Torch

by John Lutz

  “Why not the Johns? Prostitution’s a crime that takes two to commit.”

  “Still, some of ’em might have toes too important to step on.”

  “There are no toes like that connected to the names I’ll give you. Except maybe for Reverend Harold Devine’s.”

  “Devine? The family-values turd that’s always yammering on TV and picketing?” There was unmistakable delight in McGregor’s voice. “So that’s the reason his wife filed for divorce; the good reverend was getting a little pussy donation on the side. I never seen it to fail with them praise-the-Lord-and-pass-the-collection-plate assholes. They all got sexual problems, or they wouldn’t be so high on telling everybody else not to have fun.”

  “You have a philosophy that covers every situation,” Carver said.

  “Because I got the balls and brains to live with the truth,” McGregor told him, obviously feeling complimented by Carver’s observation. “I see the world the way it is and you see nothing but your idiot pipe dreams that make you feel better. Now spit out what you got, and there better not be anything floating in it that doesn’t belong.”

  Carver told him about the Nightlinks stakeouts and following the escorts and their clients. He gave him names, addresses, and license plate numbers. He didn’t mention that Reverend Devine had been photographed with Mandy Jamison at the motel.

  “The bagman is an Oriental named Beni Ho,” Carver said. “He collects the previous night’s proceeds and turns them over to a woman named Maggie Rourke. My guess is she invests the money for Sincliff under a dummy account at Burnair and Crosley Brokerage. She’s an account manager there.”

  “And she’s the one that ties the prostitution to Nightlinks and proves the escorts aren’t acting on their own. That oughta make a nice package for the prosecutor. But will she break easy and cooperate with us?”

  “She won’t have any choice, once you follow the money.”

  “All this sounds good,” McGregor said, “but what’s it got to do with the Winships crossing the divide?”

  “Probably nothing. It’s information I came across while working on the Winship case, and I thought you could use it.”

  Carver wasn’t about to tell McGregor what he thought Nightlinks was really involved in. He wasn’t sure that what he suspected was true. But true or not, McGregor would love it and plant evidence if necessary to make it seem like fact. That it was a path to promotion and power was more important to him than the truth. And the path would be clear and shining to him, beckoning with the realization that the media would close in like sharks on the story and bleed and shake it for circulation and ratings for weeks. It would make Sincliff’s arrest for running a prostitution ring barely noticeable in the news.

  “So I’m to believe you’re telling me this out of generosity?” McGregor asked.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t believe in generosity, Carver, any more’n I believe in Santa Claus. They both have the last laugh and they shake like a bowl fulla puke, and they’re both phony.”

  “I’ll bet you’re a joy around Christmas.”

  “I don’t like what Christmas has become,” McGregor said, catching Carver off guard.

  “You mean the commercialism?”

  “Not that. The other. They oughta forget all that religious stuff entirely and concentrate on jacking up prices and selling crap to the suckers to give each other. Better for the economy that way. Get people out shopping instead of sitting on their fat asses praying and sipping eggnog.”

  Carver thought he might have something there, but he didn’t say so.

  “Only thing still bothers me about this,” McGregor said, “is that to make it really stick like Superglue we’ll have to bring in all the Johns as well as the whores. I don’t like that. Some poor guy knocking off stray for pay, next thing he knows he’s standing limp-dicked in front of a judge. And despite what you say, he might be important.”

  “That’s a double standard.”

  “Sure it is. I might not believe in Christmas, but I do believe in double standards. Fucking the people under you is what life is all about. It’s God’s plan, otherwise why would they be under you if not to get fucked? That’s why you’re there on the bottom, Carver.”

  “When are you going to move on Nightlinks?”

  “I don’t know yet. But you can be sure of one thing. We won’t even think about making a move without checking with you first for approval and authorization.” He hung up the phone. Laughing, Carver thought.

  Even before replacing the receiver, Carver had made up his mind to be at Nightlinks when McGregor and the Del Moray police made the arrests and confiscated the files. It should be easy enough to find out when that would be. Carver and Beth had connections in the news media, which were sure to be notified ahead of time. If he knew McGregor, there would be journalists and cameras there, probably even before the law.

  McGregor had a politician’s understanding of the power of imagery, as well as a politician’s lust for influence and authority. He’d played the press more than once. They were willing participants in his game.

  Carver sat wondering if he’d done the right thing. If it turned out he was mistaken about Nightlinks, lives would be damaged, some of them permanently, because of a victimless crime he didn’t really believe should be criminal.

  The escorts would be able to cope. They’d probably had dealings with the police and the courts, and when they found their way out of this storm in their lives they’d continue much as they had before, even if they served brief sentences. But the clients and their spouses and children might find their worlds suddenly changed from daylight to darkness. Faith would be lost and marriages might end. All because of Carver’s suspicion. His compulsion to reach conclusions. His need to discern the shapes in the fog and understand.

  41

  MCGREGOR MOVED FAST, before word could get out; papers could be shredded and opportunity might elude him. His boldness was perhaps the only thing about him that Carver sometimes in weaker moments admired. A contact of Beth’s at Channel 6 News, alerted to coming developments, called her and said the police had leaked to the news department that there would be a raid on Nightlinks that evening at six o’clock, when the escort service would still be open and taking calls for that night’s clientele.

  Carver parked the Olds in front of the Aero Lounge and sat looking toward the other end of the strip shopping center where Nightlinks was located. Heat moved into the parked car, masquerading as a breeze through the cranked-down windows. A mosquito came with it and sampled blood from the back of Carver’s hand. He slapped at it and missed, hearing a faint drone as it navigated past his ear. He hadn’t averted his gaze from the length of the sun-punished strip of shops.

  McGregor was on top of things. It was 5:45 and there was no sign of anything unusual. People were walking in and out of the dry cleaners and the Aero Lounge. A few entered or left Nightlinks, though no one Carver recognized. He figured McGregor would hit at least ten minutes before he’d told the news media he’d be there, so no one at Nightlinks would be tipped to what was going on by looking outside and seeing some overeager news channel van festooned with call letters and satellite dishes.

  But ten minutes passed, counted in gradually building heat and trickles of perspiration down the back of Carver’s neck, and he began to wonder if McGregor was actually going to arrive. Carver and the news media might have been set up, for some reason not yet clear. McGregor might be engaged in another of his Machiavellian games.

  The mosquito returned, or one just like it, and droned around Carver’s face, tickling as it tried to flit up a nostril. He swatted air viciously with his cupped hand, hoping the turbulence would drive the pesky insect away.

  Then he noticed a blue work van parked near Nightlinks, unlettered and with two people sitting in the front seats, motionless as mannequins behind the wide tinted windshield. The pedestrian traffic in the shopping strip seemed to pick up. Several cars arrived, and people in business clot
hes got out. Another van. A gray Pontiac of the sort used for unmarked police cars by the Del Moray department. Carver hoped no one at Nightlinks would look out the window.

  Two men in brown suits who should have had PLAINCLOTHES COP flashing in neon on their foreheads came out of the Aero Lounge and strolled along the length of the strip shopping center, passed Nightlinks without pausing, then stopped and stood as if carrying on a conversation.

  One of them walked around the back of the building as a man and woman climbed from an unmarked police car and moved toward Nightlinks. Carver was impressed by the number of players here. McGregor had dipped deep into the department’s limited labor pool to put on a spectacle for the TV cameras.

  A police cruiser arrived, driving fast and leaning hard as it turned into the lot. Its red and blue roofbar lights were flashing but its siren was silent. The only sound was its tires whining like a frantic plea on the hot pavement. Simultaneously, another unmarked Pontiac arrived, braking to a rocking halt in front of Nightlinks with its driver’s-side door already opening, and the long form of McGregor unfolded up from it. He glanced around, striking what he must have fancied a heroic pose, then hitched up his wrinkled pants and strode directly to Nightlinks as van and car doors opened and shoulder-held TV minicams appeared along with cables and well-coiffed, attractive people who looked as if they should be employed at Nightlinks.

  In front of Nightlinks’ door, McGregor paused to make sure everyone had a photo opportunity, then he barged in, followed by two plainclothes cops. The two uniforms who’d gotten out of the squad car trailed respectfully behind, then took positions near the entrance to keep the media at bay, spread their stances, and appeared immovable as stone sculptures outside a public building.

  Carver got out of the Olds and headed toward the scene.

  When he got near, he was held back along with the media and the rest of the spectators. Nightlinks’ door was wide open and there was a lot of activity inside. Loud voices, then silence. A few feet to Carver’s left a TV camera with a Channel 6 News logo was set up and an anchorwoman with a Channel 6 News logo on her blazer was speaking into a microphone with a Channel 6 News logo on it, gazing as sincerely into the lens as if she were talking to a lover. One of the uniforms was a man named Geary, who’d been helped by Carver a year ago when his daughter was suspected of manslaughter. Geary was of medium height, but broad, with massive chest and shoulders. He had a face like a bear that had shaved.

  “You’re a TV star,” Carver said to him.

  Geary smiled. “If only I had a good side.”

  “What’s going on?” Carver asked.

  Geary smiled wider. It wasn’t infectious. “Show time,” he said softly, mouthing the words more than pronouncing them, so only Carver would be aware of them. Like most of the cops in the Del Moray department, like most of humanity that had come in contact with the crude and amoral lieutenant, Geary hated McGregor. But he had to work for him.

  Fifteen minutes passed. Carver was getting tired of leaning on his cane. The media types were getting impatient, milling about and smiling at each other and rolling their eyes. You could take only so much tape footage of cops and cop cars and the outside of a building.

  Then the media stirred expectantly on what seemed like instinct and moved closer to the door. Geary and his partner hunkered down as if there might be an assault.

  One of the plainclothes detectives led the attractive, skinny receptionist with the thin ankles outside. She was wearing a tight white dress and shoes with silver metal spikes for high heels and was snarling toothily. A sure bet for an appearance on the late news.

  The detective deposited her in the back of the squad car, capping the back of her head with his huge hand so she wouldn’t bump herself on the car’s roof, messing up her fragile and improbable hairdo.

  Then a very attractive blond who was probably a baby-faced thirty but was dressed like a naughty sixteen was led outside and placed in the car. She kept her head down, trying to hide her features, as if she might not be recognized on TV or in news photos if she only kept her chin tucked in.

  Carver was waiting for Harvey Sincliff, hoping he’d been in his office and would be taken into custody before his lawyers could be alerted.

  But the next thing out the door was a cop carrying a large cardboard box stuffed with file folders. He placed the box in the trunk of one of the unmarked Pontiacs and went back inside for another load. More cops with more boxes emerged. Nightlinks’ files would be held at police headquarters and pored over for the kind of black-and-white evidence that would make for high bail and surefire convictions.

  Finally Sincliff was led outside. His dark hair had popped loose from where he’d plastered it sideways over his bald spot and was flopping over one ear with each step he took. He was wearing obviously expensive pleated gray slacks shot through with shiny silver thread, a pastel blue shirt, and a yellow and blue tie. Wide red suspenders held up his pants beneath his protruding stomach. He was holding his suit coat in front of him, and when he saw all the media he raised it so it was supported over his head by his forearms and handcuffed wrists like a protective tent.

  As the coat draped to the side when he was being placed in the car with the receptionist and the blond, he noticed Carver and his eyes caught fire. He spat in Carver’s direction. Would have again, only the cop loading him into the car had gotten spittle on his shoes so he gave Sincliff an extra hard shove and slammed the door. Sincliff glared out through the window at Carver for a few seconds, then lifted his coat again to hide his face.

  “That man is not your friend,” Geary said.

  Carver said, “It’s probably my taste in clothes, but it doesn’t matter. He’s going where everyone dresses alike.”

  Geary gave his widest smile for the cameras, revealing large yellow canine teeth.

  One of the print journalists was trying to get Geary aside for a brief interview as Carver moved away.

  “Do you know the man who was arrested?” the woman from Channel 6 News asked, when Carver had reached the fringe of onlookers.

  “Nobody really knows anybody else,” Carver said, and on through the heat to where his car was parked. Let her ponder that one and try to fit her conclusions into a seven-second sound-bite.

  He drove to his office and settled in behind his desk, deciding to make himself wait until eight o’clock before calling McGregor.

  “So what do you have from tonight’s raid?” he asked, when McGregor had come to the phone.

  “One thing I have is you sticking your face in where it don’t belong. Don’t think I didn’t notice you at Nightlinks, piss-head.”

  “I didn’t upstage you. Did you get what you need on Sincliff?”

  “It looks good, especially if you and your dark meat come through like you promised. Warrants are being issued for the Johns you named. Miami’s already arrested Reverend Devine. He’s denying everything, calling it a plot against him perpetrated by his enemies in the liberal Hollywood cabal that wants to keep getting rich foisting off its values on the public.”

  “Sad day for the family. What about Maggie Rourke?”

  “She’s in custody here now, talking and talking. You were right about her and the way the operation worked, Carver. Some of the escorts would lie down for cash at night. Next day the little gook would make the rounds and collect Nightlinks’ percentage of the take and turn it over to Rourke. She’d bank it, then invest it under a phony account at Burnair and Crosley, using the name and social security number of a man who’s been dead for twenty years. She keeps saying the dead guy paid all his taxes so she’s clean with the IRS.”

  “Kind of person you’d want to handle your money,” Carver said.

  “Only thing I’d want her to handle’s my dick. I don’t trust anyone with what I stuck my neck out for and stole fair and square.”

  Carver decided not to comment on that. “So the only link between Sincliff and the prostitution money was when Beni Ho collected it and turned it over
to Maggie Rourke. Without that, the most you could prove was that Nightlinks escorts might be engaged in prostitution on their own.”

  “But we’ve got that and more. We’ve got these shit-asses set up for penitentiary time, Carver, so you and Beth better hold up your end of the bargain and help make it stick in court.”

  “It’ll stick,” Carver assured him. “You’ll be Florida’s Eliot Ness.”

  “I’m that already,” McGregor said with apparent seriousness. “I’m figuring to be another Hoover.”

  “You’ve got a real chance,” Carver told him. “What about Beni Ho?”

  “Don’t have him yet, but we will. The high-price lawyers are already here quoting the Constitution, so all these people will be out on bail soon, money not being scarce with them.”

  “What else do you have?” Carver asked.

  “Whaddya mean?” McGregor sounded confused. “What else is there? You think Nightlinks was into white slavery or treason?”

  Carver wasn’t sure if McGregor was being devious or if he was actually puzzled. The towering degenerate could play any role the situation required.

  “What else did you find when you searched through the Nightlinks files?” Carver asked.

  “You mean the names? There were some names that’ll surprise people, maybe even more than Reverend Devine’s. Believe me, Carver, some of Del Moray’s chamber-of-commerce types are gonna be shit-faced when the news breaks. I’m gonna enjoy hell out of that.”

  “What about state politicians?” Carver asked, laying out an obvious side road for McGregor to start down. If he didn’t humor Carver and take it, his confusion was probably real.

  McGregor didn’t answer for a long time. His nasal breathing came over the line as a series of muted rasps. Then he said, “You’re not asking about any state politicians, dick-face. What do you know that you didn’t tell me?”

  Carver barely heard him. He was sitting back, his mind searching for where he might have gone wrong. It was still possible McGregor knew everything and was playing it close, but he doubted that. McGregor’s voice was full of genuine puzzlement and rage.