Let Us Prey

by Blake Banner

I stood, feeling oddly irritated. The heat was becoming suffocation. “Strictly work, Dehan.”

  “You think she’ll call?”

  “Yeah, she’ll call. If my hunch is right, she has a direct link to Tammy.”

  “So you think Tammy is still alive?”

  “Not necessarily, no. She might be. It’s anybody’s guess. But my hunch is, whether she is dead or alive, Emma is the link back to whatever it was Tammy was doing two years ago, and our mysterious southern belle.”

  “And dos Santos?”

  “My bet is he is looking for her, too. He is Baxter’s client, and Baxter is onto Emma.”

  “So we are back to the eternal question. Dos Santos employed Tammy to do a job. She screwed him somehow and made off to see Steve. Now dos Santos wants restitution or revenge or both.”

  “It should be theft.”

  “You mean he employed her to steal something from Duffy?” She thought about it a moment. “This dame of yours is married to an antiques dealer.”

  I made a ‘that’s my point’ face, but then added, “Only Duffy swears she took nothing.” I glanced at my watch. “I’d better get going.”

  She followed me down to my car. Hers was parked a little farther down, but she hadn’t brought her jacket or her keys. Evening was closing in and making long shadows among the russet light. The heat was turning from muggy to sultry. She stood with her hands in her pockets, watching me open the car door and throw my stuff in the back.

  “Stone. I’m sorry I got mad at you.”

  “No. You were right. I should have kept you in the loop.”

  “You’re kind of maddening sometimes, in a nice way.”

  I smiled. “You’re not. In a nice way.”

  She gave a feeble smile back. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “That should give me a fair bit of scope, then, huh?”

  She shook her head. “Not really.”

  EIGHTEEN

  When I got home, I made myself a steak sandwich and poured a generous glass of Irish. Then I sat at the computer and put in a couple of hours’ research. There was something nagging at my mind, and I wanted to confirm it. As I ate and drank, and worked my way through the endless pages my searches dredged up, it all slowly began to make sense. One after another, the missing pieces began to slot into place. All except one.

  Her call came at eleven p.m., pretty much when I expected it.

  “Detective Stone… John, it’s Emma.”

  “I know.”

  “I need…” A sigh, loud enough for me to hear, and then she started again. “You were right. I do need you. How did you know? How could you have known? We need to talk. Can I come over?”

  “Where are you? It’s late.”

  “At home, on Madison Avenue.”

  “This isn’t Madison Avenue, baby. This is the Bronx.”

  “You make it sound so…”

  “It is. Get a taxi. You have my address.”

  I hung up before she could answer.

  It was almost midnight when I heard the distinctive sound of a yellow cab outside. The door slammed like a gunshot in the dark, quiet street. Heels tapped at a half run, and my doorbell rang. I counted slowly to thirty before I got up and went to answer it. I stood blocking the way, looking down at her.

  “I thought you weren’t coming. I was going to bed.”

  “My husband… Look, I’m here now, aren’t I?”

  I stood aside and let her in.

  She stood, uncertain, in the middle of the floor. I watched her a moment, then reached out my hand. “Give me your coat.”

  She slipped it off and handed it to me. She was wearing a short, tight black dress that showed off all her curves. They were all the right size and in the right places. She was to celibacy what bacon is to vegetarianism. She said, “Thank you,” like it was a meek apology.

  I checked the pockets and the lining of her coat. She watched me do it, frowning. I threw the coat on the sofa and went and stood really close to her. “I have to be sure you’re not wearing a wire…”

  I put my hands around her waist and ran then slowly up her sides and over her back and ass. Her breath shuddered. I smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile.

  “Don’t get the wrong idea, babe. I am just being careful. You want a drink?”

  She nodded. I fixed her a martini, extra dry, and poured myself another Irish. She sat on the sofa. I handed her her glass and sat in my armchair. She sipped and looked at me reproachfully.

  “You’re not being very friendly.”

  “I want you to be clear, I am not a sap that you can play like your husband. You’re as hot as a Carolina reaper, and I’d like nothing better than to take what you’re offering, Emma, whether you’re offering it or not. But before we get close and cozy, you are going to understand. I don’t need you. You didn’t get to me. And I will walk away from you the moment you stop being useful.”

  Her cheeks flushed with anger. I didn’t think she could look any more desirable, and right then it was all I could do to keep up my façade of cool indifference. Her voice came as a hiss. “You bastard…”

  “You’re beginning to get the idea.”

  “I came to you for help!”

  “So tell me what you need, and I’ll tell you how much it’s going to cost you.”

  She put her drink down. “You really expect me to sit here and put up with this?”

  “Yeah, I do. And the sooner you realize I’m not going to be suckered into being your Sir Galahad, the better. Now, what’s the deal?”

  Tears sprang into her eyes, and she looked away. After a moment, she picked up her drink and took a hefty pull, then started to talk.

  “I was born in England…”

  “That’s not news, Emma.”

  “Just shut up, John! Just stop talking and try to stop being quite so vile, will you? I am telling you, so just shut up and listen!”

  She’d finished her drink. She thrust her glass at me, and while I went to refill it, she started talking again.

  “My parents weren’t rich, but we were comfortably off. We had a comfortable home in Chichester, in West Sussex. My father was a successful solicitor, what you would call an attorney, and my mother stayed at home to look after us…”

  “Us?”

  She was silent for a moment, staring into her drink. “Myself and my sister. We were happy. My father’s great passion was sailing. Most weekends we would take the yacht out and sail to the Isle of Wight, or down the coast towards Portsmouth.”

  She had become drawn and pale.

  I allowed some humanity into my voice and asked, “What happened?”

  “I was six, my sister was only five. The weather in England is very unpredictable. It was early September, and we had set out early in the morning. The sea was like a sheet of glass. There was a moderate breeze, and the sun was shining.” She smiled. “It was a glorious day, and we were all very happy. Mummy had packed a lovely luncheon, and Daddy was in good form, joking and laughing.

  “We were a few miles off the Isle of Wight, headed out into the open channel, when there was a severe weather warning over the radio. Very shortly after that, the weather began to change. We weren’t worried. We had been in storms before. Daddy was a very good seaman, and so was my mother, for that matter. My sister and I were packed below to play cards, and Daddy set a course back to the Chichester Channel. I remember they were talking about having a heartwarming pint at the pub in Dell Quay when we arrived.” She sipped her drink. “Only we never made it to Dell Quay. I don’t know what happened. I can only go by what I heard. We were tacking in towards the Chichester Harbor, and as we were coming about, one of the sheets got caught. My mother went to release it but failed to lash herself to the rail. We were struck by a large wave and she was swept overboard. It happened in a matter of seconds.”

  She stopped talking. She gave a small shrug. It was an eloquent gesture that said it just didn’t make any sense.

  “I heard my father sc
ream. We saw him scramble past the hatch. We never heard him fall in. The noise of the storm was awful. That was it. We sat there as the storm battered the boat, knocking it sideways to the wind. We were lucky not to be capsized. It was a miracle really.

  “We were seen by another yacht also heading in for port. They radioed the lifeboat, and somehow they managed to tow us in to safety. Their bodies were never found.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  She spoke into her drink. Her voice was bitter. “Forgive me if I am boring you.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “My sister and I went into care and were put up for adoption. Very few families will take two children. I was adopted by a very loving couple in Surrey. I suppose I never did forgive them for not taking my sister. I think I cried more the day she and I were separated than when my parents died. For a while, they used to take me to visit her, but shortly after that, she was adopted too, by an American family.” She heaved a big sigh. “It’s a lot for a little six-year-old to take in, John. A lot of loss to assimilate when you are that small. I didn’t cry the day they took her away to the airport. I tried to stay strong for her. But something had died inside me.”

  I knew the answer, but I asked anyway. “Where did they take her?”

  “To San Francisco.”

  “Tamara Gunthersen was your sister?”

  “Tamara is my sister.”

  “She’s still alive?”

  She nodded.

  “Where?”

  She faced me and she looked haggard. Her sleek beauty had been replaced by drawn, gray despair. “John, I am desperate. I need help. I will do anything, just name it, anything you want. But for God’s sake, you have to help us.”

  “We’ll come to that. First, what is the trouble you’re in? And second, where is Tamara?”

  She stood and walked to the window. She parted the drapes a little and looked out at the black street.

  “She contacted me a couple of years ago. She was very excited. She said she’d been offered a job. She called it a gig. She was an actress, and I assumed it was a part in a play or something. I was used to her getting overexcited; she had been going off the rails a bit ever since our parents died. She was always too happy, too excited, too positive. As though she was trying to convince herself, make herself believe that life wasn’t really the black nightmare it had become, that she hadn’t really been robbed of every shred of love she had ever been given.”

  “What happened?”

  She turned back to face me. “She said she’d met some billionaire, Hugh Duffy. Old money.” She gave an ironic smile. “What you call old money over here. They were in love, and he had asked her to marry him. I was thrilled for her, obviously. But next thing, she phoned me and she was talking crazy. She seemed hyper, hysterical—she was going to New York because she had to square things with Steve.”

  “Her ex-boyfriend, the loser from the Bronx.”

  She nodded. “She was always fascinated by him.” She gave me a look that was hard to interpret. “This strange attraction bastards have for some women. I told her not to be stupid. She had struck it lucky. Not only did she really seem to love this Hugh character, but he was loaded and seemed to be a genuinely nice man. But she insisted she knew what she was doing, and she came to New York.”

  She ran her fingers through her hair and flopped into the chair opposite me.

  “It was like that bloody storm all over again. One minute, everything was light and sunshine, and the next, all hell had broken loose. She was on the phone to me, hysterical, sobbing her poor little eyes out. She had done something terrible; there were men hunting for her who wanted to kill her…”

  “What had she done that was so terrible?”

  She studied my face a long time. I studied hers back. It was expressionless, hard, calculating.

  “She had stolen something.”

  “From Duffy.”

  She didn’t answer. “She had taken something that she should not have taken, and now there were men after her, who were prepared to kill her in order to get it back.”

  “What had she stolen?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “If you want my help, sister…”

  “I can’t tell you!” She snapped it and stared at me, hard. “I cannot tell you! Don’t ask! You don’t need to know. The point is, she took it, and these men are after her, and they will kill her, not just to get it back, but to make an example of her.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Are you talking about Duffy, or are you talking about dos Santos?”

  She put her glass down and buried her face in her hands. “Dos Santos is a very, very dangerous man, John. He is pure evil.” She looked up at me. “You think you are hard and ruthless, but this man has no soul. He will stop at nothing. There is no point beyond which he will not go.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “What could I do? I came to New York. Fortunately, I had good friends here. I was involved in the antiques trade in London, so it wasn’t hard for me to find work here. I took Tammy in, made her safe. I met Ulrich, my husband, and we have had an almost normal life until now.”

  “Tammy lives with you?”

  “No. And please don’t ask me where she is. I can’t and I won’t tell you.”

  “How do you expect me to help you if you don’t tell me what she stole or where she is?”

  She closed her eyes. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Wrong. Don’t go to pieces on me, Emma. For once you made the right choice—stay with it.”

  She stood. “I need to go home. If Ulrich wakes up…”

  I stood and moved toward her. I grabbed her by the arms and dragged her close, pressing her hard against me. “Stay! You can’t leave it like this! You know I will come after you!”

  “John, please…!” Her face was barely an inch from mine. Her lips were tender and pink, and her eyes, deep blue, were searching mine for something. I don’t know if she found it, but she placed a hand gently on my chest and whispered. “This has been hard for me. I have never told anybody what I have told you tonight. Give me time. I will come back, I promise, and then…”

  I growled, “And then what?”

  “Then, I promise, I will share everything with you. Call me a taxi, John, please…”

  Five minutes later, I walked her to the cab. Just before she got in, she planted a real, tender kiss on my cheek. And then she was gone. All there was was a pair of red taillights fading into the night.

  NINETEEN

  I went inside and phoned Dehan.

  “Do you know what time it is, Stone?”

  “One twenty. Were you sleeping?”

  “No, I was hanging on the phone, waiting for you to call.”

  She didn’t sound sleepy. “You want a drink?”

  “Now?”

  “I need to tell you what happened.”

  “And it can’t wait till the morning?”

  I thought about it. “I’m confused.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Sensei is confused. Must be pretty complex.”

  “It’s pretty complex, and I am having trouble telling the lies from the truth.”

  “Okay.”

  “Shall I come over?”

  I heard her sigh, then the sound of a computer being switched off. “No, I’ll come to you.”

  I dropped a couple of rocks of ice in my whiskey and went and sat on my stoop. Somewhere I could hear the repetitive sawing, croaking of frogs. The air was close and humid, and I took one of the rocks from my drink and rubbed it around the back of my neck, running through in my mind everything that Emma had told me, examining each point, trying to decide which bits were true and which bits were lies.

  Dehan arrived twenty minutes later. She pulled up behind my Jag, climbed out, and stood looking at me from the sidewalk.

  “How many of those have you had?”

  “This is my third.”

  “I’ve got some catching up to do,
then.”

  I smiled. It was a relief to see her. Even when she was mad, she was never judgmental. She kept it real.

  “You going to come in, or do I have to go and get you?”

  She pushed through the gate and came up the path on her long legs and walked past me into the house. I followed. She stood in the middle of the living room, taking in the scene with a cop’s eyes: the martini glass half-finished on the floor by the sofa. She turned to face me. “You’ve got lipstick on your cheek.”

  “And only on my cheek. Stop jumping to conclusions. You want ice?”

  “Yeah. Can we sit in the garden?”

  We took our drinks outside and sat at the garden table. The frogs were louder out there. She put her foot on my chair and asked me, “So what happened?”

  “She called at eleven…” I paused and looked at her. “You have to understand something, I am presenting myself to this woman as a bent cop. So my behavior is not exactly exemplary, okay?”

  She gave a small smile, but most of her humor was in her eyes. “Okay…”

  I told her the whole story, in detail, without leaving anything out. It was almost like a confession, and I was aware while I was doing it that I was looking for some kind of absolution from her.

  She listened in silence, holding her glass in both hands and watching me. When I’d finished, she gave a small sigh and sipped her drink. Then she gave a small laugh. “You called her babe?”

  I snorted. “I guess I was inspired by your talk of Frisco and yeggs.” I became serious. “The point is, I am having trouble telling the truth from fantasy here.”

  She was quiet for a long while, turning her glass in her fingers. After a bit, she asked me the question that was eating her. “Stone, is she getting to you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She fixed me with her big black eyes. “We can be straight with each other, right? I have to tell you, you have been acting strange since you met her. Are you falling for her?”

  “Of course not.”

  “There is no ‘of course’ about it, Stone. You said yourself this woman is beautiful. She is intense and passionate. Hell, she sounds fascinating. Any man would be attracted to her.”

  “I am not falling for her, Dehan.”