An Accounting
"The Good Lord gave everyone a talent," Viola Plowman told her five-year-old son, Wilson. "Some people are born with artistic ability and become painters or sculptors. Some are given physical beauty or athletic prowess, and others are imbued with musical talent. The secret to happiness is to find your inner God-given talent and make the most of it."
By the time her son entered college, he discovered his gift: he had a head for numbers. He excelled in math, getting straight A's in algebra, geometry, trigonometry and advanced-placement calculus. Not only was he a mathematical genius, but he was also practical. Rather than become a mathematician, he chose to enter the more lucrative field of accounting.
After graduating college, he found employment at PricewaterhouseCoopers, the multinational accounting firm. The job paid fairly well, but it was an entry-level position. Even for a man with his skills, it would take years to climb the rungs of the corporate ladder.
I'll do much better on my own, he decided and promptly severed ties with PwC.
At first, he barely made enough money to pay the rent on his apartment; but once he acquired a reputation as a savvy tax consultant, his business grew rapidly. His clientele consisted mainly of wealthy businessmen and celebrities. Word of Plowman's reputation eventually made it to the ears of Vincenzo Bertolo, arguably the most powerful man in organized crime.
"Let me be frank with you," the mobster said during their first meeting. "I have a great deal of money."
"As do all my clients."
"I know who pays your bills. Rappers, movie stars, CEOs and football players. False modesty aside, I could buy and sell all of them."
"Really? What business are you in?"
"Let's just say I'm an entrepreneur with interests in many areas."
"Like one of those guys on Shark Tank?"
"Not quite," Bertolo laughed, a sound that sent a chill down the accountant's spine. "Let's not beat around the bush. Nearly all my income is from illegal sources."
"I see."
"I need someone to not only keep track of what comes in and what goes out but also to keep Uncle Sam's hands off it."
"You don't have anyone in your organization that can do that for you?"
"My accountant recently passed away—from natural causes, I assure you. There's no one else I trust."
"And what makes you think you can trust me?"
"Because if you ever double-cross me or try to cheat me, I'll kill you."
If Wilson had any doubts about the man's business, the threat against his life dispelled them.
"Perhaps I'm not the man for the job," he said, anxious to get out of the building in one piece.
"You haven't heard what I'm offering you yet."
When Vincenzo revealed the salary he was willing to pay, the accountant reconsidered. It was more money than he had ever dreamed of making, nearly twice what all his most affluent clients were paying.
"I have to admit I'm tempted."
"In addition to your wages, you'll have a very generous expense account. There are also some other perks you might enjoy such as the use of a private jet when you want to travel or a yacht if you prefer to go by water. I own a number of vacation homes around the world, all of which you can use when I'm not in residence, including a privately owned island in the Caribbean. You can live a life as good if not better than that of your current clients."
After weighing his options, Wilson Plowman accepted Vincenzo Bertolo's offer. At his new employer's request, he referred all his existing clients to a man he had worked with at PwC, closed his office and worked exclusively for the organized crime boss.
* * *
Despite being in the employ of a dishonest man, Wilson was scrupulously honest in his accounting. He never took as much as a penny from his employer's ill-gotten gains. Even if the threat of the mobster's retribution was not hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles, he would not have embezzled any funds.
He had been working for Bertolo for more than two years when he was summoned to a meeting held at his employer's personal Caribbean paradise.
"The boss is up at the house," Cosimo, one of the mobster's bodyguards, informed him after he got off the private plane that had brought him there from Nassau's Lynden Pindling Airport.
Unaware of the reason behind the invitation, Wilson approached the palatial home with some trepidation. His fears were allayed when he saw the friendly smile on his employer's face.
"You wanted to see me?" the accountant asked.
"Yeah. I'm getting into a new business. What's it the big CEOs call it—diversifying?"
"I thought your empire was fairly well diversified already."
"True," Vincenzo laughed, "but when an opportunity presents itself, a man would be a fool not to seize it."
Wilson frequently watched the news on TV. He did not live in a bubble. He knew that one of his employer's "competitors" had been gunned down in a New York restaurant. Most likely, the proposed diversification included taking over some of the fallen enemy's interests.
"And why are you telling me this?" the accountant asked.
"So that you'll be prepared for what might happen."
"I don't follow you."
"Look, I've never kept you in the dark about the source of my income. You know where all that money comes from. And you're not stupid. You must know there is a certain amount of danger associated with this enterprise."
"That's why you pay off the police and politicians—so that you won't go to jail."
"I'm not talking about the authorities. I'm talking about people who want to take over some of my operations. People with guns. People who plant bombs in cars. You've got to be careful."
"I'm just an accountant. Who would come after me?"
"You ever heard of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre?"
"Sure. Seven members of Bugs Moran's gang were killed in Chicago. People claim it was Al Capone's doing."
"Do you think the shooters bothered to ask the victims what they did in the organization? Hell, one of the dead guys was just a car mechanic."
"With all due respect," Wilson argued, "this isn't 1929. Gangsters don't go around with tommy guns, shooting at people indiscriminately."
"No, they use Uzis and AK-47s now," Vincenzo laughed. Then he added in a more serious tone, "It may be nearly a century since those killings on Clark Street and the weapons may have changed, but people are still fundamentally the same. Greedy men will stop at nothing when it comes to money."
"Okay. I'll be careful. Is that all you wanted to see me about?"
"No. I wanted to thank you."
"For what?"
"Your honesty and, more importantly, your loyalty," Bertolo replied, taking a box marked ROLEX out of his drawer and placing it on the table in front of his accountant.
On the back of the watch, the words Loyaulté me lie were engraved in Latin.
"It means 'loyalty binds me,'" the boss explained. "It was Richard III's motto. Let's hope you don't wind up like him, buried beneath a parking lot."
"I appreciate the gift, but it isn't necessary. I'd never cheat you."
"I know. That's why I'm worried for your safety."
After Wilson tried on his new watch, the mob boss got up from behind his desk and headed out to the living room. His employee followed at a respectable distance.
"What do you say we have a drink before dinner? A little vino perhaps? Maybe something stronger? I've got quite an impressive selection downstairs. Why don't you go and pick something out?"
As the accountant headed down the stairs with the key to the locked wine cellar, he heard a boat motor. It was a common enough sound in the Caribbean, and no one, not even the bodyguards, seemed to be concerned. Wilson unlocked the door, stepped inside the climate-controlled cellar and whistled in appreciation. He had never seen such a wide variety of alcohol in someone's home. Vincenzo's collection of spirits dwarfed the contents of his neighborhood liquor store.
"Wine, rum, tequila, vodka, gin, whiskey and nearly all of it is of top-shelf quality."
While deciding whether he preferred Hennessy cognac to Belvedere vodka, he heard the sound of heavy automatic gunfire from above. Heart racing with fear, he quickly shut the door to the wine cellar and locked it.
I hope to God no one knows I'm down here. If my boss and his men don't survive this ambush, I don't want to wind up dead, too.
For what seemed like hours, but was actually less than thirty minutes, Wilson cowered in a corner of the cellar, shivering in the fifty-five-degree temperature. Even after silence descended upon the island, he remained in his hiding spot. It was only four hours after the last of the victorious ambushers had returned to Nassau and boarded a plane for Miami that the accountant unlocked the door and ventured out of his chilly, alcohol-filled sanctuary.
Night had fallen by the time he found the courage to tiptoe across the basement to the stairs that led up to the main floor of the house. Not knowing if a gunman was roaming around, he did not want to call attention to himself by turning on the lights. Instead, he used the flashlight app on his phone to light his way. He made it safely to the living room, where he stood still for several minutes listening for any sounds of life in the house. There were none.
Wilson walked to the window and looked out at the well-lit docks. There were no boats. That meant the hit squad had departed.
The gunmen are gone, he thought, his terror gradually giving way to relief.
Once he no longer feared for his own safety, he wanted to see if he could help his employer. Not only was Vincenzo Bertolo's body riddled with bullets, but all eight of his employees were dead as well. It was only after he got over the initial horror at seeing the grisly crime scene that he realized his own dire predicament: he was the only one left alive on the island.
I have to get out of here.
He took out his cell phone again but was unable to make a call since he could not get service at the remote location. There was, however, a satellite dish that provided Internet and television.
I can email someone for help.
Unfortunately, the same idea had occurred to the gunmen who took the precaution of destroying the apparatus before invading the house.
"Think!" his brain screamed as he looked at the useless computer on Bertolo's desk. "There has to be a way to contact the outside world. A radio perhaps."
Room by room, he searched the house. He opened drawers, cabinets and closets. He even looked for hidden safes behind the artwork on the walls. The only communication devices he found were the walkie-talkies Cosimo and the other bodyguards had used to speak with one another. They were nowhere near strong enough to contact anyone not located on the island.
Survival. Before that day, he thought of the word only in connection with a reality TV program. Now, it took on a new meaning. He had to take steps to insure his own survival.
He took a mental accounting of the available resources. The electricity and plumbing both worked. The kitchen was fully stocked, including a chest freezer full of seafood, meat and poultry. There was plenty of fresh water and a lifetime supply of high-quality alcohol, so he would not die of thirst or hunger. If necessary, he could hold on for weeks, possibly even months. Eventually, he knew, someone would come to the island. All he had to do was wait to be rescued.
* * *
After a restful night's sleep, courtesy of half a bottle of one of Bertolo's fine wines, Wilson woke and prepared himself breakfast since the cook was among the dead. It was nothing fancy, just fried eggs and whole wheat toast, but it hit the spot.
Everyone who has ever watched a police drama on television knows not to disturb a crime scene, so he decided not to move the bodies, to leave everything and everyone as they were. Hopefully, the cavalry would arrive before the smell became too strong. Given the warm climate in the Caribbean, that would not be too long.
The police are bound to question me. They might even consider me a person of interest. It shouldn't be too difficult to prove my innocence, though. I'll just have to be honest about my connection to the deceased.
By mid-afternoon, however, the accountant faced a threat greater than a possible police investigation: boredom. With the satellite dish destroyed, there was no television reception and no Internet. He would not swim in the pool since Cosimo's body was floating in it, his blood lying on the water like a red oil spill. There was no VCR (a victim of streaming services), stereo or even a radio.
When faced with the absence of modern technology, a smart person will rely on the treasures of the past. Since he was unable to stream movies, watch live sports, surf the net or even play video games, Wilson decided he would pass the time by reading.
There must be a magazine or book somewhere in the house, he thought optimistically. Right about now, I'd even settle for an old newspaper. Just something to keep my mind occupied.
Again, he made a thorough room-to-room search of the house, opening the same drawers and closets. The only reading material he could find was a book lying on the night table beside Cosimo's bed. It was a paperback copy of J.D. Salinger's 1945 novel, The Catcher in the Rye.
I never read this in school. Might as well read it now.
He took the book up to his room, sat in the comfortable chair beside the picture window, and opened the cover. He scanned the title page, the copyright information and the dedication (Salinger dedicated the work to his mother). Then he turned to Chapter 1 and began to read: "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born ...."
By the time he turned out the light that night and went to sleep, he read the final lines and closed the book.
"'Don't tell anybody anything,'" he repeated Salinger's ending to himself. "Sounds like my late boss's motto."
Having finished the only book on the island in one day, Wilson was faced once again with finding something to stem the onslaught of boredom.
If only I had a book of crossword puzzles or sudokus. Anything to keep my mind busy.
After another breakfast of fried eggs and toast, he left the house and took a leisurely stroll around the perimeter of the island. Not much of an outdoorsy person, he never cared for beaches or views of the ocean. Thus, all the natural beauty of his surroundings failed to impress him. When he returned to the house at the conclusion of his walk, glad to be back in an air-conditioned building, he swore to himself that he would not repeat the activity.
For more than two hours, he tried to kill time—not the best choice of words considering the number of dead bodies on the island—by making lists with a pen and a legal-sized pad of foolscap he always kept in his briefcase. First, he tried to think of the names of all fifty states, which he was able to do with a minimum of difficulty. Then he attempted to add the capitals of each state to the list. He was only sure about two-thirds of them. The other third were educated guesses, but without Internet access, there was no way of checking his accuracy.
From geography, he went to entertainment, writing down the names of movies with one-word titles. For nearly an hour, his pen kept a steady pace. While eating a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch, he looked over his list. Technically, since The Godfather and The Graduate each contained two words, he crossed them off. But after wiping a splotch of mustard off his hand, he included Casino, Philadelphia, Oklahoma! and Brigadoon. By early evening, however, he had just about exhausted the subject.
With nothing better to do, Wilson went to bed early that night. He tossed and turned for more than three hours before he switched on the bedside light and picked up the paperback novel. He opened the book to the first chapter and began to read: "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing ...."
Over the next several days, he read the book cover-to-cover four more times. He also made two more lists: Presidents of the United States and Hall of Fame baseball players. As regards the former, he could think of only forty-one, but he had close to two hundred names on the latter. Apparently, Honus Wagner and Tris Speaker were much more memorable than Millard Fillmore and Chester Arthur.
* * *
One week after the deadly invasion of the island, Wilson was living like a hermit. He rarely ventured out of his suite of rooms since the rest of the house reeked of decomposing flesh. Three times a day, he put cotton balls in his nostrils and secured a towel around the lower half of his face to walk down the stairs to the kitchen. After making his meals, he brought them back to his room to eat them.
When I get off this island, I swear I'll never eat another fried egg again! he promised himself as he wiped the yolk off his plate with the remainder of his toast.
Having finished his breakfast, he let his eyes wander around the room. They eventually went to the book on the night table. He picked it up. As he examined the cracked spine and bent covers, he had an idea for combining his two current pastimes: reading about Holden Caulfield and making lists. With his $885 Enzo Ferrari Montblanc pen, he wrote the numbers one through twenty-six vertically down the left side of a sheet of foolscap, each one representing a chapter in Salinger's book. Then his accountant's brain took control. He counted the number of pages in each chapter and recorded them in the next column on the makeshift spreadsheet.
After totaling up the number of pages in each chapter, he put the sum at the bottom, feeling that sense of pride he felt whenever his balance sheets balanced. Using the cover of the book as a straightedge, he drew two vertical lines down the paper, one to the right and one to the left of the second column. He then drew another line to create a third column, which he labeled PARAGRAPHS.
Since the first several pages of the book (title page, a list of other works by Salinger, copyright page and dedication) were not included in his accounting, he tore them out of the book. Thus, he could open the cover to Chapter 1 without thumbing through the unnecessary content.
The first page of that chapter—which was marked Page 3 at the bottom—consisted of one long paragraph that continued on to the next page. Page 4 had two more paragraphs, and there was one more on Page 5.
Maybe this won't take as long as I thought. These are long paragraphs.
It was not until he got to Page 9 and Holden's conversation with Mrs. Spencer that the paragraphs became shorter as was usual for dialog between characters. Since Page 10 was the start of Chapter 2, he picked up his pen and spreadsheet and wrote the number nineteen in the first row of the third column. There was no need to recount the paragraphs to double-check his work; it was not as though the IRS was going to audit it.
It's fair to say not many people would waste time counting paragraphs in a book, much less bother to create a spreadsheet for this useless information. But how many of them have ever been isolated on an island with nine dead bodies?
Meanwhile, in the world beyond the Caribbean island, unbeknownst to Wilson Plowman, people were wondering what had become of Vincenzo Bertolo. All sorts of rumors were reported in the media, but the consensus seemed to be that he went the way of Jimmy Hoffa.
"My guess is that the so-called boss of bosses sleeps with the fishes," Keegan Glendower, head of an FBI organized crime task force, told the director in confidence.
"Nevertheless," the agency's top dog advised, "we have to make every effort to find him, dead or alive."
"I've got more than a dozen agents searching for him. The problem is he's an old-school kind of guy. He shuns publicity."
"I'm sure there are people who know where he is."
"Of course, there are. But getting them to talk isn't going to be easy."
* * *
One week became two, two became three and, eventually, Wilson realized he had been stranded on the island for more than a month. He completed his accounting of the number of paragraphs in The Catcher in the Rye and also the number of sentences. Now, he was counting the words, from the simple one-letter "a" and "I" to those of four and five syllables.
He was so intent on completing this task that he no longer took time to fry eggs and make coffee in the morning or cook even a simple mac and cheese dinner for himself. Breakfast was handfuls of Cheerios straight from the box as he counted and dinner was often lunch meat and several slices of cheese sans bread and mayo. Nor did he bother taking showers or changing his clothes. Except for occasional trips to the bathroom, he spent every waking hour with Salinger's novel.
By the end of his second month on the island, he began making an accounting of the different punctuation marks, starting with the period. After that, he would count the commas, apostrophes, quotation marks, question marks and so on.
During his sixth month of isolation, looking like a cross between Charles Manson and Robinson Crusoe, he began counting individual letters. Naturally, he started with A, the first letter of the alphabet. He made a tally sheet so that he could keep a separate count for the lower- and upper-case letters. When that monumental task was complete, he took on the B's. He was halfway through the seventh chapter when he once again heard the sound of a boat engine.
For months, he had prayed to be rescued, yet his only thought upon hearing the approaching vessel was that the hit squad had come back.
They must have found out that I was here, he thought, fearing for his life.
As the sound drew nearer, he raced around the room, erasing all signs of his presence. Dirty dishes, laundry and trash were shoved in the bottom of the closet. Once the room looked vacant, he hurried down to the wine cellar and locked himself inside.
For more than two weeks, federal agents swarmed over the private island. Forensic technicians scoured the house and grounds for fingerprints, DNA, hairs and fibers.
"Good luck with this crime scene," Special Agent Glendower had joked when he found the bodies. "The place is a goddamned abattoir!"
While all this commotion was going on above him, a now mentally unstable Wilson Plowman cowered in the corner of the wine cellar, continuing with the accounting of the letters in The Catcher in the Rye. He made it through the C's and D's. Occasionally, he would open the door a crack to see if the coast was clear, but each time the sound of people on the first floor sent him back into hiding.
* * *
It was several months before federal agents returned to the island. Having concluded their investigation into the killings, the agency worked out arrangements with the Bahamian government to seize Vincenzo Bertolo's assets on the grounds that he was a major contributor to the illegal drug trade.
"From what I understand," Glendower told members of his team as they landed on the island, "the local government gets the house and the property, and we take whatever valuables we can carry off. That includes any cash, jewelry, artwork—basically anything that isn't nailed down."
At the end of the week, agents used small vessels to ferry their cartons of seized goods out to a large ship nearby.
"And they say crime doesn't pay," Keegan laughed when he saw an Edward Hopper painting on the wall. "That alone goes for a few million."
Once the rooms on the main and second floors were picked clean, a few agents headed to the basement.
"There's not much down here," one of them noted. "Just some beach chairs, a ladder, gardening supplies and the usual junk people keep in their garages and basements."
"What's in there?" Keegan wondered, heading toward the door to the wine cellar.
"I don't know. A bathroom, maybe?"
"It's locked," he announced after trying to open it. "Who locks a bathroom when it's not in use? Go get somebody to open it."
Fortunately, the lock on the wine cellar door was a standard pin tumbler lock and Special Agent "Bubba" Kennesaw had no difficulty picking it. When he pushed the door open, the assortment of foul odors that assaulted them made the men gag and quickly cover their noses.
The bulb inside the overhead light had died out, and the room was dark, so Keegan called for a flashlight. What the agents saw when the electric lantern was turned on was far worse than the bullet-ridden bodies they had discovered on their first visit to the island. The long-haired, bearded man was lying in his own excrement, amidst what appeared to be pages of foolscap covered with columns of numbers.
"What do you suppose happened to him?" Bubba asked.
"Judging by his appearance, I'd say he died of starvation," Special Agent Glendower replied. "I don't recognize his face. I wonder who he is."
"What was he doing in here?"
"Looks like someone locked him in."
"This lock was like one you'd find in most bedrooms and bathrooms. It's meant to keep people out, not lock them in. Someone on the inside could easily open it."
"Who knows? Maybe he was dead when they put him in here."
"I don't mean to sound crude, but dead men don't shit themselves."
"I guess we'll need a forensics team out here to examine the scene. I'm sure someone will want to know exactly how and why this guy died—whoever he is."
"What's that in his hand?" Kennesaw asked, once his eyes traveled from the execrable sight of Wilson Plowman's skeletal face to his cadaverous body.
"It looks like a book or something," Keegan answered, unable to read the title.
Bubba leaned forward, careful not to touch anything or disturb the crime scene.
"It's ...." He squinted trying to read the title on what was left of the soiled cover. "It's The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger."
"The book Mark David Chapman had on him when he shot John Lennon?"
"Yes, sir. But this copy looks as though it's been chewed up—literally. I think this poor starving bastard tried to eat the book!"
"I suppose I'd have done the same thing if I were in his shoes. With no food around, he had to eat something. I'm surprised he chose the book over all these papers, though. They would have been easier to eat. He could have softened them up with a little wine and swallowed them down."
What none of the federal agents knew was that Wilson Plowman, in his deranged state of mind, had considered the careful accounting on those loose pages of foolscap his crowning achievement. Having finished counting and recording the number of Z's, he had no further need for the paperback novel and thus tried to consume it as it had surely consumed him during the final months of his life.
One time when Salem was extremely bored he counted how many times the word cat appeared in The Catcher in the Rye. He found 63, in words like CATcher, vaCATion, communiCATed, CATholic, etc. It would have been a lot easier if he had the text on a computer and could do a global search.
