Unlucky 13 by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro Page B

fatality.”
    “This happened at a Chuck’s?”
    “Correct. Chuck’s, Marina del Rey. Here’sthe phone number of the FBI agent who called me. Jay Beskin. We’ll get along with them better if we play nice. You want to work this case right, okay, Boxer?”
    I told Jacobi that motherhood had brought out the sweetheart in me. He smirked, like
yeah, right
. We said good-bye and I called my current partner.
    “Saddle up,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the Harriet Street lot, ASAP.”

CHAPTER 31
    CONKLIN AND I took seats opposite Michael Jansing in his office/Chuck’s Prime museum of ads and artifacts.
    Jansing, Chuck’s chief executive officer with the hay-colored hair and narrow blue eyes, glared at us over engraved plexiglass cubes, slabs, and obelisks on his desk, all trophies awarded for fast-food advertising.
    I said, “Do you understand me, Mr. Jansing? The FBI is investigatinganother death by Chuck’s as we speak. Do you want to help your company and cooperate with us, or should we just back off and let the Feds take you in and treat you to enhanced interrogation?”
    Jansing got up from behind his desk and went to the doorway.
    He said to his assistant, “Caroline, get Louis, would you?”
    Jansing returned to his desk.
    “My lawyer.”
    “That’s fine,” said Conklin. “If thatmakes you more comfortable.”
    “Listen, I’m sorry.”
    “Sorry?” I asked.
    “I’m sorry. Our head of legal has something to tell you,” Jansing said.
    A stooped man came through the doorway. He wore a corporate gray suit and a comb-over with a dark metallic sheen, and he had nicotine stains on the fingers of his right hand. I recognized him as one of the players at the executive Ping Pong meeting we’dattended.
    He came toward us and introduced himself again.
    “Louis Frye,” he said and shook our hands before taking the chair next to Conklin.
    Jansing said, “Lou, please tell these officers about the text messages.”
    What was this? We hadn’t heard about any texts relating to the belly bombs. If Jansing had withheld information, he’d better have a damned fine reason or he was going to be chargedwith obstruction.
    “This text came from a prepaid boost phone,” Frye said. “I printed it out for you.”
    He passed over a plain sheet of copy paper with a smattering of words: “Time to pay up.”
    “When did you get this?” I asked.
    “After the bridge bombs. It came to me,” said Lansing. “I thought it was spam. It meant nothing to me. We didn’t know that the bridge incident was related to us,” saidthelawyer, “until the FBI descended on our Hayes Valley store.”
    Frye said, “Then Michael got another text. Identical message, but they followed up the text with a phone call naming the amount. We decided to pay.”
    Of course they paid. Chuck’s Prime only cared about keeping the company name off the record and out of the news.
    “How much?” Conklin asked.
    “Fifty thousand,” said Frye. He was slappingat his pockets, looking for his smokes. He found a worn pack of an unfiltered brand, opened it, closed it, and put it back in his jacket pocket.
    He said, “We bundled the bills in a Chuck’s Big Lunch Box and left the box in a garbage can at our Monterey location.”
    Conklin said to the head cheese, “You’re telling us you believed that would be the end of it?”
    “Yes. Of course. And we agreed, Louand I,” said Jansing. “Rather than let someone else die, we forked over the money. It seemed like the best course.”
    I wanted to shout at the two suits, “You morons.”
    Instead I said, “So rather than call the cops, have them monitor the transfer, you trusted a bomber, a murderer, an extortionist, when he
said
that there would be no more bombs.”
    Jansing had gone pale around his eyes and mouth.I didn’t think he was feeling remorse. More like he was realizing how much shit was about to hit the fan.
    “We employ thousands of people, all of whom would be negatively impacted if the