by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric
“Even if you were a relative, I wouldn’t discuss a sensitive topic like this over the phone,” he said.
“I’m a relative by extension,” I said. “I’ve been asked by Melanie’s sister to look into the details regarding the structured settlement.”
“Then you’ll have to set up an appointment through the proper channels,” Unger said, “and that will take some time. You’ll have to file the proper documents as well.”
“What documents would those be?” I asked.
“I’m sure you can appreciate it’s not my job to explain the law to you. If you don’t understand the procedures involved, I suggest you hire your own attorney.”
“You don’t appear to be very supportive of the family,” I said.
“Terrible tragedy,” Unger said, “but there’s nothing anyone can do about the annuity. Believe me, I wish I could, but the language in the contract is quite precise and has stood the test of time.”
“Aunt Hazel said Greg only received one payment before the accident.”
“Not true,” he said. “The family received three payments.” Then he said, “Wait, you pulled that out of your ass just now, didn’t you?”
I admitted it. Then I said, “Let me see if I can save us both the trouble of a visit. I have a theory.”
“I’ll entertain a hypothetical,” Unger said, “provided it’s a short one.”
“Suppose I win ten million dollars in the state lottery.”
“Go on.”
“I get a lump sum payment of ten million and use one million of it to pay off my outstanding loans. I look for a way to invest the balance. My attorney tells me about an annuity he’s found that’s offered by a privately funded group of investors from California.”
Unger had been saying, “Uh huh,” to move me along, but when I said, “California,” he suddenly became silent. I continued, “The lawyer says the return is astronomical, three times what I can get anywhere else. Not only that, but I’ll get this huge monthly payment for the rest of my life! If I die before receiving the first month’s payment, my wife gets the annuity payment for the rest of her life. But somewhere in the fine print, the contract says if my wife and I both die after receiving at least one payment, the entire principal is forfeited to the company. That sound about right?”
We were both silent awhile until I said, “How much did they pay you?”
“I beg your pardon?” Unger asked, working to put on a show of great indignation.
“Joe DeMeo,” I said. “How much commission did he pay you to place the contract, to sell out your own client?”
“I don’t have to listen to this!”
“You signed their death warrant,” I said.
“I’m going to hang up now,” Unger said.
“Before you do, I want you to give DeMeo a message for me.”
“I don’t know any DeMeo,” Unger said.
“Of course you don’t.” I gave Unger my cell phone number and said, “If by some chance you happen to cross paths with DeMeo, have him call me before six tonight. If he fails to do so, I’m going to call the FBI and see what they think about my hypothetical theory.”
16
I hung up and waited to hear from DeMeo.
Joseph DeMeo lived in LA, which got me to thinking about Jenine, the young model and potential body double from Santa Monica I’d told Callie about, the one I’d been sharing e-mails with for a couple of months. Listen to me: model. At best she was a model hopeful, and I was nearly twice her age. We both knew what this was. We’d shared a couple of photos and text messages, she’d invited me to visit her, and I’d said I’d try, next time I was in the area.
I took a catnap and woke up and waited for DeMeo’s call. While waiting, I challenged myself to remember all the plates I was trying to keep spinning in the air. I was testing the ADS weapon for the army. Okay, that’s one. Two, I was trying to keep Janet from marrying the shit bird from West Virginia. Three, I was trying to start a romance with the shit bird’s ex. Okay, well that plate had already fallen and crashed, but I was going to have to deal with the effect it had on me, so maybe that’s four. Maybe the model from LA could help me get over the feelings I had for Kathleen. I’d make that one plate number five.
I spied the empty tumbler by the phone. There was plenty left in the bottle. I poured another shot into the glass and worked it around my tongue, thinking, Now let’s see, where was I? Oh yeah, plates in the air. Number six: I had started accepting murder contracts from an angry, quadriplegic midget with dreadlocks. Seven: I was still taking contracts for Sal Bonadello, the crime boss. Eight: I was trying to set up a face-to-face with Joe DeMeo, a meeting that would almost certainly result in my death. And of course, I still had my day job of killing terrorists for the government. So that made nine plates.
I was as out of control as the Looney Tunes conga line. It was time to wrap up some of these loose ends. I called Lou Kelley.
“You got my information yet?”
“If you’re referring to the age progression on Kathleen, I e-mailed it to you an hour ago.”
“What about the match profile on Lauren?” I asked.
“Well, I didn’t know her name till just now, but you were right. If her picture is current, our guys can get her up to 91 percent.”
“So that’s a powerful resemblance,” I said.
“It is.”
“If I wanted to pass Lauren off as Kathleen, who could I fool?”
Lou thought about that a bit. “You wouldn’t fool her spouse or a close friend or relative. Beyond that, you’re probably okay.”
“Good. That’s what I was hoping to hear.”
I asked Lou about getting me a jet. He put me on hold a few minutes while he made the arrangements. He got back on the line and said, “Got one. It’ll be waiting for you at the FBO in White Plains, at the Westchester County Airport.”
“How far is that from where I am?”
“Depends on where you are,” Lou said.
I told him. He hit a few computer keys and said, “Fastest way is to get you a chopper. The flight is only ten minutes, but it’ll take me about forty to set up. If you’re not in a hurry, you can use a driver, but I’d wait a couple hours before heading there, since it’s rush hour now.”
I looked at my watch. “If I leave the hotel around seven?”
“You’re looking at an hour’s drive to White Plains, maybe more.”
I told him I could live with that. I hung up and started packing my gear. My cell rang.
Joe DeMeo.
“You’ve been busy,” he said.
“Jesus, Joe, where’d you find those guys?”
“Ah, what can I tell you? Short notice and all. Look, sorry about today. Your whole thing caught me off guard, pissed me off. You shoulda called me first instead of poking around out there. I’d have cut you in. Now the whole thing’s turning into a mess.”
“You get my message about setting up a meeting?”
“Our phones are secure. We can work this thing out right now.”
“I’d rather meet face-to-face.”
“You got some balls, my friend. I always said so.” He sighed. “Okay, Creed, we’ll meet. You say when, I’ll say where.”
We worked it out for Saturday morning in LA, which gave me plenty of time to do some other things, including having another Maker’s while waiting for my seven o’clock drive to White Plains.
And flying to Cincinnati to meet my good friend, Lauren.
And making plans to meet a certain young model wannabe at a beachside hotel in Santa Monica on Saturday afternoon—assuming I survived my Saturday morning meeting with Joe DeMeo.
17
Lauren Jeter had been an escort since the early days of the Internet. Over time, she’d built a clientele that included a dozen of Cincinnati’s most prominent public figures, most of whom managed to spend quality time with her several times a year. Add the income from these wealthy regulars to her hourly outcalls and Lauren was pull
ing down more than a hundred grand a year, all cash.
Not a bad business, but not without risk.
This particular morning, around ten o’clock, she knocked on the door of the upscale hotel room in downtown Cincinnati where I was staying. I handed her a quarter-inch stack of hundreds, and she smiled and said, “You’ve always been way too generous with me.”
Lauren loved her Mimosas with fresh-squeezed orange juice, and she enjoyed several as we caught each other up on our families, our problems, our health, and the books we’d read in the months that had passed since my last visit.
At some point she smiled and asked, “So, you wanna …?”
Instead of answering directly, I told her I had a unique proposition for her: we could spend the next few hours in the traditional manner and afterward go our separate ways happy and richer for the experience, or I could pay her an obscene amount of money to let me beat the shit out of her.
For a split second, Lauren’s smile remained frozen on her face, caught in the moment like a deer in the headlights. Then she made a funny noise and bolted for the door. She fumbled a bit, trying to get it open. When she finally did, she flew out of the room and slammed the door behind her. I watched her do all that, and after a minute or so, I topped off my glass, sipped some more champagne, and moved closer to the phone. A few minutes passed before it rang.
“You didn’t chase me,” she said.
“Why would I do that?”
“I thought maybe you’d snapped or something. No offense.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s just—I don’t know, I guess I’ve always had the feeling you could turn violent on me, though you’ve always been a perfect gentleman in the past. Still, what you said a while ago, well, you sort of threw me for a minute there.”
“And now?”
“Now I feel sort of bad that you paid for an overnight and I bailed.”
“You were scared.”
“I was really scared!” she said.
We were quiet awhile.
“You’ve got a good heart,” I said.
“I’d like to be your friend, Donovan,” she said, “but I might be just a little afraid of you right now.”
“I can’t fault you there.”
“Should I be?”
“What’s that?”
“Afraid of you?”
I paused a moment. “No.”
“Well,” she said, “you didn’t grab me or hit me. You didn’t force me to do anything. When I ran you didn’t chase me. And you’re very generous—the money, the champagne.”
“Does all that add up to let’s try again?”
“I don’t know, Donovan. I’d like to save our relationship …”
“But?”
“But I’d have to feel safe.”
“Well,” I said, “I didn’t chase you.”
She thought about that some more. Then she said, “I’m only about a block away, sitting in my car. If I agree to come back, will you promise I’ll be safe? I mean, I’ll treat you real good and all, but can you promise not to hit me?”
“Yes. If you want, you could bring someone with you.”
“Another girl?”
I laughed. “No, I meant a guy. You can bring a guy with you, for protection.”
She pondered that a minute. “Is there anyone I’m likely to bring who could protect me if you wanted to hurt me? Even if he had a gun?”
“No,” I said, “but, Lauren, you have my word. This choice I mentioned, like anything else we’ve ever done or might do, is completely up to you.”
“And you have my answer to your offer, right?”
I laughed. “You’ve made it abundantly clear. No hitting, no hurting.”
Back in my room a few minutes later, she asked, “Do you get off on beating up women? Again, no offense meant,” she added.
“None taken,” I said, shaking my head. “No, I would never get any pleasure out of hitting a woman, and I don’t understand those who would.”
“Then why?”
I thought about telling her Kathleen Chapman’s story, how she had experienced years of physical abuse at the hands of her ex. I wondered if Lauren could possibly put herself in Kathleen’s place, imagining the heartbreak, the pain and anguish, the humiliation Kathleen had suffered all those years.
My idea did have one major flaw: when you came right down to it, I’d be beating Lauren up now to protect Janet from getting beaten up someday. Of course, Lauren would have made the conscious decision to be beaten up. I wondered if that type of logic would provide sufficient justification for the way I’d feel later.
In the end, I just waved it off. “My mistake,” I said. “Water under the bridge.”
Lauren looked me over carefully. When she spoke, her voice was clear and steady. “You don’t appear to be a freak,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Of course,” she said, “in my experience, most freaks don’t appear to be freaks.”
“I’ve found that to be true in my experience, as well,” I said. She extended her hands in front of her, palms open, as if to say, Help me out here, will ya? Then she said, “But if someone were to ask me for an assessment at this stage of our relationship …” she paused a beat. “Can you understand why I might question your sanity?”
“You’d be crazy not to,” I said.
She nodded slowly.
“Would you like me to take off my clothes now?” she said.
“I’d like that a lot. If it’s your choice.”
“It’s what you’ve paid for,” she said.
“Actually, I don’t look at it that way.”
She flashed me a skeptical look. “You don’t, huh?” There was an edge of sarcasm in her voice.
I said, “Sex isn’t the same as intimacy. Intimacy only works if it’s a choice you’ve made about me.”
She stiffened a bit. “A choice,” she said.
“That’s right.”
“Like letting you beat me up?” I saw the anger flash through her eyes. Now that she trusted me not to hurt her, she was fired up.
“It’s nothing personal,” I said, hoping to diffuse the fireworks I could see coming.
“Really? Nothing personal, huh? So your offer had nothing to do with the fact that I’m just a low-life hooker? Tell me, Scarface, how many teachers, nurses, and housewives have you offered to beat up for money?”
I heard her. I don’t mean I listened to her; I mean that what she said and the way she said it made me see it from her point of view. Now what could I say, except that she had a point.
“Lauren, you’re right, of course. That was a big part of it, the fact you do things for money.”
We sat there quietly and looked at each other, neither of us knowing quite what to say.
“There was something else,” I said. “I didn’t give you my reasons, but a big part of it had to do with an uncanny resemblance. But again, I’m sorry I brought it up. I feel terrible for scaring you. I really care about you and always have.”
We were out of orange juice, but she reached for the champagne and poured some into a clean flute. She glanced at her champagne glass and a strange look crossed her face. She picked it up and held it to the light and stared at the amber liquid. What now? I wondered. Maybe there weren’t as many bubbles floating to the surface as she thought there should be. Maybe …
“It’s not drugged,” I said.
“Then you drink it.”
I sighed. “I’ve lost your trust, and for that I apologize.” I took the champagne flute from her hand, put it to my lips, and drained it. Then I refilled the glass, handed it back to her. She nodded slowly and took a sip. Then, to her credit, she winked at me.
“Hookers have feelings, you know.”
I smiled. “It’s not because I think you’re unworthy of being treated well. It was never that. If it makes you feel any better, you’re the only person I’ve ever offered to pay to beat up.”
Lauren had a light, ai
ry laugh. Now, for the first time since she’d run out, she showed it. “Why the hell would that make me feel better?” she asked.
I laughed, too. “I’m sorry, Lauren. You’re right. I prejudged you. Now I’m making it worse trying to talk about it. Big surprise: I’m not very smooth with women.”
“Hey, ya think?” She smiled.
“Now you know why I have to pay for sex.”
“Intimacy,” she said.
“Yes.”
“A choice,” she said.
“It is,” I said. “Or should be.”
She nodded slightly, as if confirming some private thought. Then she took off her clothes and helped me with mine. Then she did the things Janet used to do to me all those years ago, things she was surely doing to Ken Chapman every night for free.
Lauren held me afterward and kissed my cheek.
“Just for the sake of argument,” she said, “how much would you have paid?”
18
“I see you had better luck finding me this time,” Joseph DeMeo said, flashing a grin I knew to be insincere. It was Saturday, and we were in the George Washington section of Hollywood Hills Cemetery near Griffith Park. DeMeo stood on the landing above the sidewalk next to the flagstone wall that shaded Buster Keaton’s grave. He wore a black suit and a lavender silk shirt, buttoned all the way up, with no tie. DeMeo was flanked on either side by two dead-eyed thugs whose ill-fitting suits could barely contain their musculature.
“Your pets look uncomfortable,” I said. “I hope they didn’t squeeze into their prom suits just for me.”
“No need to taunt,” DeMeo said. “We’re all friends here.”
“That right?” I said to the goons. We all looked at each other a minute, trying to decide who could take whom, if it came down to it, and how best to do it. I didn’t know these particular guys but I knew their type. Violence leaked out of them like stink on a wino.
Joseph DeMeo chuckled and walked down the steps toward me. “Walk with me,” he said and passed me without shaking hands. I stood my ground. I wasn’t comfortable walking with him if it meant turning my back on his goons. DeMeo chuckled again and said, “Don’t worry about them. They’ll follow at a respectful distance. Same as your giant,” he added.