Brody entered the hallway and left through the front door. He needed to talk to Deirdre alone about what Terri had confided to him about Lyndon’s assault on her. He wondered if Deirdre had heard all of his conversation with Lyndon about the starlets he’d had. If she had, she wasn’t letting on.
Brody still didn’t know who had killed Busby in such a gruesome manner. He suspected Deirdre’s stalker. But what was the point of the threat? What did the culprit want in return? Did it have anything to do with the anonymous letter send to Deirdre? Where is it? Brody had nothing but questions.
Peltz suspected the SVR had killed Busby. Was the SVR stalking Deirdre? What did Lyndon have that the SVR wanted to get their hands on and why stalk Deirdre to get it? wondered Brody.
He was starting to regret baiting Lyndon. He hoped Lyndon wouldn’t take out his anger on Deirdre after he left. Brody was reluctant to leave her alone with the guy, but he didn’t see what he could do about it. Lyndon had every right to throw him out of his own house.
Brody drove back to his apartment beset with misgivings, breathing in the unsettling perfume of bougainvillea that clung to his clothes during his ride.
He opened the Mini’s windows.
Chapter 40
Back at his apartment, Brody logged onto the Elysian Fields website.
Myshkin: Is anyone there?
Margaux Hemingway: I’m here. What’s up?
Myshkin: Do you tell your clients you’re an epileptic?
Margaux Hemingway: I don’t have clients. I have coworkers.
Myshkin: Do you tell them?
Margaux Hemingway: I don’t volunteer the information.
Teddy Roosevelt: Same here. I have coworkers, and I don’t tell them my condition. I’m concerned the boss might overhear us and fire me.
Margaux Hemingway: He can’t fire you because of your epilepsy. Isn’t that discrimination? That’s illegal.
Teddy Roosevelt: I don’t know. But he might think of another excuse to get rid of me if he found out about it.
Margaux Hemingway: Why would he?
Teddy Roosevelt: He might be worried I’d have an epileptic seizure at the office when he’s criticizing my work, and I’d hit him with a lawsuit.
Myshkin: You didn’t tell him on your job application about your epilepsy?
Teddy Roosevelt: I thought he wouldn’t hire me if I told him.
Myshkin: Did you take a physical when you applied for your job?
Teddy Roosevelt: I passed the physical. No problem.
Margaux Hemingway: I don’t tell my coworkers unless they ask me about it.
Myshkin: If they do ask you, you tell them?
Margaux Hemingway: Why not?
Teddy Roosevelt: Because the company might let you go if they found out.
Margaux Hemingway: I don’t believe that.
Caligula: I do. Bosses can call you medically unfit for the job and shitcan you.
Teddy Roosevelt: I agree. They’re covering their asses. They’re scared to death of lawsuits.
Margaux Hemingway: It’s not right. I don’t go around bragging about it so everybody knows I have it. Some epileptics might do that to get pity. I don’t.
Caligula: I wouldn’t tell. Telling a coworker could end your career. How do you know they won’t rat you out to the boss?
Margaux Hemingway: Even if they were your friends?
Caligula: Especially your friends.
Margaux Hemingway: Why would they rat you out? What kind of a friend is that?
Caligula: If they were angling for a promotion, they might think they could score brownie points with the boss by telling him.
Margaux Hemingway: You’re paranoid.
Caligula: You know what they say. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
Teddy Roosevelt: I agree with Caligula. I don’t tell coworkers. It’s none of their business, and they could use it against you.
Myshkin: I don’t tell my clients about my condition, because I figure they might not hire me.
Margaux Hemingway: Because you’re an epileptic?
Myshkin: Right.
Teddy Roosevelt: It wouldn’t help your cause, that’s for sure. They would think you’re inferior.
Margaux Hemingway: We’re not inferior. It’s a medical condition that doesn’t affect our job performance.
Teddy Roosevelt: Didn’t you read Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain?
Margaux Hemingway: No.
Teddy Roosevelt: One of the characters was an epileptic, and she messed up at her job because she had a seizure while she was watching her computer and didn’t notice crucial test results that were being reported. Her goof helped the Andromeda strain to spread.
Margaux Hemingway: That’s science fiction. In the real world, bosses don’t discriminate against epileptics because the truth is epileptics are just as good as other workers.
Myshkin: I agree we’re as good at our job as anybody else. But I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who don’t want to take a chance by hiring an epileptic when they could hire someone else for the job.
Caligula: Don’t tell anyone. That’s what I’ve learned in my life. And that’s why I only talk about it in this chat room with others who have the same condition.
Margaux Hemingway: I don’t believe people are as awful as you say they are. Not nowadays.
Caligula: You’re wrong.
Margaux Hemingway: In the old days they thought epileptics were possessed by demons when they had attacks because they were ignorant and scared when they saw someone fall down and have convulsions and foam at the mouth. But not anymore.
Caligula: You’re a lousy judge of human nature. I found out the hard way.
Margaux Hemingway: Do you want to tell us about it?
Brody waited for Caligula’s answer. None came. Maybe Caligula had logged out.
Teddy Roosevelt: It’s not something I would volunteer to tell anyone, except my immediate family. I told my wife, because I don’t want her to get alarmed if I have an attack when I’m with her.
Margaux Hemingway: Good idea. For sure, I’ve told my husband. And I’ve told others, but not because I’m fishing for pity.
Myshkin: I’m not married, so nobody needs to know, the way I see it.
Teddy Roosevelt: I don’t blame you. Only relatives need to know. People are weird. A lot of them are scared epilepsy is contagious, so they don’t want you around them.
Margaux Hemingway: It’s not contagious.
Teddy Roosevelt: But some people think they can get it through an epileptic’s blood and even his saliva.
Margaux Hemingway: LOL. That’s ridiculous.
Teddy Roosevelt: I know, but that’s what they think.
Margaux Hemingway: You’re making this stuff up. Come on.
Teddy Roosevelt: I wish. I gotta run.
Brody logged out.
Chapter 41
Jorge bought ten burner phones with cash at a Best Buy in Hollywood and walked back to his cheap hotel on Las Palmas Avenue.
Inside his room, he dead-bolted his door and tossed the plastic bag of burners on his bed. He dug one of the burners out of the bag, punched out the number of Gaetano, his boss at the CJNG cartel, and paced around the room waiting for him to pick up.
Gaetano answered, his voice gruff. “Hello.”
“I found the gringo, patrón,” said Jorge into his burner.
“Did you find it?”
“No.”
“I don’t care about him. I care about it.”
“I’m working on it.”
“The Sinaloa cartel is gonna ace us out, if we don’t get it.”
“I’ll get it. You know me, patrón.”
“Do what has to be done.”
“I don’t think his wife knows where it is.”
“The hell with his wife. The hell with all of them. Get it and bring it back. Then take care of all of them.” The boss paused. “Then we deal with the Italians.”
“I’
m trying to go through his wife. She’s the weak link.”
“I don’t want excuses. Just do the job.”
“It will be done, patrón.”
The boss terminated the call.
Jorge had to ditch the burner. His strict orders were one call per phone, so he couldn’t be traced. After each call, he was to dispose of the used phone.
He left his hotel room, walked outside, found the nearest alley, walked down it, spotted an open green Dumpster, and flung his burner into it. If a bum found it, so what? decided Jorge. The bum could have it for all he cared.
He returned to his hotel room and eyed his suitcase that lay on the nylon and aluminum folding luggage rack.
He needed to apply more pressure to the target. He had brought a little something with him from Guadalajara for just that purpose.
Chapter 42
Brody drove to the PO box listed as the return address on the package that contained Busby’s head. He wanted to find out the name of the owner, who could be the guy that was stalking Deirdre. Brody figured it was a good bet they were one and the same.
The post office station was the better part of ten miles away.
Brody parked his Mini in their cramped parking lot, climbed out of the car, and entered the post office. He surveyed the rows of rental boxes. Some had combination locks, the others locks with keys.
He scoped out the boxes to find the number that had been used in the return address label. He couldn’t find the number.
He looked all over for it, just in case it was out of order and he had overlooked it. He double-checked the number on each box.
He couldn’t find the number anywhere.
It was bogus.
The post office address was legitimate, but not the number of the rental box.
Not surprising, he decided, considering the contents of the package. Whoever was harassing Deirdre was covering his tracks well. He knew how to stay invisible.
Lyndon might have hired the stalker, Brody decided. But what was the point of harassing his wife? To retaliate against her hiring Rakowski to follow and spy on him? Lyndon was a plausible suspect. But would he go so far as to slaughter his own dog and send the head to Deirdre? Maybe it was one of the sick games Lyndon and Deirdre liked to play with each other. But why would she hire a PI to investigate, if it was just a game? Why get him involved in their sick game? Maybe they thought his involvement would make the game more exciting. Or maybe they had further plans for him, plans as sick as their game.
But who killed Rakowski, if not Lyndon? Killing a human being wasn’t a game—unless the Foxes were full-bore wackos who thought it was. Game or no game, Brody figured Lyndon was still a suspect in Rakowski’s murder.
Brody picked up on a postal clerk with a big head with a dyed blue streak in her black hair, blue eyeshade, and a cast to her brown eye giving him a dirty look from behind her counter, wondering what he was doing in the lobby for so long.
Not eager to draw attention to himself, he returned to his Mini.
He needed to tell Deirdre what Terri Symonds had told him about Lyndon and leave it up to Deirdre to decide whether to believe Terri or not. Terri hadn’t filed a police report of Lyndon’s assault so Deirdre might, with understandable justification, choose not to put any stock in Terri’s accusation. But why would Terri lie about such a thing—unless she abhorred Lyndon for some reason? In any case, the fact that she hadn’t reported her rape to the cops weakened her accusation against Lyndon.
Brody produced his cell phone and called Deirdre. “We need to meet.”
She said she was sitting with her family around their swimming pool enjoying the sun now and would meet him later.
He terminated the call, feeling like a home wrecker with the news he was about to impart to her about her husband’s assault against Terri. But it went with the job, he knew. Willy-nilly, his assignment in life always ended up being the harbinger of evil tidings.
Brody fired the Mini’s ignition, backed out of his parking space, and pulled out of the parking lot.
Chapter 43
Deirdre lay supine on a chaise longue on the cement pool deck in her white bikini soaking up the sun’s rays, as Valerie floated languorously on her back in a pink thong bikini on an inflatable mattress in the middle of the pool paddling the water with her hand when she felt like it, which wasn’t very often. She preferred to drift around the pool, floating like a cloud.
Lyndon lay on another chaise longue three feet from Deirdre wearing his aqua bathing trunks and a white beret, his eyes closed under his polarized three-hundred-dollar sunglasses. Two sweating aluminum cans of Diet Coke and two glasses half-full of the soda stood on a foot-high round white metal patio table between her and Lyndon.
Life was good, decided Deirdre. If only Busby could be here, too. She sighed. Why did she have to spoil everything with her paranoid suspicions that Lyndon was cheating on her? Why did she have to be so suspicious of him? Was she bringing all of this misery down on herself because she was incapable of trusting Lyndon? Why couldn’t she trust him?
Somebody was harassing her, she knew. Her stalker and Busby’s grisly death proved it. But nothing implicated Lyndon in the butchery. Why did she have to suspect him? You couldn’t go around being suspicious of everybody all the time, she told herself. That way madness lies . . .
The sky was polished to a dazzling blue with occasional oyster grey clouds scudding overhead, portending a storm brewing over the ocean ten miles from their villa. For now, the day was sunny and warm, the backyard bright with a riot of flashy flowers, including birds of paradise and lavender.
She closed her eyes and luxuriated in her other senses—the sun’s warmth on her flesh, the intoxicating aroma of jasmine—
She heard a rumbling sound above. She opened her eyes and squinted in the sun. A dark object some two feet in diameter was hovering thirty feet above, making toward the pool. She closed her eyes. Her neighbor was playing with his drone again, spying on her and Valerie in bikinis with the miniature camera mounted on it.
She heard a splash.
Valerie screamed.
Deirdre jackknifed up in her chaise longue, her eyes bulging out of her head. She picked up on Valerie, who was flailing her arms on her raft as she stared goggle-eyed at a volleyball with something on it floating near her in the pool.
The drone was flying away.
Bemused, Lyndon was staring at Valerie, who was frantically paddling her raft away from the volleyball in disgust and fear.
“What happened?” he said, springing to his feet.
“A drone dropped that thing on me,” said Valerie.
“What is it?”
“It’s a volleyball with something stitched on it. It looks—it looks like—like a penis.”
“What?”
Deirdre got to her feet and scoped out the volleyball that was floating toward her. Valerie was right. It looked like a man’s phallus and his scrotum, minus his testicles, stitched onto the volleyball, decided Deirdre.
“It’s disgusting,” said Valerie, scrabbling out of the pool. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“Our neighbors are sick if they think this is funny,” said Lyndon, and scowled at their next-door neighbor’s house.
“Maybe it wasn’t the neighbors,” said Deirdre. “Maybe it was someone else.”
“Yeah,” said Valerie, reaching for a white Turkish towel draped over the back of her deck chair. “Like that guy that killed Busby.”
She fell to weeping at the thought of Busby.
“I’m calling the cops,” said Deirdre, reaching for her purse to retrieve her smartphone. “They can’t get away with doing this sick stuff.”
Lyndon stayed her hand. “I don’t want the cops here.”
“Why not?”
“What are they gonna do? They’ll say it’s a practical joke and do nothing.”
“This is no joke. It’s disgusting. The sicko that did this scared Valerie to death.”
The vol
leyball floated closer to Deirdre and Lyndon, the water lapping against the side of the pool.
“It’s probably some plastic sex toy they got in a porn shop,” he said.
“It looks real to me,” she said, cringing at the idea of a man’s castrated phallus and scrotum stitched to a volleyball.
She wanted to throw up.
“It can’t be,” said Lyndon. “The plastics they use nowadays in sex toys look lifelike.”
Lyndon hunkered down and withdrew the volleyball from the pool. He winced in disgust at the stench as he stood up.
“It smells like something dead,” said Deirdre.
“Or formaldehyde,” said Lyndon, sniffing.
“Why would they put formaldehyde on a sex toy?”
“They use it on flesh to preserve it,” said Lyndon, holding the reeking volleyball at arm’s length so he wouldn’t have to smell it.
“See. Like I told you, it’s human flesh.”
“Maybe the sicko put the formaldehyde on there to make us think it’s flesh.”
On closer inspection, holding her nose, Deirdre became convinced the phallus was real. “Get that thing away from me.”
She stalked away from Lyndon and made for the house. Toweling herself off, Valerie was striding ten feet in front of her with the same idea.
Holding the volleyball in his hands away from his grimacing face, Lyndon searched overhead for the drone. It was gone. He scanned the grounds. No sign of the pilot either.
Chapter 44
“What did you do with that thing?” said Deirdre, watching Lyndon enter the living room through the French window empty-handed.
“I threw it in the garbage can where it belongs,” said Lyndon.
“It’s evidence. You can’t throw it away.”
“We’re not calling the cops. This kind of publicity we don’t need,” he said, striding past her.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m getting dressed. I’m meeting with the vice president this afternoon to discuss a fundraiser I’m arranging for him and the president.”
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