Epsilon Creed (Joe Venn Crime Action Thriller Series Book 5)

by Tim Stevens

  “You think we should wait for him at his office?”

  “You can do,” said Venn. “Though that assumes he’s headed there.”

  “Something else,” Harpin said. “I’ve been digging into the police archives in Boston. Got a couple of contacts there. I was checking if Mykels or Torvald had any records of run-ins with the law while they were students at Harvard. Even something that wasn’t recorded as a conviction or an arrest.”

  “And?”

  “Let’s see... on Saturday March 8th, 1986, a bunch of undergraduates were questioned by campus police in connection with the death of a girl at a party the previous night. The girl was named Alison Schecter. An English major, aged nineteen. She jumped from the fourth floor of a fraternity house, high as a kite on all kinds of stuff – coke, ’ludes, acid – and broke her neck.”

  Venn listened intently. Beside him, Harmony glanced over curiously as she drove.

  Harpin continued: “Not much came of the questioning. It sounds like most of the kids who attended the party had been too wrecked to recall much about the night. The girl hadn’t been noticed for over an hour until she jumped. The coroner ruled that there was no foul play involved.”

  “But...” prompted Venn.

  “But, guess who appeared on the list of people questioned about the incident?”

  “Torvald? Mykels?” said Venn, maddened at the way Harpin was stringing this out.

  “Both,” said Harpin. “Plus, one Martha Cobb.”

  “That’s it,” said Venn, slapping the dashboard with his free hand.

  “Might be nothing,” Harpin suggested.

  “No. That’s it. I know it.” Venn said, “What was the name of the frat house where the girl died?”

  “Epsilon Phi Kappa.”

  “The one Torvald and Mykels were members of,” said Venn.

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay,” said Venn. “Do you have the verbatim transcripts of the statements the kids gave?”

  Harpin said, “I’m working on it. I’ve asked my guy down in Boston to scan and send the relevant ones. It’s Sunday night, so it may take him a while.”

  “Keep in touch,” said Venn.

  He told Harmony about it.

  “So the death of this girl connects the three of them,” she said.

  “I’m certain of it.”

  “Still not enough to bring Mykels and Torvald in over.”

  “No,” said Venn. “But it gives us more ammo to make them sweat.”

  Chapter 31

  Mykels was a calm man by nature. He knew his personality didn’t fit the cliché of the volatile, temperamental artist, and he suspected that was one reason people found him intriguing.

  But right now, he experienced an agitation so intense he felt like a car whose driver had their feet pressed simultaneously on the brake and the accelerator.

  He paced the hotel suite like a caged animal. The decanter of Scotch stood on the coffee table, the empty glass beside it. Mykels wasn’t much of a drinker, but the temptation to take the edge off his nerves by reaching for the bottle was strong.

  He resisted it. One drink would lead to another, and pretty soon he’d be half-cut. And that wasn’t what he needed, from a physical or mental point of view.

  Carl Torvald was on his way.

  Hearing the man’s voice on the phone had been such a surprise that Mykels had almost been unable to focus on the words Torvald was saying. Torvald himself had sounded calm. Friendly, almost.

  “We need to put an end to this, Louis.”

  Mykels had pulled himself together enough to say: “Agreed.” Though he didn’t know quite what he was agreeing to.

  Torvald said: “How much have you told the cops?”

  “Nothing.”

  There was a pause. “I hear differently,” Torvald murmured.

  “From whom?”

  “An anonymous caller,” said Torvald. “Brooklyn accent. Rough-sounding fellow.”

  Mykels took a moment to digest this. Then he said: “Funny. I got a call from somebody similar, just a short while ago.”

  “What does it mean?” said Torvald.

  It was bizarre, this conversation, thought Mykels. As though they were a couple of buddies who’d called for a chat. Rather than two men who wanted one another dead.

  “Some kind of set up,” Mykels suggested.

  Torvald said, “The caller told me you’d been talking to the police. Cutting a deal of some kind.”

  “I haven’t. No deal would work for me.”

  “I didn’t think it would,” said Torvald. “Now, you might be sitting there with the police listening in. But I don’t think so. If you’d revealed everything to the police, I wouldn’t be here having a conversation with you. I’d be in custody, facing questioning. So I figure you’ve kept your mouth shut.”

  Mykels felt suddenly emboldened. “It may not be like that for long, Carl. You’re trying to have me killed. I can’t ignore that. I’ll do whatever it takes to prevent it.”

  “But you just said you’re not in a position to cut a deal with the cops. And I can understand that. You can’t admit your part in anything. Even a rumor would finish you.”

  “Exactly,” said Mykels. “So any talking I do won’t be to the police. If I have to get outside help to deal with you, I will.”

  “‘Outside help’?” Torvald’s tone was mockingly amused. “You mean like the Mob?”

  Mykels didn’t answer.

  Torvald said, “Look. The ideal situation for each of us would be if the other were out of the way. Permanently. But that’s unlikely to happen now. So I propose we meet up, man to man, and decide on a solution we can both live with. Where are you now?”

  “I’m not going to tell you that, Carl.” Mykels felt a sudden surge of anger. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “Fair enough,” said Torvald easily. “I give you my word that you won’t be harmed. But I can understand that you’d have a hard time believing that. So here’s my suggestion. I’m recording this conversation of ours. After it’s over, I’ll send you a copy of the recording. Call it insurance. For my part, I’ll of course be keeping a copy in a safe place, with instructions that it be listened to in the event of anything happening to me. You tell me where you are, and I’ll come over. We’ll talk, and thrash this out. How does that sound?”

  Mykels thought about it. “Why do we have to meet?” he said. “Why don’t we just square this one the phone?”

  Torvald sighed. “After all that’s happened, Louis. After all our history, and you ask that? We need to do this face to face. Plus,” he added, as if the thought had just occurred to him, “we need to see one another’s eyes. That way we’ll have a better idea if the other person’s telling the truth.”

  Mykels’ mind raced over the proposal. It was bizarre, in many ways. Torvald might have a trick up his sleeve.

  But all of a sudden, he was tired. The emotional and physical turmoil of the last few days was overwhelming.

  “All right,” he said.

  “Where are you now?” said Torvald again.

  Feeling as if he was about to take a dive off a cliff into darkness, Mykels said: “Mount Jackson Hotel, on the Park. Suite 46A.”

  “I’ll be there in an hour,” said Torvald.

  Mykels said: “If I don’t have that recording in two minutes, Carl, I’m out of here and the plan’s off.”

  “You’ll have it.”

  “Also,” Mykels said, “there are a couple of patrolmen at the front of the building. You may want to come in discreetly.”

  “Thanks for the tip. See you soon, Louis.”

  The line went dead.

  *

  Torvald was as good as his word, at least on one point. A minute after the call ended, Mykels checked his email on his phone, and there it was: a blank message from Torvald, with an attached file.

  He played it. The recording was crisp, and a complete record of their conversation from start to finish, with no deletion
s or embellishments. Mykels uploaded it to a server he used, and transferred a backup copy to a thumb drive which he placed in the suite’s wall safe.

  He tried sitting on the couch, his eyes closed, to clear his mind. It was difficult, but by focusing on his breathing, he was able to calm his mind a little, or at least slow down his racing thoughts so that they weren’t an indistinct blur.

  Torvald was up to something. Mykels was certain of it. It wasn’t in the man’s nature to tolerate truces for long. Mykels had known him for over a quarter-century, and although they’d lost contact for many years, Mykels had followed his career with interest, and had witnessed Torvald’s spectacular rise through the world of finance. He’d known that the ruthlessness which had been in evidence way back in the college years was still going strong, and was serving Torvald well.

  It was unlikely, Mykels thought, that Torvald would send a hit squad to the hotel to take Mykels out. The cops had seemed pretty confident that the Triad which had been assigned to kill him was no longer operational, and perhaps Torvald knew this. He might have recruited other assassins, but the risk to Torvald was too great, now that Mykels had the recording of their conversation. On the other hand, Mykels couldn’t believe Torvald simply wanted to settle this amicably.

  But what the man was planning to do, Mykels couldn’t work out.

  His gaze wandered over to the wall safe. Inside was a handgun, a .22 caliber Heckler & Koch, one of two identical models he owned. He’d reluctantly purchased the guns, and undergone some training in their use, at the urging of his agent, who’d become frustrated at his failure to grasp that a man like him, prominent in the public eye, might be in danger of attacks from kidnappers or deranged fans or whatever. Mykels kept one of the pistols at his apartment on the Upper West Side and its twin here at his occasional home in the hotel.

  He debated for a moment. Then he got up and worked the combination of the safe and took out the gun. It sat heavily in his palm. He looked around, then placed it high on a bookcase, out of sight but within easy reach.

  The minutes ticked by, extending into a half hour. Mykels could feel his tension rising once more. The city beyond the triple-glazed windows was silent, and perversely this aggravated Mykels’ sense of dread. It felt like he was encased in a tomb.

  The anonymous call from the Brooklyn-accented man nagged at him. Increasingly, Mykels suspected that it had been Torvald himself, either making the call or getting an accomplice to do it for him. Torvald may have guessed that Mykels was planning a counter-strike against him, which was why the caller had referred to the thing with Torvald. But what was Torvald’s motivation for the hoax? Simply to unnerve Mykels?

  Should he alert the police that Torvald was on his way? But what would that achieve? If he told them he knew Torvald was the person who’d hired the Triad, they’d arrest Torvald, and he might well cut a deal with them.

  As if appearing through a hole in his memory, the woman came into Mykels’ thoughts.

  The faceless, nameless woman whom he’d just a couple of hours earlier told to kill Torvald.

  Mykels took a deep breath.

  If he told her Torvald was coming here, she could ambush him. It could be the easiest thing in the world.

  But then Torvald’s insurance, the recording of their conversation, would come into play, and Mykels would be finished.

  Still: knowing he had backup, that there was somebody out there whom he could call upon for help at short notice, was something that appealed to Mykels.

  He picked up his phone and made the call.

  Chapter 32

  Blowfly had experienced a number of different altered states of consciousness in his life, but nothing compared to this one.

  He’d tripped on acid on a few occasions, but found the experience freaky. Coke and speed gave him a pleasantly buzzy journey, and they were his preferred poisons. A couple of times, he’d sampled crack and meth. The screaming paranoia he’d endured had made him vow: never again.

  Ever since he’d shot the man, Micky, Blowfly had felt a detachment, as if he was observing his shaking, panicking self from a distance. He’d only really returned to his body during the sex with Melinda in the clearing in the woods.

  He still felt otherworldly, as if he wasn’t walking so much as floating. But there was a brilliant, icy clarity to his every action, to his surroundings. Every leaf on every tree stood out in sharp detail. Sounds were heightened, as were smells.

  Now, in the decidedly urban setting of the basement in the Meatpacking District, Blowfly listened to Melinda and heard every word she said as if it were being beamed directly into his auditory cortex.

  She explained, then told him to repeat the explanation back to her. Blowfly found that he could do so, almost word for word. She seemed pleased.

  When she was finally satisfied that he understood, she stepped forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  “Remember, Wayne,” she murmured. “It’s purely a fall-back. We almost certainly won’t need you to do it.”

  He reached for her. Grabbed, really. His hands found her waist and pawed at her. Melinda seemed to hesitate for a moment, as though considering.

  Then she stepped back, freeing herself gently but firmly. The smile was at her lips again. The mischievous one he liked.

  “Uh-uh, Wayne,” she said. “We both need our strength.”

  “But later?” he said hoarsely.

  “Oh yes.” Her smile became lascivious. “There’ll be plenty later.”

  They emerged into the darkness of an alley, the only lighting from sodium lamps on a distant main street. Blowfly didn’t know this part of Manhattan at all. He’d been to a party or two in the meatpacking District, but had no recollection of either the layout of the neighborhood or how he’d got there and back.

  Melinda had parked the stolen Nissan nearby. After checking the street was clear, she led him quickly across to it. She laid the heavy canvas bag, which she’d refused to let him carry for her, on the backseat. Blowfly climbed into the passenger seat, knowing she wouldn’t allow him to drive, and he was okay with that.

  She was his queen. And he was her king.

  For the first time in his life, Blowfly thought, he was happy. It wasn’t the happiness he’d once vaguely aspired to. The happiness of a family, of professional recognition, of fame and fortune as a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Who’d have thought he’d find his happiness here, his mind tripping without the assistance of illegal chemicals, driving through the night with a sexy but crazily dangerous girl, on their way to complete an adventure he still didn’t in the least understand?

  He didn’t care about the Ignatowski scoop, or the splash he’d originally planned to make with it. Didn’t care that in the last twelve hours he’d had a gun pointed at him, and had in turn pointed a gun at somebody else and shot him. Killed him.

  All he cared about was that he and his girl were together. Bonnie and Clyde. No, that was a bad comparison, because of the way the movie turned out. Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers. That was a much better fit.

  As Melinda started the engine, Blowfly tried to piece together what she’d told him. He couldn’t make sense of it. It didn’t matter – nothing mattered except being with Melinda, and pleasing her – but Blowfly thought it might be interesting to go over it all again and see if he’d missed something, some key piece of information which tied it all together.

  She’d been hired by Louis Q. Mykels, though she didn’t know his identity at the time, to kill Blowfly. Then, when she discovered she kind of liked Blowfly (that was what she told him, and he preferred to believe she was being honest), she decided instead to turn the tables on Mykels and blackmail him with the evidence of his fleeing the scene of Martha Ignatowski’s murder.

  So far, so good.

  But now – and this was the part Blowfly was having a hard time getting to grips with – now, Mykels was re-hiring her to kill the asshole who’d hired the Chinese guys to kill him. To
rvald, the asshole’s name was. Some kind of hotshot banker. Blowfly hated the guy and soon as he heard what he did for a living. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d been refused a loan, leave alone a mortgage. They were all douches as far as Blowfly was concerned.

  And then, on their way to the basement in the Meatpacking District where Melinda said she had a stash of weapons, she’d gotten a call from Mykels to tell her that Torvald was going to be at the Mount Jackson Hotel up near the Park, and that she, Melinda, needed to be there too.

  But not to kill Torvald. Not yet. Just to hang around and wait on Mykels’ call.

  Nope. Blowfly shook his head. It still didn’t make sense. But, like he’d told himself earlier, it didn’t matter.

  Melinda knew what she was doing, and all he needed to do was follow her lead.

  And then, later, whenever what was going to happen was over... bliss.

  Rapture.

  Beside him, Melinda said: “Buckle up, Wayne.”

  He looked at her.

  Looked down at himself.

  And then he understood why she’d said it.

  He snapped the buckle in place and sat back as she pulled out.

  Chapter 33

  Venn’s phone rang as Harmony was taking her Crown Vic along the southern edge of Central Park, repeating the meandering route she’d adopted to keep them in the vicinity.

  “Venn, it’s Lovett.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Just an update. I figured that if Mykels is going to leave the hotel, he won’t do so by the front entrance, because he knows the patrolmen are out there and they might see him. So I’m in the basement car park, hanging around. So far, he hasn’t appeared. But his car’s here.”

  “Okay,” said Venn. “Let me know if anybody suspicious goes up, as well.”

  “Define suspicious,” said Lovett.

  “Oh I don’t know,” Venn said. “Anyone who looks like you, for instance.”

  “Funny guy.” Lovett hung up.

  Behind the wheel, Harmony said, “Hate to sound negative and all that, Venn, but you’re clutching at straws here.”