by Jon Loomis
“You were a prostitute?” Lola said.
“That’s right, honey,” Jordan said. “I was a teenage rent-a-boy. I had a hell of a time getting away from that son of a bitch. I still have nightmares. When I saw Duckworth dancing with Bobby that way, and the fear in Bobby’s eyes, it was like déjà vu all over again. I figured if it could happen to Bobby, it could sure as hell happen to little old me.”
“Okay,” Coffin said. “I get it now. Then what happened?”
“I went back to my room real quick and typed the note. Then I left it in Stavros’s mailbox. I had a few drinks in town and spent the night at a friend’s place. The rest is history.”
“Did you think of checking on Bobby? I mean, you were worried, right?”
“I did. I rode out there around noon.”
“And?”
“He was gone. I mean gone gone. His suitcase was gone, too—and a lot of his clothes. Like he’d just thrown a few things in a bag and boogie-oogie-oogied.”
Coffin and Lola exchanged a look.
“That when you picked up the Range Rover?” Coffin said.
Jordan nodded. “The keys were in it.” He paused, then shrugged elaborately. “I mean, hey—you can’t blackmail somebody on a bicycle, right?”
“Tell me about spycamdomme.com,” Coffin said. “How did Cavalo get the video?”
“He pretty much had the run of Kenji’s house,” Jordan said. “He’d house-sit when she was out of town, which was a lot. He’d poke around on her computer when he was over there. Kind of like going to somebody’s house and looking through their medicine cabinet—not that he didn’t do that, too. He must have stumbled across her porn stash.”
“He saw an opportunity?” Lola said.
“Bingo,” Jordan said. “Bobby had kind of a moral blind spot, if you know what I mean. If he saw an opportunity to make some money, he’d exploit his own mother. So he burned some of Kenji’s dominatrix stuff onto a DVD and took it home. He called me right away.”
“Then what? You went over to his apartment and helped him set up spycamdomme.com?”
“I went over to his apartment and tried to talk him out of it.”
“Why’s that?”
Jordan’s eyes teared up again. “Because it seemed like a good way to get yourself killed. We were doing fine with hungarianchicks.com—there was no need to get greedy.”
“But Bobby insisted?”
“Yeah, man. He kept saying what a gold mine it was going to be—that we could have five or six guys paying us off for years.”
“How many of those notes did he send out? The crayon ones?”
“Three or four. He delivered them. Except for the one to the attorney general—that one he mailed.”
Coffin’s eyebrows went up. “Attorney general,” he said.
Jordan nodded. “Art Poblano—attorney general for the state of Massachusetts,” he said.
“So Bobby delivered them. When?”
“Friday. He left them where he thought only the targets would find them.”
“He delivered all of them the same day?” Lola said. “What was he thinking?”
Jordan shook his head. “I don’t know. He was crazy. Maybe not so smart, like you say. He wouldn’t listen to anybody.”
“Cavalo was going to blackmail the attorney general?” Lola said.
“Not by himself,” Jordan said. “That crazy Rudy was helping him.”
“Why did he need Rudy’s help?” Coffin asked.
“Bobby was no brainiac, but he had enough street smarts to know when he was out of his league.”
Coffin and Lola exchanged a look.
“Or not,” Coffin said.
Lola tapped her pen against the legal pad. “How did you know Duckworth’s name?” she said.
“I met him,” Jordan said. “He came to Bobby’s apartment—he was with the police chief, what’s his name. Red-faced guy.”
“Boyle,” Coffin said.
“Right,” Jordan said. “Boyle.” He took a last, long gurgling drink of the cheap vodka and set the bottle down carefully on the table. “Maybe I’m just really, really paranoid,” he said, “but I don’t think so. That Duckworth guy is creepy as hell. I mean, have you seen that pink jacket of his? Who would wear that, even in P’town?”
Bobby Cavalo’s apartment was dark inside; the blinds had been lowered. When Coffin knocked, no one answered. The door was unlocked. Coffin pushed it open.
Lola felt for the grip of her .38. “Pretty fucking creepy,” she whispered.
“No kidding,” Coffin said, stepping into Cavalo’s living room. He flipped the light switch but nothing happened.
Lola slid the Maglite out of her utility belt, switched it on, and swept its focused beam slowly around the living room. The apartment was tidy, almost unnaturally clean. It smelled faintly of bleach, Coffin thought.
“Trying to make it look like he skipped town,” Lola said. The night had grown humid; her shirt was spotted with sweat on the back.
Coffin stuck his head into the bedroom; again the light switch did nothing. “Yep—but Duckworth got it wrong. Cavalo was a slob. He wouldn’t have left it this way.”
Lola trained the flashlight beam on the bed: It was neatly made. The wicker trash can had been emptied. They checked the bathroom. Cavalo’s toothbrush and razor were gone, as though he’d packed them for a trip.
“Frank,” Lola said, when they’d checked the bedroom and hall closets. She was standing in the living room, shining the Maglite on the futon. A quilt had been spread over its wooden frame, a cluster of throw pillows neatly arranged at one end.
“No mattress,” Coffin said, a high, sharp whine starting in his left ear. He pushed the pillows onto the floor and pulled off the quilt. The bleach smell was strong. “Put your light on the wall for a second,” Coffin said. He pointed. “See here?”
“That part’s lighter than the rest,” Lola said. “Like somebody scrubbed something off the paint.”
“Right,” Coffin said.
“Not good,” Lola said, lips pressed tight.
Coffin’s vision was starting to blur. “No,” he said. “Not good. Not good at all.”
When Mancini arrived, Coffin was sitting on Cavalo’s front steps, smoking a cigarette. Lola was inside the apartment. She’d found a working floor lamp and was taking digital pictures of the futon frame, the wall, and the flecks of blood they’d found along the baseboard. Her preliminary search for a weapon had turned up a number of possibilities—kitchen knives, a hatchet in the wood-box by the fireplace—but nothing conclusive.
“You don’t look so good, Coffin,” Mancini said, climbing out of his Lexus. Pilchard, the state police detective, climbed out on the passenger side. He was wearing a brown suit, brown shoes, a brown patterned tie, and light brown socks.
“Thanks,” Coffin said, “for pointing that out. I thought I looked a little like George Clooney in O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
“Kind of,” Mancini said, “but greener and a lot less handsome.”
“Where’s your girlfriend?” Pilchard said.
Coffin looked at him blankly. “Girlfriend?”
Pilchard leered. “You know. Lesbo the Super Cop.”
“Do you work at being a dick,” Coffin said, “or does it just happen all by itself?”
“So am I understanding this right?” Mancini said, gelled hair hardly stirring in the night breeze. “You think the pretty-boy tenant got whacked?”
“Looks that way,” Coffin said. “We have a witness in custody that says Duckworth did it.”
“Duckworth?” Mancini said, cocking his head. “The AG’s investigator? Why the fuck would he kill Cavalo?”
“If I had to guess,” Coffin said, “I’d say he was after the DVR.”
“This is getting complicated.” Mancini frowned and scratched his head.
“Careful,” Coffin said. “You’ll ruin your do.”
Later, Coffin sat on his screen porch listening to the small late-spr
ing night sounds: the wind in the neighbor’s arborvitae; a june bug flinging its hard pellet of a body against the screen. Jamie was in bed—asleep, he hoped. It had been a long day, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for another urgent bout of baby-making sex. What he wanted, more than anything, was to sit alone in the dark on his quiet screen porch, drink Johnny Walker, and concentrate his full attention on the faint mustiness of the Scotch broom blooming in his garden and the throat-gripping sweetness of the wisteria wrestling his neighbor’s porch. He wanted to not think about babies, or miscarriages, or Lola having hot lesbian sex, or his mother, or dead women lying naked and bloody on their living room rugs. He lit a cigarette, yawned, and kicked off his boots.
A large, dark shape reared slowly up from behind the tangle of roses on the trellis. “Ssst! Frankie!” it said.
Coffin jumped. “Fuck.”
“It’s me,” the shape said in a harsh stage whisper. “The little woman in bed?”
“Rudy,” Coffin said. “Christ, you scared the crap out of me.” He stood and pushed the screen door open.
Coffin’s uncle Rudy stepped onto the porch. He was a big man, hulking and thick through the chest and neck. He was almost sixty; his leather jacket smelled like sweat and marijuana smoke. “Surprised to see me?” he said. “You shouldn’t be. Got any more whiskey?”
Coffin went to the kitchen, dropped a couple of ice cubes into a glass, and grabbed the bottle of scotch. When he got back to the porch, Rudy was sitting in his seat, rolling a joint on the end table’s warped top. “Thanks, Frankie,” Rudy said. “Fill ’er up, there’s a boy.”
Coffin poured. “Okay, I’m done being startled,” he said. “What brings you to town? Things a little slow down in Key West?”
“It’s a business venture,” Rudy said, lighting the joint. The screen porch filled with the sharp cat-funk of marijuana smoke. “A potential gold mine, as a matter of fact.”
“Is it legal?” Coffin said.
“What is it with you?” Rudy said. “Why do you always ask me that?”
“Well, is it?”
Rudy took a long toke from the joint, held it, then let the smoke seep slowly from his mouth. “Well, no. Not technically. But what does legal have to do with anything? It’s legal for Bush to eavesdrop on law-abiding citizens or torture kids in some Iraqi prison, but if you or I smoke a little weed we go to jail? That’s the system you judge things by? That’s some fucked-up shit, Frankie.”
“Count me out,” Coffin said.
“But Frankie—”
“No.”
“What if I told you I’ve got what you’re looking for?”
Coffin put his glass down. “What?”
“The video thingy. You want it, I’ve got it.”
“You trashed Lola’s place? Man, is she gonna be pissed at you.”
“Ha,” Rudy said, licking his fingertips before he snuffed the joint between his thumb and forefinger. “Think she can take me?”
“In a fair fight, yes.”
“Who said anything about fair? But no, I didn’t trash her place. Didn’t have to.”
“So who did?”
“The two knuckle-draggers I stole that fancy VCR from, obviously. Jesus, Frankie—try to catch up, already.”
“Okay,” Coffin said. “Let’s slow down for a minute. You just happened to be outside Lola’s apartment—”
“You could say that, sure,” Rudy said. “I just happened to be parked across the street there, minding my own business, and right after you and the Amazon princess left, these two apes get out of their ride and let themselves into the apartment. I had a look at their plates just for the hell of it: state government, baby.”
“Whoa,” Coffin said. “So they were what? State police?”
“Maybe,” Rudy said. “I didn’t ask, and they didn’t tell.”
“You robbed the state police?”
Rudy rolled his eyes. “Robbed. See? There you go again with your value judgments.”
“What, they just gave it to you?”
Rudy pulled a slim leather wallet from his pocket and flipped it open. “After I showed them this, they were happy to oblige.” He shrugged. “Okay, maybe happy’s the wrong word.”
Coffin looked at the badge inside the wallet. “U.S. Marshals? You told state police detectives you were a U.S. Marshal?”
Rudy shrugged. “They believed me, that’s their problem. Besides, what were they going to do? They figured they were lucky I didn’t bust them for B and E.”
Coffin tapped the badge. It was gold and appeared to be genuine: a five-pointed star set inside a circular band, Department of Justice eagle at the center. “Where did you get this?”
Rudy shrugged. “I found it.”
“Found it?”
Rudy’s nostrils flared. “That’s right, Frankie—I found it. As in, it was lying on the floor and I picked it up. As in, the opposite of stealing.”
“Keeping something that somebody lost is the opposite of stealing?” Coffin said.
“You know what I mean.”
“So whose floor was it lying on, exactly?”
Rudy grinned. “I can’t tell you that, Frankie. Privileged information.”
They sat for a long moment in silence. A june bug fizzed against the screen.
“Why would the state police trash Lola’s place and steal the DVR?” Coffin said finally. “How did they even know we had it?”
“They stole it because they wanted what was on it,” Rudy said. “Or because they wanted to protect somebody. They knew you had it because they saw you take it out of Kenji’s house. Either that, or somebody else saw you and told them.”
Coffin rubbed his chin. He hadn’t shaved since early that morning; his beard stubble was mostly gray now, its texture spiky and dense. “How did they know it existed in the first place?” he said.
“Frankie,” Rudy said, patting Coffin on the shoulder. “Seriously. Try to catch up. Who do the state police work for? Who would have the authority to send them out on little errands like this?”
“The governor. The attorney general. The DA’s offices. Various officers within the state police. That’s about it.” Coffin hit himself in the forehead. “Poblano?” he said. “Poblano sent them?”
“Poblano. Mancini. Who knows?” Rudy said. “You understand what I mean now when I say this thing is a potential gold mine. Somebody powerful wants it, and they want it bad.”
“But you’re going to give it back to me,” Coffin said. “Why? And in exchange for what, exactly?”
Rudy draped a heavy arm around Coffin’s shoulders and gave him a rough squeeze. “Frankie. Buddy! We’re family, you and me. We’ve gotta stick together!”
“You’ve already copied all the video to your own hard drive, haven’t you?” Coffin said.
Rudy sighed. “Frankie. This hurts me. We’re blood, for God’s sake.”
“You’re my father’s sister’s ex-husband,” Coffin said. “We’re not blood.”
“Whatever. You’re such a stickler. Your old man and I were like this.” Rudy held up two crossed fingers.
“What do you want, Rudy?” Coffin said.
“Twenty minutes in Kenji’s house. Alone.”
“For what?”
“Can’t tell you.”
“Forget it,” Coffin said. “Absolutely not.”
“Have you watched the part of the video where the guy trashes Kenji’s bedroom?” Rudy said. “I gave it two thumbs up.”
Coffin finished his scotch and poured another half inch into his glass. “Three conditions,” he said. “First, you get five minutes, not twenty.”
“Frankie,” Rudy said, “I could just break in if all I needed was five minutes. You think PPD’s going to get a cruiser there in five minutes, if the alarm even goes off?”
“Okay. Ten. Not a minute longer.”
“Fine.”
“Second, if you take anything out of that house that’s relevant to my investigation, I will personally put you in
jail for breaking and entering, theft, and tampering with a crime scene.”
“Ha! You don’t have the stones.”
“Watch me,” Coffin said. “My word against yours.”
“What’s number three?”
“Whatever it is you’re after, once you get your mitts on it, you never, ever tell anyone where it came from.”
“Done,” said Rudy.
“All right,” Coffin said, standing up, dusting a few specks of wisteria pollen from his pants. “Let’s go before I come to my senses.”
Chapter 18
The night had grown cloudy and still; a thin fog hung at about roof height outside Kenji Sole’s house. Back across the harbor the lights of the town center seemed to twinkle and shift in the slight wind. All the lights were out in Kenji’s house; Bobby Cavalo’s windows were dark, too. It was very quiet, except for the small sounds of the harbor and the occasional car whooshing by on 6A.
Coffin drummed his fingers on the Fiesta’s steering wheel. He peered at his watch. Rudy had been gone for almost seventeen minutes, and Coffin was beginning to worry. Big, affable, dangerous Rudy; Rudy the loose cannon. There was no telling what he was searching for in there: Bricks of heroin? A stash of blood diamonds? More video of God knows what? Coffin lit a cigarette and blew a thick stream of smoke out the window. “Come on, Rudy,” he said under his breath. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, already.”
As if on cue, Rudy’s big head appeared in the passenger window. “Got it,” he said. He was cradling something flat and rectangular in his big arms: It was wrapped in a towel, and about the size of a small flat-screen TV. Coffin reached across and opened the passenger door, and Rudy climbed in. “You won’t regret this, Frankie,” Rudy said. “Just so you know. I owe you one.”
“What is it?” Coffin said, starting the car. “Or do I not want to know?”
“This?” Rudy said, giving the towel-wrapped object a gentle shake. He pursed his lips. “It’s a Pollock.”
“A pollock? Like the fish?”
Rudy shook his big head. “Frankie,” he said. “I swear to God. You need to move back to Baltimore. Living in this town is making you stupid.”
“A Jackson Pollock? A painting?”