Velvet Mafia

by Lydia L Watts

  “He was very interested in knowing where you came from, who your close associates were and where and how you acquired your wealth. He seems to think that someone is financing you and from what I gathered, if he can find out who that might be, he believes he can stop you.”

  Blake now knew Yeager was trying to put two and two together. Yeager needed to find out how he had gotten the picture that linked him to the Velvet Mafia. And in typical Guy Yeager fashion, he was assuming there was someone other than Blake with all the power.

  “It was amazing, Blake,” Eli continued. “He did exactly what you said he would do.”

  “I know. So how did he threaten you?”

  “He basically said that if I didn’t help him, I would be looking over my shoulder when I go to temple. I guess he thought that since my last name is Edelstein, I am Jewish and a practicing Jew at that. I don’t know what you are up to, Blake, but one thing is for sure: I don’t appreciate being threatened. So, whatever you have going on, you can count me in. I have until eight tomorrow morning to give him my answer.”

  “Okay,” Blake said. “I’ll contact you later this evening and let you know our next step.”

  The two men stood up from the table and embraced. Blake felt he could trust Eli. He had proven to be a loyal friend and a good business partner. Eli knew almost everything there was to know about Blake. Except for one thing: his true identity. Now Blake had to make a decision. One that might mean he would have to expose his secret.

  After his meeting with Eli, Blake was even more determined to prove that Guy Yeager was a murderer. But he still needed more time and more evidence to link him to Devon’s death. He simply couldn’t let history record that his brother had committed suicide. The truth had to be found and then told.

  Guy was clearly knee-deep in the murder of the woman in the picture, just as Devon had said. But, to prove it, he had to find out who the woman was. She had lost her life for a reason, so the question was why? To get the answers he needed, Blake had to call Charlie. If anyone could tell him what he needed to know about the woman in the picture, it would be Charlie Henderson.

  “Hey, Charlie! Thanks for taking my call,” Blake said, happy to hear the old man’s voice on the other end.

  “Blake,” Charlie said. “Blake Jones! Boy, I thought you had forgot all about me.”

  “How I could forget you, Charlie?” Blake said, laughing. “You’re the only man who loved my momma unconditionally, no matter how many times she said no to your advances.”

  “A lot!” Charlie said as they exchanged laughter. “Your mother would say no before I opened my mouth and then — after she saw that I was down for the count — offer me some of the sweetest lemon pie I ever tasted.”

  “Well, don’t forget Charlie: you were married at the time.” Blake chuckled.

  “I know, man, I know. I loved my wife from the moment we met to the day she died, but sometimes, if a man is lucky, he meets his other soul mate. My pappy used to tell me that, in a man’s lifetime, they have three soul mates. Kind of like the trinity — God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost? You follow?”

  “Sorry, Charlie, you lost me on that one,” Blake said.

  “What I was trying to say was that your momma was my third soul mate. She was last in line.”

  There was a pause on the phone and Blake could tell Charlie really had loved his mother and the stillness was an indication that he too still grieved her loss.

  “Your momma and I were close, Blake, really close. When you were away at school, your momma and me would sit and talk about you for hours. She was so proud of you and all that you had accomplished. She would always say that God had something special for you to do. I guess she was right,” he said proudly. “Look at you now. A financier, a political broker and a mover and shaker. You’re even on the cover of magazines! Posing! Boy, if your momma was here now … . Anyway, you didn’t call me for old time’s sake, so what can I help you with, son?”

  Before Blake answered the question, he said to his old friend something he never had said before. “She loved you, too, Charlie Henderson. She loved you, too.”

  Both men seized the opportunity to appreciate the sound of silence. It was a moment of truth and within that silence, a new bond was forming. They were two men who had loved the same woman and grieved the same loss, now both alone.

  And just as the silence appeared, it disappeared. “So, son, what do you need? I know you didn’t call me just to hear my voice, so what can I do for you?”

  Just like an elder in the church, Charlie knew how to keep the congregation moving.

  “Actually, Charlie, I’m doing research and the span of my research consists of the tri-state area. If it’s not too much trouble, I need to know about women murdered in the DC, Virginia and Maryland area. In about an hour, you should receive a package from a messenger service. In it is a picture. I first need to identify whether the photo and the act in the photo are real and second, the identities of the people in the photo.”

  “Boy, that’s a tall order,” Charlie said, sounding puzzled. “There might be thousands of women.”

  “Yeah, but I only want to know about the women who had their throats cut and it would have happened, say, in the last seven or eight years.”

  “Well, that does narrow it down some. So, when do you need it?”

  “Yesterday,” Blake said, leaving no doubt in Charlie’s mind that whatever he was working on was time sensitive.

  “Is this the number where I can reach you?”

  “Yes! This is my private line. Call me as soon as you find out anything. And Charlie, this is extremely sensitive. I know you’re a big shot and can tell somebody to do the legwork, but I need for this to be handled by you and you only.”

  “Okay, Blake. No problem. I’ll call you once I’m done.”

  “Thanks, Charlie. I owe you one.”

  “No, son. You don’t owe me anything. Remember that.”

  Blake hung up knowing his request would remain a secret and that if anyone could find what he was looking for, it would be Charlie. He had risen up through the FBI ranks, entering the bureau as a gopher and ending up being selected to participate in its Agent Integration program, created to remove the stain of embarrassment created by the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover. Blake was confident that Charlie, with his close to forty years of service, would provide him with the next lead. His only concern was how long it would take.

  Talking to Charlie made Blake think about his mother. He couldn’t get over Charlie’s fondness for her. Charlie would have been a good companion for his mother, if only she would have been willing to love again. Lying on his bed, Blake couldn’t help but wonder whether he would spend his life alone, especially now that everyone he loved was gone. That thought ushered him to sleep.

  “Hello,” Blake said, startled.

  “Blake, is this you? This is Charlie, Charlie Henderson.”

  “Hey, Charlie, yeah, this is me. I must have dozed off. What’s up?”

  “I found what you were looking for.”

  “Wow! Already? That was fast.”

  “Well, when you narrowed the search for women in the tri-state area who’d had their throats slit, it made my job easy.”

  “So, what did you find?”

  “In total, seven women had their throats slit within that seven- to eight-year period. Of those seven, six murders were solved. The perps and the victims were related and all were domestic. But the last one was a doozy.”

  “Oh? What made it so special?” Blake said, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

  “A lot of things,” Charlie replied. “First, she was found in an abandoned building. It took the homicide team an hour to find the place and the District isn’t that big. The building had to be over two hundred years old and it was situated in an unincorporated area. That in itself was surprising, considering the fact that it is the only unincorporated area in the city with a property deed that forbids the city to do anything with the l
and for — get this — two hundred years.”

  “That is interesting,” Blake said, now fully awake. “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “When the homicide team found the woman, she was lying on a gurney. The gurney had to be at least one hundred years old. It looked like something you would see in one of those old horror films. You know, the B-rated ones. The woman was completely naked and whoever had cut her throat had known exactly what he was doing. The coroner said she was cut in such a way that the injury itself would not have necessarily killed her, but if left untreated, she would have bled to death. She also had been tortured, but even though she was naked, there was no sign of rape and no DNA evidence was found on her or in the building. But whoever did this to her wanted us to think she had been assaulted.”

  “Why do you say that?” Blake said, leaning forward.

  “Her legs were stretched out so far on that gurney, she looked like she could have accommodated a train. And that’s not the end of it. They sewed her eyelids open.”

  Charlie went on to confirm Blake’s suspicions. Yes, the woman Charlie was describing was the woman in the picture. As he listened to Charlie relate the horrific nature of her assault, he knew without a doubt that Councilman Guy Yeager, clearly one of the culprits in the picture, would pay. But, before Blake could ask what he thought would be his last question, about whether he had uncovered anything about the men pictured, Charlie had more to tell.

  “And there’s more,” Charlie said. “The woman killed was Dr. Isabella Cardosa, one of the world’s top scientists. She had been reported missing by her friend three days before she was found on the gurney.”

  “Wait. So, was her friend the murderer?” Blake asked.

  “At first we thought so. Everything seemed to point in that direction. Her friend claimed that Cardosa had been missing for two days before she reported it. She said she didn’t report her missing the first two nights because she had not been gone forty-eight hours and she knew the police wouldn’t do anything. She also stated that since her friend was an adult and they were not related, it would seem logical to the police that maybe she had simply left on her own accord. So she decided to wait until the forty-eight hours had passed before reporting her missing.”

  “I still don’t get it, Charlie,” Blake said. “What is it I’m missing?”

  “Well, you’ll get it when you find out that the woman who took so long to file the report was Agent Winifred Theodora Alexander, the world-renowned and everybody’s favorite female sleuth.”

  “Teddy Alexander!” Blake said. “The woman killed was Alexander’s lover?”

  “Yes!” Charlie replied. “And I’m still not done with the story.”

  “There’s more?” Blake was stunned. “Okay, go on.”

  “The day we got the call that a woman had been found in an abandoned building, we were working on another case and Teddy was part of that investigation. Due to who she was and who her father was, the brass decided it was prudent to have her continue her duties while the case of the murdered woman was being investigated. Since she had the resources to disappear, we didn’t want to take any chances, espe-cially since we still didn’t know what had happened to her ‘friend’. So we kept her close.

  “After all, we just knew at that point that the woman was missing. It was only speculation that Alexander may have failed to report her missing earlier to cover up the fact that she was in an intimate relationship with her.

  “On the day we got the call about the woman in an abandoned building, the caller said we should hurry because she only had about an hour to live. Well, like I said, it took at least an hour for us to find the place. When our team walked into the building, that’s when we found out it was Alexander’s friend. Teddy lost it, Blake. Right there at the scene. Do you know what it’s like to see a decorated agent lose it at a crime scene? We knew right then that Teddy wasn’t the killer and the coroner confirmed it. According to the coroner, she had been dead less than fifteen minutes. The killers had known exactly what they were doing. They were already gone from the scene when they made their call to the bureau and they knew we would not make it in time to save her. And they had to know that Alexander would be at the scene.”

  “Unbelievable,” Blake said.

  “Yeah, I know, but there’s one more thing to tell you.”

  “What’s that, Charlie?”

  “The killers left their calling card.”

  “Their calling card?” Blake said with a hint of confusion. “What do you mean, they left their calling card?”

  “I mean they left a business card on her body. It literally was a business card with the initials ‘VM’ on it.”

  “VM!” Blake now stood erect. He was now pretty sure he had the evidence he’d been looking for. “Are you sure it was ‘VM,’ Charlie?”

  “Yeah, Blake. Why?”

  “Listen, Charlie, I am working on something. I can’t tell you right now, but you must promise that you will not breathe a word of this to anyone or show anyone the picture I sent you. Promise me, Charlie.”

  “I promise, Blake, but you have to promise me something, too. Whatever you are working on, you bring me in on it. The Cardosa murder is the one case that needs to be solved before I retire and since you are obviously working on my case, I want to work on it with you.”

  “I have to think about it, Charlie. Give me a couple of days and I’ll let you know. But, until then, keep everything we discussed to yourself.”

  It was true. Everything that Devon told me was true. There really was this secret hit-man group running around killing people and Guy Yeager was intimately involved with them. Now Blake’s next step was to find Alexander. Maybe she had something that could help him nail Yeager.

  However, going about finding Teddy Alexander would have to be a private matter. Usually, Eli would do these things for him, but he couldn’t bring even his business partner in on this.

  But what was he going to do about Charlie? Charlie had proved he could be trusted, but he just didn’t know if he wanted to put Charlie in harm’s way. Still, no matter how he tried to rationalize, Blake knew he needed Charlie and that meant he had to tell him the truth. All of it. Including who he really was.

  Up to now, Blake had lived a life of anonymity, the price he had had to pay for being the son of Yancy Laurie. His life had been a secret, rooted in forbidden love and protected under a veil of silence. That secret had afforded Blake a lifestyle some men dreamt about and other men despised — a lifestyle that had allowed him unparalleled freedom and access.

  But now, if Blake wanted to find out the truth about the man he suspected killed his brother, he would need help from someone he could trust. Charlie had to be told.

  With his plan in place, Blake had to get his house in order without arousing any suspicions. And his first task was to give Eli marching orders regarding how he wanted to play Yeager. Yeager had given Eli a deadline, a tactic he used when he was asserting what he perceived to be the upper hand. In most instances, it probably worked; but, in this instance, Blake knew he was the real puppeteer.

  As Blake pondered his strategy, his phone rang.

  “Hello!”

  “Blake, this is Eli.”

  “Dude, I was just about to call you!” Blake said coyly, “You know what? When this is all over, I’m going to send you on a trip.”

  “Oh, yeah? Where is that?” Eli said, sounding as if he just knew the butt of the joke was heading his way.

  “I am going to send you to the island of Fiji. They do this seminar once a year for senior executives on learning how to maintain control and developing patience.”

  “Yeah, right!” Eli responded with just enough sarcasm to let Blake know he had touched a nerve.

  “Seriously, man, I’m not kidding. Three weeks — all expenses paid.”

  “Anyway,” Eli replied, seemingly unimpressed, “I thought you were going to call me.”

  “I was, but obviously you called me first.”

&nbs
p; Blake loved to push Eli’s buttons, but it was nearly always with a loving spirit and this was one of those times.

  “Yeah, okay, so what’s the next step?” Eli sounded perturbed.

  Hearing that annoyance in Eli’s voice, Blake chose not to exacerbate the situation and finally began to outline his plan. “I want you to call Yeager and accept his offer, but let him know that before you go any further, he has to prove to you he can do what he says he can do. So to get in bed with him — no pun intended — you need evidence.

  “Also, don’t call him at 8:00 am. Call him later in the day, but definitely before five o’clock. You can’t let him think you are Easy Eli. Nor can you let him think he can throw out a threat without being able to back it up. Remember: once we open this door, we don’t shut it until everything is out in the open and I mean everything.

  “And, Eli,” Blake said, now sounding concerned, “Once we do this, you have to know going in what side you are on.”

  “I’m on your side, Blake,” Eli answered with a tone of disbelief. “We’ve been friends and business associates for a long time; you’re like a brother to me.”

  “I know, friend,” Blake said. “That’s why I want you to be careful. Yeager is very clever and he’s a dangerous man. If he finds out or even thinks you’re playing him, he will … well, let’s just say I think he could do some pretty unthinkable things.” Blake used his words cautiously so that he didn’t tip his hand. Eli couldn’t know everything.

  “I’ll be careful,” Eli said with great confidence.

  For the first time, Blake heard something in Eli’s voice that made him question whether he was doing the right thing. “Yeah,” Blake said. “Call me later and let me know how it went.”

  After hanging up the phone, Blake was consumed with his new prophetic vision. Would Eli betray him? And if so, why? What would be in it for him? But he knew he had no time to ponder the ‘what ifs’; in-stead, he had to move on and call Charlie.

  “Hello. May I speak to Agent Charlie Henderson, please?”

  “Sure. May I ask who is speaking?” said the woman at the switchboard.