“Don’t worry about it,” I said. I would have liked to take off my coat and tie and unbutton my top button; but I still wore my nine-millimeter in its shoulder holster. So I remained less than casual.
“You’d said you’d tell me,” she said with brittle, barely controlled anger. “It sounded like you were fighting in there.”
“It was just a scuffle.”
“A scuffle! What about?”
“You. He told me to stay away from you, and took a swing at me. I decked him, then sat on him a while till he was cooled down. That’s all.”
Exasperated, she shook her head, eyes large, said, “Does this sort of thing happen to you often?”
“It used to. I been leading a pretty quiet life lately.”
“Well, you’re certainly getting back into the swing of things, aren’t you?”
“Yes. But I wish I wasn’t.”
“What do you mean, Jack?” Her anger was fading already.
“Nothing. Let’s forget about this and just have a nice meal, okay?”
“Oh-kay,” she sighed, smirking with frustration, and we ordered drinks-her a martini (again) and me a Diet Coke (again), and I got her talking about her kids for awhile. The older one was a cheerleader, but not such a great student; the younger girl was shy, though her marks were excellent. Angela’s eyes lit up when she talked about them. The sadness that I’d noticed in her last night was absent this evening, at least when her kids were the topic of discussion.
I hadn’t eaten anything today, so I had a full dinner, the main course wiener schnitzel (the Sundance menu wasn’t particularly frontier-oriented); Angela, who probably weighed one hundred twenty, had the diet plate.
She was having a second martini, an after dinner one, when I got back into it.
“I need to ask you something about your husband,” I said.
“Bob? What about him?”
“You said he’s working for George Ridge now.”
“Yes. He’s an… executive assistant, I think is the title.”
“But Ridge and Preston Freed had a bitter falling out. Are you aware of that?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding.
“Yet you indicated your husband is still under Freed’s ‘spell.’”
“Yes, Bob’s still a member of the Democratic Action party. I don’t think he’s as active as he used to be, but… I don’t get your point.”
“Well, the point is, how can he work for Ridge, and still be involved with Freed?”
“I don’t know. Lots of people who work together, who’re in business together, disagree politically. Is that so unusual?”
I let some air out. Shrugged. “I just figured the rift between Ridge and Freed was so acrimonious, it’d spill over into other things …”
“Maybe so. I really don’t know anything about it. Why don’t you ask George Ridge about it? Or Freed? Or Bob, for that matter?”
She didn’t know it, of course, but nobody was going to be talking to Bob again, not unless it was with a Ouija board. And the same would be true of George Ridge, before long, once I’d met him and his plane Monday night. Freed I could, and would, ask.
“Something else we need to talk about,” I said.
“Yes?” Her smile was eager; she was assuming, wrongly, this would be pleasant.
“Don’t ask me how I know this. Don’t ask me how I did this exactly.”
“Know what? Did what?”
“That rumor about Preston Freed’s video-tape library.”
She smiled, laughed softly. “His triple-X home movies, you mean. What about it?”
“It’s no rumor.”
She shrugged. “I’m not really surprised. But how’d you verify it? Oh, sorry-you said not to ask…”
She wasn’t as impressed as she should be.
I reached over to the chair next to me where my brown leather coat was draped. I got the black plastic box out of one pocket and showed it to her. “This is from his private library.”
She smiled one-sidedly, a little amazed. “You’re kidding!”
“No. Check out the spine.”
She looked at it. “‘Angela,’” she said. “Well, this isn’t me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Hey, he’s got a camera pointing right at his bed. He’s got a shelf of over thirty tapes with the names of women on every one of them. There’s no reason to kid me.”
“Jack. Read my lips. This isn’t me. I never slept with Freed. Or did anything with him. Have you screened this?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t know where to find a machine that’ll play it. It won’t play in a home VCR-I need the kind they use at TV stations.”
“Three-quarter inch, not half-inch,” she said, nodding. “You know, I think I know where I can find us a screening room.”
We took her car. It was dark now, as we headed up Brady through its neon franchise canyon, gliding along by BEST BUY, heading on out past the shopping malls and even her own housing addition. Well past the city limits, as Iowa farmland began to kick in, a cluster of small buildings appeared at our left, a garden of big metal mushrooms- satellite dishes-along its one side.
We got out of the car and she looped her arm in mine, saying, “If Chuck still works here, and I think he does, we’ll be in business. I used to drop Preston Freed’s weekly ‘news’ show off to ’im.”
There were no lights on in the front, office part of the small building complex, but a few windows glowed toward the rear. The side door, marked “Cable Vision Employees Only,” just this side of the mesh fence that enclosed the satellite-dish garden, was unlocked. I followed her in and down a narrow hall.
An open door to the right revealed a small studio, lights unlit, cameras unattended; she knocked at the next door and, shortly, a shaggy-haired mustached guy in a dark green sweater and blue jeans answered, styrofoam coffee cup in hand. He was about thirty-five and sleepy-eyed; dope was in his past and maybe his present. Behind him was a small but elaborate control booth, video tape machines and monitors and banks of switches, with a big window looking out on that empty studio.
“Well! How ya doin’, beautiful,” he said, brightening at seeing her. “Don’t tell me you’re workin’ for the Great White Father again.”
She laughed. “No, I had enough of that windbag to last a lifetime. You’re still running on caffeine, I see.”
He sipped his coffee. “It’s legal. What’s the occasion?”
“Need a favor, Chuck.”
“Hey, anything for a pretty face. You still selling cars?”
“Yes, and that’s why I’m here. We had this hotshot advertising firm out of Cedar Rapids do some commercials for us, but when the tape arrived, it was on three-quarter. All we have at the
showroom is a VHS.”
“And you wanna screen the sucker. Well, no problem, babe. There’s a machine and a monitor in the office next door.” He pointed with his thumb to a door that said STATION MANAGER. “It’s not locked.”
“Thanks, Chuck.”
“No problem-o, babe. Gotta get back to work. Let me know when you’re leavin’…”
He toasted her with his coffee and shut himself back in his booth.
“They run a pretty tight ship around here,” I said.
“It’s a small operation,” she said, leading me into the station manager’s office, a cluttered cubbyhole with a desk and several files but also a stand on which sat a TV monitor and, under it, a big VCR. “They serve several small communities. And they’re making some dough uplinking Freed’s show for him every week.”
I handed her the tape and she inserted it in the machine and we stood and watched.
Watched, thanks to a sharply focused if stationary camera, Preston Freed in spirited action with a lovely blond girl of about twenty. I fast-forwarded it through several sexual positions and practices and some mutual coke use and, while it was hardly a testimonial to the conservative values Preston Freed extolled, the tape had nothing to do with Angela Jordan.
“So it isn’t you.”
“No, of course not. See for yourself. I’m not the only Angela in the world.”
“Who is this girl?”
“She was only with the party for a few months. She’s dead.”
I looked at her sharply. “Dead?”
“She had a nervous breakdown. Suicide.”
“When was this?”
“At least two years ago.”
I shut the tape off. “I’m sorry. I should’ve believed you.”
She smiled at me, touched my arm. “You were trying to do me a favor, weren’t you? You saw the name on that tape, and assumed it was me, and took it. To give to me.”
“Yeah, or to destroy,” I said. Like I had already done with the other tape, the one that had the name “Becky” on the spine, co-starring me and my stun gun.
“You’re sweet,” she said. “But that tape isn’t me. It is, however, political dynamite. If you’re working for Freed, you’d better get rid of it.”
“Maybe I’m a blackmailer.”
She smiled wide. “I don’t think so. You’re just not the type. And I’m a pretty good judge of character.”
If she were a good judge of character, she wouldn’t be a divorcee twice over. But I didn’t point that out to her.
I tucked the tape back in my pocket and we exited the cubbyhole. Out in the silent hall, she stuck her head in the studio and waved at Chuck through the glass of his booth; he looked up from inserting a tape in a machine and smiled and waved. Soon we were on the road again, heading back to Davenport.
“Would you mind stopping by my house for a few minutes?” she asked. “We’ll be going right by. It’s getting late and I’d like to check and see if Mom and the girls are back yet.”
“That’s fine. I’d like to meet your family.”
But when she pulled into the driveway of the green split-level, next to a shiny white Pontiac Bonneville, she said “Damn! They’re not home…”
“Then whose car is that?”
She paused. Made a face. “Lonny’s.”
“I’ll handle the little jerk,” I said.
She touched my arm. “Don’t let things get out of hand.”
“I’ll just send him on his way.”
I got out of the car and opened her door for her and escorted her up the sidewalk. He was sitting up on the front stoop, the tip of his cigarette an amber eye in the darkness; he stood as we approached, still in his BEST BUY blue blazer, no topcoat.
She got between us. “Now, I don’t want any trouble…”
But I could already see from Lonny’s haunted expression that this was about something else. “Angela,” he said. “Please. We have to talk.”
“We can talk at work on Monday.”
He paused. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. It’s Bob.”
“What about Bob?”
“Bob…” He sighed. “He’s apparently drowned. Him and Jim Crawford both.”
She clutched my arm. “Oh, my God. How… how did it happen?”
“A boating accident,” he said.
“A boating accident?” she asked, incredulous.
“I know it sounds crazy, this time of year. But Bob and Jim Crawford were apparently takin’ a small cabin cruiser, this morning, to this island on Lake Superior. I guess some business associates of their boss, Ridge, lived on this island and, well, a storm blew in out of nowhere and… a wind like that can dump a vessel a lot larger, they said…”
“Oh, my God. What will I tell the girls? What will I tell the girls?”
“The boat was found, capsized. Nobody aboard.”
“What about Ridge?” I asked.
“He never was aboard,” Best said. “They were going to that island to meet him.” To her, he said: “There’s… I’m sorry, honey, but they said there’s really not much chance of recovering the bodies.”
She was weeping now, into my arm. “Jack… Jack… what can I do?”
I patted her back.
Best, looking stunned himself, shook his head, touched her shoulder; said, “Sorry, hon. I’m very sorry.”
“Why’d they call you?” I asked him.
“Authorities been trying to reach Angela all day,” he said, refusing to get defensive about it. “Somebody finally led ’em to the car lot. When they called, it was just after you left, and I was the only one still around.”
I looked at him hard, looking for complicity in his reddish round face; but I couldn’t find any. He seemed genuinely concerned, upset, himself.
“You want me to hang around?” he asked her.
She shook her head no.
He swallowed again, nodded, said he was very sorry, to let him know if there was anything he could do, and, head lowered, ear scabbed over some from where I tagged him, he shuffled down the curving walk to his shiny new car and drove away.
I guided her into the house and we sat on a sofa.
I let her cry into my shoulder for a while. She was having a rough time of it. So was her ex-husband, poor old Bob Jordan: first I shoot him and burn his body, and now he up and drowns.
Perhaps fifteen minutes later, she stood. “The girls will be home before long.”
I stood.
She hugged me.
“Oh, Jack. You’ve been so kind.” She swallowed. Looked up at me with those dark blue eyes, shining with tears. “Part of me still loved the bastard, I guess. It’s hard… so hard. But then you know all about that.”
I touched the tears on her cheek.
“You know all about losing somebody you love,” she said.
I said nothing.
“I think I’d like to be alone now,” she said. “Try to collect my thoughts before the girls get here.”
I thought that was a good idea. I called a taxi and sat with her till it arrived.
16
There were half a dozen flights from Chicago to monitor. It was Monday evening, and George Ridge, routed through O’Hare on one of three shuttle airlines, would be on one of them. I could not go down to the gate where he’d be coming in. Doing that would mean crossing the concourse, through security, and the nine-millimeter under my arm-in the shoulder holster, the noise suppressor in my suitcoat pocket to attach if need be-would win me the grand prize if I tried to walk through the metal detector.
I didn’t want to kill him here, anyway. I wanted to talk to him before I sent him on his way. He knew things that I wanted to know.
In the small gift shop I bought a Snickers bar (supper) and a late edition of the Quad City Times. I wasn’t in the mood to read it or anything, but I needed something to hide behind, and I’m just not the sunglasses and fake mustache type. George Ridge and I had, after all, met-back on the deck of my A-frame, when he first approached me to kill Preston Freed. Not only could he easily recognize me, he might even be on the lookout for me; he obviously knew I wasn’t dead: the cover-up he’d arranged for the deaths of Bob Jordan and Jim Crawford indicated he knew just how badly his attempt to kill me had gone awry.
Both Jordan and Crawford had their pictures on the front page of the very Times I held in my hands. I’d seen the pictures in the morning edition, so it came as no surprise to me (nor had it this morning) that Crawford, who had accompanied George Ridge and Angela’s ex-husband on that ill-fated expedition up north, was a certain thin, blond, cadaverous guy. It did come as a surprise to me to learn he’d died in a boating accident. I seemed to remember putting an axe in the back of his fucking head.
I planted myself in a seat in the wide, open area near baggage claim; the airport had a single conveyor belt affair that handled baggage from all flights. Ridge would just about have to come here. And even if he sent some flunky after his luggage, from where I was sitting I could see where the concourse emptied out all returning passengers. He wouldn’t escape me.
My intention, unless he made me, was to follow him. I could have waited at his fancy house-I knew where i
t was, I’d cased the outside of the place earlier today-but I thought there was a possibility he might make a stop somewhere on his way home to confer with some fellow conspirator. After all, me and the shit had hit the fan while he was (conveniently) out of the country, and tomorrow morning was the press conference-cum-shooting gallery. So tonight, it stood to reason, would be a lively night for George Ridge. Lively for a while, anyway.
In the parking lot I had found the chocolate-brown BMW he had driven to my place; mud no longer coated the license plate, which was Scott County. I touched the car, my hand trembling. I wanted this fucker. I wanted this fucker.
Ridge was large in my thoughts, but he wasn’t alone.
He shared them with the man he’d hired to do the job I turned down.
I had, in fact, spent the day trying to track that man-Stone-without much luck. I felt he had to be in town-I almost sensed he was here, if I believed in that shit-but he had apparently not checked into the Blackhawk. I was dealing with desk clerks on all three shifts and none of them seemed to have seen him.
Having worked with him, I knew he liked to roost close to the site of a hit. It was something we argued about, one of the reasons, really, why I had asked the Broker for somebody else to work with. I’d learned a lot from Stone, he was a good teacher, but he had a serious flaw: I felt he left a trail. He would go so far as to stay in the same hotel as his target and that, I knew, was stupid.
But either he had gotten smart in the intervening years, or he just hadn’t checked in yet. I laid twenties on desk clerks in three other, nearby downtown Davenport hotels, but my description of Stone, and his aliases, rang no bells there, either.
Stone had two other quirks. First, he liked arcade games, was your classic pinball wizard, and he particularly, predictably, enjoyed shooting games. Surveillance over a period of days, even weeks, is tiring, intense work, and I could understand him taking a breather with the mindless challenges presented by an arcade full of games. But he was excessive. In a bar, Stone could park himself at pinball or an electronic ping-pong game for hours.
When I was teamed with Stone, it was before the video-game craze came (and, largely, went). But I had a hunch Stone would have flipped out over Pac Man and Donkey Kong and Galaga and the like. So I spent the afternoon doing what I thought was a clever piece of detective work, checking out several video arcades in Davenport, thinking Stone might be killing time within. But he hadn’t been. So much for my investigative abilities.
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