by R. J. Jagger
Friend or foe.
Which was she?
Either way she was definitely in the middle of things.
She was with Shaden the night they broke into Rekker’s house. She met with Rock at a dive bar on Wednesday. Last night, Rock was murdered.
Right now, Song didn’t have time to think about it.
She needed to work on Condor’s case.
She pushed up her glasses and got busy.
AN HOUR LATER the door opened and two people walked in, Nuwa and Shaden.
Their faces were grim.
Nuwa slumped into the seat in front of Song’s desk and said, “I think Rekker’s wise to the fact that my case is fake. He keeps asking me about the details.”
“That’s what lawyers do,” Song said.
Nuwa shook her head.
“This is different. He’s trying to trip me up. He’s trying to get proof that his suspicions are right.”
Shaden nodded in agreement.
“The fake case was your creation,” she said. “We need you back on the team. We need to get the details flushed out before Nuwa says something she shouldn’t.”
Song leaned back.
“I’m hired, I’m fired, I’m hired, I’m fired,” she said. “Believe it or not, that takes a toll.”
SHADEN CAME AROUND THE DESK and hugged her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I haven’t handled this well. I’ve been the client from hell. It’s just that I’m scared to death. I need to find out if I killed someone. I’ll never have a day of peace until I know one way or the other, not to mention that I have to figure out whether to drop my life and head to Mexico. Forgive me?”
Yes.
She did.
She looked at Nuwa and said, “What are you getting out of Rekker so far? Anything?”
“I’m getting his hands on my ass,” she said. “That’s about it. I haven’t let him all the way in, though. He’s still lust-drunk. He’s still in play.”
“Will he talk, eventually?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “All I know is that he hasn’t yet. Worse, for some reason, I can’t get him to invite me over to his house, so we haven’t had a chance to do the roofies thing. He wants to screw in the car for some reason. Maybe it goes back to his teenage years, I don’t know—it’s strange. I’m getting more and more nervous. He’s an extreme man under the surface. I don’t think he’ll do anything negative to me as long as my case might be real. If he stumbles onto something that shows him it’s not, though, I don’t know what will happen. I really don’t.”
“In that case, my advice is to abandon the whole thing,” Song said. “We’ll figure out something else.”
Nuwa shook her head.
So did Shaden.
“We’re too close,” Nuwa said. “We need to push forward.”
A STRANGE THOUGHT came to Song. She must have gotten lost in it because Shaden nudged her and said, “Hey, what’s going on in there?”
She focused.
Then said, “Under the fake case, a killer’s supposed to be after Nuwa. That’s the whole damsel in distress thing we were going for since day-one.”
Right.
True.
“Maybe instead of better details, what we need is for that guy to show up.”
Nuwa and Shaden exchanged glances.
Impressed.
“You mean hire someone to make an attempt on Nuwa’s life?” Shaden asked.
Yes.
That’s exactly what she meant.
“A fake attempt, obviously, not a real attempt,” Song said. “We’ll do it when she’s with Rekker. In fact, we’ll do it when they’re in a car making out.”
99
Day 5—September 25
Friday Afternoon
THREE DVDS CAUGHT Teffinger’s eye. They were in the second drawer of Trent’s dresser, at the far right end. Whereas all the others had color packaging and snapshots of scenes on the back, these were in clear plastic cases, as if they hadn’t been packaged for release yet.
He popped one in the player.
It was the same MO as the others.
Hot women.
Bondage.
Pleasure mixed with pain.
In hindsight, that’s why Condor had the telescope in his bedroom. He’d watch his own videos being produced. Why from there, though, instead of from the scene?
Teffinger fast-forwarded to the signature ending and saw something that made his face sweat. The woman was tied in the exact same way the SJK killer bound his victims, namely on her stomach with her hands behind her back, her legs bent at the knees, her ankles tied together and a rope strung from her feet to her neck. Unlike the other murder scenes that generally lasted less than five minutes, this one stretched on for a long, long time. The woman’s legs eventually pulled straighter and straighter in spite of her frantic efforts and she choked to death while the camera zoomed in on her face.
Was it real?
Teffinger watched the final moments again, in slow motion.
It looked real.
He watched it again.
If it was fake, he couldn’t tell.
HE PLAYED THE SECOND CLEAR-CASE DVD which, again, ended in a murder so visually compelling that it might be real, although it wasn’t a SJK replica.
HE PUT IN THE THIRD DVD and recognized it within the first few seconds. It was Chase in the dungeon Monday night, working over Amanda Wayfield, whose body washed out of the San Bruno Mountains last night.
His phone rang just as the victim took her final breath.
He answered and the voice of Donald Westlake, the coroner, came through. “Teffinger,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know I’ve conclusively determined the woman from last night, Amanda Wayfield, was choked to death. You definitely have a homicide on your hands.”
Teffinger swallowed.
Then stood up and paced.
“When did it happen?”
“Monday night.”
“Thanks.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You sound strange.”
“I’m okay,” Teffinger said.
“Yeah, well, for the record, you sound strange.”
“Duly noted.”
TEFFINGER POPPED THE DVD out of the player and stuck it back in the plastic case.
He stuck that case in his shirt pocket.
The other two DVDs went back into the drawer where he found them.
Then he headed for Bertha.
100
Day 5—September 25
Friday Afternoon
JONK WAS A FOREIGNER in San Francisco but back in Hong Kong he had no shortage of connections. He called one of them, a PI named Quon, and gave him the assignment to find out everything he could about Park Ching—Rock’s co-conspirator—as soon as he could. An hour later, Quon phoned back.
“Park Ching is an arranger,” Quon said. “By that, I mean he arranges stuff for whoever needs stuff arranged.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Any kind of stuff,” Quon said. “He hires people to get jobs done. He’s basically a middleman. He doesn’t do much of the actual work himself. His gift is being able to find people he can call, no matter what the job is.”
“Are you talking about hitmen?”
“That would be an example but only one of many,” Quon said. “He’s a lot more diverse than that. Whatever someone wants, Ching can make it happen.” A beat, then, “He’s run into a little problem, though.”
“Like what?”
“Like he got himself killed.”
“Someone killed him?”
“Deader than dead,” Quon said.
“When?”
“Just recently,” he said. “Wednesday night.”
Jonk paced.
“I need to get his phone records,” he said.
QUON LAUGHED.
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious.”
“Guys like Park Ching don’t leave electr
onic footprints,” he said. “That’s how they get business and that’s how they stay in business.”
“Yeah, well, he’s dead, so he must have left something somewhere,” Jonk said. “Dig into it. I want to know who he’s been talking to over the last two months.”
“Impossible.”
“At least try.”
“I don’t want to take your money.”
“Look, I appreciate it’s a long shot,” Jonk said. “Dig into it, though. You’ll get paid even if you come up short. In fact, if it will make you feel better, I’ll wire a retainer to your account as soon as we hang up.”
A pause.
Then, “We go back, so that’s not necessary. Don’t expect much though. That’s all I’m saying. The only thing I can promise is that you’ll get my best efforts.”
“Understood,” Jonk said. “Let me give you a little more background. Ching used somebody—probably a team—to steal some ancient Egyptian treasure from Jack Poon.”
“Jack Poon?”
“Right.”
“Damn, no wonder he’s dead.”
“I want to know who he hired,” Jonk said.
“You don’t go up against Jack Poon and live,” Quon said. “Not in a million years.”
101
Day 5—September 25
Friday Afternoon
SONG HAD NO CLUE who to call to arrange a fake attempt on Nuwa’s life. She didn’t travel in those circles and left the project for Nuwa and Shaden to figure out. They hadn’t talked about it, but it appeared that Nuwa was back on the payroll as part of the law firm, which meant that Song was legally and professionally responsible for whatever she did. That wasn’t good but, quite frankly, she was too tired to keep fighting it. Whatever was destined to happen was going to happen. It wasn’t worth it to keep worrying about it.
When the women left, she refocused on Condor’s case.
She suddenly had a thought and called Nuwa. “When you hire somebody, be absolutely sure he or she understands it’s a fake, not real.”
Nuwa laughed.
“You worry too much.”
“The other thing is to be sure it gets set up so it doesn’t result in a fight or confrontation between that person and Rekker,” she added. “We don’t want Rekker to end up killing someone or vice versa.”
Right.
Good thought.
“We won’t do anything without running it by you first,” Nuwa said.
“Promise?”
“Yes, promise.”
AN HOUR LATER she was facing her monitor on the credenza against the wall when she heard a noise behind her as if someone was in the room. Before she could turn, something swung through the air and struck her on the head.
Her glasses flew.
Pain exploded in her skull.
Everything turned confusing and dark.
Her body fell towards the floor.
She braced for the impact.
Halfway down everything went black.
102
Day 5—September 25
Friday Afternoon
BERTHA DIDN’T START until Teffinger popped the hood and jiggled the battery wires. When she fired up, he slammed the hood, kicked the bumper and called Chase. “We need to meet right now.” He expected her to say, Why? What’s going on? But there must have been a tone in his voice because she said, “Okay.”
“The boat.”
“Fine, the boat,” she repeated. “I’m on my way.”
Teffinger almost clipped a car as he pulled into thick traffic. The other driver honked and gave him the finger. Teffinger stuck his arm out the window and gave him the finger back. The other driver shook his fist and then rammed Teffinger’s back bumper.
He slammed on his brakes.
Bertha slid sideways to a stop.
The other car came to a stop behind him.
Teffinger gripped the steering wheel with all his might, keeping himself locked into position because if he got out he’d beat the guy to death with his fists.
A second passed.
Then another.
And another.
Without looking back, he jammed the transmission into drive and took off.
HE HADN’T GOTTEN two blocks when his phone rang. He answered without checking the incoming number and was immediately sorry he did.
It was the chief.
“Someone said you’re still working cases,” the man said.
“That’s true.”
“Well stop it, you’ve been discharged.”
“I don’t care.”
He hung up.
WHEN HE GOT TO THE BOAT, Chase wasn’t there yet. He pulled an Anchor Steam from the fridge and swallowed it in three long gulps. Then he got another. When Chase showed up, he took her into the cabin, sat her on the bed and said, “I have something I want you to see.”
He hit play.
Chase jumped onto the screen of a flat-panel TV, wearing the mask, but they both knew it was her. Teffinger let her watch herself work over Amanda Wayfield for a minute and then fast-forwarded to the end.
“I found this in a dead man’s house,” he said.
“Whose?”
“Troy Trent.” A beat, then, “You killed Amanda Wayfield.”
She exhaled.
Then looked at him briefly before diverting her eyes.
“I know,” she said.
She balled up on the bed.
Then she cried.
103
Day 5—September 25
Friday Afternoon
TAG CALLED IN EVERY FAVOR she had in town to no avail. Then out of the blue one of her contacts who knew nothing a half hour ago called her back and said, “Marriott Marquis on Fourth Street.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive,” he said. “He’s under the name Landon Lee. You owe me a blowjob.”
She laughed.
“I’m half tempted to give it to you.”
“Well, call me when you get the other half in place.”
“You’re too much.”
She hung up and slapped Jonk’s ass. “Our little friend Amaury is staying at the Marriott Marquis under a different name. Let’s go.”
104
Day 5—September 25
Friday Afternoon
SONG REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS to find her eyes blindfolded and her hands tied behind her back. Karaoke vibrated up through the floorboards into her ear. With her legs not tied, she was able to press against the wall and struggle up into a standing position. Then she scraped her face against the corner of the desk until the edge snagged the blindfold and pulled it up. What she saw she could hardly believe.
The place was trashed.
Everything that had been in a drawer was on the floor.
Everything.
In that mess was a pair of scissors.
She managed to get them into her hands and then cut the materials that bound her wrists, which turned out to be strips of cloth ripped from her own T-shirt.
She felt her head.
There was blood but it was dry and matted.
The office had no mirror so she walked up to her apartment.
The door was shut but not locked.
Inside, everything was as trashed as the office.
She didn’t care.
She was alive.
Everything else was just stuff.
No one had hit her or beaten her up after she passed out.
Her face was untouched.
So was her body.
She warmed up the shower, stepped inside with her clothes still on and stuck her head under the spray. The water at her feet turned red. She stayed as she was until the water cleared up, then took off her clothes, tossed them over the top and gently massaged her head with soap.
Who did it?
That was the question.
Who did it and why?’
What the hell were they looking for?
MAYBE IT HAD SOMETHING to do with Condor.
But what?
He’d only been a client for half a day.
On the other hand, maybe it was related to Rekker. Maybe he had the place under surveillance and spotted Nuwa and Shaden when they made their visit. Maybe he figured out Nuwa wasn’t a sweet little innocent client. Maybe he was trying to find out what they had on him, if anything.
Then again, maybe it was even related to Rayla White. Maybe the woman looked out the window of Danny Dan’s when Song wasn’t paying attention and spotted her.
It might even relate to Nathan Rock, for that matter.
How?
She didn’t know.
But it could.
Something was going on with him.
Something powerful enough to get him killed.
There was too much going on.
Somehow it was all connected.
Somehow she was in the middle of it.
SHE CONSIDERED REPORTING the assault to the police but then thought, Screw it. They didn’t do anything the last time they were here.
They weren't going to get her out of this mess.
Only she could.
105
Day 5—September 25
Friday Afternoon
TEFFINGER WENT TOPSIDE and slammed down an Anchor Steam while Chase cried in the cabin. Then he went down, took her in his arms and rocked her on the bed.
“I’m not going to turn you in,” he said.
She trembled.
“You have to.”
“Actually I don’t,” he said. “I got fired this morning. Technically I’m not even on the case. I’m a civilian. I’m going to have to return the DVD to the scene but it will probably just end up rotting in the drawer. Even if someone finds it, they won’t connect it to Amanda Wayfield and even if they do they won’t recognize you because of the mask. The only reason I knew it was you is because of the tattoo and because I know your movements. So you’re safe.”