Aphrodite

by Russell Andrews

  “No, you didn’t. But I was referring to what you’ve read, not my technique.”

  “Mmmmmm. One thing. It’s nothing, really. But it’s strange. Mmmm … ohhhhhh. Up a little bit on my neck would be good.”

  “What is it?”

  She reached for her notepad, flipped over to the second page. “They’re a fascinating couple, really. Scary because there’s so little about them that doesn’t revolve around their businesses. When you read about their marriage, even their courtship, it’s always discussed in business terms. They merged more than they got married.”

  “That’s what’s strange? I think that’s fairly common in their world.”

  “No. What’s strange is that there was one personal thing that seems unresolved. They had a child. Well, I don’t know if they had a child. But she was pregnant. Louise, I mean.”

  “You’re on a first-name basis now?”

  She swung her eyes over at him, looked a little sheepish. “Well, yeah, I guess I feel like I know them both”—she pointed to the stack of reading material—“after all this.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “I was just teasing. It’s what happens to cops, too. When we’re studying a potential perp, it becomes very personal. You really do feel like you know them. You have to. It’s the only way you can get into their heads.”

  “So, anyway …Ohhh, just a drop lower … ohhh yeahhhh … ohhhhhh …there’s a mention about Louise getting pregnant.” She looked down at her notes. “Here it is. There’s a reference to it in Time magazine in 1974. She’s eight months’ pregnant. April, ’seventy-four.”

  “So?”

  “There’s no mention of a child anywhere else.”

  “Maybe they’re protective parents, worried about the kid’s privacy.”

  “No, no, no. No way. Too rich, too famous. Too visible. It would be like Donald Trump’s kid, whether they wanted it to be or not. Page six, the whole deal. No way.”

  “Maybe Louise miscarried.”

  “She made it through eight months. Seems unlikely. There were no stories to indicate she was ill or having a tough time.”

  “Then maybe the kid died at birth.”

  “Maybe. Could be. But I don’t think so,” Deena said. “There’s some reference—hold on—in an interview in Parade … here. In ’ninety-five. So, twenty years later. The reporter asks her about children and Louise says, ‘Well, you know, our daughter died. And after that, we never felt up to having another child.’”

  “The daughter still could have died in childbirth.”

  “I don’t know. It’s just a funny way of putting it. ‘Our daughter.’ It makes her sound like she was alive. More than that. Part of the family.”

  “That’s it?” Justin asked.

  Deena stiffened. “You told me to note anything that seemed odd. Well, that seems odd to me. If there’s anything that can change or define a parent, it’s losing a—” She saw his head snap back as if he’d been slapped. She reached out for him. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Jay. I didn’t think. I wasn’t thinking about you at all. I’m sorry.”

  He cleared his throat, let the tension in his shoulders relax. “No, no,” he said. “It’s fine. You’re right, though. There isn’t anything quite like it. And it’s worth checking out.” He reached for the phone.

  “Who are you calling?” Deena asked.

  “Billy DiPezio.”

  “It’s two-fifteen.”

  “He’s just getting started.” She heard the phone ring, then someone pick up on the other end. “It’s Jay,” he said into the receiver. “Where are you? … Nice. Does your wife ever mind that you never come home? … I’d like you to check something else out. I want to know if there’s a birth certificate for Douglas Kransten’s and Louise Marshall’s baby. Should have been born in April or May of ’seventy-four. Not sure. If I had to guess, I’d say New York. I also want to see if there’s a record of the kid’s death. …Billy, let me ask you something. I’m stone-cold sober and I’m barely going to remember talking to you tomorrow. You’re in a strip club, on what, your sixth scotch—okay, seventh: How the hell are you going to remember every detail of this conversation? … Yeah, I know you always do. I just want to know your secret. …Oh, okay. Thanks. You know where I am.” Justin hung up, turned to Deena.

  “So what’s his secret?” she asked.

  “Dirty living, he said.”

  She nodded at the large bed. “Think the Rutherfords’ll mind if we join him?”

  Justin smiled. “You don’t know the Rutherfords,” he told her. “They’re going to want pictures.”

  The phone woke them up at seven o’clock.

  “Jay?”

  He coughed out a half-asleep response.

  “It’s Wanda. I …I didn’t think I’d get you directly.”

  “Life’s full of surprises. What’s up?”

  “I’m just calling to say that I haven’t gotten any information yet.”

  “Oh,” Justin said, managing to open his eyes. “Okay. Maybe next time you can call a little earlier to tell me that. Like around five.”

  “Have you found anything?”

  “Nope. Haven’t learned a thing. Until you get me what I asked for, I’m stuck.”

  “I’m working on it, but it’s not easy. I don’t know if there’s a real cover-up, but if there is it’s a good one. I can’t seem to break through the system.”

  “I have confidence in you, Wanda.”

  “Thanks. Ummm …”

  “What?”

  “I guess that’s it. I just wanted to know if you’d made any progress. And how you’re doing.”

  “I’m doing as well as can be expected.”

  “Does anyone know where you are? In case I need to find you?”

  “Not a soul. And that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

  “I’m sorry you don’t trust me yet, Jay. You used to.”

  He yawned slowly and elaborately. “I’m going to hang up now, Wanda. I need to get some sleep.”

  “Be sure and say hello to your folks for me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t forget. I’ll get in touch as soon as I have anything.”

  Justin hung up, poked Deena in the back. When she stirred, he gave her a gentle shake.

  “So much for all my cleverness. We’ve got to get out of here,” he told her. “Wanda didn’t send Rollins after me, I’m pretty sure of that now. But he sure as hell went after her. That was her, and I’ll bet anything he made her make that call, so they could trace it. She kept me on long enough so they’ll have the call-forwarding gimmick and this location already.” He motioned to the framed photograph of a middle-aged man with his arms around a middle-aged woman and a thirty-something woman. “Say good-bye to the Rutherfords.”

  “Why didn’t you just hang up?” Deena asked. “Cut her off before the trace worked?”

  “’Cause Wanda went out on a limb for me. As of this second, her career’s over. I didn’t want to screw her up any more than I had to. It’s easier for us to move than it is for her to get by without a pension. Also, I think she tried to tip me off. She told me to say hello to my parents.”

  “She just saw them yesterday.”

  “I know. My guess is she gave them something for me, knowing that Rollins was going to be on her ass, and that was her way of hiding it from him. But I’ll find out in a minute.”

  “Do I have time to shower?”

  “If you can do it in the time it takes me to make one quick phone call, sure. If not—”

  “Is it safe to make another call?”

  “They can only trace us once.” He picked up the phone by the side of the bed and dialed. On the second ring, his mother answered. Justin didn’t bother with any of the usual niceties; he started in with, “Don’t say who it’s from or what it is, but did something arrive for me?”

  “Yes. A little while ago. Why are you talking like this, Jay? What’s—”

  “Something you never thou
ght would happen to a Westwood, Mother—your phone’s probably being tapped by the FBI.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Mom, listen to me, okay? This is important. Do you remember where we used to go sometimes, just you and me? The place you never told Dad about because you were embarrassed you liked it?”

  “Yes, but why in the world would you bring that up? You know—”

  “I want you to meet me there. And bring the thing that came for me.”

  “When?”

  He thought for a moment. “You remember my high-school girlfriend? Not Portia, the one after her.”

  “The redhead?”

  “Yeah.” He looked at his watch. “Think how many letters in her last name.”

  “Oh God,” Lizbeth said. “I can’t remember her last name.”

  “Okay, okay. Count the number in her first name and add four. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the time. That’s the o’clock. I’ll meet you half an hour after that. Leave now, immediately, before anyone who’s listening can get there. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to kill some time somewhere. If you remotely think that anyone’s following you, forget the whole thing. Just go back home. Okay?”

  “I have to say—”

  “I’m sure you do. But I have to hang up. Bye-bye.”

  Five minutes later Justin and Deena were in Mallone’s Mercedes, heading out of town. They heard police sirens and they were still close enough that they could tell the cars were nearing the Rutherford house. Justin told her they would now have to get rid of the Mercedes as soon as they could.

  “Things seem to be closing in, don’t they?” Deena said. “Do you have a good lawyer?”

  “I don’t have any lawyer.”

  “Well,” Justin said grimly, “it might be time to start thinking about getting one. Especially with what we’re about to do now.”

  The kid looked to be about eighteen. He was white, a little bit gawky, and, if Justin had to guess, he was probably driving his father’s car. The car was some indeterminate make, a Subaru or a Toyota maybe.

  Perfect.

  He waited until the kid pulled out of the gas station and got about a block away. There wasn’t a lot of traffic. He was stopped at a red light. No one behind him. It was now or never.

  Justin darted into the street, ran to the driver’s side of the car, and flashed his police badge at the boy. In his best impersonation of a member of the LAPD, he said, “I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the car, please.”

  “What?” the kid said. “What’s going on?”

  “Just step out of the car. Leave the engine running and get out.” The boy looked like he was going to cry. “What did I do?”

  “Don’t make me tell you again, son. Step out of the car before you’re in even bigger trouble.”

  The kid, trembling, opened the door and stepped onto the street. A car pulled up behind them now. Justin flashed his badge at the driver, an elderly woman, and waved her on. “Making an arrest,” he told her, and she drove on, first doing the obligatory rubbernecking so she could pass on any details when she got home.

  “Arrest?” the kid said. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Come with me, please.” Justin grabbed him roughly by the shirt collar, led him twenty feet away, around the corner to a white fence that had seen better days. The fence seemed to be the end of a small piece of property with a white house on it that had also seen better days. “I want you to stand against that fence, put your hands up against it, and spread your legs.”

  The kid was really about to bawl now. “But I didn’t do anything.”

  “Officer Harper,” Justin now said to Deena, who emerged from around the corner after pulling the Mercedes into a safe parking place. “I want you to search the car now.”

  “Search it?” the kid wailed. “Search for what?”

  “Turn around and put your hands on the fence,” Justin said. “Do not make me tell you again.”

  The kid’s back was to Justin, and his hands were touching the fence. “You’re gonna find one joint in there. One measly joint. Okay, maybe two. That’s all! That’s not even a crime now, is it? Is it?”

  “Spread your legs.” Justin kicked them apart. He pulled out his gun, flashed it in front of the boy’s face. When the boy saw the steel barrel, Justin thought he’d gone too far. The kid looked like he was going to pass out. “Now keep your eyes on the fence. We know what’s in your car and we know who you are. If you so much as turn your head, I’m going to have to use this.”

  Justin started backing away.

  “This is an incredible mistake,” the kid cried.

  “We’ve got to check your car,” Justin told him. “We have work to do. I don’t want to have to speak to you again.”

  “You don’t have the right person. I’m nobody! I haven’t done anything! Really, I’m, like, a total wimp!”

  Justin didn’t answer. “You gotta believe me,” the kid said. “Don’t I get a phone call? Hey, that’s right, I should get a phone call! Or you can make a phone call. Just call my parents! They’ll tell you I’m nobody! That’s not even my car! It’s my dad’s car! Why won’t you believe me?”

  The boy, too afraid to turn around, sputtered on like that for several more minutes. He didn’t stop until a white-haired man, walking with the aid of a cane, opened the gate in the middle of the peeling white fence and stepped out from the yard onto the street. He looked at the boy, feet spread apart, hands on the fence, chattering away a mile a minute, tears streaming down his face. Finally the white-haired man said, “Whatcha doin’?”

  “Are you talking to me?” the boy asked, breathless.

  “Yup.”

  “I can’t talk to you! This crazy cop’s gonna shoot me if I so much as look at you!”

  “What cop?” the white-haired man said.

  “The cop right there! The guy in jeans. The off-duty cop goin’ through my car!”

  “What car?” the white-haired man said.

  That was when the boy pulled his hands off the fence and turned his head. He looked at the white-haired man, then back at the empty street. He stared at the spot by the stop sign where his car had been. “Goddamn son of a bitch!” the kid screamed. “My father’s gonna kill me!”

  It turned out to be a Toyota. While Justin drove, Deena went over the notes he’d made on the yellow pad, reading them aloud. Together they began to organize things and get a clearer picture of KranMar and its various subsidiaries.

  “Let’s keep running through it,” he said. “I want to be able to picture this perfectly in my mind.”

  “KranMar’s at the top,” she said. “That’s the parent corporation. Pharmaceuticals. Everything from toothpaste and mouthwash to pills that help erectile dysfunction.”

  “You love saying that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, kind of.” She grinned. “KranMar’s the granddaddy of the whole shebang. Underneath they seem to own twelve research companies in America. Two in the Northeast—Ellis, in New York, and Aker, in Boston. They both specialize in DNA and cellular research. I sound like I know what I’m talking about, don’t I?”

  “The other ten companies are in the South, Midwest, and West Coast, right?” he continued. “And they’re mostly concerned with the less adventurous products.”

  “Right. They’re working on stuff for athlete’s foot. The European labs are a little harder to figure out. It looks like he’s got one in Switzerland, one in London, one somewhere in southern England. And there’s one in Germany and one in southern France.”

  “Those are their research arms. How many other companies are there?”

  “Eighty-four.”

  “We don’t know what all of those do, do we?”

  “It’s incredibly complicated. I don’t even know if Roger could figure all this out.”

  “It could be like the Enron scam,” Justin said. “A lot of them could be shells, set up to hide money or even purpose.” He thought for a fe
w moments. “How many list their officers and executives?”

  “All the ones that are owned by KranMar, because it’s a publicly traded company. But Kransten seems to have a lot of privately held companies, too. There’s nothing but addresses listed for those.”

  “Is there anyone named Newberg listed?”

  “No. I’ve gone over it a million times. No Newberg.”

  “Read the names of the companies aloud again.”

  There were eighty-four spin-off companies. She named each one, and when she was done with the list he threw up his hands.

  “Out of all of those, we’ve only run across two. Alexis Development, they own the mall that houses Growth Industries. Kransten’s definitely constructed a maze that’s supposed to hide his various activities. He built the mall and had his own subsidiary be the first renter. Nice financial arrangement, but I don’t think it ties in to all this.”

  “What about the Lobster Corporation?” Deena said. “They got the bills that came from some of the old-age homes, right?”

  “That’s what Gary said. My guess is that Kransten uses it only for accounting purposes, to siphon checks through. Is it public or private?”

  “Private. It doesn’t have any names listed with it.”

  “Let’s run through this whole thing one more time. There have to be connections we’re missing.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Susanna Morgan found out how old Bill Miller was,” Justin started. “She called Marion. Marion worked for Kransten and he called someone, maybe Kransten himself, maybe whoever Newberg is. One of those two ordered Susanna killed.”

  “Why?”

  “Hold on a second. I want to follow this through. Ed Marion was afraid that Kransten was going to kill him because he screwed up. I call Rollins to come protect Marion. Instead, Rollins kills him. Why would the FBI want to help Kransten?”

  “Maybe Rollins is on the take. Maybe he’s working for Kransten.”

  “It’s too much of a coincidence. If he’s on the take so are his superiors, and I don’t believe Kransten’s got that much muscle. Rollins couldn’t have gotten himself sent to East End—he got assigned there, to the Maura Greer case, and it has to be for a reason. It’s got to be connected to all this. There’s a connection between her and Manwaring, that we know. And—wait a second—there’s definitely a connection to Manwaring and Kransten. In that article I read, the one about Maura Greer, it said that Manwaring had done battle with the big drug companies. It was over some fake-fat-substance thing. I can’t remember exactly what it was. But Manwaring wanted it banned. And the drug companies were pissed off about it.”