A Perfect Life

by Mike Stewart

  Canon hardly spoke. When Kate said good-bye, the line simply went dead.

  Kate punched the END button on her cell phone and walked to the open window. She breathed deeply of the scents of early spring, carried on heavy salt air. She had almost hoped it wouldn't come to this. Almost. She sighed and punched in the number of a cell phone in Boston.

  When a man's voice answered, she could hear music in the background. She didn't know it was Wagner. Click knew. He said, “Yeah?”

  “It's Kate.”

  Silence.

  She went on. “There's a warrant out for Scott Thomas.”

  “Good.”

  Kate watched whitecaps roll across the black Atlantic. “I don't think so. He found the house, the porno . . .”

  Click interrupted. “Took the hard disk from the computer, too. And somebody's been trackin' me through bulletin boards, trying to find me on the Net.”

  She spun away from the window. “Shit!”

  “Tell me about it.” His voice was calm. “Want me to kill him?”

  Kate answered quickly, her voice clear. “Yes.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cost you another five grand. Would be more, but I need the guy to go away, too. Figure killing him benefits you and benefits me. I could've emptied his bank account early on, and you insisted . . .”

  “If we'd taken everything, his checks would've started bouncing. He'd have known in no time that someone had access to his funds. And he may have called in the cops before we had time to convince him to try to handle things on his own.” She stopped to think. “You'll also remember that you wanted me to bang Scott and plant his semen at the scene.”

  Click cussed. “Well, what's the hell's wrong with that? It's a lot less complicated than renting that house out in the country and filling it up with porno.”

  “God.” Kate looked out at the waves. “The semen would've been dead by the time it got placed on the body. Remember, Patricia Hunter was in a hospital. We didn't have hours and hours before she was found. And, more important than that, every other cop show on television has someone getting framed with sperm.” She sighed. “No, Click. You're the computer jock. You know about computers. I'm a nurse. I know about biological evidence. That's why I'm doing the thinking. This is not a slash-and-burn operation.”

  “Still,” he insisted, “I did what you wanted. Passed up thirty grand in Thomas's bank account. Could've emptied the whole thing. And now you gotta find more money to get the man dead. Shit. Like I said, killing Thomas benefits us both. But if I do all the work, I get paid for your benefit.” He paused. “Five grand.”

  “You hear anybody arguing with you?” Her voice was hard. Sharp. “Just kill the bastard. And don't get cute and try to empty his accounts after he's dead. We've done pretty well. No need to give the cops something suspicious now.”

  “Not a problem. Do whatever you gotta do to get the five grand together. I'll let you know where to send it.”

  Kate walked across the room in bare feet and plopped onto the bed. Her eyes scanned the ceiling. She was thinking. “Let me know now. I'll wire the money tomorrow. This can't wait.”

  “Always in a hurry. Always have been. Don't worry. I don't need the money in hand to do the job.” Click chuckled softly. “How long we known each other, Kate?”

  “Since I was ten.”

  “Think you know me pretty well?”

  “I think so.”

  He chuckled again. “What'll you think I'll do if I snuff this guy and you don't pay me?”

  Kate's eyes stopped roaming. Her gaze came to rest on a water stain—an ugly discoloration in one corner of the otherwise perfect white ceiling. Something quivered in the pit of her stomach. “I'll pay you.”

  “Yeah, Kate.” He paused. “I know you will.”

  She let the threat pass. “One other thing. I just called that old guitar player Scott likes. He's in New York now at the Madison Hotel. I told him to tell Scott about the arrest warrant. Told him to get him out of Boston.”

  “Why the hell—”

  She cut him off impatiently. “Again, we don't need Scott talking to the cops. He's got more of this figured out than he knows.” Kate paused to take a deep breath. “Listen. This Cannonball Walker's a mean-ass old black guy who's got bad news written all over him. Probably been dodging cops since he was born. I used him for this once before. Don't worry. People like Walker don't go to the cops for help. They duck and dodge and slip out of town in the middle of the night. I'm telling you, the old man's going to keep Scott away from the cops, and that's going to give you the chance you need to finish him.”

  Click laughed. “Katie? You are one devious fuckin' bitch.”

  She ignored him. “Just make sure you get him. Everything else is working. All you have to do is make sure you stop Scott before he talks to anyone else.”

  “He's good as gone. I guess that's it for business. Now, speaking of sperm. How 'bout telling me some of the kinky shit you're doing to help Charles Hunter through his grief? I bet you're wearing his old ass out.”

  Kate punched the END button.

  Squeezing through the bathroom window like toothpaste from a tube, Scott hit the rusted fire escape on the point of his left shoulder, rolled forward to get onto his feet, and almost pitched feet-first over the railing.

  Inside, the quiet knocking had amplified into a banging fist. The last words Scott heard before scrambling down the rickety escape ladder were “Click! Where you at, boy?”

  A filth-filled alley fed onto the street that fronted the building—the empty pavement wet and black. Scott waited, flattened against old brick that infused the thick muscles along his spine with aching cold.

  No friend of Click's was likely to call the cops. More likely that some dumbass with a Glock would come charging out of the building, firing rounds intended to put the idiot in solid with Click.

  Scott needed to move. He'd parked in the right place—a space chosen so he wouldn't have to cross in front of the building if he had to leave from the rear.

  The muddy boots of a racing pulse stomped louder in his ears. His breath came fast, as if he'd been running. But still he pushed slowly off the brick wall, and he walked. Hands in pockets. Shoulders hunched against the wind. He walked through the night to his car, climbed inside, and drove away.

  Back in his motel room, Scott pulled off layers of clothes and stepped into a steaming shower. He faced the hot spray and let the warmth flow over a sea of knotted muscles that seemed to start in his temples and end in the balls of his feet. He didn't wash. He just stood there. When the hot water was gone, he stepped out.

  Stretched out on clean sheets, he tried to get his mind around what was happening. Scott had spent most of his life orphaned, moving from one boarding school to the next with no sense of home or continuity. Yet, at that moment, he felt a crushing, almost physical weight of loneliness settle over him. He turned on his side and faced the bedside table. A soiled motel phone offered escape. But he had no one to call. It was past two in the morning. Even if Kate Billings or Canon Walker had been in town . . .

  And he was asleep.

  Charles Hunter sat immobile on the patio for an hour after Kate went inside. The last slivers of ice had melted inside his glass. He tossed whisky-flavored water out onto the stone patio and reached down to pick up a bottle of Macallan from beside his chair. After tugging at the cork, he poured half a tumbler of scotch and took in a mouthful of warm bliss.

  Charles tried to set the crystal tumbler on the stones and misjudged the distance. He felt it shatter and raised his fingers in the moonlight. Black blood rolled down from his ring finger into his palm. Charles chuckled. He got up, staggered a bit as he wound through wicker patio furniture, and picked up a ceramic jar from the breakfast table.

  He examined the jar containing Patricia Hunter's ashes as if he'd never seen it. “You get the bloody hand, Lady Macbeth.” He stood there and chuckled again at his joke. “It's time.”
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  The architect stumbled as he crossed the patio and stepped onto the beach. Hard, cold pebbles punched at bare feet as he hobbled to the surf. He paused at the high-tide mark. Cold waves lapped his toes, and Charles struggled to stop his upper body from swaying. A purple mist hovered over the dark Atlantic. Pink and orange halos surrounded the moon. He was an architect, an artist, and he believed that such things uniquely resonated within his mind or soul or, he thought, wherever it was that his talent, his view of the world, resided.

  He turned to look off down the crooked line of beach—to examine how the purple mist turned the blue-black of India ink in the distance.

  And he saw him.

  As real as the funeral urn in his hands—as real as the sand and surf and fog—Charles Hunter saw his son, Trey, running along the shoreline. It was something his track-star son had done a thousand times, training for the four-forty, running in deep sand to build his calves and hone his balance. Then, just as suddenly as he'd appeared, Trey's beautiful form dissolved into the fog.

  It wasn't real. Charles knew that. And it was because it wasn't real that the tears came.

  With the jar held between forearm and ribs, he tugged hard at the lid of Patricia's funeral jar, twisting and yanking and cursing. It was dark; he was drunk; it wouldn't budge. He mumbled something that sounded like “Stubborn bitch.”

  Standing alone on the dark shoreline, Charles Hunter smiled. He held the jar in both hands now, extending it out in front of his body. With a bounce, he stepped forward, tossed the heavy jar into the air, and punted it hard with his bare right foot. The jar exploded; a cloud of billowing gray ash floated out over the churning waters.

  Inside her bedroom, Kate heard an anguished scream pierce the warm sounds of wind and surf. She sprinted down the hallway, though the great room, and out onto the patio. Her hands trembled.

  Mumbling.

  Kate forced her breathing to slow. She listened and followed the sound. Her employer was lying on his back in the cold surf.

  “Mr. Hunter?”

  More mumbling.

  “Mr. Hunter? Are you all right?”

  His eyes rolled up at the night sky. “Fucking bitch.”

  “What?”

  “Ruined my life. Fucking bitch.”

  “Mr. Hunter!”

  His head shuddered, and he met her eyes. “Hello, Kate.”

  “Are you okay?”

  He laughed. “Think I broke my foot.”

  Kate leaned down and pulled his right arm around her shoulders. When he was up, she said, “Who were you cussing?”

  “Huh?”

  Kate repeated the question as she struggled to help a hundred-eighty-pound drunk with a broken foot navigate the uneven beach.

  “Oh. Sorry. It sure wasn't you. Sorry. It was a ghost, Kate. Just a ghost. She's gone now.”

  Kate glanced back at the broken shards of pottery on the sand, then got her patient moving again. “Good thing I'm a nurse.”

  “Yeah.” Charles Hunter flashed a drunken smile. “I'm a lucky bastard.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Strange noises. Popping. Tools rattling. Lights somewhere flickered like flames, and Scott tried to open his eyes. His mother stood at the foot of his bed, a heavy metal bucket of some kind in her hand. Scott tried to speak, but the words choked to nothing as she held a finger to her lips. Something—gasoline? or maybe lighter fluid?—filled his sinuses. Scott screwed his eyes shut, and the gas smell turned to smoke. He tried to sit up, to reach out for his mother, but he couldn't move. He opened his eyes, and he was alone. Flames curled through the cracks around the door, and finally he screamed.

  Scott rolled over and tried to fit the surroundings into his memory.

  A fist banged the door.

  He cleared his throat. “What?”

  “Housekeeping.” Hesitation, then:” Are you okay, sir?”

  Scott glanced at his watch. It read 10:33 A.M. “I'm fine. Come back later.”

  He heard a muffled, heavily accented “Yes, sir” as the maid turned away.

  Scott stumbled into the bathroom, where another hot shower—this one complete with soap and shampoo—washed away most of the befuddlement. He started to shave and thought better of it. Maybe, he thought, I'll need a beard to hide out. It was a ridiculous idea, but his life had taken a ridiculous turn.

  Scott rummaged in a moving box for clothes. His landlord had done a neat job. He took out underwear and socks, pulled them on, and went back for jeans, a shirt, and an oversized sweater from L.L. Bean.

  Dressed now, he reached for the nylon bag of burglar's tools. On top was Click's Palm Pilot. Scott smiled. He dropped onto the bed and punched the green power button at the top right of the Palm. The category was set to Date Book.

  Scott froze.

  Using the toggle button under the screen, he began to flip through the calendar.

  “That sonofabitch.” He ran to the moving box marked COMPUTER, rummaged around for his Palm V, and clicked it on. Everything was just as he'd left it. Same dates, same contacts, same bubblet and chess games.

  He reached for the phone and punched in seven numbers. Budzik's answering machine picked up. “Budzik. This is Scott Thomas. I paid you more than five grand, and I need something. Pick up the phone.”

  Seconds passed before he heard the click of Budzik lifting his receiver. The hacker began, “You've got some nerve calling here after what you did.”

  “The woman is mixed up. You were taking advantage. And you know damn well you told me about it to see what I'd do.”

  Budzik sounded pouty when he answered. “Maybe I wanted to see what you'd say . . . Anyway, don't you shrinks believe love is bullshit to begin with? Nothing but—what's the term?—‘a compendium of needs.' That's it, isn't it? People don't fall in love. They simply recognize the right stew of insecurities and neuroses in their soul mates. One set of neuroses balances another.” His voice trailed off. “I'm done with you, man. I already earned my money. Five grand doesn't make me your daddy.”

  “I went to Click's apartment.”

  Long seconds passed before Budzik spoke. “You didn't tell him about me?”

  “No. I didn't tell him about me, either. I broke in when he wasn't there. By today, he'll know somebody was in his place, but that's it.”

  “So why am I supposed to care?”

  Budzik was being pissy, but Scott could hear in the hacker's voice that he cared very much. “I lifted his Palm Pilot.”

  “You're kidding.” Budzik was laughing. “That's got to have all kinds of great stuff in it. But why call me? Does he have it password-protected?”

  “I wish. When I turned the thing on it was mine.”

  “What?”

  “It's not physically mine. I've got my Palm here in my hand. But the data on the Palm Pilot I lifted from a charger in Click's apartment is a carbon copy of what's on my PDA.”

  “Click copied your . . .”

  “I know.”

  “You think he got into your place? Or, I don't know, have you noticed anything recently that'd make you think someone had been in—”

  Scott interrupted. “Two guys dressed like gangbangers broke into my apartment a week ago. I saw them leaving. I thought it was weird because they didn't take anything.”

  “They took everything.” The little man was thinking. “What'd they get? Computer passwords? Credit card numbers? What?”

  “Somebody withdrew thirty thousand dollars from my investment account last week.”

  “Internet banking.”

  Scott nodded at the empty motel room.

  “They broke in and beamed your bank account number, your ID, and your passwords all into a second PDA. Have you at least changed your bank passwords?”

  “I closed out my Internet banking account.”

  “I guess now we know where Click got the money to rent that country house with all the porno on the walls.”

  Scott shook his head. “I don't know. They would've had to do it all in a da
y. The two kids broke into my apartment just one day before we found the house. It doesn't seem possible . . .”

  Budzik made a derisive snort. “How long do think it takes to hang some porno and put in a makeshift office? The whole house was probably rigged four hours after they got your banking information. Hell, if Click was planning this all along, he could've rented the place a week or two ago using a stolen credit card to hold the place just until he got his hands on your money.”

  Scott stared at the motel print of the Wright Brothers. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “About the stolen information? Not much. You can go through Click's Palm page by page and make sure there's nothing else in there he can use to hurt you.” He chuckled. “That's about it.”

  Scott looked at the bedspread.

  When Budzik spoke again, his tone was less hostile. “Truth is, you didn't do anything half the country doesn't do. Almost everybody has information on their PDAs, their computers, or both that could be used to ruin them. You,” he said, “just got caught bending over for the soap.”

  Two beats passed before Scott spoke. “Budzik?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I want to ruin this guy.”

  “Uh-huh. But in a battle between you and Click . . .” Budzik seemed to stumble for a facile putdown. Instead he simply said, “You're screwed”—and hung up.

  Scott spoke to the dead receiver. “Sure looks like it.”

  It took most of an hour to scroll through every screen in the stolen PDA. When Scott was satisfied that nothing else could be used to hurt him, he grabbed the motel phone and punched in a number in Birmingham.

  The banker answered his own phone.

  “Mr. Pastings? This is Scott . . .”

  “We have a problem, Scott.”

  “If it's the thirty thousand, we need to trace the withdrawal, but I've figured out how it happened.”

  The older man cleared his throat. “That's fine, but . . . Scott, something bad has happened. That detective in Boston, he called last night. Claims a house you rented outside Boston there was . . . It was, ah . . . The place burned night before last, Scott. The detective says it was arson.”