“You don’t know shit,” Montrock said. “You haven’t got—”
Clay held up his hand, silencing the security chief. He turned back to Tolliver. “What do you know?”
“Everything.”
Kramer spoke up. “He’s just stalling, trying to stay alive. Come on—let’s get rid of him.”
“No,” Clay said. “I want to hear this. Go ahead, Lieutenant. Tell us what you know, or what you think you do.”
Ben looked at them gaping at him like witnesses to an execution. If he was to have any chance, he had to keep this going. “You’ve been making huge profits from illegal trading. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Part of the money goes to the holding company, Cunningham Mining, which then invests some of it in your various deals, including real estate through Cunningham Ventures. The rest you’ve been laundering through Tomas Aguila’s account in the Banco Cafetero in Panama. Aguila brings the money back into the States in cash, turns it over to the Kraut here. Then it’s used for payoffs. You bribe everybody from city commissioners and judges to congressmen. Anybody who has political influence, you buy them. Including prosecutors in federal agencies and in the DA’s office, which is why you’ve never been indicted. And no one can trace a nickel of it, because it’s all in cash.”
They stared at him in icy silence.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Partly,” Cunningham said. “But that wasn’t a bad guess. Maybe you’re not as dumb as I thought.”
“Maybe not, but I should have gotten it a long time ago. You even laid it out for me. ‘Money begets power; power begets money.’ The Cunningham family maxim. What it really means is how you people use corruption. How you got rich, and how you stay rich.”
“That’s true enough,” Clay said. “But you won’t live to tell it to anyone else.”
“I also know what happened to the senator,” Ben said. “And how you were conned.”
“Conned?”
“Sure. You thought you were being clever, concocting a cover story around Ardis Merritt. Thought you were using her. But in fact, she was using you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Jessica Silk killed him with what he thought was a love toy. She shoved an electric prod up his ass and shocked his prostate. He thought he’d be getting a big thrill, that he’d get off like never before. He got off all right. For good. But of course that’s not what Jessica told you, was it?”
Clay frowned. “Where did you get this?”
“I’ll tell you about that later. But come on, admit it. You were had, weren’t you?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? Jessica and Ardis were working together, but it was Ardis’s idea. Her term at the foundation was coming to an end and she was worried. So she laid out a plan that would make them both a pile of money, and Jessica went for it. Their scheme was to kill the old man but make it look as if he’d died from a heart attack while he was screwing Jessica. They figured you’d pay a bundle to have them keep their mouths shut, avoid a scandal. And they were right.”
“Jesus,” Ingrid said. “Those bitches.”
“Shut up,” Clay said to her. “He’s just grabbing at straws.”
“Am I? Let me tell you some more. Jessica was supposed to call in Ardis as soon as the senator was dead. But before she did, Jessica did something else.”
“Which was?”
“She went through his desk. It was too good an opportunity to pass up, even with him lying dead a few feet away. What she found was a collection of photographs. Pictures of you, Clay, engaging in your favorite sport. Or maybe I should say the family sport.”
“Don’t listen to this shit,” Montrock said.
Clay waved a hand. “Let him finish.”
Ben went on: “She knew what she had could be sold for a fortune, one way or another. So she tucked the photos away in her case, and after that she brought in Ardis. Then they went into their hysterical act, calling security and the police, and the family. You and Ingrid came over, and it went just the way they’d planned it. Jessica said the old man was fucking her and he keeled over. You bought it, of course. Promised them a payoff for putting out a cover story. They were to claim they were both there while the senator was being interviewed and that he’d suddenly dropped dead.”
Clay’s face reddened. “Jesus Christ.”
“The payoff was in cash, of course. How much was it? Couple million each? More? And on top of that, you agreed to give Ardis a cushy new job, right? Head of the Brentwood Treatment Center. Then when your tame doctor arrived, he did what all your other employees do. He saluted and did as he was told. Signed the death certificate, stating the cause as a coronary thrombosis. He might even have believed it, because heart failure as the result of an electric shock is one of the hardest causes of death to determine, even with a postmortem. But you weren’t worried about an autopsy, either, thanks to Dr. Phelps.”
“Not bad,” Clay said. “But nothing anybody can prove.”
“I told you,” Ben replied, “I can prove every bit of it. Including where the photographs came from. They were taken with the fancy video equipment the senator had installed everywhere. But you didn’t realize the system was being used to spy on you, did you? The old man knew all about what you were doing, because he watched. He had you on tape, and in the stills, courtesy of your security chief. Now who’s an asshole?”
“That’s a bunch of fucking lies,” Montrock said.
“What else?” Clay asked.
“Jessica tried to blackmail you with the photos. So you sent Orcus to kill her. That’s right—Orcus. Your code name for your assassin, taken from Roman mythology. Orcus the killer, the agent of death. Who at the moment is standing right beside you. Only most of the time, he calls himself Evan Montrock.”
The security man sneered. “Wrong again, dickhead.”
“You made it look like a suicide,” Ben said to him. “First you raped her and then you threw her off her terrace. Matter of fact, there’ve been a number of accidental deaths among people who’ve crossed the Cunninghams.”
Ben strained against the ropes and they gave a little. “Like that poor kid who supposedly hanged herself,” he said, “the patient at Brentwood, Jan Demarest. She was your playmate, wasn’t she, Clay? And when you gave her that last beating, you thought she was dead. But somehow she survived. So you had the foundation pay the bills, figuring she’d never give you any trouble, not in the state she was in. And you’d know what was going on with her.”
Ingrid looked at her brother. “I warned you, didn’t I? Told you we should have eliminated her sooner. I even ordered it done. And it took that son of a bitch forever to get around to it.”
Clay’s voice grated: “Will you shut the fuck up?”
“Another suicide,” Ben said. “That was Orcus’s work as well, wasn’t it? And why did it happen? Because to your surprise, Jan was beginning to show signs of recovery. That meant she just might recall what had been done to her—and who had done it.”
Clay Cunningham was eyeing him. “You know something, Lieutenant? I was serious when I told you we had a place for you. You would’ve had a better life than anything you could have hoped for as a cop. But now you’re not going to have any life at all. You’ll be gone, and your girlfriend with you. And there won’t be a scrap of evidence you were ever here.”
Montrock grinned, the light shining on his naked skull. “Look out the window.”
Ben turned his head. A station wagon was parked near the house, and behind it was his blue Taurus.
“We knew you’d hidden your car someplace, when we took your keys,” Montrock said. “Wasn’t hard to find. Now it goes to the same place you’re going. In the Atlantic.”
“They’ll trace me,” Tolliver said. “I was at Brentwood earlier. A lot of people saw me.”
This time, Clay laughed out loud. “There’ll be a flurry of activity, Lieutenant—for a day or so. But those people you’re talking about will
tend to be confused. Might even develop amnesia.”
Kramer was impatient. “Come on, let’s get it done.”
“Just one more minute,” Clay said. He turned to Ben. “You almost had it right. I’ll give you credit for that much. Except that you screwed up your operatives here and there.”
Ben looked at him. “My what?”
“You got the people wrong, Lieutenant.”
“What does that mean?”
Clay beckoned to the shadowy figures on the far side of the room. One of them approached and the others made way for him. He was a big man, thick-bodied and heavy, wearing a topcoat and a felt hat, dark glasses obscuring most of his features.
“Say hello to Orcus, Lieutenant,” Clay said.
The big man took off the hat and glasses and bent closer to Ben, grinning.
Tolliver found himself looking into the face of Detective Jack Mulloy.
85
Ben was speechless. He stared at the rogue cop, his senses reeling.
Mulloy smirked. “You know what your real problem is, Tolliver? You haven’t caught up with the rest of the world. Just about everybody’s got something going nowadays, except for a few cement-heads like you. Should’ve got smart, saved yourself a lot of trouble.”
“Come on,” Kramer said. “Get him out of here.”
Ben ignored him, turning to Clay Cunningham. “This was how you beat the DA’s investigation, wasn’t it?”
Cunningham smiled. “Of course. I told you how you had a few things mixed up. Detective Mulloy has been very useful to us. He’s a much more practical man than you are, Lieutenant.”
“Sure. You never had to worry about the prosecutors, because this slug was tipping you to everything that was going on. Whatever Shackley tried, you were always one jump ahead. Then when I was assigned, Mulloy must have thought I was a gift from heaven. That gave him a direct line on what I was doing, as well. Made him just that much more valuable to you.”
“Quite true.”
“Then if you and Ingrid wanted to shut somebody up for good, you had him do it for you. Your last resort was Orcus—Jack Mulloy.”
Cunningham shrugged. “Mulloy’s right about one thing, Lieutenant. Everybody’s for sale—that’s the way things work. You’re the one who’s out of step. So when once in a while we run across a fool like you, we take care of it. The way we’re going to take care of you now.”
“This one’s mine,” Montrock said.
Cunningham nodded. “Go ahead. Do it.”
The security chief reached into his jacket pocket and took out a switchblade. “With pleasure.”
Tolliver saw the blade snap out of the handle, six inches of gleaming steel. Montrock held up the knife, a sadistic smile twisting the corners of his mouth. He leaned closer, waving the blade. “Watch, asshole, while I cut your throat. You get to see yourself bleed to death.”
Ben looked at him. “Anxious to get it done, aren’t you? Before I tell your bosses what you’ve been up to.”
Montrock gripped the knife and aimed for Tolliver’s jugular. “Die, you fucker.”
“Hold it,” Clay said. And then to Ben, he said, “What are you saying?”
“How do you think I saw those photographs—the ones of you playing your weird sex games with all your little chippies? And how did I know about Jessica and Ardis? I’ll tell you how. I saw a videotape of your old man dying, showing me exactly what they did to him. And I saw the photos in the same place—in Montrock’s room.”
“It’s all crap,” Montrock snarled. “He’s just—”
“Shut your mouth,” Clay said to him.
“Then after Mulloy killed Jessica,” Ben went on, “he brought the case from her apartment and turned it over to Montrock, didn’t he? And I’ll bet you told Montrock to destroy it, right? The case and the photos. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he kept building his stash, figuring he could blackmail you himself later on.”
Clay looked at the security man. “What about it?”
“Hell, I can explain everything,” Montrock said.
“Explain this, then,” Ben said. “Why is the case in your room now, with the photos in it? And what about all those videotapes that you had locked up in your desk? You not only have the one that shows Jessica shooting sparks up the senator’s ass; you have a whole collection in there. What’s on those, Montrock? Maybe they’re porn flicks? Featuring Clay Cunningham?”
Montrock lunged with the knife, but Cunningham and Mulloy blocked his way. Montrock’s security guards moved forward, seeming uncertain whether to protect their chief.
“You want to hear more?” Ben said to Clay. “Then let me ask you this. What happened to the manuscript Jessica was writing, and where is it now? You know what I think? I think your buddy Mulloy here kept it. So he could do a little blackmailing of his own.”
Mulloy’s mouth fell open. “He’s full of shit. I never saw a manuscript.”
Ben pressed it. “The hell you didn’t. You took it out of her apartment, after you killed her. Probably took her computer disks too, didn’t you? Figured all her material’d be plenty valuable when the time came.”
Sweat popped out on Mulloy’s face. He backed away, turning toward the door.
“Stop him!” Clay snapped.
This time, the guards reacted fast. Both men jumped on him, holding his arms, struggling to restrain him.
Mulloy let out a roar of rage. He grappled with his attackers, slugging one, kneeing the other in the crotch. One of them slammed him in the head with the barrel of an Uzi, but the blow only staggered him.
Montrock got into it as well, obviously eager to have the heat directed away from him. He grabbed Mulloy’s wrist with one hand, swung the knife with the other. The detective howled as the blade sliced into his flesh, opening a gaping wound from hairline to jaw.
Blood pouring from his face, Mulloy pulled a police revolver from his pocket and shot Montrock in the belly. The security chief doubled over, and Mulloy shot him again, putting this one in the top of his bald head.
Kramer drew a gun of his own as Ingrid threw herself to the floor and covered her head with her arms. Cunningham pointed at Mulloy, yelling to the guards to kill him.
Now, Ben thought. Dragging the chair behind him, he kicked over the table with the lamp on it. The lamp shattered with a crash and the room was blacked out.
Summoning all his strength, he strained against the bonds holding his wrists. One of the submachine guns ripped off a burst, which was answered by pistol shots. The roar of gunfire was deafening, muzzle blasts flashing in the room like strobe lights.
Tolliver tore his hands free and scrambled for the door. Behind him, he could hear one of the guards screaming for somebody to turn on the fucking lights. More shots were fired.
Ben got as far as the veranda, when a bullet ticked his hip. He hit the floor and rolled over, clawing the Smith from its ankle holster.
A man appeared in the doorway, holding a pistol in both hands. The man stepped forward. In the semidarkness, Ben saw it was Clay Cunningham.
Standing over him, Cunningham said, “You son of a bitch. You think I’d let you out of this alive? You’re less than dirt, Tolliver. Nothing but a cheap, ignorant cop.” There was an oily click as the weapon was cocked.
Ben shot him in the chest. The slug knocked Cunningham backward, slamming him into the wall behind him, a dark stain spreading on his shirtfront, his mouth hanging open in astonishment. He made one more attempt to raise the pistol, and Ben shot him again. He slid down the wall, the expression frozen on his face.
Tolliver got to his feet and went down the steps, running to the rear of the house, where the Taurus was parked. He jumped into the driver’s seat and reached for the ignition key.
It wasn’t there.
“Oh shit,” he said. “Oh sweet shit.”
86
Shelley was growing drowsy. She no longer felt as cold as she had earlier, and the pain in her head had subsided. It was still there, an incessa
nt pounding that matched the rhythm of her heartbeats, but now it didn’t seem to matter.
In fact, nothing did. The bruises on her elbows and knees, she could hardly feel at all. And the terrible claustrophobia, the horrifying comprehension that she’d been buried alive, had gradually seeped away, leaving in its place a sense of hopeless resignation. It was as if she was becoming detached from physical sensations, her mind gradually moving outside her body. Was this what it was like to die?
If it was, it wasn’t nearly so harrowing as she would have imagined. Instead, she was experiencing only a feeling of sadness as she realized what it meant to be trapped here, what it meant to confront the end of her life. She’d never again enjoy the sunshine on a summer’s day, never smell the fresh air after a spring rain.
And that was a lot of poetic crap, wasn’t it?
And yet … the awful part was that it was real. She’d never again have any of those experiences.
Even more sorrowful, her dreams were not to come true; there would be no triumphant success somewhere down the road in her career, no marriage to a man she loved, no kids, no home in the country. She’d never have the things she’d almost taken for granted would someday be hers. Not now, not ever.
But goddamn it—she couldn’t let this happen. She couldn’t! Again she kicked and flailed, beating her fists and her feet against the walls of the tiny prison, screaming until her throat was raw.
And then she fell back, sobbing.
She thought of Ben, and that made it all even worse. She wished she could tell him she loved him.
But that wasn’t to be, either.
It was becoming increasingly hard to breathe. She gulped air but couldn’t get enough oxygen to supply what her lungs were demanding. Pinpoints of light appeared in front of her eyes and the burning sensation in her throat made her desperately want a drink of water.
Better not to think of that. Better to will her mind once more to leave her body, to leave the pain behind—to deaden the mental anguish, as well as the physical.
She forced herself to relax totally, and began to slip away.
Flesh and Blood Page 38