After that call with Mr. Smith, this job has taken on a sense of urgency I haven’t felt before. He wanted to show me I could be replaced. But he also showed me that in the time between the last job and this one, he went to great lengths to groom someone to be me. It’s clear there’s something big I’m missing, and it’s vital that I start over at the beginning and look at everything with fresh eyes.
The game has changed.
Chapter 11
Present Day
In Lake Forbing, Ryan runs a local branch of a national brokerage firm. It’s located in one of those new office parks where the row of identical buildings looks like cottages. Most of his clients are little old ladies who need help investing their oil and gas royalty checks. He is the local golden boy whom they trust completely. I could probably match his client list to the guest book from his grandfather’s funeral, name by name.
In Glenview, Texas, Ryan runs a trucking and transportation business that’s located in a warehouse in an industrial area on the outskirts of town. The only signage on the entire property is a rectangular white metal sign with the words Glenview Trucking stenciled in black letters. The phone number sends you straight to a voice-mail system, and there is no website or social media attached to this company. He never talks about Glenview Trucking, and I believe very few people, if any, know it exists.
Just as I cross the border into Texas, which is the halfway point between Lake Forbing and Glenview, I mentally retrieve that typed page of information I was given about Ryan and the business located here.
Glenview Trucking was established in 1985 by Ryan’s grandfather, William Sumner. William’s son, Scott, joined the business after he returned home from college in 1989. At inception, the business was a legitimate enterprise that served the East Texas and North Louisiana area.
It still operates in its original capacity but in the late 90s, the business model expanded to include brokerage services for stolen goods. It is believed that currently two out of every three trucks that arrive are transporting items bound for the black market. While the illegal side of the business is vastly more profitable, Glenview Trucking is an invaluable front that must be maintained.
Ryan took over operations after his grandmother, Ingrid Sumner, was diagnosed with cancer and his grandfather became her full-time caregiver but limited his on-site involvement to one day a week—Thursdays. Ryan has done an impressive job of keeping the company in Texas separate from his life in Lake Forbing, LA, just as his grandfather and father had done before him.
*Opinion based on research but have no hard evidence to support—Ryan seems to make every effort to maintain the business his grandfather started, and his father worked at until his death in 2004, in Glenview. I believe this business is immensely important to him and he will protect it at all costs.
My last job was unusual in the sense that I knew immediately I was sent to retrieve sensitive information that was being used as blackmail against Victor Connolly, but normally there is a lag between when I get the name of the mark and when I get my first set of instructions. I use that time to dig deep into every aspect of the mark’s life so I’m prepared when the time comes to get to work. While I’m waiting to see what the job is, I try to predict what the client hired us to do, even though I never know who the client is.
So that’s what I did when I got the name: Ryan Sumner.
At first glance, the financial services business, and its long client list of old ladies with their oil and gas royalty checks, seemed to be the obvious answer. But the more I learned about that part of Ryan’s life, the less it seemed likely. There wasn’t anyone on his client list who caught my eye as the reason I’m here.
There’s always the chance the mark is just a means to get close to one of their friends, but it didn’t take long to rule that out as a possibility either. Ryan’s friends may be the type to cheat on their golf game, their spouse, or their taxes, but that’s the extent of their bad behavior.
But when I looked into the trucking business in Glenview, I knew that’s why I had been sent here. It’s impressive what Ryan has been able to do in the last six years. He took what was a two-bit operation and turned it into a lucrative enterprise with a reputation of white-glove service that has clients across the country. While there is still the occasional truckload of stolen Xbox and PlayStation consoles that roll through his place, he’s transitioned the business to moving more upscale merchandise and to the procurement of specialty items by request. He has become the concierge of the black market.