by Nick James
“Well, we all need direction.”
“Yes, I think unfortunately that is true. But do you want to follow it?” They both laughed at that.
When they pulled up in front of Emily’s, Bobby said. “Okay, thanks, enjoy the rest of your evening. Please pick me up at half-past eight, tomorrow morning.”
“I will. Just remember, do not come out until I’ve pulled up and stepped out of the car.”
“Thanks,” Bobby said, then slid out of the back seat and hurried up to Emily’s door.
The moment she opened the door Miguel pulled away. “Hey, good to see you, finally,” she said and closed the door behind him. She gave him a long hug and a probing kiss as she pushed him back against the wall. He could feel the wine bottles being shoved into his chest. Just about the point where he was going to break it off, she let go and stepped back. “Whew, I don’t know about you, but I sure needed that. Hey, was that your car that just drove away?”
“Yeah. Lots of changes in the works. Come on, let’s have a glass of wine and I’ll tell you all about it,” he said handing her the bag with the bottles of wine.
“God, we drink all this and I won’t be able to remember a thing.”
“Then we better get started,” he said and slapped her across the rear as she headed back toward the kitchen.
The kitchen smelled lovely, something in the oven. A bottle of red wine stood on the counter opened and Bobby noticed that one of the crystal glasses had already been emptied. Two places were set at the counter. A small plate with cheese and some crackers was set off to the side. Emily grabbed the open bottle, filled both glasses, then raised her glass in a toast. “It’s good to be back home.”
“You make it sound like you were out of town,” Bobby said, then watched her over the rim of his glass as the color seemed to drain from her face.
“Oh no. No, although it kind of feels like it. Planning everything, then pulling the whole shower thing off. I’m just glad it’s all behind me. So,” she said after she took another healthy swallow, maybe buying some time. “You said you had a busy weekend?”
“Yeah, the usual, grinding things out. Absolutely no romance to any of it.”
She laughed and took another sip. “I don’t know about romance, but save all your strength for later tonight,” she said and leaned forward to give him a kiss. “Things must certainly be going well if you suddenly have a driver. Who was that, anyway?”
It was Bobby’s turn to play for time and he grabbed a cracker, carefully spread some cheese across the surface and tossed it into his mouth. “He, that guy, actually works for one of our clients. He was just helping me out. Gonna keep the car overnight, run a few tests on it. Tune up a couple of things.”
Emily gave him a look that seemed to suggest she wasn’t quite buying the explanation, but couldn’t think of a follow-up. Instead, she drained her glass, reached for the wine bottle and refilled it.
“Can I ask you something, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to?” Bobby said then waited for her to swallow the mouthful of wine.
“Gee, with an intro like that who could say no? Yeah, sure, what is it?” she said sounding more than a little guarded. She took another healthy swallow just for fortification.
“Your suit against the firm. The one regarding your sister’s death. Where does that stand?”
“Are you spying?”
“What? No, nothing like that. I’ll tell you more in a minute, but I just wondered. Like I said if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t…”
“No, I don’t have anything to hide, honest,” she said, sounding anything but honest. “As a matter of fact, I think we made a breakthrough, just recently. I think they’re going to start coming around to our position.”
“What makes you say that? I haven’t heard anything.”
“Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t want them gossiping in the hallways. I just had a few conversations with Mr. Hinz and I think we’re in agreement it would be best for both parties if the suit was settled before going to trial.”
“That seems like an awfully big change. Don’t get me wrong, I hope you’re right, really I do. It just doesn’t seem like the sort of thing he would agree to and certainly not Sawyer and Allen. What did he say?”
She shrugged and said, “It’s not what he said. It’s just a feeling I got. I think, or at least, I’m hoping they’ll come around. You hungry?”
“Yeah, starving as a matter of fact. It smells delicious,” Bobby said. He guessed she must have a substantial bribery file of images she was about to hit Bennett Hinz over the head with. He’d have to check it out later tonight so he topped up her wine glass. “What did you make for dinner?”
“Something I had in San Francisco, at the Zuni cafe. Oysters and chicken, it’s really…Ouch.” she said then quickly stepped back from the open oven door, waving her hand in mid-air. “God that hurts, hot, hot, hot.”
“Here, run some cold water on that. I’ll get the pan out,” Bobby said, sliding off his stool. He picked the kitchen towel she had been using as a hot pad off the floor and tossed it on the counter, then opened a drawer, pulled out two hot pads and placed the pan on top of the stove.
“I forgot to ask,” Emily said from the kitchen sink. “You’re not allergic to oysters are you?”
“No, in fact, I love the things. What did you say? The Zuni Cafe? When were you in San Francisco?”
“Why, just a, a while back. Time goes so fast. It probably was a year or two ago. Ooo, this finger,” she said waving her hand.
“Keep it under the water for at least five minutes, it slows down the burning process.”
“My mom always said to put some butter on a burn to sooth the skin.”
“Nothing against your mom, but it actually increases the burn, plus you get into the whole bacteria thing. Just run some cool water on it, maybe some aloe vera tomorrow. I’ll dish up dinner,” he said, then topped up her wine glass again.
They chatted aimlessly over dinner. Bobby brought up San Francisco a half-dozen times and Emily deftly changed the subject, at least initially. Each time he brought it up, she seemed to swallow another half glass of wine. By the end of dinner, she was weaving on the kitchen stool, barely able to finish a sentence.
“So you were telling me about San Francisco,” Bobby said once more.
Emily blinked a couple of times, raised her head, and attempted to focus on him. “I was?”
“Yeah, you said he wasn’t very good, in bed.”
She sort of giggled and slurred, “There’s an understatement. Absolutely limp.” She smiled, shook her head, then attempted to focus on him. “Come on, I need to fuck,” she said and slid off her stool. She staggered from the kitchen without giving him a second look, bumping into the door as she left the room.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
He placed their dishes in the kitchen sink, screwed the cap on the open bottle of wine, put the empty bottles in recycling, picked her shoes up off the floor, and slowly went upstairs, with a growing sense of being taken for granted. He picked up her blue silk blouse halfway up the stairs. Her skirt lay on the floor, just inside the bedroom door.
She was face down across the bed with her head buried beneath a pillow, one arm hung over the edge of the bed. She still wore a black thong and even with the pillow over her head, he could hear her snoring. He tossed her shoes, blouse and skirt on the floor in a corner of the room, stared for a long moment debating what to do to her, then went out to her computer and turned it on.
He’d snuck onto her computer enough times that he could quickly navigate to the Bennet Hinz file. The file was the largest in her folder of blackmailed individuals and he quickly attached it to an email that he sent to himself. Then he opened the file on her computer and began to page through the images. There were over forty. In the few where you could see his face, Bennett appeared either drugged or passed out. Emily was naked in all but two images. In both of those, she had pulled her skirt up to expose he
rself with Bennett posed in the background appearing to stare. A half-dozen images consisted of a naked Emily apparently bound with two silk neckties. Bobby guessed the ties could be easily identified by anyone with a knowledge of Bennett’s wardrobe. Say, for instance, his wife.
He chose an image of Emily atop Bennett, both of them naked, although the image was cropped just before Bennett’s shoulders so his head wasn’t visible. She had assumed a staged pose that looked like she was in the midst of a world-class orgasmic experience, her head tilted back, mouth open as if she were moaning while her hands clawed Bennett’s chest. He attached the image to an email, wrote a one-line note, “hada wunnerful time!!”, then typed in Bennett’s email address and hit send. A second later the computer gave a bell signal indicating the email was on its way.
Bobby decided to leave the computer on and hurried downstairs and filled a glass with red wine. He went back upstairs to the bedroom, picked the silk blouse up off the floor, took a sip of wine, then spit the wine down the front of the blouse. He went back into the den, put the wine glass on the desk, then hit it with the back of his hand, knocking it over. The crystal glass shattered, wine splashed across the desk, ran down the wall and dripped off the edge of the desk onto the oriental rug.
He went back into the bedroom and undressed. Emily’s snoring had grown louder although her head was still hidden under the pillow. He slipped a condom on, and slapped her hard across the rear three separate times. He could detect a semblance of his handprint across her rear in the moonlight coming from the window. He grabbed her thong in both hands pulling on it, raising his sense of excitement in the process, until the thong finally ripped and she dropped back onto the bed. He raised her up again and entered, aggressively. She groaned once or twice, then half-attempted to accommodate him, while still virtually unconscious. He finished in a couple of minutes, then sat on his knees breathing heavily like he’d just run a race, feeling satisfied with the sense of payback. He climbed out of the bed, opened the bottom drawer of her dresser, and removed one of her vibrators from beneath a stack of sweaters. He wrapped her left hand around the toy, turned it on, then settled onto his side of the bed and drifted off to a contented sleep.
He woke the following morning and rolled over to look at her. She was essentially in the same position, although she was no longer snoring and the battery in the vibrator had apparently worn down. He showered, dressed, and made enough coffee for the two of them, hoping he wouldn’t see her.
He left her a note apologizing for falling asleep while she was working on her computer. He placed the coffee mug in the dishwasher, along with the dinner plates from the previous evening and waited for Miguel to pick him up. The Mercedes arrived precisely at half-past eight and he hurried out the door the moment Miguel stepped out of the car.
Miguel raised his eyebrows, making somewhat of a statement with the action. “Just fine, thank you,” Bobby laughed. “We should probably go home so I can change, then head down to the office. Did you speak with Maria?”
Miguel nodded and said, “Not a problem.”
Bobby felt a level of stress he hadn’t realized was there suddenly depart. He was in his new apartment changing his clothes for all of twenty minutes, and quickly going online to set the cameras at Emily’s to tape any activity. Then he was back in the Mercedes with Miguel driving him to the office.
He was eager to arrive before Bennett Hinz. He planned to give Bennett time to check his emails before he knocked on the door under the auspices of touching base regarding Bishop Dalton’s departure. In reality, he was hoping to catch a glimpse of Bennett’s reaction to the email.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Bobby was sitting at the reading desk in the file room well before Bennett’s usual ten o’clock arrival. At 10:45 he pushed back from the reading desk and strolled into his office to retrieve a coffee mug. The door to Bennett’s office was closed, but a hum of conversation could be heard coming from behind the door. It did not sound like a gentle hum. He filled his coffee mug then stepped into his office and called Emily. His call was immediately dumped into the message center suggesting she was on the phone. Hopefully getting an earful from Bennett. “Hi, Emily, Bobby. Sorry I fell asleep last night. I tried to stay awake while you were on your computer, but after you told me to get the hell away I just went back to bed. You seemed upset, told me I wouldn’t understand, and I just want to make sure you’re okay. Give me a call when you have a chance. Thanks.”
He thought about lingering outside of Bennett’s door, but figured he would immediately attract attention. He headed back to the file room and returned to the reading desk. His cellphone didn’t ring until the middle of the afternoon.
‘It took you long enough, Emily,’ he thought then answered in a formal tone. “This is Bobby Custer.”
“Custer?” A male voice he didn’t recognize asked.
“Yes.”
“Hold on, dip shit, someone here wants to talk to you.”
“Who is…”
“Hello, hello, Custer?” a voice shouted. Bobby reacted by yanking the phone away from his ear.
“Custer, you there? Please, I just…”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me, Bishop Dalton. I…”
“You hear that? We’ve got your errand boy sitting here, nice and safe and comfortable with us.”
“Errand boy? I have no idea what in the hell you’re talking about.”
“You didn’t send him over here to threaten us? You telling me you didn’t send him over here with that bullshit idea to make things better?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. He in no way, shape or form works for or with me. I think the guy is a nut case. I threw him out of my office a couple of days ago. He ran out of here screaming at everyone that I was going to get them killed.”
“That just might have been more accurate than either one of you ever realized.”
“I don’t know who you are. I don’t have the slightest idea what in the hell you’re talking about. I only met that idiot twice. The first time I made the decision I didn’t want him working for me. The second time he stormed into the office with a number of lies trying to convince me he was close to Mr. Montcreff. I don’t know what he told you. But he doesn’t work for me.”
“Really?” the voice replied in a mocking tone.
“Yeah, really. I’m sure if you asked Mr. Montcreff he would confirm that. Please check with him or have him call me,” Bobby said, gambling.
“Big mistake,” the voice replied and hung up.
Bobby sat at his desk for a few long minutes, thinking. What in the hell had Dalton gone and done? And just who in the hell had called? Was the call even legitimate? Hopefully, whoever it was would quickly come to their senses and realize he didn’t have a thing to do with an idiot like Bishop Dalton. He opened his office door and headed back to the file room. Bennett’s door was still closed, but there was no sound coming from within. Bennett could still be in there, daydreaming, or he could have just as easily left. Either way, with that last phone call a potential problem had suddenly landed on Bobby’s plate and he couldn’t worry about Bennett Hinz for the moment, nor Emily for that matter. He headed back to the file room. A few minutes before five, the phone in the file room rang and Dorsey answered it just as he was about to leave for the day.
“File room. Yes, he is. No. You need a signature or anything? Alright, you might as well send it back here. Okay,” Dorsey said, then hung up. “You expecting anything? A messenger just delivered an envelope addressed to you up at the front desk. Someone’s running it back here.”
“No, I’m not expecting anything. What is it?”
“I don’t know, she just said an envelope. Probably be back here in a minute or two. I’m gonna take off. Just remember to lock the door when you leave, and have a nice evening.”
“Thanks, Mike, you do the same.”
Dorsey opened the door, took a step out of the file room, and stood there with th
e door open. “That the envelope for Mr. Custer?”
“Is he still there?” a female voice asked.
“Go on in, he’s expecting you.”
With that, a paralegal stepped into the file room and Dorsey closed the door behind her. Bobby had seen her a number of times before, but didn’t know her name, or if he’d ever been told he’d certainly forgotten. Her hair hung slightly below her shoulders and was dyed red, or rather a burgundy shade not found in nature. She was overweight, although one wouldn’t necessarily describe her as fat. She wore a black pants suit and had a slight accent, not east coast, but maybe south side of Chicago.
“Mr. Custer, this came for you a few minutes ago. Marci signed for it,” she said and handed the envelope to him. It was a postal envelope, red and white cardboard, maybe nine by twelve inches. There was no postage affixed to it. The address, such as it was, had been written with some sort of black marker. “Custer, C/O Denton, Allen, Sawyer & Hinz.” There was nothing else on the envelope and as he set it on the reading desk, he noticed it had a bulge. He looked at it for a brief moment wondering if it might somehow be a bomb. “Okay, thank you and I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Michelle,” she said, then waited for a brief moment just in case he had a response. “We met at Mr. Denton’s funeral, actually afterwards at the social gathering.”
He managed to murmur “Oh,” as a response, but didn’t add anything else.
After a moment she turned on her heel and headed for the door, calling, ”Have a nice evening,” over her shoulder as she walked out, closing the door behind her.
Bobby pushed his chair back, walked over to the door and locked it. He stood there for a moment listening to the sounds of people out in the office getting ready to leave for the day, then returned to the envelope sitting on the reading desk. He wasn’t expecting anything, and couldn’t think of anyone who would have sent this to him. Emily would have sent a text message, Luis would have phoned.