by phuc
Sammy got a real charge seeing what adults would do when they were desperate. That was it: he liked to see.
And sometimes Vinchetti's men would let him do more than see.
But kp was different that was Sammy's special thing. He'd never hurt the kids. He'd loved them, that was all. Nobody ever understood that...
The prosecutors had finished him; Sammy didn't stand a chance when they started showing some of the kp flicks to the jury, and Kathleen's decade old testimony against him had only driven a few more nails in the legal coffin. They even passed his private photos around, and the kiddie mags he was in. Sammy'd ratted out most of the points, the main labs and warehouses on the east coast, and all over Vinchetti's distro drops. PC was part of the deal, plus they'd dropped most of the federal charges. He could spin or he could take 50 years in general pop with no parole. Same as a death sentence...
"Thank you," Sammy said to the teller when she gave him his withdrawal. His gaze flicked to the snapshots of her kids. "You have beautiful children," he said.
Later he was on the road. Sammy's slam allowed convicts to keep their driver's licenses valid as long as you were eligible for parole within five years of beginning your stint. He paid five large for a used Caddie ragtop, bought temp tags and insurance through DCAIF at the dealer's. So what if the cops knew he bought a car? I'm a citizen now, not a convict, he affirmed.
It was great to be out on the open road again. He stopped by Big Ben Liquors and bought a cold case. Then he cruised up New York Avenue and booked a room at the Senator.
He wasn't stupid. Sooner or later someone in the net would get wind he was out of stir. Then Vinchetti would put a high five figure contract out on him. But Sammy planned to be out of the country long before then.
He just had a few things to do first.
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Chapter 22
(I)
Kathleen hated going to Spence's office. The afternoon traffic was bad enough, and finding a close place to park. But what she disliked further was the office itself the drab little vault where the sun always seemed to glare in her eyes. Its compactness made Spence, a large man, appear larger. Again, she thought of golems, with hearts and faces of riverbed clay. But better she come to him than he to her, to comment on her housekeeping talents.
"Don't you have a fax machine or email or something?" she asked after being invited through the frosted glass door.
Spence didn't look up. "Of course. Law enforcement agency use only..." He was reading.
"Another manuscript?"
"‘Rome, the pimp." She put the envelope on his desk. "Here are the originals."
"Express Mail," Spence noted. "That's interesting. A different mode of delivery each time."
"Aren't you going to read it?"
"No. I already know what happened to ‘Rome. I'll read it later, then send it to our forensic psychiatrist. Right now, however, and as you can see, I'm quite busy with some rather dull periodicals."
The desk was a welter of magazines. Closer study showed her that Spence had procured several dozen back issues of '90s Woman. "Read carefully. You might learn something."
"Unlikely. I'm looking for the nascent."
"The what?" Kathleen asked.
"For a writer you don't have much of a vocabulary. Don't you know what nascent means?"
"No, but I know what pedantry means. And specious and pernicious and partitivious. And here's another word I know. Asshole." She quickly raised a finger. "Oh, and one more. Dickbrain."
"Nascent," Spence said with no rebuff. "The focal point by which the killer's identification with you came into development. She feels linked, specifically, to you; otherwise she'd be sending her accounts to someone else. I need to know why. Why you? I need to know the nascent." His large, manicured hands gestured the piles of magazines. "It's got to be here, in your writing. There's no other place it could be. There's no other way that the killer could form a sense of identification with you."
Spence was right, but his point went without saying. Kathleen was about to suggest that perhaps it was her wisdom that appealed to the killer, her aptitude in analyzing problems and rendering credible advice. Spence, however, didn't give her the chance. "But this is all so tawdry," he continued. "Boyfriend problems, infertility and impotence, domestic duress, jealousy. It's all the same. I don't see anything in your column that's even close to being intricate enough to transfix a psychopath. This is all so rudimentary, biased, shallow." Spence shook his head in long, slow movements.
"I'm not going to respond to that," Kathleen said. "Because you want me to."
"I could care less what you respond to."
Kathleen turned for the door
"Don't leave yet. I want to talk to you about "
she opened the door
" your uncle."
Kathleen closed the door. Of course, she thought. He always does this. She turned and looked at him, and didn't say anything.
"Did you know your uncle has almost half a million dollars in the bank?"
"Inheritance," Kathleen explained. "Shortly before Sam got arrested, my grandfather died; he and my father inherited mineral properties. Sam sold my father his shares and invested it all in t bills or something."
"Graduated CDs," Spence corrected.
"Anyway, I thought I already told you that."
Spence reflected. "All that money, yet no home."
"What did he need a home for?" Kathleen suggested. "When my father was away on business, he stayed at our house "
"To look after you," Spence augmented.
" and the rest of the time he was..."
"Making underground pornography, mostly of the child variety. Then he'd transport the masters to a mob lab here in D.C. He was smart, actually, in not maintaining a permanent address. It made it harder for Justice to bag him. Unfortunately it makes it that much harder for us, now, to keep track of him." Spence's eyes met Kathleen's for the first time since she'd arrived. "He's in town. That much we do know."
"Why are you telling me this?" By now Kathleen's hatred yes, she thought she could call it that held itself in check, like a steady pulse. "I know, Spence," she said. "You keep bringing up my uncle because you think it upsets me, knocks me off balance. You want me off balance, don't you? You think it gives you power over me."
"That's the most ludicrous drivel I've ever heard in my life," Spence very calmly retorted. "I thought I was doing you a favor "
Kathleen jiggled with laughter.
" by keeping you informed of a matter that concerns you, and, hopefully, to make you aware of the probability that your uncle is someone you'll never have to worry about again."
This flummoxed her. What did he mean? "Explain," she said.
Spence shot a cuff out of a fine charcoal gray suit, to realign a gold cufflink. "I don't expect you to be well versed in the machineries of child pornography. The reason your uncle skated on the federal charges was due to a plea bargain. So was his parole eligibility. He sang like a canary, in other words. Child pornography is almost entirely mob operated. Your uncle stepped on a lot of big toes. The information he gave the feds closed down the east coast kiddie porn network for months."
"What's that got to do with my uncle not bothering me anymore?"
"He won't have time," Spence said. "Organized crime takes care of its own. Ever heard the term Philly Shooters? It's not a drink. Your uncle knows full well that people will be gunning for him real soon."
"What, you mean like assassins?" The notion was hard to swallow. It was something that happened in Coppola movies. Hit men?
"Sure," Spence said. "He's a marked man. It'll only be a matter of days before he leaves the country. Mexico. Costa Rica. Some place like that. We're watching his account. Today he withdrew $15,000, to get ready. When he withdraws the rest of it, that means he's making his move." This delighted Kathleen on one hand, yet enraged her on another. It didn't seem fair: Uncle Sammy fleeing to a life of luxury with a suitcase full of cash
. He was a child molester, for God's sake. "Can't you stop him?" she insisted. "Freeze his account or something?"
Spence shook his head. "As far as our judicial system is concerned, Samuel Curtis Shade has paid his debt to society. And we can't freeze bank accounts unless they're comprised of ill gotten gains. Your uncle's money is free and legal." He looked at her a moment, cruxed. "You should be pleased. You'll never see him again. Unless he's very stupid."
"In what way?"
"He's on parole. If he does anything anything at all that violates his early release orders, he's back in the Cement Ramada. That includes going anywhere near you, harassing you in any way, breaking the law in any way."
It still pisses me off, Kathleen thought. Something itched at her, deep in her heart. But at least she could work on the book now without any worries about Sammy.
"And speaking of breaking the law," Spence added, "did you know that citizen handgun possession is illegal in the District of Columbia? Did you know that it's a felony?"
Kathleen's stare ran like putty. "Wha "
"The weapon that Maxwell Platt gave you last night the illegal handgun "
Kathleen winced. "You asshole," she remarked. She wondered how many times she'd called him that. No other insult seemed appropriate. "So your undercover crony in that ridiculous van is spying on me? That's inexcusable."
"So you've made the vehicle. Impressive. And remember, that ‘crony' may well save your life."
Spence paused, creaking back away from the ramparts of magazines, and smiled. "It's an amusing thought, though."
"What?"
"I could put you in jail right now. Right this instant, I could cuff you, book you, and lock you up.
I'll bet that'd break some of your starch. Hmm?"
Kathleen couldn't help but laugh. "You're so insecure, Spence. You're so juvenile. I almost feel sorry for you " She laughed again. "Almost. You think your police badge gives you power, for Christ's sake. Without that, you have no sense of self at all, do you? You've got nothing in your life but this. What's the matter? Didn't you love your mother?"
The look in Spence's eye seemed to dull, and his visage ticked as though what she'd said off the top of her head had ruptured an aspect of his arrogance. Kathleen was nearly taken aback: it was an expression she'd never witnessed in him before.
"That's right," she drew on. "I've got a gun in my home. And we both know you can't do a goddamn thing about it."
"Is that so?" Spence queried.
"Yeah, right." Kathleen continued to laugh, the edge of her disdain twirling like pinwheels.
"You're going to put me in jail? Me? What a joke. You haven't got the balls."
Spence's brow lifted high.
"You're like a jigsaw puzzle for preschool kids," Kathleen nearly spat. "You're easy to figure out.
If you put me in jail, I'll be out of the picture. And you can't afford that."
"And why is this?"
"You think you're fooling me? Don't make me laugh. I'm the only bait you've got for this killer, and we both know that. Without me, you're lost."
Spence stared.
Kathleen walked out and slammed the door.
Her thoughts divided, then subdivided, like cellular fission. Traffic poured back and forth at the crossing; the DON'T WALK sign never wanted to change. DON'T THINK, she thought, baking in heat and smog.
"Jesus Christ!" she shrieked when she got back to her car. The arrow on the meter indicated EXPIRED; the parking ticket lay flat against the windshield. She knew she'd cranked in an hour's worth of change she knew it. And she'd been in Spence's office 15 minutes maximum. She knew it. When she started the car hot as an oven inside a headache kindled in time with the ignition. It felt like a bristly worm throbbing behind her left eye. She pulled out, flailing curses at traffic, and drove without forethought to Maxwell's.
He'd left this morning, as usual, without waking her. EACH DAY I LOVE YOU MORE, he'd typed on a sheet of paper in her MemoryWriter, and on her desk he'd left a single red rose...
She heard his own typewriter tapping away behind the door. Would she be interrupting him?
Poets were finicky about their creative space, but then so was Kathleen. The headache raced as she knocked. She nearly fell on him when he opened the door. "Kathl What's wrong?"
She straggled in more than walked. "I don't feel good. I need to lie down."
"You look terrible," he said, took her purse, and sat her down on the couch. "You look like you've been yelling or something."
"I guess I have been." She kicked off her shoes, closed her eyes. "At myself. I feel like I'm falling apart." This seemed the most pitiful of things to say, and the least like her. "I got another manuscript from the killer," she added.
Maxwell had his arm around her, delicately pushing her hair off her brow. "Was it...bad?"
"It was disgusting. It was horrible. Then I photocopied it and took it to Spence."
"No wonder you're so bent out of shape," he reasoned.
"He's the most hateful person I've ever met, Maxwell." Her voice was nearly shrill now, in its incomprehension. "He absolutely hates me. For the life of me I can't figure out why." Kathleen gave in to a sluggish, reflective pause. Her eyes slid over to Maxwell's. "I know I'm a bitch sometimes. I know I can be aloof, contradictory, cold. Sometimes I do weird things.
But...hateful? I'm not hateful, am I?"
"No," Maxwell said. "You're not."
"Then why is he?" she contested. "Why does he hate me? Why does he treat me like I'm some kind of floozy, phony, self involved no account?"
"Some people are like that. There's no explanation they just are. The only way they can remain in control of their own lives is to take advantage of people, use them, put them down. It's weakness, actually. They're too weak and too inadequate to interact with others positively. So they use negativity instead."
Maxwell's words buffed enough of the edge off her turmoil to settle her down. The wormlike headache lost some of its bite. She tried to refocus, to be thoughtful. Coming here without notice, unloading her problems on him it wasn't fair. Maxwell had problems too, yet she'd shown no sensitivity toward that.
She leaned against him. His arm around her gently rubbed her shoulder. "Thank you for the rose," she said. "And the note. You really are a very sweet person."
"Oh, yeah?" was all he said. He stroked her hair, continued to rub her shoulder and neck.
It felt dreamy. Just a few words, and his merest touch, diluted Spence's denigration to something faraway and innocuous.
"Did you have a good day?" she asked.
"Yes, a great day."
"I heard you typing. Are you working on a new poem?"
"Yep."
"Is it a good poem? Do you like it?"
"Yep."
Her words listed. She felt slipping into sleep. "What's it called?"
His fingers rubbing her neck lulled her further, and so did his voice. "I can't tell you."
"Why?"
"It isn't finished yet."
Deeper, deeper, she slipped. "So? You can at least tell me the title."
"It's creative bad luck," he espoused, "to reveal the title of an unfinished work to the person it's written for."
Sleep beclouded her. Deeper, deeper. "What, Maxwell?"
"It's for you," he said.
For me? She was suddenly so relaxed, she couldn't speak.
"Go to sleep now," he said.
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Chapter 23
(I)
Everything's ready.
New ideas.
It makes her feel very creative, and very powerful.
She sees her mother standing behind her in the mirror.
Her mother smiles.
Her mother is so beautiful despite blackened eyes, broken teeth, bruises and cuts from Daddy.
Her mother's hands, elbows, and feet are swollen up like discolored balloons from the heroin needles. Daddy made her into an addict soon after they met, so he could contro
l her. He never married her, he just used her to make money. Daddy had a lot of friends that liked to do awful things to prostitutes. He used her mother like a tidbit.
It makes her so sad she begins to cry.
Don't cry, her mother says.
They did awful things to her.