The Big Wheel

by Scott Archer Jones

  “Being a call girl... isn’t that like surrendering yourself?”

  “Not at all. It’s a simple transaction. They bring the money; I bring the fantasy.”

  “Fantasy means role playing?”

  “No, it’s deeper, closer, in the blood.” She bit his earlobe.

  “Is it dangerous?

  “I wish. To be an ‘escort’ like me means great hotels, room service, and excellent client hygiene. It means I draw the high-stakes boys with the expensive cologne. I’m more dangerous to them, or to their reputations at least, than they are to me. They hate it when I take their pictures.”

  “You said ‘fantasy.’ ”

  “Yes. By the second time I screw them, I’ve figured them out. Some like a bit of pain.” She jerked out one of his chest hairs, and he jumped. “Some like the booze or the drugs. Some like lingerie. Some like the idea of an underage girl. I can make them get off just by whispering ‘Daddy.’ Some are like you; they’re ambivalent. They focus on the little-boy ass.”

  “Hmm.” He reached over her hip to touch that ass.

  “And they all want it to be good for me. Isn’t that sweet?”

  He wasn’t much sure he liked that part. He’d have to think about it.

  ***

  Back as fast as he could be from Ithaca, Thomas hustled into O’Brien’s HQ at eight thirty the evening of the murder, knowing that NYC and this team, his team, would still be at work. Angie met him at Security. They rushed into the executive elevator together, and she punched in O’Brien’s floor and badged the reader. He said, “Go back to our conference room; give me ten minutes. I need to talk to Garland.”

  “Will you tell me about it after you talk to him?”

  “Yes. God forgive me. You’re in deeper and deeper.”

  “He’s on thirty-eight.” As Thomas sprang off, she said, “In a few minutes then.”

  Thomas marched into Garland’s office. He slapped his hand down onto the desk. “They killed the Father, right in front of me. And we lost Zlata again.”

  “Yes, I know. LeFarge alluded as much when he called in to ask for data. He wants us to tunnel the cameras in a zillion police cars, searching for the motorcycle on the road.”

  “How did LeFarge get to Ithaca so quick? Couldn’t you have bought me some time?”

  Garland chose anger, a good defense. “C’mon, we’re under the spotlight here. Even the phone-tower data comes in with time stamps. I can’t delay this stuff.”

  Thomas let it hang there, allowed silence to act as his disbelief.

  “And what if I had bought you an hour or two? Could you have wrapped it up in that time?”

  “No. Maybe a couple of days, maybe not.”

  “Right. Don’t expect a miracle if you can’t deliver on your side.”

  Thomas cocked his head. “You’re probably right.”

  “Straight, I’m right. But in the future, I’ll do what I can. I regret the murder as much as you.”

  Thomas smiled his ingratiating, practiced grin at Don. “I appreciate it.”

  Don traced a couple of circles with his forefinger on the glass desktop. “Here’s a new development I can tell you, though I’m not sure how it fits with your search.”

  “What’s that?” Thomas asked.

  “Isobel Dupont has been seen.”

  “Really! Where?”

  “You won’t like it. One of my people saw her crawling into the black SUV LeFarge uses, out in front of this building—of her own free will. Or at least my guy didn’t see any force.”

  Across from Garland, Thomas raised his eyebrows. A glass-domed clock on the desk spun its weights back and forth, several times. “What does that mean?”

  “It means she’s not dead like her father. It means she made a choice.”

  “Hooo. I don’t know how to use that. I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Well, at least she’s not lying in a New Jersey grave.”

  “What happens now?” asked Thomas.

  “You find Zlata—again. I support where I can—in particular, I’ll arrive on the scene first before LeFarge. I’ll swarm him with witnesses. But what do you think should happen now?”

  Thomas shrugged. “I think we should retain good criminal lawyers. Just don’t tell them what’s up, not yet.”

  ***

  Thomas strode into the conference room where his eight staffers had assembled. They looked so expectant, so trusting. “I want to thank you all. The lead you gave me worked out and guided us to Zlata. The bad thing is that I couldn’t capitalize on it, and he’s disappeared again. But you positioned me there at the right place and time, and for that I’m grateful.”

  A moan, more felt than heard, swept across the room. One of the eight asked, “What happens now?”

  “Now you go home. See your families. Go to dinner.” He held his hands out in a fan-shape. “Drink wine. Come back in tomorrow, and we can start again. Maybe by then, you and I will know where to look.”

  They all filed out, except for Angie who leaned on the window sill. “What is it, Thomas? It’s more than losing your safecracker.”

  “LeFarge killed Father Mirko. Shot him in the face, right there in the church office. Shot him just to tidy up.”

  She thumped down into one of the chairs. She opened her mouth, closed it again, stared at the carpet. Then her chin came up. “Thank God you didn’t tell the staff.”

  He shook his head. “No comfort there. It’s bound to be on the news by now.”

  “And O’Brien?”

  “He’s completely indifferent. He believes he can spread some money around and keep the problem away.”

  “He’s right. It won’t keep the problem away from us, though.” She dropped her head into her hands.

  “Two big problems. Zlata and LeFarge. I’m beginning to admire Robko Zlata, the shifty little bastard. I don’t know what to do about LeFarge though.”

  “Is LeFarge your job?”

  “By default. O’Brien approves of him. Corporate Security gives our mercenary full access, carte blanche. Garland practically wets himself when he’s around LeFarge. ”

  “What will you do?”

  “I’ll try not to think about it till tomorrow. My rational brain is worn out. Rational is leading me nowhere. I need that irrational voice inside to tell me what’s what.”

  “I’ll make you an offer. Come over to my place. I’ll cook Italian. We’ll drink dago red.”

  “Indeed.” He lifted his eyebrows, like the first time they had had drinks.

  She shot him a worried glance. “Oh dear. Thomas, there’s something you should know, something I’ve kept from everyone in the office.”

  “You’re married and have three kids?”

  “I’m a lesbian.”

  He snickered all the way to the elevator. Punching the button, he said, “There’s another surprising story I can tell you, one that’s not so funny. You know Dupont’s missing daughter, the goth?”

  Chapter Fourteen: Bitterness Speaks to My Soul

  Let’s buy the car in Buffalo.” Sibyl forked a huge bite of scrambled egg into her mouth.

  “What?” Robko’s attention snapped back into the room.

  “Lef buy va ka im Buffawo.” She flared her now-blue eyes, waved the fork at him.

  “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to talk with your mouth full?”

  She swallowed. “I never do around my clients. With you, I figure, why bother with manners.”

  “Something about Buffalo.” He leaned closer. The scent was confusing, her shampoo, the bacon, the stale coffee.

  “Buy the car in Buffalo. The car… Buffalo.”

  “Why there?”

  “It gives you another couple of hours on the bike. You deserve it for coming up with the plan. Let’s motor over on two-lane roads, avoid the Interstate.”

  “Cool. That’s a good idea anyway. Big-time criminals on the run should stay away from big roads and the troopers. Thanks for the offer. I’ll take you
up on it.”

  “Let’s spend a slow day, ride over, wait to do the buying binge tomorrow.”

  “Sure.” He leaned on one elbow, his fist to his temple. She wasn’t done yet.

  “And let’s stay in a nice hotel tonight.”

  “Maybe. Okay. Buffalo is the last place I’d be... they’ll never look there.”

  “A suite. I love spending your money.”

  “Keep in mind they know about three of my four bank accounts. We may have to find some money sooner or later. I’ll have to go back to work.”

  She said, “Or I will. We’re a team now.”

  ***

  Black top scrolls out before us like the yellow brick road. The ride is good, but the thoughts are bad. Mirko bothers me. The way he looked in that dining hall, so calm and confident. He knew about Dupont and Dupont’s daughter, he knew about the two dead people in Sibyl’s apartment. He knew all that, and he still insisted on taking a stand. Kram it! Never fight when you can hide; never hide when you can run. Mirko, you fat old bastard, no running for you. You missed prison and the hard life; didn’t you? You missed it. You loved the blood and the broken teeth and a shiv in the ribs, but you would never admit it, would you? Even when we were kids it ran too strong in you, and you’d go too far—I had to jerk you off the Murphy kid to keep you from killing him… and nearly too late—the poor mick had a concussion. So I figure you made a stand against O’Brien’s hired muscle because you wanted it and not because God wanted it—I figure you’re either dead or taken now, and there’s not a single holy thing I can do about it. I just rode away. Left you holding my bag of shit, and look what I do with a gift that huge! I get so Christ-like stoned, I see a halo around every bright reflection, and I try to hide from myself in this infinite day with this smooth-as-sex road. The bike thunders between my legs, zero to sixty in three seconds. Shift down for speed’s sake and lean into the curve to come out like a rocket, changing up through the gears and traffic. Speed—the love of my life. A truck right on top of us. Twitch left. We’re past it right up on a grandma in a fat American car. Loop around her and run down the yellow strip in the no-pass. Take a pickup on the right and a recreational barge on the left wallowing towards us. Did you see his eyes all lit up like runway lights as he watched me come at him on a curve at seventy? Shift down, down and touch the brake, into the next corner. Lean far over to the pavement but understeer on the throttle, and we’re out the other end of the pipe. The cruze from the bluebirds has me hung motionless. I see all and touch every detail. I own the road in slow motion as the bike screams her heart out for me. A jimber like a steel bar connects my crotch to the bike. Like a guided missile, we’re around a tractor. Why the hell is a tractor on the road? And now the first buildings fill in space between the farms. We hurtle forward to seek the core of Buffalo. Road clogs up and becomes someone else’s boulevard and someone else’s ride. We have to back down, down, down. And doesn’t thirty feel like we’re standing still? Stop for the light with a squeal of the brakes. The barbiturate falls out of my blood, leaves me stranded. Now we come off the buzz to find Mirko is still there, still protecting my back just like when we were boys. Except now, Mirko, you’re dead, aren’t you? And I don’t have a blessed idea how to deal with it. My old friend. Only….

  ***

  After dinner at Angie’s, Thomas caught a cab back to his apartment, a condo on the top floor he bought to show off his early success in business. He took a shower and grabbed a glass and a bottle.

  With wet hair, he ascended a spiral staircase and unlocked a door that opened onto the roof, one of the perks of money. Only nine hours till work, and he still didn’t know where they’d go from here. He could drink for another hour and sleep. Then he’d go to the gym. He’d show up for the meeting in time, but what would he say to those expectant faces?

  They had signed up, for sure. For some reason he had their loyalty, and the team had brought itself together. They enjoyed the hunt. Anybody would find it novel, intriguing, gratifying—compared to Insurance or Accounting. Thomas Cabot Steward hadn’t been what drew them in, sold them on the game.

  He flopped prone in a deck chair, feet on the cornice of the building. The irrational side of his mind didn’t say, “You brilliant devil, you know the answer.” If Thomas had no answer, maybe Robert Thomas Dragomir Zlata did.

  A full glass, a reflective sip. Zlata, who are you?

  What did we know about Zlata? Smart enough to hide his money in three separate names and places. He hadn’t moved money offshore that they knew—he probably intended to spend it all. An athlete—he had crawled up that wiring chase where most people couldn’t have wiggled in.

  A cat slunk along the balustrade. He knew that cat—it saw him and, with a hiss of alarm, dropped off the wall away from him into the darkness. He knew the trick; there was a ledge below. Maybe it was an omen: a cat, an apparent suicide, a miracle survival.

  Zlata. He was a small man with a good opinion of himself—all his actions spoke confidence. Did he have the short-man Napoleon complex? They knew he was a drug user who preferred klonopins and other downers. The guy was in his mid-thirties, but he chose angry music, young, screaming—what did that have to do with downers? Incautious, a risk taker, otherwise why would he have been out in a nightclub when he should have been hiding? He bought an apartment for—and lived with—a prostitute, at least until they had a falling out.

  Thomas could hear the cat hidden from him by the balustrade. A sudden scratching, a scuffle, a tiny shriek cut off. The cat was a better hunter than he.

  Zlata. Not the simple Catholic boy his mother raised him to be. He had lived for the last two years in a grimy warehouse loft filled with nice trendy furniture—secretive and an impulse spender. He had a thing for motorcycles, even though he had experienced a bad crash. Adrenalin or death wish? Maybe both. Thomas filled his glass again. When he put the bottle down beside his chair, it scraped on the gravel, louder than the hum of the city.

  Plonk wine drop-kicked him into a million dollar idea. LeFarge had been right to focus on the motorbike. They didn’t know where Zlata was, what name he hid under, what appearance he had adopted. They didn’t even know if the woman was still with him. They did know he had left NYC on an aggressive, unusual motorcycle. He had probably escaped Ithaca on it. They had followed the money and the ex-wife as far as they could. Now they would follow the bike. He felt like his luck had changed.

  ***

  When Thomas charged into work an hour early, Angie was waiting. She had arrived at work before him, before them all. She leaned against the conference table heaped with files, ringed with company phones, in wait for eight other staffers to arrive. She held one arm between her breasts up to her throat, one—inviting—curved down across her upper thigh. Venus on the half shell, unaware. “Mr. Steward, good morning.”

  He pushed his briefcase onto the table, shuffling back files, drinking her in the whole time. “Ms. Tommo. I see office etiquette is back.”

  “I’d be more informal if I had a good idea to offer. I figure when you’re running on empty, you’d better be polite.”

  “I had planned on being more familiar until you made your announcement last night. Unless you’d like to use me for heterosexual cover?”

  “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” She grinned. “No offense.”

  “Back to Zlata….” He leaned over the back of his chair, forearms on the upholstery, and tilted his head towards her.

  “Yes?” He heard that uptick in her voice. She wanted him to save the day.

  “We’re not boxed in. I don’t know how yet, but we’re back in business. Let’s give the team time to trickle in. I’ll toddle back to Reception and arrange coffee and pastries, visit with Garland, check in with O’Brien’s Assistant. Then I’ll tell all of you my idea.”

  Eight jammed into the room when he returned. The original team had claimed their chairs while a couple of newcomers leaned against the windows. He said, “I’ve got donuts on
the way. If we act like cops, we should eat like them too.” He picked up a chuckle here and there. They waited. Would he deliver?

  Thomas continued. “Enjoy the evening off?” Nods. “Any miracle ideas occur to you overnight?”

  Accounting said, her red nails held up to her cheek, “His past spending might show us where he’s comfortable—if he ran to an old, familiar place. We should go through the three bank accounts for some spending done in Chicago. Food, transportation, motel rentals, that type of thing.” It was obvious she disapproved of anyone who would rent a motel room.

  Thomas responded, “Good. I’ll bet he won’t go home to Chicago, but I’ve been wrong often enough over the past few days.”

  Accounting said, “If he’s run to someplace new, his past spending is no guide.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Legal. “If he consistently buys something unusual each time he changes cities, we could track that.”

  “Unusual, like what?” someone asked.

  Angie said, “C4 explosive.” They tittered.

  Thomas knocked on the table. “Yes. That’s one thing we’ll do. Analyze the money pattern. Anything else?” Tapped, they all looked to him for something big. “I think I know the what. But not the how. Help me work it out. We’ll follow the motorcycle—that’s the what. We haven’t done any work on the bike at all. What do you think?” A big sigh rippled across the room—good or bad?

  “Not many bikers in the world. Means he’s in a smaller gene pool,” said a youngster who leaned against the glass.

  A staffer at the table, so short you couldn’t see a quarter of his tie, said, “It’s a sport bike. Most enthusiasts his age would own a cruiser. Sport bikes are for serious speed freaks.”

  A heavyset man with a sports-television paunch said, “Rare—like Torentino shoes. The bike is an Italian import. There can’t be many motorcycle agencies that handle the brand. We can track them to see if it comes in for maintenance.”