CoverBoys & Curses

by Lala Corriere

  He had his ways with all the boys,

  He used them as his own sex toys,

  But ding dong, the nasty priest is dead.

  I hated myself for what words I had streaming through my mind. Damn it!

  My receptionist’s buzzer would be my interruption. My reprieve. Or so I thought.

  Not the media, lucky me. Detective Wray. Unlucky me.

  “You’re not here to make me feel guilty this time around, Detective”, I said. “That bastard might as well have tried to hide himself behind the thin veil of the Shroud of Turin.” “You’re aware the priest has been stabbed.”

  “Yes. And I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry for the whole entire world.”

  He shook his head. “I was never very good at math when I was a kid,” Wray said. “Stunk at it, actually.”

  “And why is this relative to me?”

  “Your priest was stabbed forty-two times. And his mental health worker—the one that was covering up for him? You forgot to mention him on my last visit.”

  “But you read the article. He’s a deacon in the church and also happens to be high up there in the mental health system. He felt it was his duty and right to reveal the dealings of the dirty priest as the holy man continued to molest more boys. But I didn’t print his name.”

  “Well, he’s not showed up to work yet. My bet is he’s not playing hooky. My bet is someone connected the dots, just like I did. ”

  I stumbled and fell back toward my desk chair. It was over. CoverBoy could no longer afford the price of human sacrifice, even in truth.

  “But let’s get back to my math issues.”

  “Sure.” Let’s just get him out of my office.

  “You got your model lady. Stabbed six times. Then we got the good Dr. Solayman. Stabbed eighteen times. The plastic surgeon? Stabbed thirty-six times. Your priest? Forty-two times.

  And that all leads me to you. All those stabbings lead me to you. And it doesn’t take but fifth grade math to start seeing the pattern.”

  “I assure you I passed the fifth grade, but I don’t follow you.”

  “Damndest thing. Multiples of six. And they keep growing in violence. Intensity. Sheer number of stab wounds. Someone has quite an axe to grind. Or should I say—dagger.”

  “The Obeah,” I sputtered.

  “Say what?”

  The number six. Evil. Geoff’s dead Obeah Voodoo grandmother had tried to warn me. Detective Wray didn’t hear my words. It would have to be another thing gone unmentioned to him for I didn’t speak of it again.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  No Cover for CoverBoy

  “I’M GROWING MORE PARANOID,” I told Sukie after Wray left the building.

  “Most everyone around this place is these days,” she replied through stiff lips.

  I perused some of Sukie’s new work. Shots she’d taken of male models up in San Francisco. No one would be looking at the background of the Golden Gate Bridge.

  “I don’t know how much longer we can continue, Sukie. I can’t even think straight. I don’t believe my good friend committed suicide when everyone else tells me she did. I get Detective Wray in here and he doesn’t want to talk about Tucson. He thinks I need to worry about what’s happening in my own backyard. And the other night I was in my therapist’s house and I’m wondering what’s behind some mysterious wall.”

  Sukie pulled the wire-rimmed glasses from the bridge of her nose. “Now that one sounds interesting.”

  “Not what you think. Carly and I were there and—never mind. It’s a long story.”

  “If I’m unemployed I’ll have plenty of time on my hands.”

  “Now I think I just saw a ghost.”

  “Lauren, you’ve had a lot of shit happen to you in your short life. More death than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes. You have every right to be jumpy. Even paranoid. Jesus, you just had a guy attack you at your doorstep while delivering you a warning.”

  “I saw an old man in the elevator as I came down to see you.”

  “You still have the space rented out to the geriatric psychologist. We have crazy old people in the elevators all the time.” Sukie’s voice was calm. Motherly.

  “Yes. But I recognized him. He bought me a glass of wine at Catrozzi's. I looked up. He was gone. And just now I swear he was in the elevator.”

  Sukie’s eyebrows raised up like pitched tents. “Did you inform security?”

  I’d already been spooked enough to broaden the scope of security in both our building and our parking lot.

  “What do I tell them? Beware an old man with a shuffled gait, fake teeth, and has a habit of buying people expensive wines?”

  DETECTIVE WRAY BECAME somewhat of a permanent fixture around CoverBoy. He showed up like Columbo, always uninvited and at the most inopportune times. It signified that my staff and I were still high up on the list of suspects.

  I didn’t really mind. I considered him a freebie in addition to the full-time security I hired. And my attorney advised me to fully cooperate with the man.

  “Coffee, Detective Wray?” I offered as I entered my waiting room and spied him sitting in the corner chair.

  “Whoa! Too damn sweet. You gonna be nice to me today?”

  “You do have an appointment this time?” I looked over to my receptionist and saw her wince. “Okay. Let’s take a walk-about.”

  “A what?”

  “A walk-about. I can show you our operations and you can ask your battery of silly questions. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Just the sudden change of heart,” he groused.

  “I’m worried about my people that work here. We’re family. And I’ll be honest,” I said. “I’m worried about my own butt, too.”

  “Now there’s my girl,” he said.

  With coffees in hand, the gruff detective followed my lead to the bank of elevators. We headed down to the dark and dank basement that promised an exciting tour of a small employee’s cafeteria and Sukie’s photo lab. Sukie gave us a two-dollar tour, tossing nasty glares my way every time she could without being caught.

  “She’s cute,” Wray said. “Is she gay?”

  “I can’t believe you just asked me that,” I said.

  “Hey, I said she’s cute.”

  Good lord, just wait until he started questioning Queen Geoff.

  “Just between friends,” Detective Wray added.

  “We’re not friends. I’m in a toleration mode.”

  We toured the printing department, the writer’s floor, the finance floor that housed both sales and accounting. With great interest Wray navigated his way through our research department.

  “You skipped the tenth floor,” Wray said.

  “I’m with a real sharpie,” I said. “Not my business, nor yours. I have a tenant that occupies the entire floor.”

  “I see.”

  He wore an obnoxious short sleeved dress shirt with his tie in too tight of a knot and too short on the fall to his bulging waistline. I wanted to send him a courtesy subscription to Gentleman’s Quarterly or something. Anything to help the man dress properly.

  “You annoy me, you know?” A rhetorical question.

  “I do most folks. Don’t worry about it,” he grinned.

  “I’m not worried.”

  “What’s his business?” Wray asked.

  “Who?”

  “The tenant on ten.”

  “Shrink. A geriatric psychiatrist.”

  “The entire floor?”

  “Must be pretty hard, getting old in this city of beautiful angels,” I said. “Makes a lot of people crazy, I guess.”

  Detective Wray scribbled something in his notebook.

  “Don’t worry. I may just need his professional help in a few years, that’s all,” he smirked.

  “I believe that.”

  “I’ve put extra people on the case. As much as the department can spare and you can imagine these days that’s not much. We’re looking out for you, but you need to lo
ok after yourself. We have the guys over at VICAP involved.”

  “VICAP?”

  “Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. I think these slaughters qualify, don’t you?”

  I bit my tongue.

  “It’s a division of the FBI. That’s the Federal Bureau of—“

  “Yes, Detective. I think I know what the FBI is, even in my shallow safe little world.”

  “That’s what I’m telling you. Somebody’s smashed the glass on your snow globe. It’s not safe in that little world of yours anymore. Watch your back.”

  We picked up our pace as we walked back to my office. Geoff would be waiting for us.

  Geoff didn’t make it through the proper introductions. Neither of them required introductions. They knew of each other.

  “You got any idea who is doing this? Who is responsible for all this killing?” Geoff demanded.

  Detective Wray drilled back at him. “You got anything? Some little something you’re holding back to test me, or something you’re not thinking of?”

  I rescued Geoff. “If he’s not thinking of it, how the hell can he tell you about it? And for the record it’s not correct to end a sentence with a preposition.”

  Detective Wray fired back, staring down Geoff, “Something you’re not thinking of, Geoff Hayes?”

  “That’s it,” I interrupted. This interview is over. Geoff is a key man here, and I thought I would make nice and introduce the two of you. We’re through here today, Wray.”

  I drew my finger to my lips to communicate silence from Geoff. Detective Wray said his goodbyes, looking back not once, but twice.

  “Back to business,” Geoff said. “I see we have the next two issues drafted. They’re crawling worms of boring. Come on, June Grooms? Athletes and Steroids?”

  “We’re all trying to lay low. Way low. Be prudent for a couple of months.”

  “And lose all of our momentum? Fuck that! So, what’s the new issue idea of yours,” Geoff flashed me the devilish grin I loved. And he knew me. He knew I wouldn’t back down for long.

  “It’s a bit of a journey back into the plastic surgery realm, but get this! This time it’s podiatrists!”

  “Feet fetish thing. Great,” Geoff moaned.

  “Geoff, you just whined that our planned features sucked. I have a new angle, and no one is going to kill a foot doctor. They might slice off his toes, but they won’t kill him.”

  “Your humor in the morning is what sucks, Laurs. Blow me the highlights.”

  “How about a group of assholes taking advantage of more Barbie Doll wannabes by slicing off the tops of their imperfect second toes, or even completely amputating their little toes? They’re perfectly healthy, beautiful woman that are led to believe the larger extension of their second toes is a deformity. Disfigurement. And the reason why they can’t get into to the itsy bitsy designer shoes is because their little toes are in the way. Women are going in for surgery to shorten their second toes, all to fit into the fancy designer shoes crafted of the oh-so-tight and sexy skins of exotic leathers. And for some the shortening won’t do the job. Those women are getting their little toes amputated.

  “The surgery is painful. The podiatrist removes both tissue and bone, and thousands of bucks later, our patient walk away with the perfect eight toes.”

  “Or hobbles away,” Geoff said. “But is it a comeback story?”

  “Sukie already has a photo of a podiatrist dancing at the hospital fundraiser in two-thousand dollar croc shoes. And I bet he didn’t hack off his toes to get his feet into them.

  “The essence of CoverBoy is truth. Bringing to light the layers of fallacy in articles that find incongruence amid our centerfolds. We keep our stories real, fact-based. No trouble. And we keep the photos real. No digital crap. We use fat bellies, scars, and balding heads. And the occasional stud muffin.”

  “The story sounds like a sleeper, but it’s your rag. Your run the articles you want to run. You are going to name names again, aren’t you?”

  “You bet I am.”

  “Then CoverBoy is back in business.”

  Detective Wray barged his way back into my office. Both Geoff and I knew he had heard Geoff’s last comment. Geoff bolted.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Stashes of Stills

  “THIS WILL JUST TAKE a minute, Ms. Visconti,” the detective’s voice boomed.

  “Please be short and to the point. I’ve got a business to try and salvage.”

  “Entertain me, for just a minute. What do you know about Sukie Fields?”

  “Sukie? She’s a brilliant photographer. She rarely complains and she works overtime for free. She under promises and over delivers. And for the record, if you’re still of an unjust curious mind, I don’t know her sexual orientation. It’s none of my business.”

  “What do you know about her personally?”

  My fierce stare caught his congenial eyes and a soft smile. “She’s a woman of myst—” I caught my speech. “She’s a quite, private woman. She works behind the camera, Detective. She’s shy.”

  “So you’re telling me you know nothing about her beyond work ethics and acumen?

  “You started to tell me she’s a woman of mystery, right? What does she do when she leaves here? I mean, does she watch movies, go to gay clubs, play with—“

  “Zip your mouth on your prejudices, Detective Wray. Are you trying to tell me that after all this time working your big slasher investigation your prime suspect is a five-foot tall Asian senior citizen?”

  “In a court of law you’re innocent until proven guilty. In my court you’re a suspect until cleared. That’s the way it works.”

  “Sukie Fields wouldn’t hurt someone’s feelings, let alone their body.”

  “She has no alibis for the nights of any of these murders.”

  “Because I’ve told you she’s a loner. Lots of artists are loners. Now I think you’ve overstayed your one minute of intrusion.”

  “I’ll be right back here until something makes sense with all these stabbings and this maddening numbers game.”

  “And I’ll be lawyered up along with every other employee that works here. You can call my receptionist for the lawyers’ phone numbers.”

  “One more nicety from me before I leave. There are no leads on the man who showed up at your doorstep.”

  “And I should be surprised?” I snapped back. I looked at my purse. Geoff’s anti-number-six Voodoo potion was inside the zippered compartment. I could use a good dose of it.

  “The thing is, mind you it’s not official business, but I have a friend in Tucson.” He palmed a business card. Or rather, a number scribbled down on a torn index card.

  “He’s a former federal agent. Retired about a year ago. Good guy. Good friend, and believe it or not guys like me have a good friend here or there.”

  “Tucson? This is about my good friend, Payton Doukas?”

  “Still don’t see any connection with what I have on my hands here, with you. But this guy knows his stuff. Beats you flying off to Tucson and getting yourself in more trouble. Give him a call and see what he can do for you.”

  I accepted the number for a Victor Romero.

  “Just seems I’m always delivering you bad news. I thought maybe you could see me for the old softie that I am,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Not saying he can do anything for you. Not saying there is anything to do.”

  I guess it was his way of saying, “You’re welcome”.

  VICTOR ROMERO ARRANGED for the conference call. He’d give the Visconti woman exactly sixty minutes. He kept to a tight schedule, with nothing else to do. Retirement didn’t suit him.

  It took Romero forty minutes to deduce he wasn’t wasting his time. Lauren Visconti rose up between the red lines and black dots as a little pistol. And as for her friend’s pistol aimed at her own head? Not for a minute in his bones did Romero think Payton Doukas pulled the trigger.

  The first thing on his new agenda
was to find the missing brother, who may or may not want to be found. He cancelled the haircut and the golf lesson; they were the only two things on his calendar for the week and he loathed both appointments.

  I AM THE PRODUCT of rape. My mother was dead. I’d not become a bride before the groom-to-be was dead. And the father of the bride, too. All facts.

  A best friend was dead, too. Fact.

  And in spite of all of this, or because of it, I turned all of my focus toward business, and the business took me to the west coast. My intention was to produce a magazine unlike any other. An emotive, intelligent, and sexy magazine well received by women and some open-minded men, or at least the curious.

  Now I sat in front of my fireplace with four file folders on my lap. The night cloaked the air with damp and cold. The roar of the fire comforted me for what I was about to do.

  Spreading the contents of the first folder on the floor in front of me, I studied the colorful images of the stunning runway model. She reminded me of the famous model, Gia, who fell victim to heroin abuse and then later AIDS took her life, attributed to a dirty needle. And what we uncovered behind the glamorous world of models proved that chasing the dragon was normal, if not mandatory.

  The second folder contained black and white photographs of a brave Afghanistan doctor who had become my personal hero. I would never forget Dhurra.

  My disc player turned and Andrea Bocelli, my favorite tenor, bellowed. I turned the volume on high until the floor reverberated with its own drum.

  The next file contained mostly collateral brochures from the plastic surgeons’ clinics, plus a few candid shots my staff managed to snap including one we ran in the article. It captured a zoomed-in photograph of a doctor leaving his clinic and stepping into his brand new Lotus.

  The last file folder seemed to glare at me with a taunting stillness. I had requested it, yet I couldn’t move myself to open it. It held all the notes, photos, research, and documents used in the article: Priests, Power & Pedophiles.

  My fingers ran across the top of the black string that laced the folder together. I knew what I would find inside. Everything would be in order. Our research department had documented and verified every printed detail. As is often the case, I had to open up the checkbook to get at some of the facts but only because it was money and power that had put a lock on the truth in the first place.