anyone more serious than I
am, Eddie.”
    Eddie pushed himself out of his chair and
walked slowly to the window. How many times in his life was
somebody going to walk through his door and offer him $1,000,000 to
do anything, let alone something that he might easily be able to
do? Or could, if Austin were alive. The captain being dead and all
did raise the bar somewhat Eddie had to admit. Raised the crap out
of it actually.
    Eddie studied the people down below his
window in Grant Street. He wondered briefly what all those people
were rushing toward. Maybe more to the point, what was rushing
toward them? What was already out there waiting for each of them, a
few minutes or a few days into their futures, the son of a gun
already cocked and aimed right between their innocent, bovine
eyes?
    Maybe one was about to stumble on a curb and
break his leg;