“Tape recorder,” I said, and she smiled nervously. She was dressed in a pair of jeans that looked as if they had cost a hundred bucks, and a pale blue V-neck sweater with an alligator logo on one breast. She ran a hand through her hair and motioned me into the house.
There was a woman sitting at one end of the sofa, and in the light of a small table lamp I recognized her at once. Well, things could have been worse—she could have been Princess Diana, or Madonna, or Margaret Thatcher. She was Tonia Konig, feminist, outspoken writer and speaker, and faculty member of the University’s Women’s Studies Department. A very public figure. What a mess.
Tonia looked at me belligerently. No Calvin Klein jeans and Izod sweaters for her. No sirree. She had on well-washed Levis, sneakers, and an old navy sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up well past her elbows. She gave me a glare of baffled rage, then looked past me to Valerie.
“Tonia, this is Caitlin Reece,” Valerie said. “Tonia doesn’t think I should have hired you,” she told me somewhat apologetically.
“I thought I detected a certain lack of enthusiasm,” I replied. “Who do you know who owns a Buick wagon, dark green, late seventies model, license BNN eight-eight-seven?”
That gave them something to think about. They looked at each other, then me.
“Why?” Tonia asked flatly, not giving an inch.
“They followed Valerie home from work tonight. I followed them.”
“I didn’t notice anyone,” Valerie said diffidently.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, “ I said, “you weren’t looking for them. I picked you up at the studio lot. They fell in behind you a few blocks later. Why was I there? Just a hunch.”
Tonia made a disgusted sound and got up to pace a little. I looked at her, she looked at me, and I thought: Here’s trouble we don’t need.
Her pacing brought her to a spot in front of me, and I tried to stand a little taller. In her sneakers she had at least three inches on me. She flared her nostrils, reminding me of an Arabian horse. But there was nothing horsey about Tonia Konig. Shiny black hair, smoky blue eyes, Katherine Hepburn cheekbones, flawless complexion. She could have made big money with her face. When she didn’t scowl, it was positively beautiful. At the moment, however, she was scowling ferociously, the glare she was giving me laser-like. She was the kind of woman my mother said could chew nails and spit battleships. Tough. Maybe as tough as me. But I was getting a little fed up with being the recipient of her foul looks. I was on her side.
“I’m Tonia Konig,” she said finally, crossing her arms and leaning against the fireplace. She did not offer me her hand.
“I know,” I informed her, not offering my hand either. Two could play this game. “I’ve seen you interviewed on television. I even started to read your book A World Without Violence.”
That clearly surprised her. She blinked several times, perhaps elevating me from the ranks of the functionally illiterate. Maybe there was hope for me yet in the good Dr. Konig’s eyes. I tried not to let it go to my head.
“Started?” she asked suspiciously.
“Mmhmm. But I couldn’t figure out how to apply the theory. It seemed kind of irrelevant to my line of work.”
She actually snorted, and looked over at Valerie, who had collapsed on the couch. Valerie shrugged helplessly.
“I can see we have a difference of opinion here,” I began. “Why—” Tonia said.
“She—” Valerie interrupted.
I held up my hands. “I think I can summarize our differences.”
Tonia exhaled sharply. Valerie nodded.
I continued, “Tonia would prefer to have Henry Kissinger or maybe Jesse Jackson do the job, seeing as how Gandhi is dead. Valerie, on the other hand, doesn’t give a damn who does it as long as it gets done efficiently and discreetly. Knowing your divergent philosophies, Virginia Silver recommended me.”
“Don’t you dare patronize me, you little thug,” Tonia said in a sub-zero voice.
“Oh God,” Valerie muttered, raking her hair.
“I’m not patronizing you,” I told Tonia. “Believe me, I have nothing but respect for your work. But I have to tell you that none of your theories, nothing you believe in, is going to do you a damned bit of good with this.”
Tonia pressed her lips together, then shook her head. “I can’t accept that,” she stated. “Because if it were true, it would repudiate my life’s work. Negate everything I stand for.”
There was nothing I could say to make the pill go down more easily, even if I’d wanted to. She sat on the couch, crossed her arms, and glared.
“Oh, my God,” Valerie said irrelevantly. “Caitlin, what must you think of us? Please come and sit down. Would you like to have a drink?” Playing hostess seemed suddenly important to her. I agreed and she scurried away to the kitchen.
“Aren’t you a little ... redundant?” Tonia asked me when we were alone. “We do have the criminal justice system, after all.”
I smiled a little, looking away.
“But it’s not good enough for you, is that it? What are you—a latter-day vigilante? Administering punishment to those who’ve escaped their just deserts?”
“Or never got them,” I added. “I prefer to think of myself as complementary to the justice system. An adjunct.”
She scowled disapprovingly. “What exactly do you do?”
“Deprive the predators of their prey. Intervene. Rescue. Recover. Interdict. Thwart. Deny the vultures their carrion. In plain English, render assistance to those who ask it of me. Like you did.”
“I didn’t ask you,” she reminded me. “Val did. And I fail to see the difference between you and the predators.”
I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing.
“What dictates how far you go in your...work?” she asked.
I thought I understood what she was getting at. “Nothing but my own discretion,” I said.
That didn’t seem to please her much. I had a pretty fair idea of what she thought of my moral attributes.
“But who decides on the merits of the victims’ requests? And how do they find you?”
“I decide,” I told her. “And they find me by making a phone call. The number is given to them by one of my satisfied ex-clients.”
She was clearly as fascinated as she was repelled. “So you perform the moral triage,” she said, sounding smug. “Make the diagnosis and do the surgery, too.”
“A neat analogy,” I commented. “Yeah, that’s about it.”
“Why you?” she demanded. “Do you have special abilities? Are you a crack shot, a black belt in karate, a moral philosopher, a—”
“No,” I interrupted. “None of those things. But I do have the will. And the power. And it has nothing to do with physical strength or proficiency with weapons. It’s a...determination.” I broke off, unwilling to try to explain further.
“And you just woke up one morning and decided to do this?”
I thought my answer over carefully. How could I explain how frightened I was when I first began? And that my fear was a fear of believing in something again. Of caring. Of failing. But greater than the fear of trying and failing was the fear of not trying at all. For I had no wish to live in a world where no one tried. “Sort of,” I equivocated.
Tonia shook her head in disbelief.
Valerie emerged from the kitchen where she had evidently been lurking, waiting for Tonia’s moral objections to be aired. She passed around beer and glasses, and I drank mine from the can, conscious of my new image as a thug.
“Your proposed solution to problems is very unimaginative,” Tonia told me, “and clearly a product of the paternalistic bureaucracy for which you worked for so long. The cycle of violence can be broken,” she said earnestly. “History is full of encouraging examples. We’re rational beings. It’s so short-sighted to assume violence is the only method of settling disputes.”
I felt sorry for her, and sorry for myself. A thug, she had called me. Well, maybe I was. �
�Violence works,” I told her bluntly.
She looked at me as if I had crawled out from under a rock. “There are other ways,” she said frostily. “And in this particular situation I don’t like the fact that we’re not even considering them.”
“Tonia, with these kinds of people, there are no effective ‘other ways.’ Violence is the only choice.”
She recoiled as though I had slapped her. Well, maybe it was distasteful, but I thought she needed to hear it.
“These are not the kinds of people you would want to sit down and reason with,” I told her. “These are the inhabitants of the world’s id. They’re scum. As well as being economic opportunists, they’re psychic vampires. They exploit decent people like you and Valerie, people they know can’t strike back, and enjoy themselves while they’re doing it. Other ways? There are none. The only language they speak is violence. I’d have been dead half a dozen times over if I’d tried anything else. I’m sorry if that offends your principles, but that’s the way it is. And that’s why I couldn’t finish A World Without Violence.”
“You enjoy it, don’t you?” Tonia accused me after a moment.
I didn’t flinch. “Yeah, I do. Scaring people half to death, breaking their bones, shooting them—I don’t enjoy those acts. But I do enjoy outmaneuvering them. Thwarting them. Making them go away and stay away. I enjoy that a whole lot. And I enjoy the looks on their victims’ faces when I tell them it’s all over. I enjoy seeing good people happy again.”
Her eyes slid away from mine, and I knew that I had scored some kind of victory. Just which kind, I wasn’t sure. But it didn’t make me feel good, because part of what I had told her was a lie. Sometimes, I did enjoy the scaring, breaking, and shooting. Sometimes, seeing a look of abject terror come into some pimple-faced punk’s eyes, and knowing it was I, not he, who had the power—and that he knew it — was enjoyable in itself. And it scared the hell out of me.
I looked at my watch. Eight-forty. I sighed. “Look, feel free to hire someone else. Or to deal with this yourselves. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you can reason with these guys. Maybe—”
“Stop!” Valerie said. “Tonia isn’t the only one who counts here. This is my life, too, and I’m not so morally fastidious.”
Tonia closed her eyes. “You’re right,” she said after a moment. “We’re in this together. If it were only I, I would act differently. But it isn’t.” She looked over at me. “I don’t agree with your methods. But...” she pursed her lips as though the next words hurt her, “I agree that you should do what you can to help us.”
It took only a minute to set up my equipment. I attached the microphone to the phone, plugged it into the recorder, rewound the tape, and we were ready.
“When they call,” I told them, “don’t panic, no matter what they say. Although it wouldn’t hurt to seem a bit frightened. Just listen and agree to whatever their demands are.” They looked at me in surprise. “You’re not paying them a penny,” I reminded them. “And we’re going to get the letters back. So sound cowed and compliant. Okay?”
They nodded. I felt like the coach of a losing basketball team at half-time. Never mind, girls: they may be ahead of us 43-19, but we can still whip their asses. Get out there and fight! Well, maybe God would be on the side of the good guys this time. She sometimes was.
The phone rang promptly at nine o’clock. I motioned for one of them to pick it up, and started the recorder. To my surprise, Tonia, not Val, answered the phone. I picked up the dining room extension.
“Yes,” she said coolly. To her credit, her voice didn’t quaver.
“How are you tonight, Dr. Konig?” a strange, tenor voice inquired. I was a little surprised that he could identify Tonia.
Tonia looked across the room at me. I nodded. “I’m here,” she told him coldly.
“That’s good. That’s real good. And have you and Ms. Newscaster Dyke thought over what we said in our note?”
Tonia gripped the phone so tightly her knuckles showed white. “Yes.”
“Not too friendly, are you? But we know why that is, don’t we?” the voice snickered. “You don’t like men. Never mind, though. You’re going to like us a whole lot before this is all over. So, what about it? Do we have a deal?”
“Yes,” Tonia answered in a strangled voice. “We have a deal. We’ll pay.”
“Atta girl,” the voice replied, loving every minute of Tonia’s discomfort. “So here’s what you’ll do. We want five thousand dollars now, and a thousand a week after that.”
“A thousand a week? For twenty-seven weeks? That’s a fortune!”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“So what’s the five thousand dollars for?” Tonia demanded angrily. “What does that buy?” Her indignation was clearly real. God, how the blackmailer must be enjoying this.
“It buys my good will. And that’s something you want to have, lady. Oh, yes.”
Tonia glanced up at me, and I saw understanding in her eyes. Thug or not, I had been right. “It will take us a little while to raise that kind of money,” she told the caller. “Neither of us has that much free cash.”
“So get it,” the voice said. “Take out a loan. Sell something. Write a book. Just make sure you have it by Saturday afternoon.”
“Assuming we can get it, then what?”
“Oh, you’ll get it if you know what’s good for you. We’ll phone at noon sharp. You’ll be told where to bring it.”
“All right.”
“And listen, Dr. Dyke, don’t even think about the police. They’re not too crazy about your kind of women either, you know.”
“There’ll be no police.”
“Good girl. We wouldn’t want to see those steamy letters published in The Mirror, now would we?” More snickers. “Just wait for our call, Dr. K.” The line went dead.
Tonia slammed the phone down. I hung up the extension and shut off the recorder.
“Let me hear it,” Valerie said. I played the tape for her. “Son of a bitch,” she whispered as the tape ended. “That son of a bitch!”
“We’d better talk about this,” I told them. “Now, if possible.”
Valerie sat down as if her legs had been pulled out from under her. Tonia paced around a little, then took off upstairs. “I’m getting the notes,” she called from the hallway.
The notes had come in large brown envelopes—about 10 x 15, and both envelopes had come from the same package. There was a little dimple in the upper left-hand corner of each, as if something very heavy and sharp had sat on top of the package. And both notes seemed to be originals. I held the paper up to the light — expensive watermarked bond.
“What bad girls you’ve been!” the notes began with a kind of sick heartiness. “I’ve got some of your purple prose. Or is it lavender? Anyway, you’ll definitely want these letters back. Attached is a sample, for verification. I’ll call Monday at 8:00 p.m. to let you know how you can keep this sick little secret to yourselves. I think buying them back at a page a week is a good idea, don’t you? You’ll have 27 weeks to think about how naughty you’ve been. Until Monday.”
Attached to the note was a photocopy of the final page of a handwritten letter. Signed by Tonia.
The more I thought about it, the chillier the back of my neck became. This was no ordinary blackmail note—this was one that had been written by a real macho woman-hater. That’s not a contradiction in terms—I’ve met more of them than I care to recall. Sure, they preen and primp, and pump up their muscles, and read Hustler and Screw, and seek out fluffy young blonde things at singles bars. But underneath that macho facade lurks something else. A deeply felt dislike for and suspicion of women. A contempt. Gynophobia, the psychologists call it. Oh, these men have uses for women, no doubt about that, but they just don’t like them. And the author of the blackmail note was one of these misogynists—I was certain of it. Worse still, he was a homophobe. A very dangerous combination. My years in the CP’s office had taught me that.
I handed t
he papers back to Tonia. “Could I have some coffee?” I asked. “We’re going to be at this awhile, and my decongestant is putting me to sleep.”
Valerie disappeared into the kitchen, and in a few minutes I smelled coffee perking.
“How did the blackmailer get your letters?” I asked Tonia.
She shrugged. “A burglary. Just after Valentine’s Day. I was away in Toronto then. They only took my television, stereo, and computer. At least I thought that’s all they’d taken until I got this note.”
“Where were the letters?”
“In a small wooden chest on a bookshelf in my bedroom.”
“Did they make a mess? Were any drawers emptied?”
She nodded. “A few. And some books were thrown on the floor, but that was all.”
“Interesting,” I commented. “Did you call the police?”
“Oh yes. They came and took down the serial numbers of the stolen goods. But I’ve never heard from them since.”
Valerie returned with coffee and cups on a tray. We helped ourselves.
Something that didn’t make sense was nibbling at the back of my mind. It took a little nip, and I sat up straight. “How did these burglars happen to get so lucky as to get all the letters?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Tonia said.
“All. Both sets. Tonia to Val and Val to Tonia. Usually people have in their possession only letters they’ve received. Not letters they’ve written.”
They exchanged looks, and Valerie put down her coffee cup. “I suppose I’ll have to tell you,” she conceded. I braced myself. What else could there be?
“This isn’t my house,” she said. “It’s Tonia’s. I just ... spend time here.”
I held my breath. Something worse was coming. I would have bet money on it.
“I’m married,” she told me, looking sidelong at Tonia.
“My husband doesn’t know about Tonia. Or about me.”
I closed my eyes. It was getting worse by the minute.
“I left my letters here. With Tonia’s. We thought it was best.”
The Always Anonymous Beast Page 3