by Mike Brogan
My God, she realized, he crashed the plane that killed his wife and daughter. No wonder he drinks.
“You want to know who lived up in B5 sixteen years ago?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“No one.”
“What?”
“She never lived in B5, never domiciled there in a strictly legal sense.”
“She?”
He nodded. “She came by occasionally to pick up the mail. In that one year, she stayed overnight here maybe . . . three, four times. All she had up there was a hide-a-bed sofa and one of those Admiral minifridges.”
“What’d she look like?”
He closed his eyes a moment. “Serious woman, dark hair, attractive, well-dressed. Walked kinda straight-up, stiff.”
Madison wanted to bring photos of her executives, but the Human Resources department was at an offsite conference.
“Was her mail addressed to Blanchectar?”
“Yes. But I don’t think that was her name,” Maynard said.
“Why not?”
“One time I called out, ‘Hey, Ms. Blanchectar?’ She didn’t respond even though she was a few feet ahead. So I called her again, but she still didn’t answer. Finally, I caught up to her, tapped her shoulder and said, ‘Hey I’ve been calling you.’ She claimed she’d been concentrating on something and didn’t hear me.”
“So Blanchectar probably wasn’t her real name?”
“I’ll wager all my liquid assets it wasn’t.” He gestured toward his bottles of Jim Beam.
She smiled. “If I showed you a photo tomorrow, do you think you might recognize her?”
He paused. “Well, it’s been sixteen years, and I only saw her a few times.”
“I understand. But it would really help us.” Madison wondered if Human Resources had a photo of Karla Rasmussen from sixteen years ago.
“I’ll try.”
“Thank you, Mr. Maynard. How’s tomorrow morning?”
“Fine. Stop by any time.”
She nodded, stood and placed forty dollars on his desk.
He looked at the money. “That’s very kind of you, but not necessary.”
“PhDs make much more per hour these days,” she said, smiling.
“Gee, maybe it’s time I got back into academia.”
“I’m sure academia would benefit, Doctor.”
He seemed to smile at her use of his title.
“Actually, the University has asked me to come back. First, though, they insist on rehab.”
He tapped his Jim Beam glass.
“But my health care provider refuses to pay for rehab. Pre-existing condition, yada, yada.... And if I paid, well, it would cut into my drinking money.”
He smiled. She smiled back. “I have a thought....”
“What’s that?”
“I can easily afford your rehab, Mr. Maynard. We could consider it a loan if you like, paid back at your convenience.”
Tom Maynard seemed shocked by her offer, then smiled. “That’s most generous of you, but...”
“Maybe just think about it?”
He looked up at his diploma for several moments, then at the Herodotus leather bound history and said, “OK....”
She smiled, walked toward the door. “So, tomorrow morning?”
He nodded.
She left and, holding her breath, hurried back down the sticky hall and stopped at the front door. She phoned the taxi driver she used earlier and discovered he was driving his fare to Manhattan. She called Yellow Cab. They promised her a taxi in five minutes.
After ten minutes of breathing cat urine, she began to gag. She needed air. Seeing no one out on the street, she stepped outside, but kept her hand on the door handle just in case she had to hurry back inside.
As she breathed in the delicious fresh air, a vegetable truck rattled down the street and suddenly backfired. The sound startled her and the greasy door handle slipped from her fingers. The door slammed shut behind her.
She was locked out. The street was darker because the streetlight mysteriously had gone out while she was inside.
The derelict was no longer at the curb.
She heard something to her left. She turned and saw a dog walk quickly from the alley.
Then something else came from the alley.
Footsteps....
Sixty Three
She sipped coffee laced with Glenfiddich, savoring its taste almost as much as her imminent victory in the hotly-contested ComGlobe merger. She had the votes. The merger would pass tomorrow and ComGlobe’s Peter Gunther would wire ten million dollars to her offshore account in Belize. A short time later, she would sell off her Turner shares as part of the initial public offering of stock. The IPO sale, her cash cow, would net her maybe an additional eighteen million dollars that would be wired directly to her numbered Swiss account.
Life is good, she thought.
As she fingered her gold Montblanc pen, the office phone rang. She checked Caller ID and picked up.
“We gotta talk!” said Keith Davidson, the agency’s director of Internet marketing communications. He sounded even more anxious than yesterday when she’d persuaded him – some would say blackmailed him – to vote for the merger.
“Don’t worry about tomorrow’s vote, Keith.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
“You should worry.” His voice was hard.
Surprised by his words, she leaned forward. “Why should I worry?”
“Because I’ve changed my mind. I’m voting against your goddammed merger!”
Every muscle in her body grew taut. She didn’t need this now. “If you do, Keith, you know what I’ll do.”
He remained silent.
“I’ll reveal everything.”
Still silent.
“Have you been drinking, Keith?”
“No!”
“Then think again.”
“No. My mind’s made up!”
“Your mind’s screwed up! Think how devastated your wife, Diane, and your children will be when they learn you’ve been married to that topless dancer in Paramus, and have a six-year-old biracial child with her!”
Keith Davidson did not respond.
“And Diane will be even more devastated when she sees photos of you and her nineteen-year-old sister making passionate love.”
Davidson cleared his throat.
“Diane will leave you, Keith. And she’ll sue you for every penny you’ve got! Your children will never forgive you or talk to you again!”
He sighed heavily. “That’s a risk I’ll take. I’m going to tell Diane everything.”
He was slurring his words. He had been drinking. “You’ll lose something else, too, Keith.”
“What?”
“Your job.”
“Bullshit!”
“I’ll post your very sexy photos on our company Intranet. Every director and every employee will see them. Maybe I’ll put them on the Internet with headlines like, Ad Biggie Bangs Wife’s Sister!”
She heard him cursing under his breath.
“Listen, bitch ... if you do any of this, I’ll make sure you never work in this business again.”
I don’t plan to after tomorrow’s vote, she thought to herself. “I’ll deny it all, Keith, and you’ll find no proof that I loaded the photos on our Intranet.”
Davidson mumbled something. “There’s a word for people like you.”
“What’s that?”
“Cunt!”
She laughed. “I like it. Nice, short, Anglo-Saxon word. And I’ll expect your vote tomorrow, Keith.”
Swearing, he slammed the phone down.
She stood and started pacing behind her desk. Clearly, she could not count on Keith Davidson’s vote tomorrow.
That meant she needed Eugene P. Smith again. Two days ago, when she’d obtained the necessary votes to pass the merger, she told Smith to spare Madison’s life. But for some reason, he’d gone ahead and tried to kill her in the library. Obviously Smith had a
personal vendetta against her.
And once again, so do I.
Madison’s fatal accident – and it had to look accidental – was back on for tonight. By the time the police became suspicious and started to put things together, the EVP knew she’d be in a non-extradition country – counting her non-extraditable money.
She flipped open her cell phone and called Eugene P. Smith.
In the parking lot of the Westwinds Mall, thirteen miles northwest of Newark, Harry Burkett focused his military binoculars on three young girls strolling toward the GAP store. Jennifer, on the left, was wearing a red tank top and red hat just like she said she would. She was so beautiful. And only fifteen. The perfect age! She glanced toward the parking lot, obviously looking for his van.
Burkett’s mouth went dry as he watched her and her girlfriends walk into the GAP. In six minutes, Jennifer would walk back out and place her red hat on the Mr. Pony ride near the door. She would pat Mr. Pony’s nose four times with the back of her left hand. Our little signal.
He would then blink his lights four times and she would walk out and get in his van. He could almost feel her creamy pubescent skin, her silky blonde hair....
His dream was interrupted by the hacking cough of a frail old hunchback hobbling along on a walker. The guy was lugging a heavy bag of groceries along the row of cars ahead. He coughed hard again, opened his car trunk, then leaned on his walker, wheezing like an asthmatic.
The chubby old coot looked like he might croak any second.
As he lifted the grocery bag, it tilted, dumping cans that rolled under his car. Burkett laughed out loud. The old guy bent down to retrieve them, and a milk carton fell out, splattering milk everywhere.
“Ha!” Burkett cackled, slapping his thigh. This was better than Comedy Central. Then he felt a little guilty. He’d be old one day. Maybe she should go help the geezer. Burkett got out of his van.
“Having trouble there, mister?”
“Huh?” the old man wheezed, turning around. “Oh ... yes, I dropped some stuff. Can’t seem to reach those cans beneath the car. Bum back. Korea.”
“I’ll help ya.”
“Bless you, young fella.”
Burkett knelt down, grabbed a can and handed it out to the old man.
“Thank you. You’re very kind. Can you reach that Starkist Tuna behind the tire? Minerva, that’s my wife, woman loves her Starkist.”
“No problem.” Burkett reached in and rolled the can into his fingers. He handed it up to the old man.
“Thanks again, young fella.”
“Sure thing.”
As Burkett inched back out from under the car, he felt a sharp pain in his neck. Suddenly his head snapped back hard and he couldn’t breathe.
Reaching up, he felt a thin wire around his neck. The old bastard was strangling him! Burkett managed to wedge the tip of his little finger under the wire and pulled. But the wire cut deep.
Razor wire! Jesus...!
The old man pulled harder.
Something warm trickled down Burkett’s neck and he smelled the coppery scent of his own blood. His lungs screamed for air as the razor wire cut down to the bone. His head felt like it would explode.
The old man jerked the wire hard twice, and Burkett watched the tip of his little finger fall down into the pool of milk, turning it pink. He stared at his severed finger, knowing there was nothing he could do, knowing he was bleeding to death in Section C3 of a goddamned parking lot of a shopping mall....
“Why?” Burkett gasped at his attacker.
The old man took off his tinted glasses and smiled.
“No use crying over spilled milk, Harry!” Eugene P. Smith said, yanking tighter.
Sixty Four
Madison and Kevin sat on his small two-seat sofa watching the Yankees-Red Sox game on television. They’d been watching it since a taxi brought her back from meeting with Professor Tom Maynard in his Newark apartment. She felt hopeful that tomorrow morning Maynard would identify a photo of Karla Rasmussen as the woman he’d known as Blanchectar sixteen years ago.
Madison also felt safe, thanks to Officer Vincent on guard downstairs in the lobby.
And now that the bulldozer in the alley had stopped working, they could actually hear the baseball announcer.
Which, of course, didn’t stop Kevin from lifting his Louisville Slugger up to his lips like a microphone and doing the play-by-play. “Yes sports fans, it’s the bottom of the ninth at Fenway, Yankees ahead by two, Boston at bat, three men on, two outs, two strikes. The Yanks are just one strike away from chalking up another big win in Boston.”
“Not so fast, mister,” she said.
“It’s over. Boston hasn’t got a prayer.”
“Oh yeah? They’ve got a home-run slugger at bat, thirty-seven thousand fans cheering him on, and they’re playing in Fenway!”
“Won’t matter.”
“Why?”
“Because my bat performs miracles!” He made the Sign of the Cross with it over the TV.
She smiled as the Yankees pitcher fired a fastball right down the middle of the plate. The big, muscular batter uncoiled like a cobra, and when she saw the fat part of the bat whack the ball, she knew! Grinning and laughing out loud, she watched the ball soar up over the Green Monster.
“Argh!” Kevin groaned. “The agony of defeat!”
“What’s wrong with your feet?” she asked.
He laughed. “Enough sports!” He zapped to another channel where a surgeon was prying off a chunk of human skull, then to a Weed-Whacker commercial, then to an old romantic movie that she loved staring Greer Garson and Robert Donat.
“Goodbye Mr. Chips,” Kevin said. “I always liked this movie.”
“Wow – a manly man who likes sentimental movies?”
“Don’t tell the guys.”
“The guys I know would rather watch Goodbye Godzilla.”
“Me, too, sometimes.”
They settled in with the movie and she soon found herself swept into the romantic saga of Mr. Chips at a charming English school and the tearful scene of Mrs. Chips dying in childbirth. During a commercial, she stared out at the headlights flickering between the girders of the Triborough Bridge. The flickering was hypnotic. Another sip of wine made her yawn. Soon, she found herself nodding off and snapping awake. She noticed Kevin’s eyelids were also drooping. Within seconds, she dozed off again....
CLINK!
Her eyes shot open at the sound of metal. She focused on the fire escape door at the end of the room. Behind the door’s window curtain, she saw a large shadow move. Was it a passing cloud? A man?
The shadow moved again ...
A man! Tall!
She nudged Kevin awake and pointed to the fire escape door. He grabbed his Louisville Slugger, slid off the sofa and crouched beside the door.
Something jiggled into the key slot.
Madison’s heart pounded. As she turned to go tell Officer Vincent, the door creaked open an inch and she ducked behind the sofa.
Slowly, the door swung open, and she saw the tall dark shape of Eugene P. Smith backlit by moonlight. He held a gun with a silencer. Squinting into the dark room, he looked around.
Then he stepped inside.
Kevin swung the bat.
But Smith sensed it coming and jerked back.
The bat hit his gun, causing it to fire. The bullet ripped into the wooden floor three inches from Madison.
Before Smith could regain control of his gun, Kevin swung the bat again, knocking Smith back outside onto the fire escape.
Smith started to raise the gun.
But Kevin batted it from his hand, sending the weapon clanging down the iron stairs into the alley below.
Madison’s sighed in relief – then screamed as Smith slashed open Kevin’s shoulder with a long knife, sending a red streak of blood down his sleeve.
Smith swung the knife toward Kevin’s chest....
But Kevin ducked to the side, then slammed into Smith’s
shoulder, knocking the man back against the fire escape railing.
As Smith lunged with the knife again, Kevin’s bat blocked it, causing the blade to twist back toward the assassin ... but before Smith could turn it back, Kevin grabbed the handle and shoved the blade deep into Smith’s eye.
Smith froze – then began shrieking and flailing his arms....
He staggered backward, the knife still lodged in his eye. His shoe caught on the metal grating and he flipped over the railing and fell into the alley three stories below.
Seconds later, Madison heard a loud THUD!
Then, behind her, the apartment door banged open. She turned and saw Officer Vincent, his weapon drawn, running toward them. She pointed toward the alley below.
They all looked down over the railing. Madison couldn’t believe what she saw: Smith had impaled himself on the teeth of the bulldozer shovel. The blood-drenched teeth protruded up through his chest, neck, and base of his skull.
Madison and Kevin followed Vincent downstairs. In the alley, they ran around the construction barriers and bulldozer to Smith’s body. His eyes were locked open, unblinking, his neck twisted at an grotesque angle. Blood was pooling in the bulldozer shovel bucket.
Vincent checked for a pulse, shook his head, but phoned EMT anyway.
He reached into Smith’s blood-soaked pocket and pulled out a wallet. He flipped it open and looked at a VISA card. “Meet Eugene P. Smith.”
“We’ve met,” Madison said.
Officer Vincent reached into Smith’s other vest pocket, came out with a small address booklet and handed it to Kevin. “Maybe you’ll recognize a name.”
Kevin began flipping through the pages as Madison read over his shoulder. She didn’t recall any names, but Kevin suddenly stuck his finger on one.
“Harry Burkett!”
“Who’s he?” she asked.
“A computer guy at our agency. He oversees our in-house Intranet system. Computer-savvy, but weird.”
“Something else is weird,” Officer Vincent said.
“What?” she asked.
“A guy named Burkett got whacked tonight in Jersey. Razor wire around his neck. Bled out in the parking lot of the Westwinds Mall.”
“Harry Burkett?” Kevin asked.
“Yeah. That’s the name.”