“Nothing cuts the tang of Ginsberg’s outhouse better than an epic Scotch,” said the outlaw, “and this one is indeed epic, even in its name.” He leaned forward and injected into his hushed voice all the false portent of a movie trailer:
“Samurai.
“It really is ridiculously priced,” he continued, without the movie-trailer voice, “but what else can I spend my cash on. It’s not like I can waltz into the Four Seasons and blow a wad on the Royal Suite, though the price of this bottle itself could keep me comfortably ensconced for a week or more, meals included. Assuming I don’t order another bottle from room service.
“Samurai.
“Funny, even after a few desperate gulps, your expression remains just as jolting. Maybe I overassumed, maybe the disgust on your face is not from Ginsberg’s outhouse but from my presence across from you. Oh, don’t demur. I’d disgust myself, too, if I wasn’t, you know . . . yeah.
“Samurai.”
He laughed, but she didn’t laugh with him, and his laughter after a moment choked in his throat. She looked down, embarrassed by the single searching eye. It was uncanny how he seemed to see right through her, as if he could grab with his fist the thoughts flickering like moths through her consciousness. He was either reading her or leading her, and she began to believe it was the latter, as if he had mapped every twist and turn of his story to pull the desired emotions. Just like a psychopath would.
“It’s easy to judge, isn’t it?” said the outlaw. “It’s easy to look in my eye and let revulsion fill your soul. That slug oozing down the fence post, that cockroach crawling across your shoe, that psychopath sitting across from you, swilling priceless Scotch. Well, whatever disgust you feel, don’t forget that you came to me. Did you ever wonder why of all the reporters who sent an interview request to my lawyer, you’re the one I chose to tell my story to?
“Let’s get to it, shall we? Your brother was blowing the whistle on an oil company poisoning half of Pennsylvania and someone blew off half his face before he could lay his facts in front of the United States Attorney. You want vengeance and you thought I was the Ronin who could exact it for you. You came to the monster to beg for his help, and the disappointment you felt when you first laid eyes on my sorry condition arose from the fear that the monster could no longer do what you wanted done. Am I far off?”
For the magazine writer to hear it spoken so simply, to have the facts laid out so clearly, filled her with something more than pain and hope. There was shame, too. The perfidy of this long-sought interview had been fully exposed as if to the desert sun, along with her uneasiness about him, and she didn’t know what to say to make it better, to make the truth sound less squalid, so she said nothing.
“Don’t worry, I don’t want to hear from you―yet. Let your disgust marinate a bit. You’ll have your chance to choose between journalism and vengeance. Just know that when you do, it will be one or the other. If you choose vengeance, then nothing I say to you will ever go beyond the walls of this shack, that’s the deal. And trust me, you don’t want to break a deal with someone like me. But I promised you the whole sorry story, and that’s what you’re going to get before you choose. So hold on, this is where it turns.
“When I returned to Miami after my sojourn in the nation’s capital, I was feeling more than a little self-satisfied. I had gone to Washington with the goal of squashing a murder investigation and I had done just that, killing the investigation without being pushed into killing. I believed then that I was a brilliant enough henchman not to need such an untidy tool as murder. But even better, I had made my move and expected I would be rewarded, shortly, with a position presiding over the operations of the vast Hyena organization from that white house on the water in Miami.”
“The accounts we have gotten on your progress are quite interesting,” said Mr. Maambong from behind a new tempered-glass desktop. I couldn’t help but rub a finger across the sharp edge of what would soon be my desk. “Are you sure this matter is completely taken care of?”
This was the very day after my dinner with Linda Pickering; once I had shown my true colors to her, I thought it prudent for all of us to get the hell out of Dodge. Upon arriving at the Miami house in my leisure wear, I went straight up to the office to render my report.
“It is taken care of,” I said. “The woman who had been pushing to revive the investigation has been quieted, and the lead detective has been given every reason to slow her pursuit of an answer. Not to mention that you already have your claws into her partner.”
“We do?”
“Don’t kid a kidder, Mr. Maambong. You wouldn’t even have needed us if Booth had been named lead and wasn’t already under suspicion. Pickering was the key and I took care of her.”
“If things are as you say they are, Mr. Kubiak, this then is excellent news,” said Mr. Maambong. “You should be proud of your accomplishment. Excepting the horrid abuse of the minibar, for which you will be docked, everything seems to have gone swimmingly. Take a few days off, go on vacation. You’ve earned it.”
“When do I get paid?”
“When we are sure of your success. We have kept Tom Preston in place to monitor things.”
“That’s disappointing. He’s a fiend who will only muck things up.”
“He is our fiend and the Principal insisted. The Principal is observing the situation with a rare intensity, as if fates hang in the balance. Let us give you some advice, Mr. Kubiak. It doesn’t pay to disappoint the Principal, or to barge in on her uninvited and use her first name. She has earned a certain formality.”
The beetle eyes of his dark glasses stared. I had gotten to the point where I could read the lenses as one would read the eyes of a naïf. He was projecting steel, our Mr. Maambong, and an intimate knowledge of everything that had happened on the Principal’s boat, but there was also worry.
“You’re going to like the West Coast,” I said.
“We could get used to it, yes, the Hollywood parties, the California vineyards. There is a house high in the hills that is owned by the organization.”
“All white walls and glass, I suppose, with an infinity pool overlooking the city.”
“It almost sounds like you’ve been there. If that is where we are sent, we will make the best of it. It might be a challenge to find a good ropa vieja out there, but it can be difficult to find an authentic sour pinangat down here, so it balances out.”
“You’re taking this well.”
“Do you think you are the first associate to want this seat, Mr. Kubiak? You are not even the first this week. We would not have hired you if you had not the ambition to climb. But wanting and getting are two very different things. We are willing to serve wherever the Principal believes it most efficient for us to serve. We trust you, too, will continue to carry out your assignments, whatever they might be. Especially considering the disturbing photographs we have now on file.”
“Chicken blood, as you well know,” I said.
“You mentioned chicken blood to the Principal, too. She had no idea of what you were talking about. It is charming the fictions we tell ourselves to make it through the day. And, pray tell, how is sweet Mandy holding up? Have you kept in touch with the dear girl? No? We thought not. But you can trust that we will not let Tom Preston muck things up, as you say. Your success in Washington would be a benefit to us all.”
“Especially to you, let’s not forget that.”
“Whatever could you mean?”
“I had wondered which of your operatives had taken care of poor Scarlett Gould, but I don’t wonder anymore. Tell me, Mr. Maambong, when did you become so concerned about the fate of the rare and endangered Visayan warty pig?”
Mr. Maambong laughed, it was a hearty laugh, big and forced, and gratifyingly threatening, the kind of laugh you put on when somebody just stomped on your foot and you don’t want the pain to show.
“Take your vacation, Mr. Kubiak. Go someplace restful as we contemplate your future.”
&
nbsp; I stood on the stairwell outside his office and looked down at the pool. My team was lounging; other operatives were swimming and drinking. Bert was standing stiffly behind the bar. Cassandra was lying on a chaise facedown, her top untied, her perfect pale body staying just as perfectly pale under the pressure of the sun. Beyond was the inlet and the palm trees and the beach and the . . . yeah, yeah, I know, enough with the travelogue already. This was everything I had ever wanted just a few months before and now the scene was tinted with nostalgia, like the boiler room in Carson City before it, or the law firm in Sacramento, or my marriage bed. I had made my move and was ready to ascend, but there was something in Mr. Maambong’s manner that put doubt in my mind. Just then, standing there on that stairwell, I sensed that this paradise would join the others that had been lost to me. But this time the loss didn’t choke my throat. One benefit of learning the precise nature of my character was knowing I’d always find another spot to ply my deficits.
I climbed down the stairs and headed straight for Cassandra. I sat on the edge of her chaise, gently laid my hand in the sweet hollow formed by her scapulae, and started kneading. She didn’t open her eyes as her mouth curled like a contented cat.
“Mr. Maambong told me to take a vacation,” I said.
“Weren’t you just in Cabo?”
“He wants me out of his hair for a while. Did he ever send my predecessor Rand on vacation?”
“He went off to Belize one day and was never heard from again.”
“Must have been the crocodiles.”
“Where are you going?”
“Not Belize, that’s for sure. I thought Jamaica. Negril maybe. Red Stripe and reggae and seven miles of beach.”
“Sounds dreamy.”
“Come with me.”
“I can’t. I have things.”
I looked up. Mr. Maambong was at his office window, his dark glasses staring down. “With the way things have been going, my guess is Mr. Maambong will want to keep track of me for a bit.”
“Have you been a bad boy, Phil?”
“I can’t help it. It’s in my character. Why don’t you volunteer to spy on me while we’re getting stoned and staring at the sunset?”
“That sounds tempting.”
“I’ll make the reservations,” I said.
There’s a road in Negril that leads up to a cliff, and after nightfall you are climbing only by the light of the moon and stars until, in the distance, you see a dim glow and hear a soft driving beat from what turns out to be a candlelit shack serving jerk and Red Stripe. You sit at a brightly painted table and drink your beer and eat your dark, spicy chicken and fried plantains and talk over the music and then you move on through the darkness to the next shack, where you buy another beer and a joint already rolled and smoke with the proprietor and listen to the music until you’re ready to climb some more. And at end of the road is a bar on the edge of the cliff with a band and a dance floor and you stay there dancing and drinking until the western sky turns a marvelous reddish gray and you stumble down the path past the now-shuttered shacks, back to your thatched hut, where you collapse in each other’s arms until the sun is high and while still half-asleep you find yourself screwing to the rhythms of a steel drum playing from the beach.
Cassandra was a perfect companion for Jamaica. On rented mopeds we sped along narrow roads with shoulders overrun by greenery so lush it seemed not of this earth. With our scuba tanks we haunted reefs and waited for moray eels to dart from their holes and snap their teeth at us. On the white-sand beach, beneath our layers of lotion and mirrored glasses, with a bottle of beer on each of our bellies, we lay like slugs shriveling in the marvelous heat. In late afternoons we screwed and laughed and the sight of her red hair, her pale skin, the way her lips curled into a sly smile, all of it made me want to screw her some more. And yet, in the oddest moments, I caught myself thinking about Linda Pickering. Maybe that was just part of my affliction, the way no matter who I was with or how wonderful the moment I couldn’t help but think of another. But there was something about Linda’s strength, her shielded vulnerability, the effort she put out even as she expected only doom, her rueful laugh, all of it, that had sunk into my flesh like a barb.
“Are you okay?” said Cassandra.
“I’m great. Just great.”
“You ready to go back.”
“No.”
It was the meat of the afternoon. We were naked inside our hut; the buzz of a fly circling the thatched roof matched the buzz in our heads as the scent of reefer floated around us like a sweet memory.
“Then we should stay,” she said, rolling over until her chest was atop mine, and her lips inches from my lips. She kissed me and her tongue did tricks in my mouth, but somehow I was tasting Linda Pickering’s olive breath after one too many martinis. “We should go on strike and hold out here until all our demands are met.”
“And what are our demands?”
“A better espresso machine.”
“And you know that golf course we pass on the way to the house,” I said. “What is it, La Gorge or something? Let’s become members.”
“I didn’t know you played golf.”
“I don’t, but I’d get a blazer with that shield on the breast and I’d stride through the place like Vlad the Impaler, fucking the wives and pissing on the greens. Or is it the other way around.”
“What about a masseuse? Shouldn’t there be a masseuse at the house?”
“Svea or Sven?”
“Sven, absolutely,” she said. “With hands strong enough to strangle a horse.”
“Doesn’t sound very gentle.”
“No it does not. He’ll twist me like a Twizzler.”
“Is that what you want?”
“From Sven.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Nothing. That’s why we get along so well. Neither of us wants anything from the other except what we can take.” As she said this she took hold of my prick.
“Oh, Sven,” I said, “you dirty boy.”
Then she squeezed.
“Ow. Fuck.” I tried to pull her hand away but she tightened her grip. “What the—”
“You’re screwing up,” she said, before letting go and rolling off me. We were lying now at an acute angle, our heads just touching. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to end up in Belize with Rand.”
“You’ve been talking to Mr. Maambong.”
“He wants us home. He has a new job for you, and a message.”
“I don’t know if I want either.”
“It doesn’t matter what you want, don’t you understand that yet, Phil? You take your orders and do your jobs and do them the way they want and then you get to keep playing with me. It seems like a pretty fair trade, doesn’t it?”
“What’s the job?”
“The old woman in Philadelphia wants to see you again. You and she seemed to have hit it off.”
“She likes it hard and fast from behind.”
“Of course she does.”
“And she’s hoping I’ll give it to her.”
“Then do it. Bend her over the wheelchair and go full Sven on her bony ass. Do whatever she wants and then do it again.”
“You sound worried, Cassandra. I’m surprised you have it in you. You must miss poor Rand?”
“Not as much as I’d miss you.”
“But how much would you miss me, really?”
“I wouldn’t weep, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Good girl. That’s one thing we don’t do. What’s the message?”
“He told me to tell you that someone name Bradley Beamon just confessed to a murder on Facebook and then shot himself in the face.”
Do you see him, do you see him there? In that moment he loomed over our two naked bodies like a ghost. And I knew, with all my certainties, that someday, somewhere, Tom Preston and I would finally have another moment together, and this time it would end in blood.
30. Brotherly Love
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You let us down in Washington, Mr. Kubiak,” said Mr. Maambong in his office. He leaned back in his chair, his fingers thrummed the tempered desktop, the lenses of his glasses stared with a dark merriment.
“I had it under control.”
“You may have thought so, but your lady detective was continuing on despite your maneuvers and threats. She strode into the offices of Senator Davenport with a badge and a series of embarrassing questions.”
“Good for her. She was making a point.”
“To whom?”
“To me. She knew enough to ruffle the right feathers so I would hear of it. But it would have ended there. She had nothing else to go on, no one to push her, and the costs of her continuing out on that limb were too high, I made sure of that. Her investigation would have died a quiet death.”
“We couldn’t take the chance. The senator was distressed and that distress was relayed with ringing clarity to Mr. Portofoy. Something needed to be done and so it was. The investigation is now quite neatly sealed in the way it should have been sealed from the first.”
“Except everyone involved in the investigation knew that boy was innocent. So instead of a cold case going nowhere, your Tom Preston stirred the hornet’s nest. It’s a serial killing now―first Scarlett Gould, then Bradley Beamon―and my name is in the middle of it.”
“We have every confidence you’ll weather the storm.”
“It’s easy to have confidence when it is someone else’s neck in the noose.”
“This is so true, Mr. Kubiak, and it gives us great comfort. As you now no doubt realize, we won’t be heading to the West Coast. Our place behind the desk remains secure. It was a nice try, and we all respect the effort, but it won’t happen again. Once is expected; twice is bad form. And you should know that with our pronounced growth, we are still in need of another partner. The position would be quite lucrative in so many ways. Even with the glitch in Washington, the Principal was impressed with your efforts. She’s decided to give you another chance, maybe a final chance at this opportunity. The organization is deciding between you and Mr. Preston.”
A Filthy Business [Kindle in Motion] Page 24