“That’s true. Someone with a lot of juice.”
“Well, think about it. Whoever it was must have tipped her off about recent inquiries. I didn’t tell Angel anything about you. How could I? I didn’t know you knew all this.”
“Why have you been looking for me?”
“I wanted to find her Web guy, and I thought, since you were working with him on these blackmail schemes, you could lead me to him.”
“What schemes? Just the one with Arthur, and Sluggo and me, we weren’t exactly working together. Please…” She dismissed the idea as too distasteful to ponder.
“Then you do know Stewart Belkamp.”
“Sure. He came out to the cabin once. Thank God I didn’t have to fuck him. That’s the only good thing about this whole mess.”
“Why would you have to?”
“I needed a copy of my Artie video, and he didn’t want to give it to me. I had to promise him a freebie if it worked out and I got some money for it.”
Poor Stewart. He’d been left at the altar not once but twice. “I thought his identity was a big secret.”
“It is. I only knew because we had our thing. Angel let down her guard a little with me. I wish to hell she hadn’t. I am going to be so murdered.”
“Not if you go to the police.”
“Why would I do that? As long as she has her dirty movies, there’s no one who can touch her.”
I climbed off the couch to walk around. The couch had not made a good bed. It had been too soft to sleep on, and my back was sore. I ended up by the window. The sky was still overcast, looking a lot more like winter’s approach than it had the past few days. “Monica, what do these archives look like?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are they electronic files? Are they on tape? Are they CD-Roms?”
“I don’t know. You’d have to ask Stewart.”
“I plan to.” I turned to Tristan. “I need a gun.”
“Did you pass your test?”
“I failed it.”
“Then the answer is absolutely not.”
“Tristan—”
He moved instinctively to the .44 on his mantel, as if to protect it from me. Or me from it. “Are you planning on shooting Sluggo?”
“Of course not. But I want a way to threaten him.”
“Never take a gun where you don’t intend to use it. I won’t give you one. I’m sorry. Besides, what happens to me if you shoot someone with my gun? I’ll be in deep yogurt, and you’ll be in jail. If you want me to come with you, I’ll bring it. But I’m not giving you one.”
“You can’t come. You have to stay here with Monica.”
“While you do what?”
“Get the archive. The second I have it, I want her sitting in the police station telling her story. I don’t want Angel getting out of this.” I looked at Monica and thought about the two “amateurs with guns,” as Bo had called them. I was pretty sure Angel had sent them, which meant Monica needed protection. “In fact, I’m sending someone else over to stay here with you.” I went to the table, where Tristan’s note from that morning still sat. I used the pen he’d used, wrote out “Djuro Bulatovic,” and gave it to him. “This man will come and stay with you. Call him Bo.”
“How will I know it’s him?”
Monica chuckled. “Do what we do. Give him a code word.”
Tristan looked at me, and I shrugged at him. “Might as well go with what works.”
A mischievous spark showed in his eyes. “I know exactly what to use.”
Chapter Forty-one
I was on foot, headed through the neighborhood and back to my car, when my cell phone rang. I was expecting Felix, hoping for Tristan, and would have taken almost anyone except the person whose name showed up on caller ID.
“Hello, Angel.”
“Well, doll, what did you think of the show?”
“I think you’re sick and in need of professional help. But mostly, I think you need to go to jail.”
“Your little brother is so the stud. Girl, he wore me out. We did it standing up, sitting down, in the shower, on the carpet, on the tile. We even did it in the bathroom sink.”
“I already know everything that happened. Don’t waste your time embellishing.” Still, having seen the one image of the two of them, it was hard not to conjure the others she described.
“Really? Why don’t you tell me sweet Jamie’s version, because we know he would never tell a lie.”
“You pursued him, you lied to him, you came into his hotel room, and the two of you fucked. One time.”
“One time or ten times, it makes no never mind when you’re cheating on your wife.”
“He also didn’t know you were a hooker.”
“Tell me why that matters, doll.”
“We both know he never would have touched you if he knew what you really are.”
“You’re hurting my feelings.”
The sound of a car horn made it hard to hear, mostly because it was loud and getting louder, not to mention unrelenting, which was when I realized it was attached to the Audi that was bearing down on me. I had wandered into the middle of Arlington Street at Beacon, one of the more treacherous pedestrian intersections in the city, which was saying a lot in Boston. I made a dash for the other side. If I were to be run over, it might as well be going forward.
“This is between you and me, Angel. My family has nothing to do with it.”
“Are you under the impression we are playing by some set of rules? He talked about you, by the way. Do you want to know what he said?”
“If I do, I’ll ask him. Tell me specifically what it is you want, so we don’t have any unfortunate misunderstandings.”
“I want to fuck as many men as will pay me, make more money than God, and retire to my very own cattle ranch in Texas. But right now, I’ll settle for Monica. You tell me where I can catch up with her, and I’ll send you back Jamie’s dirty movie. Did I tell you how much he likes to—”
“Why do you want Monica? So you can beat her to death with a brick?”
There was the slightest pause, which I enjoyed. Angel speechless was a thing to behold. “I see you two have hooked up. Do you like how I did that? Sending her to you so I would know where to find her?”
“Yeah, you’re a real mastermind.”
“I know what’s bothering you deep down, sis. Little brother’s got a few more moves than you knew about. Here you’ve been thinking all along he’s sweet and innocent. But come to find out he’s just as twisted and screwed up as the rest of us. As you and me, sweet pea.”
“Jamie is not like you.”
“Oh, my. Listen to you. Still protecting little brother from the big, bad world. That was him in that bed with me, wasn’t it? Between my thighs, pumping away like a house afire. Must be he doesn’t get everything he needs at home, or else why would he be rolling around in the mud with the likes of me?”
“You don’t live in the mud. You live in the sewer, and you can’t get the stink off, no matter what you do. Isn’t that right?”
“Only you can’t protect him from this. You’re the one who caused it to happen to him in the first place.”
“Is that all? Are we done?”
“I’ll give you until midnight to decide. If I don’t hear from you, I will send out copies of our little fun time to Mrs. Jamie and the little Jamiettes, to the partners at the firm, to the friends, the kids’ private schools, and anybody else in his address book who looks interesting. I’ll tell you something else, too, darlin’. I’ll find Monica, anyway.”
I was close to the playground, and it was afternoon, prime time for screaming and squealing tots. It was hard to hear, but there wasn’t much more to talk about, anyway. I knew the game. I knew the stakes. I knew what I had to do. “I’m about to go underground and lose my signal,” I said. “But remember one thing. No matter what you try to do to Jamie, no matter what you do to me, you will always be what you are.”
“What’s that,
doll?”
“The girl who fucked the parish priest back in West Texas.”
I snapped the phone shut and found a bench in the Public Garden to sit on. Judging by the disapproving scowl, the white-haired woman walking her Scottish terrier must have heard that last part. I ignored her and smiled at the dog, the less judgmental of the two.
I felt terrible. My whole body was stiff and brittle, and I was still trying to recover from my meeting with Harvey. I wasn’t sure what would cure my ills, short of putting my fist into Angel’s face, but I did have a thought about something that might help.
I flipped open the phone and turbo-dialed Jamie. I didn’t know what I would say, although, when it came down to it, I had only one thing to say. His voice mail picked up.
“Jamie, I’m sorry. I wish I could say these things to you live, but I can’t wait. The things I said… they were terrible. You didn’t deserve it, and I’m so sorry I got you into this situation. I’m trying hard to fix it. That’s all I wanted to say, that I’m sorry and I hope we can talk soon.” I started to punch off, but I’d forgotten the one thing I had called to tell him. “Jamie … I love you.”
I punched off, pulled out Bo’s card, and dialed his number. The way things were going, I would have to program him into speed dial. When he answered, I got straight to the point.
“Will you do me another favor?”
He said he would, and I told him where he could find Tristan and Monica. He didn’t ask a lot of questions, but, given his earlier experience of mistaken identity, he had the same one Tristan had had. How would they recognize each other?
“When you ring the buzzer,” I said, “tell him who you are. Your part of the code is Rob. He’ll answer with Lowe. Rob Lowe.”
“Okay. Is there anything else you need?”
I looked across the garden at the lush but fragile carpet of leaves that covered the ground. More were falling—spinning, dipping, and floating on the leading edge of a cold front that was barreling down from Canada, they said. I checked around to make sure that no one was close enough to hear.
“There is one more thing I need.”
Chapter Forty-two
Stewart’s door was locked when I tried the knob, but I knew he was in there. I heard his stereo pounding. I thought about crashing through the window but decided to go with a knock. I didn’t need the element of surprise, not with Bo’s Glock in my waistband.
Alarmingly, Stewart wasn’t surprised at all to see me. He stepped aside without comment and let me in, then headed for the back room. “What you want is back here.”
I stood for a moment, trying to decide if the fact that he had expected me was a bad thing. Angel had obviously filled him in. Ultimately, I decided it didn’t matter. I wasn’t leaving.
Back in the bedroom, Stewart was watching Jamie’s video. He’d turned his stereo off, so the sound track was dearly audible. He froze the picture when he saw me, hit a button on his keyboard, and brought up a list of ten or twelve e-mail addresses.
“This is the distribution list Angel gave me for this little art house film.” His voice had a sharp edge of confidence, as if he had total control. It showed in his eyes, too. “Take a look.”
My e-mail address was on the list. So was Gina’s. I saw the address for Jamie’s new company and what looked like Sean’s private school. There was an address for St. Anthony’s Parish and—my stomach turned to stone—my father. I imagined Walter pulling up a copy and feeling vindicated for every nasty thing he’d ever said about Jamie.
“Where did you get these?”
“I hacked into his e-mail account. Watch this.” Stewart used his mouse to move the cursor over the send box … and clicked it. He clicked it. He sent the messages.
“Did you… what did you do? What did you just do?”
“Relax. They’re not quite gone yet. They’re locked away in a safe place on the server for now.” Which meant there was nothing I could do from his computer. “I can stop them any time in the next ten minutes. But after that, they’re gone, and nothing can stop them, and no one can get them back. Think of it as a ticking time bomb, and only you can defuse it.”
I felt Bo’s gun against my back. I heard Tristan’s words floating in my head. “Don’t bring a gun unless you intend to use it.” I had to leave it as my last resort.
“What do you want?”
“You still owe me a fuck, you cockteasing bitch.”
I took a step back—recoiled was more like it. “If you were the last asshole on earth, I would not let you lay a finger on me.”
“Is that your final answer?” He reached for the mouse. “I can always send them early.”
“Stop. Wait.”
“The clock is ticking.” He clicked on something else, and the horrid video began again, with all the attendant noise, and I could hear Jamie moaning, and I could hear Angel, gasping and wailing like the porn queen she was.
“Turn that off” He killed the volume but left the image playing. “I said to turn it off you …” I couldn’t even think of what to call him. My vocabulary was a little light for this situation. “Child.”
He clicked it off and looked at me. He kept wiping his hands on his pants.
“Ask me for something else,” I said. “Money. I’ll buy it from you.”
“No. All I want is you naked. For an hour.”
“An hour? What would we do for the fifty-eight minutes after you were done?” Asshole. “I’ll get what I need some other way.”
“You won’t, and besides”—he tapped the monitor—”I thought what you wanted was to stop this mailing. It’s your brother, right? Is that what you said?”
“I didn’t say.”
“She must have told me. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s someone you’re trying to protect. That’s what I know.” He reached for his mouse and clicked around the screen quickly. “Have you seen the whole thing? This one is triple-X-rated. Whoo-hoo.”
“I saw it.”
“I know what you saw. I’m the one who clipped it out for her. There’s more. There is so much more. Believe me, the stuff they did, you don’t want this thing getting out. You sure don’t want his wife looking at it.”
It was hard to keep from imploding, from simply caving in under the weight of a problem that just grew heavier and heavier with each passing second. I looked at his clock. Five minutes, thirty seconds… twenty-nine… twenty-eight. Had we been debating for five minutes? I had to do something. I should walk out is what I should do. I should either pull the gun or walk out. Information. I needed to know more.
“What about Angel’s copy?”
“She doesn’t have one.”
“You’re lying.”
“Okay, I am. But all you need to know right now is that this thing is going out in”—he checked the countdown clock—“five minutes if you don’t get your clothes off right now.”
That was it. I reached around, pulled the gun, and pointed it at his head. It felt kind of good… until he started laughing. “You can shoot me if you want, but this thing will still go out. Or you can give me the gun and let me ball you and make it stop. What’s it going to be?”
He was so repulsive, and he wasn’t as cool as he was pretending to be. There was a thin line of sweat on his upper lip under his downy patch of light red facial hair. I put the gun right against his forehead. “Do you want to die, Stewart? Would it be worth it to die for Angel?”
“No, but I also want to get laid, and I don’t think you have the guts to shoot me.”
He couldn’t turn his head, but his eyes slipped sideways to the screen. I was trying to think fast. An idea was trying to pull itself together in my brain. It must have been somewhere in my subconscious, because the conscious side was pretty panicked at the moment.
“I’ll do it.” I pointed the gun down and stepped back “Turn it off.”
“Give me the gun.”
I hit the release, popped out the clip, and handed it to him. “I keep the gun, and you
keep the clip. That’s the only way it works.”
He took the clip, put it in a desk drawer, pulled a key from somewhere, and locked it. When he turned and found the barrel of the gun up in his eyes again, his head snapped back.
“There’s one round chambered,” I said. “I’ll put it right through your head if you don’t turn that off right now.”
He held perfectly still. He was no longer smiling. “It won’t fire without the clip. It has a disconnector.”
I opened my mouth to answer and closed it again. How the hell did he know about disconnectors?
“This is a Glock, Stewart. It doesn’t have a disconnector.” Thank God for Tristan and his firearms lessons.
“It does,” he said, “if it was purchased in Massachusetts after the regulation went into effect.” Without moving his head, he rolled his eyes up to look at me. “Do you know how old that gun is?”
A geek who knew his firearms. Besides the obvious and immediate drawback, it made me wonder if he had some of his own stashed around. I didn’t know how old the gun was, which meant I didn’t know if I was bluffing or not. Not exactly a strong position to be in.
“Do you want to find out, Stewart?”
He took a deep breath and swallowed hard and reached his hand out. For one precious moment, I thought it was to stop the clock, but it found my thigh instead. “Let’s find out together. Fire off a test round, and we’ll see.” He gave me a squeeze through my blue jeans. When I pulled away, he smiled. I didn’t much like being the canary that had gotten caught, especially given the consequences.
“Two-minute warning.”
I watched him get up and walk toward the bed. With a quick flourish, he pulled off both his buttoned shirt and his T-shirt and dropped them on the floor. He had breasts. He unbuttoned the top button on his pants, then sat down to remove his ratty running shoes and socks.
“What’s it going to be?”
The Alex Shanahan Series Page 105