False Allegations b-9

by Andrew Vachss

  "You pay money, you get information," I said.

  A pathological liar lies—that's what they do. But a professional liar treats truth no different from a lie—you use whatever works. So I told her I'd paid cash for what got me to her door—that kind of thing would make sense to her. No point explaining about the credit card receipts. If people weren't greedy, they'd never get caught. Businessmen have been charging whores to their businesses since forever, billing it as limo service, restaurant tabs…sometimes just "entertainment." If they just paid cash, nobody would ever know—but then they'd have to spend their own money. If you know what you're doing, you can follow the paper trial right into the shadows of their lives. I didn't know where Wolfe got hold of Kite's American Express receipts, but this was the only one that hadn't dead–ended.

  "And you're gonna pay me?" she asked, absently rubbing at her coke–ruined nose. Only it wasn't a question.

  "You know me, Penny," I said. "I work the same way you do. You're too high class to be grabbing front money, right?"

  She sat on the unmade double bed, shifted her too–thin body inside the black silk robe. "I thought he was a trick too, okay? But all he wanted was to talk."

  "Sex talk?"

  "No. And he didn't want to wear my panties either, okay? Or have me spank him. He wanted to ask me about another trick."

  "And you told him you didn't talk about your clients, right?" I asked her, putting it together finally. If Kite had offered her cash over the phone, she would have spooked. So he came in person, like he was a customer.

  "Right. But you could see he wasn't a cop. I mean, I never saw nobody ever looked like him. Like he had all the blood drained out or something. And he already knew all about the trick. Just not what we…did, okay?"

  "Okay. So you told him…?"

  "Yeah," she said, sandpaper in her voice. "I told him, okay? No big deal. It was nice just to…talk, for once. It wasn't like he was paying me to rat the trick out or anything. I mean, he wasn't the heat, right? He was doing…research, like. That's what he said. He was consulting me," she said, her voice loving the sound of the word in her mouth.

  "And that was it?"

  "That was it, Burke. No big deal. You want to pay me now?"

  "Sure," I said, reaching in my pocket. "By the way, did you know that trick was a judge?"

  "Oh yes!" she laughed, nasty–edged. "One thing you can always get from tricks, honey—they can't wait to tell you how motherfucking important they are."

  I had other things to do besides Kite's job. I'm a professional—I work even when I'm flush, not living from score to score like some rookie. Like most criminals, I learned my trade in prison. On the yard, listening to the Prof preach the gospel:

  "Every take ices the cake, schoolboy. But you never finish working, see? It's ain't a bunch of jobs, it's all one job. That's your work, got it? So when the time comes you got to cut into the cake, the cash is there, waiting. You don't got to do something stupid. You ain't in a hurry. Keep that cake rich all the time, so when you got to slice, it stays real nice."

  All the scores don't pan out, especially when you work the corners the way I do. And the federales have been crimping some of those corners lately. Used to be I could always count on a steady stream of firearms sales to halfass Nazis preparing for the revolution, but their latest psycho fantasy is biological warfare—dump a load of botulism toxin in the water supply of "Nigger Dee–troit" or "Jew York," wait patiently up in the hills in their ramshackle little hate–houses to mow down the fleeing survivors.

  The feds even monitor the White Night shortwave radio traffic now, and the FBI has a whole pack of undercovers working the survivalist beat. The feds cruise the Internet too, but that's still safe for me—I make kiddie porn deals but I never deliver, satisfying myself with the up–front cash. I guess I get some of Uncle's buy–money mingled in there once in a while, but they'll never come close enough to make a bust. Besides, it's the product they want—a lousy fraud arrest doesn't race their motors.

  I trade with the feds too, but I never took a CI jacket—Confidential Informants never stay all that confidential. I take it out in favors instead. The way that works is so simple I'm surprised they haven't caught on: I sell guns to some Nazi wannabe, then I drop a dime on him and the feds get a good solid bust. They don't pay me for the info, but I get a couple of more cards in the Get Out of Jail Free deck each time.

  G–men are pretty neutral characters. They don't go native like some of the NYPD undercovers do. Hoover's dress code went out the window about the time he went into the ground, but you can still spot the Gee at a hundred yards. Even across cyber–space.

  That's the latest frontier, the freshest stalking ground for predators. But the Internet's no different from any other piece of technology. It's neutral, like a scalpel. In the hands of a surgeon, it cuts out cancer. In the hands of a freak, it cuts out hearts.

  The Net is paradise for lurkers: nameless, no–scent psychopaths. That's the way camouflage works—by blurring the outlines. Most people look to the edges for definition—when it's not there, they don't see anything at all. But camouflage doesn't help when the other guy's willing to defoliate the whole jungle.

  There's a few heavy players working the fringe now. They climb on the Net, usually one of those "kids only" boards, and they get right into the pen pal thing. It never takes long. One of the freaks engages them, chats a bit, makes some promises, and sets up a meet. The freaks especially love airport hotels—in–and–out's their game anyway. They check into the room and, in a little bit, a kid shows up. Whatever they thought they were cybering with—a little Latino boy, a freckle–faced white girl—doesn't matter. But before they can get down to what they do, the door pops open and there's a real big, real angry man there. Turns out—it always turns out—that the kid is his kid. Somebody's gonna get hurt. Real bad. But if the freak spills out enough oil, fast, maybe he can put out the fire before he gets burned himself. All it costs is money. It's the old badger game, updated cyber–style. And the freaks never run to the Law.

  I don't go in for that stuff myself. I don't like to operate out of my territory. But I know there's crews working in half a dozen cities. Probably more by now. Freaks lock onto the Net and start salivating. They never figure that, in this world, there's creatures that prey on predators.

  The world's nothing but crime. I don't do every kind, but I do more than enough. I've been playing this way for such a long time that I'm doomed to it now, dancing between the acid raindrops, waiting for that manicured hand to drop on my shoulder and read me my rights. That happens, I'm ready for it. Even with my record, I'm not risking a long time inside. Not with the way I work things now. I may sell guns, but I don't carry them.

  And I keep swearing I'll never use one again.

  The one place I couldn't risk the Prof invading was Kite's aerie. The way I had figured it at first, Heather was living there. The floor plan to the building backed me up on it—there was enough room for a large family in the penthouse. Wolfe had her living in that two–bedroom apartment over in the West Seventies, but I thought that was probably just a place to store her clothes and keep up appearances. Then I found out Kite owned the building she lived in. Not right out in the open—he had a corporation nested inside a holding company, and shares of that company were controlled by a real estate investment trust that also held a mini–mall in Tucson and an office building in Dallas—but he was Heather's landlord all right.

  "Bitch is a clean–freak," the Prof told me. "Joint's a fucking hospital. Got one of them filter machines, looks like a waste basket it's so big. No carpet, nothing but tile and wood."

  "Look like she lives there?"

  "Yeah, I guess. Food in the fridge, stuff in the cabinets over the sink. Hamper got clothes in it, so…But she ain't no chef, I tell you that. All she had was them packaged meals. And a microwave."

  "The food just her stuff you think?"

  "Oh yeah, bro. Ain't been no man in that place ever
, except maybe to fix the sink or something. 'Sides that, she got a motherfucking shrine in her bedroom."

  "Religious stuff?"

  "Only if your boy Kite is God, Schoolboy. Got pictures of him everywhere. On the dresser, on the wall. Big bulletin board too. Bitch's got every article ever mentioned his name, it looks like. Got a trophy drawer too."

  "His stuff?"

  "Got to be. Only thing that ain't clean in the entire joint. One drawer, sealed, like. Got a handkerchief, pair of white silk boxer shorts—I know women be wearing that stuff now, but that Heather broad couldn't get her damn leg in the pair I saw. Man's shirt. An old watch. Pair of cuff links. All wrapped in tissue paper. Souvenirs, like."

  "Cash? Jewelry?"

  "Nothing worth taking. Cheap costume stuff. Except for the chains."

  "Necklaces?"

  "No, bro. Chains. You know, those little ankle bracelets. Broad's gotta have a couple of dozen of them, all different kinds. Gold, silver…platinum, one looked like. All different patterns, too. She got them on little hooks in her closet. Like she puts on a different one every day."

  "Prof, were the chains in pairs?"

  "All single–o, bro. All the same exact size too—bitch has got some ankle on her! And for cash, she didn't have more than a couple yards loose, unless she had a real good hiding place. And it didn't smell that way…she's got that joint set up like nobody's ever gonna visit, understand?"

  "Yeah. She have a computer?"

  "Not even a typewriter. No diary, no notebook. Not even a pad to write on. She got a big TV set though, got three VCRs stacked on top. Whole bookshelf full of tapes too, got a name and date on every one. Seems like she tapes all them daytime things, maybe watches when she gets home."

  "What about books?"

  "I went through 'em good, when I was looking for a cash stash. Decoration—they was new, like she never cracked them. Except for the porno…"

  "Porno?" I asked. The Prof is a stone prude—what he thinks is pornography wouldn't raise an eyebrow in a church waiting room.

  "Yeah. You know, paperbacks. Always got a broad and a guy on the cover. In them old–time costumes. Like pirates and shit."

  So Heather read romances. And put Kite on the cover in her mind…? "Nothing to interest the cops, huh?" I asked him.

  "A smart cop, maybe. She got toys, bro. Brass knucks, steel snap–out baton, set of punch knives. This broad gets close enough to you, she could do some real damage."

  "This is all I could put together on such short notice," Hauser told me in his gravelly voice. "The Post's not on NEXIS that far back—I had to go to the morgue."

  "Thanks. How're the boys?"

  "They're perfect," he said.

  "No kids are perfect," I told him.

  "What do you know?" he sneered, throwing the electric–blue Ford Explorer into gear and lurching into traffic without looking.

  Heather was telling the truth. About the lies. The clips Hauser pulled for me had it all, just like she said.

  Except for the suicide note the professor sent her.

  "This one was the flip side of the fat broad, Schoolboy," the Prof said to me a few days later, telling me about his toss of Jennifer Dalton's apartment. "Place is a pigsty. Stinks out loud. Got dirty clothes on the floor, roaches. Wouldn't surprise me she had a couple of little cheese–eaters hanging around too. Only decent–looking thing in the place was the answering machine—looked brand–new. Uses the living room for everything: eats there, probably sleeps on the couch too. The bedroom didn't have nothing but the bed. Not even a phone back there."

  "What's she read?"

  "Total trash, man. You know, space aliens spotted in a parking lot in Miami, getting it on with a bull gator. TV Guide. Confession magazines."

  "No romance novels for that one, huh?"

  "No romance period, brother. Joint smelled bad, I tell you."

  "You come away with anything?"

  "Got you this," the little man said, handing me a pair of keys.

  "She was a nice girl. I never said otherwise. And I still wouldn't today," the man in the blue blazer said, sitting behind the little gray metal desks they give salesmen in high–volume car dealerships. The gleam from the showroom washed into his cubicle, merging with the overhead fluorescent lighting to give his fleshy, well–scrubbed face a rosy glow under his short–cropped haircut. "It was just one of those things that didn't work out," he said in a brisk salesman's voice.

  "Nothing…happened? Like a sudden event?"

  "Nooo…" he said slowly, drawing the word out. "It was just that we were sort of…thrust together. You know. Same church, same social events. Our families knew one another slightly. We didn't really have that much in common, but…"

  "How long did you go together?"

  "We dated for about a year. Maybe a little less. Then we got engaged. But we were just going through the motions—there was no spark, if you know what I mean."

  "But you did plan to get married…?"

  "Plan? I'm not sure we had any real plan. Maybe that was the problem. We hadn't really thought things through. After a while, I just…"

  "Met somebody else?"

  "Not really. I mean, not a special person or anything. I didn't meet Melissa, my wife, until after me and Jennifer had broken up for a few months."

  "Is Melissa also in the church?"

  "Of course," he said, looking at me as though I asked if it was daylight outside. "I am part of the church, and the church is part of me. I wanted children, and—"

  "Did Jennifer want children?" I interrupted.

  "I guess so. I mean, we never really discussed it. Like I said, we never really talked about very much."

  "Did you like her? As a person, I mean?"

  "Jennifer is…rigid, I guess you'd call it. I mean, she's very nice. In every way, really. But she's not what you'd call a fun–loving person. Me, I'm more lively. I have to be doing something, you know what I mean? I'm very active in the church. And I'm a great sportsman too. Especially football."

  "You follow the Giants?"

  "The Jets," he said solemnly. "They are truly Job's team. And they will prevail. We must have faith. I have no use for fair–weather fans. The Jets were once mighty, but they have been suffering under a long period of adversity. I believe they are being tested. But we're going to get a lottery pick this year for sure—the top pick, as a matter of fact. And with the free agent draft plus—"

  "Yeah," I said, cutting off the flow. "Would you say Jennifer was a religious person? When you knew her?"

  "Religious? I guess so. I mean, she obeyed the tenets. She wasn't…passionate about our religion, but…"

  "What about her character in general?"

  "I'm not sure what you mean, her character."

  "Was she an honest person?"

  "Jennifer? She was one of the most honest people I ever met. She never lied, not about anything. It was one of the things I really liked about her. You know, the business I'm in, everybody has an image of it. The sleazy used car salesman. Like the crooked lawyer, right? Well, let me tell you something. In our church, lying is a great sin. One of the reasons I'm so successful is that church members would always prefer to deal with one of their own. But not because of what you might think. It's not clannishness—it's because Psalmists don't lie. If you buy a car from Roger Stewart, you're going to hear the truth about that car, new or used. And the word gets out. They tell their friends. I hope to have my own dealership some day. And when I do, it'll be because people know my word is as good as gold.

  "That's the way we are. Any Psalmist who doesn't hold truth to be sacred would be shunned. Everybody knows that. Jennifer? She was a simple person. I don't mean stupid, just…straightforward. Nothing slick about her. Jennifer was a person who always told the truth."

  "Ah, she was always in a fucking daze," the waitress told me, shaking her head hard enough to rattle her mop of carrot–color curls. "Couldn't get an order straight, dropped trays. I don't know why Mack hired h
er, I swear."

  "Mack, he's the boss?"

  "Boss? For here, I guess so. He's just the goddamned cook, that's all. But he gets to pick the girls, so I guess that makes him something. At least he thinks he is, anyway."

  "How long did she work here?"

  "Coupla months, maybe. I'm not sure. You gonna order something to drink with that burger?"

  "Yeah. Give me a beer."

  "What's 'a beer'? You want draft, bottle, what?"

  "Whatever you got?"

  "You ain't particular, huh?"

  "Not about beer."

  "Ah, I heard about you private eyes," she said, twitching her hips a little, smiling to let me know she was just playing.

  "How come she left?" I asked her when she came back with the beer.

  "Left? She got canned, honey. Dumped out on her skinny ass. The customers here, they ain't too choosy, you know what I mean? But they don't go for screw–ups all the time. I mean, maybe they would if I was doing it,"—she grinned—"but I know how to talk to customers. Men, especially—that's about all we get in here. Jenny, she didn't know squat. Girl probably didn't make five bucks a night in tips, even on a full shift."

  "You do much better than that yourself?"

  "Me? Honey, any night I don't go home with an extra fifty, I figure I'm losing it, you know what I mean? A joint like this, the guys like you to clown around a bit with them, you know what I mean? Jenny, she walked around like she had a sharp stick up her ass. Customer says something to her, she don't even come back at him. Me, I know how to handle myself. I know how to keep them in line, and I know how to play them too. That's part of the business…"

  "Ever had any other trouble with her? Before she split?"

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know…swiping tips from other tables, dipping in the register…"

  "Jenny? She was one of those Christian freaks, you know what I mean? One time, she was about ten minutes late. Anyone else, they woulda just told Mack the bus was late or something. You know what she says? She says she didn't get up on time, that's all. Mack told her he'd have to dock her pay. Just kidding around. You know, get a rise outta her. She says, that's okay—that's only fair. A real space cadet, like I told you."