by Adam Sommers
All Eric could do was go about his life. He appeared on Friday morning at work, ready to resume the follow-ups on his stories while not so casually telling Mitch, Carrie, Debbie Harrison and anyone else who wandered by about his hot new set of wheels.
Nothing happened Friday. Jayne wasn’t even in the building. Someone said she went to Florida for the weekend. Nothing happened Monday, although Eric could see the light on in her office and the shadows of bodies moving. Nothing happened Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. An entire week of total silence. Friday evening he said goodbye to everyone, went out with Mitch to the Hawk and Cove for beers. Saturday was another nerve-racking blank as he padded around the apartment waiting and hoping for some contact.
He called Carrie, who was relieved things seemed to be getting back to normal, and she insisted on taking him out to dinner. The meal was nothing fancy, just veal parmigiana sandwiches and Coke at a place near Eric’s, but as they ate and chatted, Carrie was thinking of ways the evening could turn into something more. She held his hand at the table and rubbed his leg with her foot. Eric recognized it for what it was, an invitation, but he felt compelled to turn it down because as far as he knew Carrie was still Warren Zalinsky’s girlfriend. At the end of the night, he gave Carrie a quick kiss and bolted from her car, much to her disappointment.
The next morning, Sunday, at ten, the doorbell rang. A perky young woman in a beige business suit was there.
“Yes?”
“Good morning, sir. I’m looking for Eric Berger?”
“What’s this, another car?” Eric said to cover his surprise.
“Excuse me?” said the woman, confused.
“Nothing, an inside joke,” Eric smiled. “What are you selling?”
“I’m not selling anything, sir. I’m from Capital Messenger.”
“Okay, and what exactly is Capital Messenger?”
“It’s an elite service for discreet executive communication.” She handed Eric a card on which it said those exact words in gold lettering on a charcoal-gray background.
“Uh…” Eric had no idea what to say.
“Can you confirm that you are Eric Berger?”
“Yes, I confirm I’m Eric. What is it?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I have to ask for some identification.”
The woman seemed sincere and not particularly crazy, so Eric was polite. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what this is, but whatever you want, I’m not interested,” and he went to close the door.
“It’s from Jayne Grayman.”
That stopped Eric cold and changed his attitude entirely. Adrenaline surged through his belly and blood thumped in his chest as he said as calmly as he could, “Please wait right here” before hurrying off to find his wallet. A moment later he showed the woman his driver’s license and took the envelope.
It shook a little as he held it in his hand afraid to tear it open. Jayne’s message could be anything—dismissal, accusation, threat. He had no idea what she was thinking. Time ticked away. Five seconds. Ten seconds. The messenger girl stood there and Eric wondered why she didn’t just leave. “Thank you,” he said but really meant, “You can go now.”
“I’m told to wait for a response,” she said professionally.
“Oh, I see.” Reluctantly, he opened the flap to the five-inch-by-five-inch envelope. Inside was a single, unfolded sheet of thick stationery with a slight scallop to the edges. Not likely to be a dismissal, Eric thought as he looked down.
“How’s it going?” was all it said in neat blue handwriting.
Just those three words. He turned it over to look on the back, which was completely blank, then flipped it to the front, where it still said “How’s it going?” Maybe there’s something else in the envelope, he thought, but it was empty. He tore the envelop apart to see if there was something secretly written on the inside of it. Nothing.
How weird, thought Eric.
“I have other stops,” the messenger offered as a nudge, interrupting his thoughts.
“Okay,” said Eric, but he did not want to rush. If he sounded too cold he’d turn her off, but if he gushed he feared she would detect bullshit. Her note to him had been about as short as it could be and Eric decided it would be best to respond in kind. He wrote: “I’m fine. Thanks for the car.” As he was about to give it back to the lady messenger, a sudden idea flickered and he quickly added “I love it.” He figured/hoped she’d read into that last bit.
Chapter 44
Jayne Grayman had spent the past few days watching on security video as Eric spun the Maxima into the parking lot and showed off by bringing it to a skidding stop far away from where other cars were parked. “That’s right, baby,” she had muttered from behind her desk in the posh office, “no one’s going to ding up your new toy.”
Now, at home, she read the note Eric had sent back and decided it was time to end the games. She dialed and he picked it up on the first ring.
“It’s Jayne.”
Eric tingled with joy. “Wow, that was fast.”
“We should talk.”
“Absolutely,” Eric answered enthusiastically. “I can drop by your office tomorrow?”
“No,” she cut him off. “My house tomorrow at eight.”
Eric hesitated to say anything back. He was afraid he’d already sounded much too eager and he didn’t want to tip his hand. The silence lasted a few seconds, then Jayne spat, “Eric, don’t play coy. It’s not your strong suit. I know what you like.”
Oh, you bitch, thought Eric. You have no idea what I like. But into the phone he said, “I don’t…”
“Eight o’clock tomorrow.” And she hung up.
When Eric Berger went bluefishing with his friends he did it for the sport, to see how big a fish he could land on the lightest possible tackle. He gave the fish every advantage to escape, snap the line, bite through it with its tiny razor-sharp teeth. Many of his lures were lost; many big fish got away, but when he got a fifteen-pounder on six-pound test it was a real feeling of accomplishment. In addition, if he caught a small fish, got it over the railing and had it flopping on the deck, he’d look to see if he could free it without causing too much damage. Whenever possible, he’d throw the fish back into the sea—often to the howls of the other guys fishing on the boat.
There would be no such mercy for Jayne Penelope Grayman. The fish was well-hooked; all he had to do was bring her up, slit open her belly and let the gulls fight over her guts.
Chapter 45
The way Warren Zalinsky described the set-up, he had put two cameras in the bedroom, two in the living room and one in the kitchen just in case. Total cost: Three-hundred-fifty dollars. It was strictly off-the-shelf, Radio Shack stuff. As the salesman had described it, more or less glorified baby monitors.
The broadcast range was only one hundred yards, but that was more than he needed. Eric would be in the house. Zalinsky would be in his car outside the front door.
Eric rang the bell.
From somewhere in the recesses of the sprawling home he heard her bellow, “Just come in, it’s open.”
He cast a very slight backward glance at Warren and offered an even more discreet thumbs up. He didn’t want to do more fearing she’d be watching on video. Warren was slunk down low so no one could see him in the car. He would have no trouble getting in the house because Eric was going to leave the door open. And besides, he had a key.
“Upstairs!” she commanded.
Without a word, he walked steadily up the plush, carpeted stairs, his heart beating faster, not knowing what to expect. In the car, Zalinsky was listening.
The door to her room, the same one he was in before, was ajar.
“Come in.” She was dressed casually, in a T-shirt and baggy pants, a little like the Knights of Arabia, but there was nothing at all sexy about her face, her chin, her black eyes, her lank hair, a
nd her bulky body.
All business: “Take off your clothes.”
“I’m not here for that.”
“Who are you kidding? Of course you are.”
“You really think I like being drugged and face-fucked?”
“And regular dick-fucked too, sweetie, and playing in your cute little ass, in case you didn’t know,” she smiled. “And if you didn’t come back for more, then why are you here?”
Eric forced himself to dismiss the fact that she confirmed his worst fears because the last thing he wanted at the moment was to give her any satisfaction or victory. Instead, he shifted to a more innocuous element of the attack. “Tell me what it was you used to drug me. I want to know if I have any health risk. I didn’t want to have that conversation on the phone or in your office.”
“You have nothing to worry about. It’s completely safe.”
“Just your word on that isn’t going to do it.”
“They use it on dogs at the vets when they do operations.”
“You gave me dog tranquilizer?!”
“Well, you’re a dog, aren’t you?”
Eric had to replay that in his mind twice before he believed he actually heard her say those words. “No, Ms. Grayman, I am not a dog. I am a person. See, two legs, two arms.”
“Bark like a dog!”
“Listen, crazy lady. I’m not barking for you or anyone.”
“I said bark, goddamn it!”
“Uh, that is going to be a ‘no,’ ” Eric let out a derisive chuckle.
“Oh, you want to play tough guy. I get it. Well, I can play that, too. I like it.”
She opened a drawer in the wall behind her bed, displaying an assortment of ropes and other restraints and some truly bizarre-looking gadgets.
Eric wanted a little more of her crazy on Warren Zalinsky’s tape, so he played along by not reacting. He neither shrank from her nor moved toward her, and he did not change the expression on his face.
“Yes, I figured you’d like that,” Jayne said and started to take items out of their cubbies.
Eric undid a button on his shirt, just one, to show things were going her way, although not as she had originally expected.
The change in Jayne Grayman was dramatic. She dropped all pretense of being a rational person, and burning desire made her black eyes glisten. “Get on the bed,” she ordered, breathing heavily and starting to pull off her T-shirt.
“Come on up, Warren.”
“Warren? Who’s Warren?” Jayne asked, confused. It was such a non sequitur that she laughed a distracted laugh. “Do I look like a Warren? Is he your boyfriend? I didn’t know you went that way, but whatever. Get your shirt off. I don’t have all day.”
The bedroom door swung all the way open. Filling the door frame was the lanky Warren Zalinsky. Smiling. In one hand he held what looked like a pack of playing cards; in the other, he had a canvas satchel.
“Warren?”
“It’s over, Jayne.”
“What are you talking about? Get the hell out of here. I don’t want you now. I have company.” But then she thought, oh, wait, maybe that’s what’s going on.
Warren had come in calm and collected, but on seeing Jayne with her sex toys and leering at Eric he felt an unexpected surge of jealousy. That evaporated with the next words from Jayne’s mouth.
“You wanted to play, too, Warren?” she said, getting her bearings and feeling the cold grip of control slide back into her hand. “It’s okay. You’re a good dog. You can play too. He can play, right Eric? Is that why you brought your friend?”
Warren just shook his head in disbelief. “You evil, sick, selfish bitch.”
“Warren! Bad dog!”
“I loved you right from the beginning. But you knew that. You know that.”
“Who gives a shit?” she interrupted. “Love? What the hell is love?”
“There’s something wrong with you, Jayne, some gene that makes you unable to experience any human feeling other than the satisfaction you get from domination and cruelty. I’m not having my daughter grow up with that.”
He opened the satchel and felt for the custody papers.
Jayne, not knowing what might come out of the satchel, took a step back toward her night table where she keep a little General Arms .32. When she saw the papers emerge, she visibly relaxed.
“You have to sign here and here, and Brielle is mine, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Why would I do something that stupid?”
Warren held up the thing that looked like a pack of cards and pressed “play.” The last few minutes, including her entire conversation with Eric, unfolded.
“You taped me? You fucking little twat. You fucking taped me!” She turned to Eric. “You were in on this?”
“Could be,” he said, relishing the moment.
She reached for him, trying to tear off his shirt to expose the wire she believed was hidden underneath. But Warren stepped in and grabbed her hand. “It’s not on him, Jayne. It’s here.” He showed her the tiny camera that looked like a bookend on her shelf. “It’s been on the whole time.”
“Give me that!” She lunged hard for it.
Warren Zalinsky let her grab it. “Doesn’t matter. There’s another recorder in the car. It’s copied over.”
Jayne crouched, cornered and ready to fight. But, almost as suddenly, it was gone. Her body relaxed even as her mind raced ahead. “How much will it take?”
“How much?”
“How much do you need to destroy that and the copies?”
“Jayne,” Warren said patiently, “I don’t want a dime. All you have to do is sign these papers where indicated, and you can have it all.”
Eric had stayed quiet, letting them hash it out.
“And, if I don’t sign? If I keep Brielle?”
“YOU DIDN’T WANT HER IN THE FIRST PLACE!” Warren exploded. “YOU DON’T WANT HER NOW! You never spend any time with her. It’s all Hester and that other lady, her sitter. You are supposed to be her mother, for Christ’s sake, and you hate her almost as much as you hate me. And the only reason you hate me so much is because I love you, or I once did, or thought I did. It makes you sick because you pretend to be a stone-cold bitch born without a soul, but I touched something in you, that little piece of humanity that you somehow can’t quite kill. Just let her go, Jayne. Let us go.”
“It does make me sick,” she admitted. “It disgusts me. You disgust me. You and your needy little emotions.”
The truth was, she’d be happy to let him go, and the little brat, too, for that matter. But what gnawed at her guts was that it would be all on his terms. He had pushed her to a point where she had to do what he wanted rather than the other way around.
Warren saw the hesitation. “Jayne,” he said more softly, almost sympathetically, “If you don’t sign, this is on the news at six tomorrow. It’s on CNN. It’s on every news channel from here to Timbuktu. Just sign it and get on with whatever it is you call your life.”
She still had the gun. She thought: I could kill them both and make it look like they were intruders. It could work, but she needed more time to weigh the idea, consider how to do it and what the risks were. There were so many variables. Stalling, she turned to Eric: “And you, what is it that you want? You want money? I can write a big check and send you packing.”
“No,” Eric countered. “I do not want your money. I already saw how well that worked out for Arnold McNeill. Shame about his house, by the way, it was a really nice place.”
Jayne turned beet red, but held her tongue.
“What I want is to see you crawl out of the newsroom back into the sewer you slithered out of.”
“You’re still driving my car, baby,” she mocked.
Eric scoffed, “That thing’s going to be floating in the Potomac by this time tomorro
w.”
That was all Jayne could take. She dove across the bed for the little revolver, but it was all the way on the other side of the large piece of furniture forcing her to half swim and crawl across the fluffy covers as she tried to get to the nightstand. Those three or four seconds were more than enough for Zalinsky and Eric to react. Warren, a big guy, grabbed her by the ankle and hauled her toward him even though she kicked furiously with her other foot.
“In the nightstand, Eric. There’s a gun.”
“Gun!”
“Yes,” Warren said, as he rolled Jayne Grayman onto her belly and put his knee into the small of her back, effectively using his weight to pin her to the mattress.
Eric quickly found the weapon.
“In the front, pull out that pin.”
Eric did it. “Now what?”
“Turn it sideways.”
Eric tipped it over and the cylinder fell open.
“Shake out the bullets.”
The five rounds slipped out and rolled on the floor.
Warren grabbed a big handful of Jayne’s hair from behind and she whinnied in pain. “You’re hurting me.” She reached up, but there was no real way she could get at Warren since he had pulled her into a sitting position and was directly behind her on the bed. No matter how she squirmed and twisted, Warren held fast, pulling her hair tighter when she clawed at his wrists.
Eric watched them wrestle, not sure of what to do. He figured if it looked like Warren needed help he’d jump in, but Warren, literally, seemed to have things well in hand.
As she thrashed against Warren’s arms and body Jayne suddenly realized this had never happened before. No man had ever physically restrained her, hit her or gotten the better of her in any way. Since she was a little girl, it had always been the other way around. And, through her anger and hatred, she was shocked to find herself sexually aroused. That arousal opened something in her.
Eric saw the change as she suddenly stopped fighting and bent her big body forward, folding herself over on her lap in a kind of submission to her sometime lover. Warren did not trust her nearly enough to let go and continued holding her hair, but as she began to turn toward him, he eased up just enough so that she could look him in the face. She had an expression that made him remember their first days together, when she was nice and he scored exclusives that they celebrated and laughed about.