“You’re never mean,” Jeff said.
Mrs. Talucci laughed. “What I did is invite him over. Constantly, for dinner, for family gatherings, for picnics. That way my daughters would get to know him. I think he’s just as obnoxious and overbearing at sixty as he was when he was sixteen. For most sensible people, his presence made the heart run as fast as it could in the other direction. For several of my daughters, it took more time than I wished, but fortunately, he never became part of this family.”
“You’re pretty smart,” Jeff said.
She laughed and patted his arm.
Ben said, “He’s really applying all kinds of pressure about the case? What good does that actually do?”
“None,” Paul said.
“That is so typical of him,” Mrs. Talucci said. “He’s the kind who can’t do things himself, but he thinks he can make others jump at his whim. That’s because he jumps at everybody else’s whim. He’s a fool.” Paul saw her lips set and her jaw clench. He suspected she’d come to a decision. “I know his mother,” Mrs. Talucci said. “A fine woman, as long as you weren’t married to her. She buried three husbands, drove them all to an early grave. We’d all be better off if she drove her son there too.”
Ben said, “That’s a harsher judgment than I’ve ever heard you give.”
“He’s is not a nice person,” she said.
Paul, Ben, and Jeff left. It was nearly eleven. The night was cold and fine with no wind as they wheeled Jeff home. It would have been easier to carry him, but he’d gotten more insistent lately about not being carried. Paul figured this had something to do with Jeff’s needing to feel less like a little kid. The short trip home took only a few minutes more time to accomplish this way, and if it made the boy feel better, Paul was willing to accommodate his son. Time was one thing he was determined to never begrudge his family.
As they neared the front steps, the blue and white squad car containing Paul’s protection lurched forward. The Mars lights began to spin, the headlights began to flash on and off, and its siren began to whoop. The voice on the loud speaker said, “You in the van, stay where you are.”
A van load of teenagers was parked in front of the house across the street from Paul’s. The two uniformed officers exited their car. One of them had one hand on his gun and a flashlight in the other. He shone it into the van’s interior. His partner stood at the open squad car door. Less than five seconds later, two more squad cars pulled into their street. Mrs. Talucci joined Paul, Ben, Jeff, and other neighbors as people began to converge on the scene. Paul strode forward.
“Everybody out of the van,” the cop ordered.
Paul saw his son, Brian, Andy Wycliff, Brian’s project kid, Jose, Brian’s best friend, and another teenager he knew from Brian’s football team hop out of a van.
“What’s up?” Paul asked.
“These kids have been sitting here for fifteen minutes watching the houses.”
“Dad?” Brian said.
“One of these yours?” the uniformed cop asked.
“Yeah. I know all of them,” Paul said.
“I thought I saw light glinting off metal. I didn’t know what they were doing. It’s getting a little late to be sitting in a van.”
“I’ll vouch for them,” Turner said. “I appreciate you being vigilant.”
“What’s going on?” Brian asked.
“Yeah, Dad,” Jeff said, “what would happen if Brian got arrested?”
Paul said, “You’d have more chores to do.”
“Oh.”
Mrs. Talucci said, “That’s an awful lot of cop cars for a group of slightly suspicious teenagers.”
Paul said, “Because of that newspaper article, everyone in the department is being more careful, and I got a crank call at work. For a day or two, there’s going to be someone outside the house.”
“Good idea,” Ben said.
Mrs. Talucci nodded, “I’ll make sure everyone in the neighborhood stays on the alert.” In this old Italian neighborhood, people tended to watch out for one another.
When they finally got settled in the house, Brian said, “That was a little more excitement than I expected.”
“Why were you guys sitting out there?” Paul asked.
Brian said, “Sketching out plans for international drug deals and finalizing details on selling our sisters into white slavery.”
Ever the practical one, Jeff said, “We don’t have a sister, and you don’t do drugs.”
Brian said, “I guess that wasn’t as funny as I thought it would be.”
Paul didn’t really want to talk about the threats he’d been receiving, but he spent some time reassuring them about how careful he was, and how statistics were on his side in returning home safely each night. Paul thought Jeff still had a romanticized notion of what a detective did and the dangers involved. Television and movies exaggerated the dangers and the heroism. Brian never said much, but Paul noticed that at those times when there was possible danger to his dad or headlines about cops being killed, the boy stayed home more, as if his simple presence would be enough to deter any attacker. Paul wished it was that simple.
Paul said to Brian, “For now, maybe you and your buddies better not sit outside.”
“You think there really is a danger?” Brian asked.
“I don’t know. And since I don’t know, I don’t want to take any chances. As much as you may want to live the life of an action adventure hero, I don’t, and I don’t want you to.”
“That’s boring,” Jeff said.
“I prefer boring,” Paul said.
“What action adventure film did you see tonight?” Jeff asked Brian.
Brian said, “Dead Witches Eating Machine Gun-Shooting Spies Who Know What Everyone Did Last Summer.”
Ben said, “I thought those kinds of movies were the rage last year.”
“Can there ever be enough ‘dead teenager’ movies?” Brian asked.
“But you’re a teenager,” Jeff said as he spun his wheelchair in a circle. “Aren’t they supposed to be scary?”
“They’re supposed to be,” Brian said, “but my friends and I rarely stop laughing through most of them. The best part of this one was the helicopter showing up at the end for no logical reason. Except maybe because the script writer was desperate to come up with a spectacular ending.”
“Did it blow up?” Jeff asked.
“It was a helicopter in a movie,” Brian said. “Of course it blew up.”
An hour later, the house was quiet. In T-shirt, briefs, and white athletic socks, Paul was downstairs getting a drink of water from the bottle in the refrigerator. The house was quiet. He heard steps on the stairs, and seconds later Brian padded into the room. His son wore only flaming red boxer shorts on his well-muscled frame. He sat down at the table.
“Dad, I think Mrs. Talucci was right. Wasn’t that kind of a lot of protection simply because of one crank call?”
Paul sat down. “You’re right. I didn’t want to say too much in front of Jeff.”
“You always talk about being honest with us.”
“I know.”
“I can handle whatever you tell me. If there’s a big problem, I want to know. I can imagine a lot of horrible things, which are probably worse than the truth.”
Paul told him the whole story.
When he finished, Brian said, “Sometimes I wish you weren’t a cop.” The refrigerator compressor clicked off, leaving the house very still.
Paul said, “I’m always glad you’re my son. I’m glad you worry about me.”
“How could I not?”
“I won’t say don’t worry. I will say what I always do. No one on the force is more careful than I. I always want to walk through that door and see you guys.”
“I know, Dad.” They got up. Brian hugged him in a fierce embrace for several seconds. He mumbled into his dad’s shoulder. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, son.”
Upstairs in their bedroom, Pau
l tossed his T-shirt and socks into a pile and got in bed next to Ben.
“You were gone a while,” Ben mumbled.
“I talked to Brian.” Paul told him what they’d discussed, and included the full story about the threats.
When he was done, Ben said, “We all worry. We don’t need to discuss it anymore tonight. Discussing it won’t increase or decrease the danger you’re in, or the amount of worrying we do. I love you. I never want harm to come to you. I know it’s your job. I don’t like it sometimes, but I love you.” Ben pulled him close.
They made passionate love.
16
Kids. I hate little kids. I don’t want them near me. It’s always a big test among those infested with children to inflict them on the childless, to see how we handle their little monsters. All kids need to suffer the way I was made to suffer. And they will. Lots of them will.
Early the next morning the temperature was in the mid-twenties. They walked the few blocks to church. Afterward, Ben made a large breakfast. The other three took turns cooking on weekday mornings. Since Ben had moved in, he’d taken to making a feast for the four of them every Sunday. He tried new recipes and unique variations. Today was eggs Florentine with more garlic in the spinach than any of them had imagined possible. They loved it.
Jeff’s plans for the day included a meeting of a new computer club he had joined. He was learning advanced website design. Brian was continuing his peer helpers project with over twenty mentors and helpers. They were all going on a tour of the city’s lakefront museums.
Paul kissed Ben and left for work around ten. Fenwick was at his desk. The obligatory box of chocolates and threatening phone message were already on his desk. A quick e-mail check showed another unpleasant note.
Fenwick pointed at the box and message, “Kind of like your morning coffee.”
“It gives a hell of a kick to a morning. I don’t have time for this crap now.” The box went to the lab for analysis, the messages to their files.
Turner examined the encrypted list. After several minutes, he said, “We’re going to have to talk to as many of these people as we can. If it was just recreational sex, fine, but it could also be part of the murder.”
Micetic showed up a minute or two later. He beamed at the two detectives. “I found a ton of encryption work on Werberg’s computer. It helped break the whole thing wide open. Once I found the key, I couldn’t stop. I haven’t been to bed yet. About six this morning I even found a bunch of anecdotal comments Werberg left behind.”
Micetic spread numerous pages of printout on top of their desks. Turner and Fenwick leaned close as Micetic explained. “The encrypted stuff is a record of the private contest between Werberg and Lenzati. I found a bit of history. The night they sold their company, they took a jet purchased for the occasion and zoomed off on a trip around the world. In his anecdotal record—I guess it was a sort of diary, but not very consistent—Werberg said that they were filthy rich now and could have sex with anybody they wanted. They decided to have a contest to see who could get the most desirable and unattainable people into bed. As kids, no one was interested in them. Girls didn’t look twice at Lenzati. Werberg himself says he didn’t have sex until he was in his twenties.”
Fenwick said, “This is beginning to sound like the movie Indecent Proposal.”
“Werberg refers to that. He claims they never lied to people. They didn’t string people along like the Robert Redford character did to Demi Moore, you know, finally dumping her later. These two were clear up front that it was an exchange of money for sex and nothing else. Werberg claimed the movie did give them some ideas. Werberg wrote that they actually had sex with a few married couples.”
“Why not just pick up a prostitute?” Fenwick asked. “Why go through all the extra hassle?”
“I think it was the thrill of the chase,” Turner opined. “For two guys who never had sex growing up. Picture frat boys being given a billion dollars. This sex game was their chance to play, to make up for slights they got as teenagers, their chance to have fun.”
“That sounds accurate,” Micetic said. “They were in fact unsuccessful the majority of the time. According to Werberg, people turned down surprising amounts of money. However, enough were more than willing to go along, usually women more than men. Over time the game got pretty complicated. It started in Sydney, Australia. They met a couple who were on their honeymoon.”
“How on earth did they convince all these people?” Fenwick asked.
“Werberg said it took a lot less than a million. Some you couldn’t buy for any money. Some would go for stunningly little. That couple in Australia was from a small town in the Outback and never had much of anything to begin with. They’d blown their meager life savings on the marriage and honeymoon.”
“Why didn’t anybody ever turn them in for solicitation?” Fenwick asked.
“Werberg comments on that once or twice,” Micetic said. He picked up one of the unencrypted pieces of paper and showed it to them. “They had to get out of Singapore very quickly one time. Werberg makes a few jokes about it. He said they got even by putting glitches in every program sold in that country that they could get their hands on.”
“Could they really do that?” Turner asked.
“They were rich and stupid and geniuses at the same time. Who knows how much they could really do.”
Turner asked, “Weren’t they ever afraid of getting the crap beat out of them?”
“When you’re rich you can get away with a great deal, and they were careful,” Micetic explained. “Werberg talks constantly about how much care they took. They never asked a roomful of college hockey players to participate.”
Fenwick asked, “Why did they keep a record?”
“It developed into a contest to see which of them could get the prettiest, or most handsome, or most famous, or richest, or most difficult to get person. They created an elaborate scoring system. Whoever had the most points at the end of the year had to give that much of a percent of the point differential of the company to the other person. Like, say if you won by three points, you gave three percent of the company to the other guy. Nobody ever won by more than six percent. The records show that it was pretty even over the years. It seems more like a friendly rivalry, a running tally.”
Turner asked, “How did the scoring system work? How could they prove you had been to bed with someone?”
“The more proof you had, the more points you got. Look at one of Werberg’s longer entries.” He held out a piece of paper to the detectives.
They read:
One time I was at a gas station in Arizona, and I thought the guy who waited on me was totally gorgeous. It was a lonely town, and I got lucky. More often we got to know the person, found out what they wanted or needed. That’s all you really need to do. Find out what people really want and offer to give it to them. With a computer you can find out a lot about people. With a little patience you can find out enough to get a lot of people to do what you want. Most of the time you don’t have to find out much. When you’re rich you can provide what they want.
“There aren’t that many explanations of that length. Most have only a few sentences. It’s the third and sixth columns that give details about each sexual encounter. They tell what their partners were willing to do at the outset. Locations, both the city and where in the city they made it, time of day, level of trustworthiness of the reporting. What the men and/or women were convinced to do during. What they wound up doing. Duration, orgasm, or lack of same.”
“The entries weren’t that long,” Turner said.
“It was a code. Very simple. The first number is one to fifty on the states, matching them alphabetically.”
“With a code that simple, why couldn’t you figure it out sooner?”
“Omniscience is not my strong suit. In addition, they changed it with each page. Like sometimes they numbered backwards on the states and since neither of them had every state, it could vary wildly from year t
o year. As of last week, Werberg had gotten forty-four out of fifty states, Lenzati thirty-nine. They did countries of the world the same. Then they had numbers for specific sexual acts. The last letter is for how much they paid. On some pages ‘z’ was lowest, ‘a’ the highest.”
“What was the price range?” Fenwick asked.
“Actual cash, ten bucks to a hundred thousand. I’ve found references to paying off people’s bills. At least once they paid off somebody’s home mortgage. I haven’t been able to find how much these last two categories added up to.”
Turner asked, “Did they take pictures? How did they prove their conquests?”
“The whole proof thing is discussed in Werberg’s computer,” Micetic said. “Sometimes they couldn’t, so they simply took a lower score. Once in a while they were in a bar together, and the one could overhear the other make a connection. A few times they stayed in the room and watched. Another time one of them hid in the other’s house while it was going on.”
“Why weren’t they being blackmailed?” Turner asked. “Nobody ever got angry? No loving husband or wife got mad at what they’d done? Nobody made threats or demanded payoffs?”
“Werberg says nothing about that. As far as I can tell, some of their partners knew their names, most didn’t. They didn’t go out of their way to tell who they were. I doubt if identities were important. The money was. Proof was always a problem. Werberg was obsessed with it. He writes about the frustration of getting exactly what they needed. Having absolute certainty with a famous person would be the best.”
“How often did that happen?” Fenwick asked.
“If it was someone famous enough for me to know, I haven’t seen it in the records.”
“Did you find any pictures?” Turner asked.
“I found references to some pictures and records, but nothing concrete. It certainly wasn’t on that computer.”
“Maybe they were blackmailing people,” Fenwick suggested.
“Not as far as I could tell. Every document I found referred to it as a game.”
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