by Lawson, Mike
Unfortunately, he was not a media mogul and he didn’t employ any sneaky journalists—but he did have Neil, who had finally returned from his second honeymoon. Neil was a fat man who wore his thinning blond hair in a short ponytail and typically dressed in Hawaiian shirts, shorts, and sandals. As DeMarco talked to him, Neal sat in a chair designed to accommodate his substantial girth, slurping a fruit smoothie. He looked tanned, relaxed and sexually sated—all by-products of his belated honeymoon.
Normally, DeMarco would have been jealous of Neil, but he was actually feeling somewhat sated himself, thanks to Tina, Alice’s lovely friend. And he’d been invited to dinner at Tina’s house so he could be introduced to her twin daughters—an occasion that smacked of feminine manipulation and made him somewhat apprehensive. The good news, however, was that the daughters were supposed to leave right after dinner to attend a concert, leaving DeMarco and their mother time to themselves. But that was later—and right now he needed to focus on the problems caused by Mahoney’s middle daughter.
“There’s probably not much point looking for funny-money stuff,” DeMarco said to Neil. “Not with his wife.”
What DeMarco meant was that Fairchild’s wife was so damn rich that Neil probably wouldn’t find evidence of illegal kickbacks, or outright bribes, or illicit campaign contributions.
“Maybe I can tie him to his nephew’s problems, you know, Little Bob’s connections to that lobbyist Mayfield,” Neil suggested.
“I don’t think so,” DeMarco said. “Mahoney has had the president’s special prosecutor digging into that for months. So look for the usual stuff. Affairs. Twisted perversions. Illegitimate children. Maybe he e-mailed pictures of his dick to a bunch of women like that yahoo from New York. All I know is that right now Big Bob comes across as a sanctimonious paragon of virtue—family values and all that crap—so you just know there’s gotta be something sordid he’s been hiding for years.”
“This could get expensive,” Neil said. Then he smiled. Neil’s retail rate was extremely dear.
But DeMarco said, “Don’t worry about the money.”
When Mahoney set up DeMarco’s position those many years ago, he had to provide the operating funds that DeMarco needed to ply his trade. And Mahoney, being an expert at diverting the government’s money to causes of his own choosing, had no problem at all supplying the small amounts that DeMarco needed. Imagine the federal budget as the planet Jupiter; by comparison, DeMarco’s budget was the size of a chickpea and the amount he would pay Neil, a sesame seed. This meant that Neil’s bill, no matter how large and outrageous it might be, would be virtually invisible to those organizations tasked with monitoring how the taxpayers’ dollars are squandered. So when DeMarco said don’t worry about the money, this time he meant it.
“Then I’ll begin my endeavors immediately,” Neil said, rubbing his chubby hands together, already thinking of ingenious ways to pad his bill.
“Good. Call me as soon as you’ve got something.”
“If I can’t get a hold of you, do you want me to pass on whatever I get to Emma?” Neil said.
“Definitely not,” DeMarco said. Then realizing how that sounded, he added, “Uh, she’s real busy right now. Her yard work, you know.”
DeMarco was starting to feel like Richard Nixon trying to hold down the lid on Watergate—and he just knew that at some point his own John Dean was going to come along and spill the beans to Emma.
42
DeMarco dialed the next number in the yellow pages.
He had just finished calling five dental offices near his house in Georgetown, asking if any of the dentists could see him immediately. None could. One of the receptionists had actually laughed out loud. He was beginning to believe that everyone in the dental profession was a direct descendant of the guys who ran the Spanish Inquisition. He dialed the sixth number, going immediately into his desperate spiel. To his surprise, the woman said: “Ooh, you poor thing.” She sounded like somebody’s sweet grandmother and acted as if she actually cared. Then she said, “And you’re lucky, too. The doctor just had a cancellation. So if you can get here in the next ten minutes . . .”
“I’m on my way!” DeMarco cried.
* * *
DeMarco’s John Dean turned out to be Neil.
He was backing his car out of the driveway when Emma pulled up in her Mercedes. He got out of his car to see what she wanted, and saw her coming toward him, taking long aggressive strides, lips set in a tight line, hands clenched into fists. He immediately envisioned a terrified gopher looking up and seeing an eagle dropping from the sky, talons extended—and he was the gopher, not the eagle.
“I want to know what the hell’s going on, and I want to know now!” Emma said.
“What?” DeMarco said, trying to look innocent, knowing that too many years of working for Mahoney made that impossible.
“I called Neil today to see what you had him doing,” Emma said. “I thought he’d be trying to find out how the money got into Molly Mahoney’s bank account. And that’s when I learned that you have him trying to get something on Robert Fairchild and that he’s not doing anything related to Molly. So do not give me that ‘What?’ crap. You tell me what’s going on.”
DeMarco considered his options—and then he gave it all up. He told her everything.
When he finished, Emma just stared at him for what seemed a lifetime, her blue eyes colder than an arctic winter. “So all the time that I’ve been running around trying to clear Molly’s name, you knew she was guilty and didn’t tell me. I could just . . .”
“Emma, I didn’t know she was guilty when this all started, then . . .”
Emma raised a hand to stop him. “No! I don’t want to hear whatever excuse you’re about to make up for lying to me.”
“I wasn’t going to make up an excuse,” DeMarco said. He would have, but he couldn’t think of one. “I was going to say that this thing has become a whole lot more complicated than Molly just taking a guilty plea.”
“No, it’s not. She’s guilty. She should go to jail.”
“It’s not that simple, Emma. Ted Allen will have her killed if he thinks she’ll testify against him. Then you have both Ted and Fairchild blackmailing Mahoney. I mean . . .”
“What do Campbell and McGrath have to do with Molly?” she said.
“Nothing,” DeMarco said. “Molly got the insider trading idea when she heard that phone call of Campbell’s, but other than that, there’s no link between Molly and those guys. But I know that Campbell and his friends have been making money illegally for years and I’m about ninety percent sure that McGrath is a murderer. He killed Praeter and you know he tried to kill Campbell in Charlottesville.”
Her voice dripping sarcasm, Emma said, “And that’s why you’re still investigating Campbell and McGrath, because you want to bring them to justice for all the crimes they’ve committed.”
“No,” DeMarco said, “but if I can prove they’ve done something criminal then maybe I’ll have something Molly’s lawyers can use to get her a better deal with the SEC.”
Emma just shook her head in disgust.
“Come on, Emma,” DeMarco said. “Molly’s the lesser of two evils. You must see that.”
“The lesser of two evils,” Emma repeated. “I despise that saying. The lesser of two evils is still evil.”
Emma turned her back on him and walked away—and he wondered if he’d ever see her again.
* * *
By the time DeMarco arrived at the dentist’s office, thirty minutes late—naturally, he hit every red light on the way there—the sweet grandmother he’d spoken to had morphed into a nagging hag, lecturing him on the inconsiderate behavior of people who make appointments and fail to keep them. And, no, the doctor did not have another opening on his schedule.
This was turning out to be a really
shitty day.
43
Casey Maynard shut off the engine and looked around. It was two a.m. and he didn’t see anyone on the street or any lights on in nearby homes. He stepped out of his pickup and stretched—it had been a long drive—and looked around again. Nobody.
He got down on one knee with some effort. He was a shaggy haired, bearded man, six foot four, two hundred and seventy pounds. A lot of the weight was fat. He reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out the Glock. He’d bought the Glock from a dealer in Virginia on his way up from South Carolina. The dealer had told him that the weapon was untraceable but Maynard didn’t care if it was or not. After he finished the job he’d toss the gun in the first river he came to.
He looked around one more time; he was in no hurry. There were only a few cars parked on the street—in this kind of neighborhood people parked in their garages—but none of the cars had anybody in them nor did any of the vehicles look like something a cop would drive. The problem was there were shadows everywhere—pockets of darkness where somebody could hide. But why would someone be hiding? He shoved the Glock into the back of his jeans.
He reached into the pickup again and took a plastic bag off the passenger seat. Inside the bag was a penlight he could hold in his mouth, a roll of duct tape, a glass cutter, a pair of leather gloves, and a black ski mask. He put on the gloves and the ski mask and left everything else inside the bag.
He walked slowly around to the back of the house. There was a swimming pool and a barbecue big enough to roast a side of beef—and the sliding glass door he’d been told about. With his penlight, he could see the little latch you pulled up to open the door. He put a piece of duct tape on the glass so the glass wouldn’t fall down and shatter when he cut it, then took the glass cutter out of the plastic bag.
“Freeze! Put your hands on top of your head. If you make any kind of move, I’ll blow your ass to kingdom come.”
Aw, shit.
* * *
Maynard was sitting on the parking strip in front of the house, next to his pickup. His hands were secured with plastic zip ties.
Standing behind him were two guys in their thirties, both of them wearing jeans, black T-shirts, and low-topped black boots. They also had black and green camo paint smeared on their hands and faces. Military was Maynard’s first impression. They looked more like soldiers than cops: hard muscles, flat stomachs, short hair. Not an ounce of fat on either of them.
“I wanna lawyer,” Maynard said. That was the third time he’d said that. This time he got a response.
“Shut up,” one of the guys said.
He’d been expecting that five minutes after they collared him, a squad car would show up and haul him off to the nearest jail, but he’d been sitting on the curb almost twenty minutes.
“I want you guys to tell me what’s going on,” he said. He was starting to get a little scared.
“If you say another word, I’m going to take that duct tape you brought with you and tape your mouth shut.”
Man, there was something wrong here.
* * *
Ten minutes later, a Mercedes drove up and double-parked next to his pickup. A woman—a slim, older gal with short blonde hair—stepped from the vehicle. She spoke to the two young guys quietly—he couldn’t hear what she said—then walked over to him and said, “Who hired you?”
Maynard thought about the question, and it took him two seconds to figure out he wasn’t going to tell her a damn thing. If he told her that Harvey Samuels had hired him to kill the two people in the house . . . well, that wasn’t going to do him any good at all. And he’d only committed two crimes. The first one was trespassing: he’d snuck into somebody’s backyard and put a little duct tape on a window. He hadn’t even broken the window, so he didn’t think they could get him for attempted robbery. Well, maybe they could. The glass cutter might be enough to make an attempted robbery charge stick. But the real problem was the gun. They were going to throw him back into prison because he was a convicted felon carrying a weapon. He was going to prison for at least five years, maybe longer, with his record.
But if he gave up Samuels . . . Well, nothing good would come of that. He’d be admitting to attempted murder or conspiracy to commit murder—and Samuels would, of course, deny that he’d hired him to do anything. And then, after he was in prison, Samuels would have someone kill him. There was no doubt about that.
“Tell me who hired you and I might be able to get you some kind of deal,” the woman said.
“Fuck you,” he said—and one of the young guys kicked him in the ribs.
“Watch your mouth,” the guy said.
“It’s okay, Buddy,” the woman said.
The woman walked away, made a phone call, and five minutes later a squad car showed up and two cops chucked him into the car.
* * *
DeMarco was sound asleep when the phone next to his bed rang—the kind of deep sleep where the ringing telephone became part of the nightmare he was having. In the nightmare, he was being chased by a faceless woman. She was holding hedge clippers in her bony hands, except the blades of the clippers were about six feet long, shaped like scimitars, and dripping blood. The ringing telephone became a banshee’s shriek coming from the place where the faceless woman’s mouth should be. The phone rang six times before he answered it.
“Hello?” he croaked.
“Meet me at the Montgomery County police station. They’re located on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda,” the caller said and hung up.
The caller was the faceless woman in his dream.
* * *
DeMarco found Emma and two very fit-looking young men sitting in a room at the police station that looked like it might be a briefing room. The young guys had camo paint on their faces and empty holsters on their belts. When DeMarco asked Emma what was going on, she said, “You’ll find out in a minute. I don’t feel like going through the story twice.”
“Okay, but who are these guys?” DeMarco asked, jerking a thumb at the two hardbodies.
Emma ignored him, and the two young guys just stared at him for a moment, then looked away.
Sheesh.
Ten minutes later a gray-haired uniformed cop in his late fifties entered the room. He had sergeant’s stripes on his right sleeve and his name tag said “J. Farris.” He pulled a chair around to face them and took a seat. “Who’s this?” he said, speaking to Emma.
“He’s my lawyer,” Emma said. “In case we need one.” DeMarco knew Emma’s real lawyer and he was in the same class with Daniel Caine—or maybe in a class above Daniel Caine.
“All right,” Farris said. “Tell me what’s going on.” Pointing at the young guys, he said, “These two obviously aren’t part of some neighborhood block watch, so why were they watching Campbell’s house?”
“I’ll tell you everything I can, Sergeant,” Emma said, “but would you mind telling us about the man we caught trying to break into Douglas Campbell’s house?”
Farris hesitated for a moment, then said, “Sure. Why not? We took his prints and found out that he’s a subhuman piece of shit who has a record that’s about ten miles long. His name is Casey Maynard. He’s thirty-nine years old and has spent half his life in prison. He started out in a biker gang, committed the usual drunken mayhem, and got sent to prison the first time on an assault charge for almost stomping a guy to death. Prison, of course, didn’t rehabilitate Casey. Instead it provided him with an undergraduate education in being a criminal.
“After his first hitch, he hooked up with a few other lowlifes in Richmond, manufactured and distributed meth, pulled off a few robberies, got caught for one of the robberies and went back inside. While he was in prison the second time, he ganged up with morons just like him and was suspected of killing another inmate.
“When he gets out of prison, he goes to
work for a guy named Harvey Samuels who lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Samuels owns a strip club there and a couple of auto body shops, but he’s essentially a small time Mob boss. He employs several geniuses like Maynard who deal drugs for him and steal cars and motorcycles, and if someone needs somebody killed, Samuels acts as a middleman and gets people like Casey to do the job for him.”
“How did you find out about Samuels?” Emma asked.
“When I saw that Maynard had a South Carolina driver’s license and a Myrtle Beach address, I called the cops down there to see what they could tell me about him. Now it’s your turn.”
“I suspected that a man in Myrtle Beach named Russell McGrath was going to try to kill Campbell,” Emma said, “so I hired Benton Security to watch over him. Buddy and Brian work for Benton.”
DeMarco had heard of Benton Security. They were essentially mercenaries for hire and worked mostly overseas. He figured Emma probably knew somebody in the company, like Benton himself, the ex–Marine general who owned the company.
“And based on what you’ve just told me,” Emma said, still speaking to Farris, “it sounds like McGrath went to this Samuels person and paid him to have Campbell and, I’m guessing, his wife killed. Maynard would have broken into the house, shot them with the gun he had, and then stolen a few things to make it appear like a robbery.”
“Why does McGrath want Campbell dead?” Farris asked.
“It’s a long a story,” Emma said, “but it involves insider trading and McGrath is afraid that Campbell is going to testify against him.”
“Okay,” Farris said, “but we can’t get Maynard for attempted murder because your guys caught him outside the house and he’s not going to admit that Samuels told him to kill anyone. What he will do is go back inside for carrying a weapon, and with his record, he’ll probably be in his fifties when he gets out.”