“Flaherty disappeared, all right,” Simmons had answered tersely. “He disappeared into the Maryland prison system. He killed a rival,” the old man had explained. “He’d killed before and gotten away with it, but this time he finally got nailed. He was given a sentence of fifteen to twenty-five at the Maryland House of Correction state prison.”
That fit. I’d computed the time in my head. Flaherty was active in Rampart Industries, the skeleton corporation he and Roach had set up to cover their nasty business, until at least 1986. Even if he’d done the minimum amount of his sentence, he hadn’t been out of prison for long.
“Flaherty is back on the street,” I had informed the old man.
“You know that for a fact?” he’d asked anxiously. He was still fearful of repercussions, after all these years.
“Yes,” I’d said. “But Roach isn’t in the arms trade anymore. I’ve checked him out. He’s clean now.”
Of course, I was wrong, and he’d vigorously corrected me. “James Roach is a greedy pig. I wouldn’t believe James Roach was clean if he stood before me buck naked. If Ed Flaherty is out of prison he’s without a doubt back to his old tricks, and he and Roach are the closest you can come to being Siamese twins. Knowing Roach, he’s using his position to benefit himself, and Flaherty.”
The old man, tired, had leaned back in his chair. “The Roachs and Flahertys of this world steamroller everything in their path. The meek don’t inherit the earth, Mr. Tullis,” he’d sadly informed me. “They get buried under it.”
Once I clarified their relationship, and found the evidence in the photographs, it all fell into place.
Our captor nods at my day pack. “What’s in there? Dirty pictures?”
I glance over, but don’t answer.
“You saw that Russian bastard get murdered on Roach’s runway, didn’t you? And you took pictures of it.” He looks at my day pack again. “They’re in there, aren’t they?”
My lack of response is confirmation enough.
“Take ’em out,” he orders me.
I look at Maureen, look back at Flaherty, take a deep breath. Then I open my pack, reach in, look at Flaherty yet again. He’s staring at me intensely. I hesitate a moment; then I remove the manila envelope that’s on top of my computer, which contains the two photographs of Putov being murdered.
I hand them to Flaherty. He opens the envelope, takes out the pictures, looks from one to the other. For a moment he seems confused. “You can’t see my face. That could be anybody.” He’s talking more to himself than to us. “What the . . .” He looks at the pictures again. Then he sees what I’d found, earlier this morning.
“My boots?” He moans, stares at the pictures yet again, as if he’s seeing a ghost come to life. “Ah, fucking vanity! It’ll bite you in the ass every time.” He strokes the supple ostrich skin coverings of his cowboy boots with the fingers of his free hand. “The first thing I did when I got out of prison was have these made. Cost me three thousand dollars, and they’re worth ten times that to me. Buying these boots made me feel like a man again instead of a caged animal, which is what I was all those years.”
He looks at the pictures some more. “Talk about for the want of a nail!” He wags an accusatory finger in my face. “That day we went out on this boat and I saw you with your camera—I had my suspicions about you already, before I’d even met you, but that iced it, before we halfway finished the cruise. Not that I knew you had pictures of me, but that you might. I had to assume that you did.” He touches his large proboscis. “In my line of work you develop a smell for shit. I could smell it on you right away.”
I think back to that day, remembering him questioning me. I’d thought Roach was the one interested in my photography, when it was Flaherty all along.
He’s right. A street-smart pro would have known where to look. I didn’t—which is why I’m here now, with Maureen. And speculating about her true identity, and what her real game is.
Flaherty’s way ahead of me. “You’re wondering about her, aren’t you? What she’s doing in all this.”
I turn to her. She holds my look, I’ll give her that. “Yes.”
“Go ahead,” he directs her. “Tell him.”
“I had to deceive you, Fritz,” she says. “But I never thought things would become as they have between us.”
“What does that mean, for Godsakes?” I cry out. This is all too bizarre, too terrible.
Flaherty takes a small leather case out of his side jacket pocket, flips it to me. I open it. It’s a badge.
“You’re a cop?” I say in utter disbelief.
She almost chokes over her answer. “Yes.”
I fell in love with a cop. How pathetic.
“And this”—Flaherty brandishes the automatic in his hand—“is her gun. Glock .40. Cop special.”
I look at Maureen. She’s shaking her head, like she’s trying to shake this all away.
“You shouldn’t have come here tonight,” Flaherty admonishes me. “You were warned not to, how many times? But you couldn’t restrain yourself, could you? You had to be Arnold fucking Schwarzenegger, saving the damsel in distress.” He glances over at her. “Lucky for me you’re so gallant, because she was the key to snaring you.”
He runs his hand along the barrel of the gun like he’s stroking a woman’s leg. “Jim made her as a cop that night the three of you met up at your mother’s house,” he explains. “He’d met her years before. She was hoping he wouldn’t remember her, but he did.”
I think back to that night. Maureen had seemed particularly nervous and concerned about meeting Roach in the flesh. Now I know why.
“He put me on to her,” Flaherty goes on, “and I’ve been shadowing her since then. Yesterday, I made my move. I got the jump on her at her motel, when she came back to change clothes. Even cops let their guard down sometimes, especially when they’re in their bra and panties.” He leers at her. “Oh, man, was she pissed, especially me taking her gun away from her. She cussed me out some kind of fierce, hurt my feelings.”
“Fuck you, you son of a bitch,” she snaps at him.
“See what I’m saying? She’s a spitfire, ain’t she? I had to knock her around some to quiet her down, but in the end, you don’t fuck with this.” He brandishes her gun. “Anyway, once I got her under control, I put the note in her book, and brought her here.” He smiles crookedly. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist coming after her. Only love can break your heart,” he sing-songs. “Or in this case, kill you.”
I groan inwardly. He’s right about that.
He cocks an eye at me. “What was it someone said about dying, in some movie? ‘It is a good day to die.’ I can’t remember what movie that was, but it’s a good line. Except the guy who wrote it had never actually died himself, personally. It’s never a good day to die, not when you don’t want to.”
“Little Big Man,” I tell him.
“What?”
“Little Big Man. Dustin Hoffman said it in Little Big Man.”
“That’s the one where he plays the hundred-year-old Indian?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds like a fucking Indian, that stoic shit.”
As I listen to him I’m hearing the rain falling outside as well. It’s coming down lighter now, slackening off. If the storm had come through an hour earlier, I wouldn’t have had the guts to come out, I wouldn’t be on this boat. I wouldn’t be here at all. And Maureen would be alone with him.
I wish I knew more about her. I may never know, not the way this is going.
“That first time we went sailing together,” I ask him. “When Wallace almost killed me. That wasn’t an accident, was it?”
Flaherty shakes his head scornfully. “Taking a shot at you on the boat like that. Amateur night in Dixie, the whole fucking affair. And the man called himself a professional,” he spits out disdainfully. “Shit, my sainted grandmother was more professional than him. Only thing that clumsy attempt did was arouse your suspicions more and make it harder f
or me to kill you without it looking deliberate. Which is why I’ve been biding my time, until now.”
He gives me a sharp look. “Near-death experience, a man remembers that. Most men, they’d have shied away from this like it was a live hand grenade.” He stares balefully at me. “But even after that close brush, you had to push it, and push it. Why?” he asks, bewildered. “What was in it for you?”
My explanation is more for me than for him. “Someone had been murdered, and I knew about it. I didn’t think that should be buried under the rug. It’s wrong.”
Flaherty shakes his head in stunned disbelief. “A man with a conscience? Jesus, I didn’t think they existed anymore. That can be dangerous to your health.”
“I know that now,” I say morosely. I think back to the very beginning. “Why did you kill that diplomat on Roach’s runway?” I ask. “Wasn’t that taking a big chance?”
“Of course it was,” he agrees. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be sitting here now, would we? But it was the only way I could get the little shit alone,” he says. “He thought we were going to meet with Jim.” He smiles. “Wasn’t he surprised when he found out Jim wasn’t there.”
He gives me a vicious look. “After I had to kill that little prick I was in for the whole enchilada, one or a dozen, what’s the difference? Wallace couldn’t keep his cool. You saw how he fucked up on Jim’s yacht, and that ugly scene with you at your mother’s house. Once I heard about that I knew he couldn’t be trusted to keep it under wraps, that he’d crack under pressure.” He laughs. “Asshole was taking a dump when I nailed him, did you know that? Caught him with his pants down. For real.”
“I can understand Wallace,” I press. “But why my mother? She had nothing to do with anything.”
“That was an accident,” he answers darkly. “Killing old ladies is not something I like to do. You left me no choice.”
“I left you no choice?” That enrages me. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I needed those pictures. I figured they were in your shack.”
“So you went in looking for them,” I say tightly, “and she was there.”
He nods grimly. “I had headaches over that for days.” He almost sounds remorseful—almost. “And then to top it off, the damn things weren’t even there. You’d taken them out.” He sighs, as if trying to will away a bad memory.
As he’s recounting this I realize something doesn’t make sense. “You said you were suspicious of me before we ever met? What in the world could you mean by that?”
“I got lucky,” he tells me with a big grin. His teeth are stained brown—must be the hard water in prison. “Shortly before our sailing adventure—misadventure for you—Jim got an invitation to Agatha Mortimer’s house for dinner. She’d hit on him at your mother’s house, that night they met. Which is why he brought me along with him to dinner that night. He knew the old dame would make a play for him, and that I could step in and be a satisfactory replacement. Jim gets his hard-ons from power, not pussy. Me, though, I like the ladies.” His smile broadens. “Agatha and I have been seeing each other since then. She’s not bad in the sack for an old broad, and she lets me smoke cigars in her house, which is more than any of my ex-wives ever did.”
He gets serious again. “Her daughter was there that evening, and the conversation got around to Fritz Tullis. As soon as she told us where you live and about your photography setup and all that shit, the bells went off in my head.”
This is where deceitfulness can lead you. All the way to your grave.
“So that’s how it got started,” he concludes. “If you had been a gentleman and taken Miss Mortimer home to mama that night, instead of hustling her back to your place, shtupping her, and showing off for her, we wouldn’t be here. Life’s funny that way, isn’t it?”
“Hysterical,” I reply dully.
“What do women see in this jerk, anyway?” he asks Maureen. “Can’t you tell he’s a loser, through and through? Particularly you, you’re a professional. What’s your excuse for acting so lame?”
She looks at him, then at me. “I fell in love.”
My heart drops all the way to my toes. Then why did you lie to me? I lied, too, I admit it; but my lies were small, self-centered, childish. Yours were monumental. And ruinous.
Flaherty points to my day pack. “You have other pictures of me and Putov, don’t you?”
I nod.
“Take them out.”
I hesitate. “What happens after I give them to you?”
“I’ll give you three guesses,” he taunts me. “The first two don’t count.”
“You’re going to kill us.”
“You’re finally learning. Too late, unfortunately.”
“But then you’ll be stuck in the middle of the Bay with two dead bodies,” I say, pointing out the obvious. “How’re you going to explain that away?”
He gives me a withering look. “Stop trying my patience at this late stage, for Christsakes. I’m not a novice at this, in case you’ve forgotten. I’ll drop the dinghy over the side, motor back. No one’ll ever have a clue.”
He gets up, towering over us. “I’ll tell you how this is going to play out, a theory the cops’ll jump on, because they’ll want to, it’ll solve a multitude of problems for them in one neat package. You found out that the woman you loved is a cop herself, on your trail for killing the Russian guy—you and him were doing some smuggling deal or whatever, using your secluded access to the Bay. And you’ve had a hard-on for Jim Roach for no good reason, you’ve been stalking him for months, even when you were warned to lay off. That’s well documented. You’re enraged at both Roach and your cop lover, especially after your mother’s death, and you snapped. You came looking for Jim, but she beat you to the punch. Unfortunately for her, you managed to kill her as she was killing you.”
He smiles wide. “It’ll be an easy call. The Prince Georges County cops already have you pegged as a suspect in Wallace’s murder—and when they find your dead bodies, they’ll also discover a little gift for them, in your backpack.”
He reaches into his pocket and takes out another pistol, holds it up for my inspection. It’s small, the size of a toy gun. “Know what this is?” he taunts me.
I stare at the little weapon. What goes around comes around, in spades. “The gun you used to kill Putov and Wallace.”
The bastard’s right—it’s all going to tie together. He’s had everything worked out from the beginning. Silently, I curse myself for ever having thought I could play in his league.
“And that’s all she wrote,” Flaherty says, almost gleefully. “It’s time to put this show to bed.” He moves toward my pack.
“That’s all right,” I sigh in resignation. “I’ll get you the pictures.” I start to open the flap—then I pause. “You don’t have to kill us, do you? Once you have the pictures, there’s no evidence to link you to those murders. And I’m sure James Roach could come up with ironclad alibis for you.”
He shakes his head. “You know too much. And she’s a cop. I can’t leave a cop alive.”
I look at her for a moment, then back to him. “So kill her and let me go.”
They both stare at me, dumbfounded. Then Flaherty laughs. “You’re a prince,” he says. “A real stand-up guy.”
Maureen is beside herself. “You fucker!” she screams at me.
I wheel around to face her. “You got me into this. Why should I have to die because of you? Wasn’t my mother enough?” I turn back to Flaherty. “I can’t hurt you. You know that.”
He’s grinning like a shit-eating dog, watching the two of us go at it. “What do you think?” he asks her jovially. “Should I take lover boy up on his offer?”
“Go fuck yourself, asshole. The both of you,” she cries. She’s a mess, her eye all mashed in, tears running down her cheeks.
Flaherty looks at me. “I don’t know,” he says wickedly, for Maureen’s benefit. He wants to see her suffer as much as possible, until the very end.
>
That’s it for me, though. All the lies, the deceit, the dishonesty—it’s over. It’s awfully late in the game, but I’m going out the right way.
“Hey,” I say to her softly. I can’t be anything but dead-serious anymore, not with her and me, not even when my life’s flashing in my brain like a movie being projected at a thousand frames a second. “Come on, Maureen. You know me better than that.” I bend down and put my hand on her head, a final benediction of forgiveness. “I’m not going to abandon you, for Godsakes. We’re in this together. I fell in love with you, too, remember?”
She’s sobbing uncontrollably, big, heavy gulps. “Then why did you . . . ?”
“To know, for sure, how low he’d go. I knew, but I wanted to hear it from his mouth. Now I have.” I straighten up, get to my feet. “Okay,” I say to Flaherty, finally admitting defeat. “You win.”
I reach in to get the remaining pictures. Maureen’s gun is in his fist, pointing at my gut. His finger is on the trigger, relaxed but ready. I slide my hand down to the bottom of the pack.
My entire arm feels like I’ve stuck it in a blast furnace as the explosion shreds my pack. Flaherty’s mouth opens with an expression of shock and surprise—but it’s a fast reaction, a hundredth of a second, before he collapses backward onto the floor, his shirt front pooling blood like a strike from an oil gusher.
Maureen is screaming. She can’t stop.
I kneel down next to Flaherty, my gun in my hand. His eyes are vacant. I must have hit a main artery—blood is pouring out of him onto the yacht’s expensive wood floor.
“You were right,” I tell the lifeless body. “It was a good day to die.” Then the nausea hits me, and I puke my guts out—all over the floor, and all over the corpse.
I weigh anchor. We motor back across the Bay. Maureen, her face swollen up like an overripe cantaloupe, sits on deck shivering in the rain. She spends the time on her cell phone, making calls. I don’t listen—it’s over for me, this part of it. We don’t say anything to each other; we’re too numb and wiped out. And fearful of each other, the chasm that’s between us.
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