Toxic Assets

Toxic Assets

Copyright 2011 CAROLINE GERARDO

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Toxic Assets

Caroline Gerardo

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Copyright © 2011 Caroline Gerardo

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1453877916

ISBN-13: 9781453877913

CHAPTER ONE

Meet me at nine forty behind the Balboa Yacht Club. I tell the bastard.

Newport Beach Bahia Corinthian Private Yacht Club 7/1/2004

It is too cold tonight for me to go to the Clubhouse bar. You are always late. I will wait in my boat. We can talk there. James Adam answers while curling his thick eyebrows with his fingers.

It is comical that he calls it a boat. It is an elaborate extravaganza.

James Adam bought his yacht with cash. The ship is a one hundred fifty one foot toy he gained when he retired from South Africa. He sold his mining, grain and materials shipping company for billions after refinancing his international dry goods import export company. Adam christened her Cash Out. The ship’s name is tacky. The green hue of a mint dollar bill with eighteen-Carat gold leaf accents spells the words for her title.

Got cash out with Citigroup. Adam likes bragging. Adam is sick rich. In 1996, he controlled the Baltic Dry Index in twenty of forty routes. Now Adam takes it easy spending evenings on the ship docked in Newport Harbor. He dodders around making lists of chores for his crew made up of illegal aliens. During the day light hours, Adam is the controlling Head of the Board of Nationwide Bank, a medal on his chest he wears with arrogance.

Don’t tell your wife where you are going. Just tell Claire you have to leave town for a night. My tone is jovial to make him feel at ease.

Fine, it will be a break from Claire hovering over me. Adam chuckles about the old ball and chain joke.

Adam fixes a High Ball in a Waterford tumbler while his cigarette smolders on the counter. His blonde wife Claire never allows him to drink or smoke at home. Savoring the feel of the crystal in his hand, he sighs. The ice on his teeth makes a crunching noise. Adam sips the amber bourbon. A cracking sound from the wheelhouse leads him to investigate below deck. A bottle rests on the table while he snoops and cleans up whatever might have toppled over in the breeze. He walks with his knees wide and stiff. He does not know I am luring him down the spiral staircase.

Damn charts knocked over, are Adam’s last words. On the floorboards, papers strew as a messy litter box.. He leans to pick up graphs, maps, and charts off the emerald green carpet; the smashing of the rear skull puts his temple right in contact with the brass of the helm chair. I whack him once. He falls on top of the white slick of papers in the mossy surface. A roll of plastic clubs him to death. The hard chair placed right in the wrong location does the full job for me of creating Adams' internal injury.

Not a drop of blood releases from a wound. His pale forehead curls into the floor. He is an egg white worm in the shape of the letter C. I cannot see the rapid hemorrhaging swells inside his brain.

You cock chafer.

Adam looks like a nude cutworm while slumber slows his brain waves. I nudge the body with my foot. A tremor from the Pons a base signal halt flows to the thalamus. The limb muscles paralyze. I tap his scarab neck. There is no pulse. I roll his shoulders over. The eyes are open. There is no pupil movement. Then in one last attempt to survive, he flutters. The cerebral cortex thinks a response, do not end. The message makes the teeth jerk, two rapid breaths and then total failure. Adam falls to sleep forever.

Witchety grub, you are ruining my plans.

Climb the aft deck companionway. The narrow stairs lead up to the bridge. I leave his body alone. Adam is invisible below deck. My medical gloves touch the teak railing and browse over the dining table for twelve in the salon. The magnificent mahogany is slick even to my latex covered fingertips. My backpack with a winter wet suit is ready stowed at the rear of the ship.

The engine is soft to start. I press the button and take the helm. Three-Hundred-horse power Caterpillar steers out of the dock. Night covers the yacht creeping out of the dark harbor. There are no other ships heading out. The aft and rear decks are well illuminated. The lights are off around the captain. I dim the sidelights underway at night. Computer grey navigation system screens lights operate.

On the aft side, the coast guard is running short staffed over in their tower tonight. Boys in sharp military uniforms in the glass structure do not even look at the vessel as she exits past the jetty. Soon out at open sea, the bow thrusters and micro commander run the show as if a ghost is steering.

An hour passes underway west. Cables for the mooring are push button. I allow the anchors down. The fluke grabs the sandy bottom. Plutocracy slows to a stop. Fast-moving clouds block the moon sky. The cover of mist now makes it hard to discern the atrous from the charcoal sea. The tube of blue polyethylene seven millimeter found in the galley where everything is commercial grade becomes made useful in a second manner. I disobey Adam’s written directions on the sticky note to cover the appliances with plastic for the winter. I use the roll. It proves effective as a sled to drag his body.

The crew is supposed to tape the boat wrap perfectly seamed around the kitchen equipment. Adam writes the yellow square notes to the serfs that Adam hires but never calls by name. Adam weighs 160 pounds. It takes an hour for me to get his body to the deck. Sweating, I have him to the rear of the vessel near the dinghies and Sea- Doos.

What pompous ass writes ‘perfectly’ in the details for a crewman who never read an instruction manual? As if telling them to be exact in his post-it will ever change the universe. Adam you are an idiot.

Converse with the playful clouds. Talking to the sky eases the physical strain of dragging a dead weight man. My stomach relaxes. My hand rubs the skin over large intestine. The digestive tract is quiet. When planning before, I believed I would feel remorse. Now gleeful images of how it should have been sooner come to mind. Perspiration drips down on Adam’s corpse like dew. The sweat smells clean as when high-school boy finishes an 800-Meter run. Claiming first place is good. At the stern, a davit is a device to hoist and lower a smaller boat.

Call it a primitive crane to get your little boat up and down Adam.

A criminal constitution never disturbed by sin. Adam’s corpse is positioned in the shore-to-shore Zodiac. Check his body for personal effects. In Adam’s jacket, there is an ATM receipt from Bank of America.

A thin piece of paper spit out with his deposit and balance. It says $101,211.13 in his checking account. The printed deposit slip shows he physically went to the bank and put in a U.S. Social Security check with his name. He is not an American citizen.

Scrooge Mc Duck depositing your checks in person, what a miser. You have the gall to threaten me with the SEC. The only toxic asset is your rotten ass now. I pause in the rant.

You call me jealous shallow man. You rip off the banks. Then become appointed a comfortable Board job at another monetary institution. What irony. You encouraged the bank to cut corners just for pirate profits.

Cordoned near to the Zodiac rests a piece of stone used to scrape the deck.

Here’s your God forsaken Holy Stone Adam. I lift the piece of sandstone, which is light to the firmament. I do not throw it overboard. The stone is coarse in my gloved hand.

The white slip of paper with his account balance on front and American Bank logo in russet on the reverse is poetic as the igniter. Printed on the account slip is the information that there is more than a hundred thousand dollars in his account.

Who keeps that in a checking account without getting high interest returns? You get what you deserve, to be buried with your money James. I laugh again. Shrieks of joy about the successful kill.

Lowering the rig is accomplished for the canvas craft to carry dead James Adam to his burial... Zodiacs are rubber inflated balloon boats once used by the military. The plastic glued together is ‘Strongan’. The inflatable skiff has an oiled canvas raincoat. It is light enough for one person to crank it down. The boat goes ashore or bobs about in the sea. As one last gesture, I pour the bottle of Wild Turkey on Adam’s chest in a line to the outboard motor of the floating craft. The flammable trail connects to the fuel tank.

Release the line to the little cruiser, I announce. An imaginary conductor of a fine symphony with a large audience, I wave an invisible baton. Meanwhile, the ropes untie from the yacht. With caution, I hold tight to the knot in the nylon rope.

Sorry old boy I do not plan to fall in the water.

It feels like religious chants. I lean my knees on the manrope. The cord is a low handrail of sorts about thirty-six inches high for safety.

Out here no human will hear a cry for help.

I hop back on the yacht, turn the throttle full with the rope tied to rudder. I pretend I have a full crew of slaves.

To top it off, add a celebratory clap. Two hands clack together. Baby powder releases from my gloves at the wrists- a gentle silt puff. The opaque ash floats after the eau-de-ril.

The craft races out to the horizon. I toss the lighter with its flame, a miniature lighthouse on the Automatic Teller Machine slip from on board the yacht. Heat drinks the Wild Turkey’s alcohol with a jump of periwinkle and vanilla flame. The outboard speeds off with its cargo. Flames continue cheerfully gobbling paper, oxygen and fine Egyptian cotton of Adam’s shirt. Fire enjoys the buzz. The Scandinavians send their dead off on such a pyre with gifts worthy of their state on earth. This prevents the ancestors from roaming the afterlife homeless. They do not want angry relatives who are confused about their status returning as ghosts. Danes are kind enough not to allow their dead to know who or where they are supposed to be.

Adam goes without his glorious bank statement (it now is a charcoal ruffled flower flaking its pollen off acacia in the Santa Ana winds). Without the A.T.M. slip, the gods may not recognize him as a Lord of Finance.

You are a pompous petty poetaster! I preach.

Pointing my finger at him after making the senseless slur. Flames dawdle around the body. It burns a hole in the side floatation devices. The dingy takes on water. It is four hundred yards out from the yachts position. Smells of roasted kelp surrounds the sinking. The combustion below the surface of the ocean illuminates the top few feet of surges in the distance. Electromagnetic particulate casts a cherished beam of glowing lemonade in the top four feet of water.

The whole thing blows throwing steam in directions. Citreous effervescence gas fizzes. It does not ignite in a palette-stacked bonfire, just a waterfall show with a muffled thunder crash. Witness a lonely not glorious Fourth of July. Adam’s carcass dissipates into a billion pieces.

Easy come, easy go. I bow.

A weighty sigh speaks from the water as the sea takes her prize.

Pull up anchor! I bellow as the new captain and king pirate, turn the ship around and steer back to the harbor. My voice echoes. Four miles out I turn the engine off to experience stillness. Don’t put the anchor down, just drift, and drift…drift.

What a shame to leave the De Fever yacht floating off shore. A knowledgeable seaman would press the button to lower the anchor. Putting it down is easy to do. I calculate the Coast Guard or Harbor Patrol will assume Adam is intoxicated and fails to care for his precious toy. Adam parties hearty. He has many on ship citations for alcohol/drunk boating much like an automobile driver’s D.U.I. The Harbor Patrol knows him by name. They will go aboard the yacht. They might check what possible trouble causes the boat to be lost. The ship might crash into the coastline before the Harbor Patrol finds her.

The boat might topple into something.

Wishing there was a splash of Wild Turkey left for me to toast. A couple bottles of wine are uncorked in the State Room.

How fun it would be to stay aboard and relax in the sun tomorrow on the deck. Enjoy the luxury of the wine cellar and a nice steam bath.

I could pretend this is my ship. Rule the Pacific Ocean. They might catch me if I show off. No, keep to getting off the boat without being seen plan.

The moon is three quarters full shining through fluffy cover. Wind picks up. Now stars shed dim lights on the port deck. Swirls of mist move towards the beach. The crescent backlights the billows painting the descending stratus with imitation aurora borealis.

Do not remove items from the boat. Everything appears that Adam was alone.

Oh how I would love to steal a piece of that ‘holy stone’ for a souvenir. Adam, you liked to use to scrape the decks by hand. The sandstone might smooth away my sins.

Double-check each detail. Stick to the original plan. The plastic tarp goes back to its place with the neat post- it-note in Adam’s handwriting touching the exterior. A Reidel glass sits on the deck with a splash of vodka. Seventy pounds of potatoes went into that empty bottle.

It is easy to swim to shore in a wet suit (brought on board just for this purpose). I use the backpack with the gloves inside as a floatation device. The buoyancy makes it simple to get to the land. If the current is against my plan, the backpack can hold my weight just as a boogey board. The sky cooperates. Moonlight turns on. Nature participates in the crime by shining a flashlight through the surges.

Stroking arms in sets of ocean swell I swim. I turn left, then right. I repeat left and breathe. Next, I raise my head up to maintain course. Then rotate right- left – right - breathe. The breakers come in patterns of threes. I swim alternating breathing sides.

Keep your exercise in rhythm to music. I think of a lyric. The melody that comes to mind is: Listen to the Music of the Night." The tune refrains one of those pop dance songs.

Look the way a semi-aquatic rodent might plunge. Flow with the onshore current in a quick hour. I am a beaver figure with a bubble in front. The swim to the shore is accomplished. My human feet in the rubber booties land on Lido Island. I am just a tad off from the planned destination. Dripping water from my body seems to catch the beat of an aerobics class. Fast fast step drop left…

Lido is a residential neighborhood with crowded estates. Each gaudy palace has an unique architectural theme. The palaces imitate Disneyland with huge amount of dough. Stacked granite pillars decorate the garage doors. The pillars are not real. They are hallow core cardboard with rebar boxes and concrete exteriors. Mortared on top is Façade stone. Everyone locks his or her home for the night. Alarms turned on. There are no front yards. Few windows face the street. Homes view out on waterways in the rear and backsides of vastly decorated docks. It is unlikely to see anyone on the street. Under obscured stars, my castony figure moves unseen as the fog is now onshore. A dripping stupor covers lifted from the sea.

Take an easy walk back to the car. Home soon to warm up.

Drip salt water on my feet. My body steps on the asphalt. Lungs burn but no steam emits. The tissue hurts as if the organs hold glass crystals. The lower wells of my ribs are spongy from the exercise. A cough brings up sea fluids. The swim was more than I expected.

Run through my plan again. When the authorities find the boat they will think Adam is missing. He fell off the dingy, drunk or investigating an adventure in the night. I wrap my wetsuit into the backpack. My nylon Nike shorts underneath and a matching t-shirt already look dry. The booties have to come off. I exchange the black dive slippers for rubber flip- flops in the pack, and viola outfit any native might don.

Accidental casualty; therefore, his wife can collect the life insurance, is what I mutter, don’t want her snooping around looking for money. I am repeating my plan to be positive and make it happen.

Why am I speaking as a monarch to dead people?

Adam is a notorious daring guy. He is famous for his fearless stance to the edge of danger. He bought an eleven million dollar boat and sailed it back from Norway by himself.

I think of scenarios that the police will also take into account. It is reasonable that he might sail out alone. He saw himself as stronger, smarter, and able to handle his whiskey.

I am deep in thought reviewing the evils of Adam’s past. I stand with my toes straightforward. When I was a child, my feet were straight outside the carved door of the confessional. I cannot remember what I ought to plead. Maybe I should make up lies for the priest. I continue walking and muttering to myself.

He defrauds the banks into giving him fifty million cash out refinance. He cooked the books. The accounting is a fake. Then Adam sells the company to an investment group. The smart suits think they could trade the company. The MBA’s dumped the real estate and slash the assets.

I rant more, The one piece remaining: a balance sheet that looks like it has a business. It is a worthless entity. Get more bank loans. Adam cashes out more. Then file Bankruptcy. To hell with the employees, Adam claims. Next, he opens a same-kind business. This does not violate his conflict of interest clause because the first company and employees are buried broke.

In America a con artist becomes appointed to rule a bank.

I jerk. My shoulders jump in the parking lot. I am startled that my set order did not go as in the game Battleship.

What a shitty surprise.

Adam’s Bentley is gone. Shit. I repeat to myself.

This theft doesn’t go as planned. Meanwhile, someone stole Adam’s Bentley. The car with the winged B is missing. His sedan disappeared from the parking lot of the gated harbor.

A fool makes a habit of leaving the keys on the visor, his dear wife Claire would add days later.

Oh Daddy why are you so careless? She calls him her father since her husband is twenty-four years her senior.

Lady of Fortune is shining in her random numbers tonight on my horoscope. I stride away from the unattended parking area with confidence. The missing car may be helpful to pull suspicion another way.

CHAPTER TWO

Laguna Beach California 6/20/2004

The digital clock in the black Mercedes reads 4:35 AM. A lovely woman is driving with one hand on the wheel.

Keep your mind on the ball. She says to her rear view mirror this morning. I must day dream less often or perish.

You need this job, Katherine. She commands the glass. She touches the two photograph pins of boys in baseball uniforms on the sunshade flap. The eyeshade visor has the metal circles attached. Three-inch round badges come with Little League Team photo packages. Pictures of two boys smiling with baseball caps are pinned above her forehead. One boy is dark haired. His posture is straight. The other son is larger. He wears glasses. The older boy looks away from the camera. She blows them a kiss. She straightens the photographs and flips up the visor where they stay protected from sunlight and avoid fading.

Her memories of her marriage no longer hold physical pain, but they can jam up positive messages in her new life.

Memories of the funeral day in January 2002. The feel of vinyl floor of the funeral home remains like crystallized water. Her callus foot pads respond to ice. She reminisces on falling. Her feet are numb. No rubber carpet can protect the freeze from climbing her legs. She reacts against instinct to pain. Stand tall with fingers burning inside with adrenaline. A voice offers unsolicited advice. She fails to look the speaker in the eyes.

Katherine, your husband Daniel was the generous one to pick up a tab, a real man’s man. Don’t you think you should pay the bar tab for the wake?

A coworker of Daniel’s pats her shoulder with baby taps. Her sternum pulls inward.

He was the most generous man with buying the office staff flowers.

Katherine does not respond to the touching from strangers. People’s fingers measure little emotion. A gesture reeking of pre-treated ‘Purel.’ Pal employees avoid contamination with her guilt. She might spread evil divorce whispers. They put their elbows in tight to avoid the virus.

Not knowing what to say back then, she lowers her chin. She shakes her eyes left to right. Why did they boast about how Daniel was grandiose with coworkers? Yes, Daniel was handsome and funny. His soft kisses were cruel in the end. Today she is tough enough to answer the co-conspirators if she ran into them. Lairs around Daniel aided his crimes. Now time enough passed to think over comebacks to this line. Months later, she summed it up this way:

The boys and I need the money for the drinks and hotel rooms back.

She shares today without looking aside.

The memorial service without Daniel’s body was a strange event. A friend of hers from her Undergraduate program attempted to console with, You are young and beautiful. Don’t worry, you will remarry soon.

None of Daniel’s management team showed their face to the service. The fraud investigation was still ongoing. A few neighbors from Old Greenwich and her family ate shrimp cocktails. They mumbled in hushed voices.

Did she know he was a cheater? He didn’t wear a wedding ring at the office.

They gave her down cast eyes. Pity is not a gift. Their fingers pressed over their lips. The blessing of not looking into those rust veined eyes saved her from wasting money on ‘Visene’.

How is she holding up under pressure?

Did you see the unmarked police cars out front of the funeral home?

They nod at one another as if they held tangible value of information. They like the contact that gossip brings to their club. Horrible whispers allow them to huddle and stand together.

Don’t tell her the police photographed the attendees.

They labeled her femme fatale. Her children did not understand why the kids at school mimicked rumors.

Yo Mama is a murderer and yo daddy is a cheater.

Moving was the best thing. It has been a year and a half since a Bear Stern’s Senior Manager of hers at the funeral service chirps that her long hair might be labeled, too young for her age.

Katherine consider a new style. You should get a bob haircut for a fresh start.

Why on that sorrowful day did he have to correct her grooming?

She wears her chestnut tresses pinned in a chignon. Under heavy rimmed sunglasses, she hides. Tinted windows of her Mercedes S 500 Guard allow privacy this morning. She never asked why Nationwide Bank leased her bulletproof car. No explanations are given by Human Resources as to why she needs a car that’s showy on the exterior but a military tank.. She thanks lucky stars that Blake Spear flew her out to meet The Dream Team.

Newport Beach is the true garden of the world. Here to serve human needs.

Blake narrates his speeches with his fingers. He is a maestro to an orchestra of birds. Blake’s personality bias is flat excepting for the hands. He prepared before a video camera many a time. He picks the expressions to show emotions as if he cares.

She does not disclose that she has twenty dollars to her name. Prideful, she eats breakfast from the mini bar in the Radisson. A sweaty odor from the brown bed spread in the hotel clings on her clothing, she didn’t pack perfume to mask the smell, therefore she seats herself at a distance in the group meeting that morning. In the restroom, she puts her index finger in her blouse and touches her underarm. Her finger discreetly makes it up to her nose in the stall. The fragrance is not from her body. She sighs in relief. Two 9.5 ounce bottled Starbucks and a bag of pretzels she selects knowing that Nationwide Bank is paying the tab on the honor bar. She has no money for breakfast.

Her new boss is also practical, Katherine with your Harvard Undergrad in Mathematics, Wharton MBA in Finance, and illustrious work experience you will impress the Board and Shareholders. This ought to bring our price per share up when we announce.

Thank you for the opportunity. She makes sure her right eye does not quiver by pinching the inside of her cheek with back molars.

Katherine, you are worth the base pay of $ 422,500.00. You will be eligible for possible bonus of nine hundred eighty thousand dollars in the first year.

The numbers seem unreal. She rocks in her high heels with the opportunity to close the door on the old rumors in New York. It makes her dizzy. The police exonerated her, but people want to hold on to bad stories. He offers her the title of President of National Mortgage Operations. The salary is generous. Not having to step under a