Kill and Be Killed

by Louis Begley

  —

  Yes sir, Captain Dana, said Pablo. Eric told me about you. He says you’re a war hero. Please let me be of service.

  The roly-poly man’s volubility was disconcerting, but he had a nice smile.

  That’s very kind. I’m trying to understand what happened the night Kerry died, and I think it would help if I knew whether she had steady contacts here—customers, I guess is what I mean.

  A gorgeous girl, Captain, gorgeous girl. Men would line up to take her into a room. Sometimes she’d do three, even four, in an evening. Some guys would stay with her for an hour or longer. Do you realize how much that cost? There were clients who looked for her each time she came, but if you mean something like a boyfriend, no sir! There wasn’t anything like it. You know, she danced alone. She wasn’t looking for company.

  She got paid for what she did?

  You bet, Captain! Sometimes as much as a thousand, sometimes more. I know because she’d tell me. Like boasting. And then she’d give me a big tip.

  Pablo, I said, this is a tough question, maybe there’s no way you can answer. Why do you think Kerry did this? You know she didn’t need the money.

  I know what she told me, Captain. She said she was a big-time real estate broker, making a lot. The real-estate-broker part she invented—I know that now because of the newspapers—but she must have made a lot as a lawyer. When she told me she didn’t need money, I asked, Why do you go with those guys? You know, fat guys, old guys, guys who’ve had too much to drink, who smell bad? You know what she said? I like it. I’m horny. I like it when they’re ugly. I like it when they’re old and can’t get it up. I like it when they stink. I like it when they’re dirty. So, Captain, you figure it.

  I can’t, I replied. Most likely I never will. Anyway, it won’t surprise you that I feel sick. But there are a couple more things I’d like to know if possible. Do drug dealers hang out here? Can you buy stuff?

  No sir! Johnnie doesn’t allow pushers or drug dealing. Strictly bring your own. Drug busts are the last thing he needs.

  Eric nodded. Exactly right.

  This overdose, I said. Was Kerry on drugs? Do you know?

  Pablo and Eric both laughed.

  Eric spoke first. Captain, sir, sorry to say this, but you’ve got to be kidding.

  Kerry used to say, Pablo broke in, I’m rich so I buy the best shit. High-class snow and E. And that was the truth. She’d give me a line or two.

  I see, I see. And what about pimps? Are there pimps here?

  Not right this minute, sir, said Pablo. I haven’t seen any at the bar.

  Yeah, said Eric, they drop in to check how their girls are doing. But there’s very little of that. Almost all the hookers here are freelancers, but occasionally a hooker with a pimp brings him over. They get a free pass. Professional courtesy!

  I see, I see, I said again stupidly. What about the evening Kerry died, Pablo, do you remember any pimps hanging out here?

  Gee, Captain, he answered, those guys are a dime a dozen. They’re shit. I don’t pay attention to them.

  Then he scratched the top of his bald head and said, Well, maybe I do recall a guy who could’ve been a pimp because he wasn’t like the regular customers, a big good-looking black-haired guy dressed real sharp, in leather. Kerry danced with him a lot that evening—something she didn’t do. As I said, she’d dance alone. When the guy got hot on the dance floor, he took off the leather jacket, hung it on the back of the barstool, and danced in his black silk shirt. He had powerful hairy arms. I remember when they sat together between sets she’d stroke his arm. Like this.

  Did he take her into a room? I asked, overcoming an onset of nausea.

  Nah, he didn’t. She didn’t go in with anyone that evening. I remember, because I asked her what was going on, and she said, It’s my period and I don’t feel like giving blowjobs. Not tonight.

  Do you know that guy’s name? Have you seen him again?

  No to both questions, Captain. I’m sorry.

  It’s I who am sorry. Do you remember by any chance whether they left the club together, this guy and Kerry?

  No sir, I can tell you definitely they didn’t. Here is what I remember. Kerry left early that evening—early for her—and before she left she made a telephone call. She was leaning on the bar and speaking loud over the music, so I could hear what she said. She told the car service to cancel her car, she wouldn’t need it. I asked her why, and she said she needed to clear her head; she’d walk to the subway. And she gave me fifty dollars. Just like that! So I know exactly when she left, and I remember seeing the guy at the other end of the bar talking to some broad.

  Did you hear him speak?

  Sure, spoke English like a Russki.

  The three of us left the room. I think I may have staggered, because of the two conversations, not the bourbon. On the way out we were intercepted by Johnnie, who expressed his eagerness to meet a war hero who was also a celebrated author. He’d Googled me as soon as he heard my name. Would I join him in a drink?

  I said I’d be delighted, as soon as I’d said goodbye to Eric and Pablo and thanked them.

  When I returned, Johnnie invited me to his office, a room slightly larger than the one in which I had talked to the others. He insisted on pouring me a small producer bourbon that indeed turned out to be very good and said how sorry he was about Kerry. An unusual girl, so beautiful, so intelligent, and so mixed up. Hard to understand.

  Impossible, I said.

  And yet, he replied, many of the girls who come here don’t come for money. Or money isn’t the main reason. Sex is mysterious. What disgusts you and me will turn someone else on.

  I nodded.

  My philosophy, he continued, is to give everybody here what they want. Exactly what they want without any obligation. No one forces the girls. They only do what they like. If they do this or that, a guy may give them this much or that much. Or nothing. It’s a free country!

  I understand, I told him. So this is not a club where you’d run into pimps.

  You might meet one if one of the girls invites him, but they don’t operate here. Strictly hands off! Johnnie told me portentously. Here we party.

  I do understand, I said. I hear there was a man here the night that Kerry died, a big black-haired man dressed in leather whom Pablo didn’t know and who didn’t seem to be like the usual customers. Kerry danced with him several times. I’m told she normally danced alone. Do you know by any chance who that was, do you know his name?

  I know how he got in. A girl brought him. She said his name was Boris. But that’s all.

  And the girl?

  Lena. I don’t know her last name. Semiprofessional hooker, I don’t mind telling you that. Big boobs. Not that good looking. I don’t see her since that night. When I text her, the message bounces. You want her number?

  He consulted his phone and dictated the number.

  I looked at him carefully. Nice black velvet suit. Ivory-colored silk shirt opened at the collar to the third button. A gold chain with a gold Virgin suspended from it. Nice black curly hair, nice face, nice smile. He must have fun with some of the girls. Kerry? Did that make any difference?

  Johnnie, I said, I think you know women very well. Why would a brilliant, highly educated, very successful girl like Kerry go for a guy like that Boris? Can you explain it? I assume they’d never met before. Couldn’t be for his conversation!

  Why did she come here and do what she did? he asked. You know, Captain, you get a sexy girl, and, even if she’s scared, a pimp is like catnip. Those guys have something you can’t bottle, you can’t duplicate, and it’s very strong. And, forgive me, a girl like Kerry…

  I thanked him. I’m glad to say I thanked him sincerely.

  As we parted, he expressed the hope that when we met again I would sign one of my books for him.

  X

  Scott said he’d like to go down to Le Raton after dinner, to speak to Johnnie, but in the end he agreed it didn’t make sense. It was pa
st eleven by the time we had gone over everything that had happened during the week and were ready to leave the restaurant, and he had an early shuttle to catch the next morning. What’s more, I really doubted that on a Friday night Johnnie would make time for us, even if he wasn’t spooked by Scott’s being along. My own immediate goal as far as the Rat was concerned, I told him, was to find Lena, perhaps through the telephone number Johnnie gave me. Talking some more to Pablo and Miguel and getting leads on any girls she seemed to hang out with was another possibility. Once we had her, I was convinced that we’d be able to zero in on Boris. These were tasks for which Martin and Lee were uniquely suited, and I’d already asked Martin to undertake them, after telling him first thing in the morning about my visit to the Rat.

  Bringing Scott up-to-date and answering his questions hadn’t been easy. I held nothing back—not even, once again contrary to Martin’s advice, what I did to Goran, or what I had learned about Kerry from my new friends at the Rat, although to do so filled me with burning shame. Those were details I omitted in briefing Martin. How could I do otherwise when I spoke to Scott? He was my best friend, the brother for whom I’d take a bullet anytime, just as I knew he’d take one for me. But no, what I’ve just written is not entirely true. I didn’t tell Scott that during the night, after coming home from the Rat Hole and lying in bed for hours motionless, unable to sleep and too wretched to get up, I found the answer to a searing puzzle, which was why Kerry didn’t go into a private room with any of the regulars that night or, much more astonishing, with Boris. She told Pablo it was because she had her period, but that had to be a lie. The police report Simon Lathrop relayed to me and Heidi made no mention of menstrual flow, and yet this was a detail too striking and important to have been simply overlooked. On the other hand, the report stated distinctly that, although no semen had been found, the condition of the organs was consistent with sex—vigorous though not necessarily violent sex. A puzzle? A paradox? I had the solution. Catnip, Johnnie had called it, those special charms of a pimp. Don’t go with anyone! Boris would have told her, in those Russki dulcet or perhaps rough tones, don’t go with anyone, and I fuck you later on bed like you’ve never been fucked. And my solution explained also why she went to that hotel. Don’t go with no one, he said, later we go hotel! Once there, of course, he wore a condom. Didn’t want to leave his business card. Or perhaps he never used a condom and never came. Didn’t need to. One of those sex athletes who can go for hours and hold it. At some point he said, Give arm and don’t move, here is syringe, you hold it and I help you shoot up with shit that’s better than any shit you ever tried….Or perhaps he killed her first and fucked her afterward. While she was still nice and warm. Yes, I held that back from Scott. I couldn’t bring myself to rob Kerry of the last vestige of her dignity. Or was it my own dignity I was sparing? It made little difference.

  For his part, Scott told me he’d sounded out the Agency lawyer with whom he worked most often and no longer believed that I—or for that matter he—was at legal risk for not having reported what we thought was Abner’s Amazon caper to the FBI or the NYPD.

  Our position has to be that we don’t know for a fact that a felony has been committed, Scott said. As simple as that. If we did know, it would be a different ballgame. The other side of the coin is that his—or anyone’s—being able to send those fake Amazon packages is fraught with such implications that we’d be very wrong to sit on this much longer.

  I couldn’t disagree. Especially since a second Amazon package arrived that morning while I was out running. Feng, who had ESP or had been warned by Martin, or perhaps both, told me he’d handled the package very carefully, wearing gloves, and had placed it in the far guest bedroom.

  Was I right to do that, sir?

  Exactly right, I told him and called Scott. He was still at the office, not being due to leave for the airport for another couple of hours.

  Shit, he said, here we go again. I’ll send the guys over.

  The same pair of explosives experts who’d visited just a few days earlier arrived with the same breakneck speed. It seemed that in small things the Agency couldn’t be counted on to fuck up.

  Clean, Captain, the older one reported after they’d done their thing. No trace of explosives. Do we send it to Langley?

  If you’re sure it’s clean, I’ll open it here.

  This time, the package was considerably bigger. Same perfect ersatz Amazon outside complete with bar codes and Amazon birthday gift wrapping. The guys were wearing gloves. I asked them to extract the gift card from its envelope. A pithy message: Your time has come. Use it on yourself, asshole! No signature.

  Do we keep going, sir? asked the senior operative.

  You bet.

  Same precautions. The present was ten feet of two-thirds-inch hemp rope with a hangman’s noose tied at one end.

  What the fuck! The younger operative started apologizing as the words left his mouth.

  At ease, I told him. A fucking maniac’s at work. Now that we know what this is, would you gentlemen send the package to Langley, the rope included? I won’t be using it, not just now, and they’ll want to look into the sender and the rest of this stuff. And now, how about some coffee and first-rate coffee cake? Homemade, and I believe fresh from the oven.

  Feng shepherded them to the kitchen.

  Scott laughed when I described his specialists’ visit. He didn’t laugh at much else.

  I wish this were a bad dream, he said, but it isn’t. I don’t like the stuff with this Goran fellow. A needless complication and it didn’t do a thing for Jeanette. By the way, I’ll see what we have on your pal Detective Walker and the Tannenbaum Society. An extreme-right secret society that’s not so secret, with police force and maybe Bureau members! God help us! Martin played his cards just right there.

  He’s great! I interrupted.

  I know, Scott continued. The salient fact is that you’re in Abner’s crosshairs. He’s convinced you have this goddamn file. If you think you fooled him by not mentioning it, you’re wrong. He’ll try to have you killed soon, before you give the file to the feds and before you make some sort of arrangement for someone else to hand it over in case you’re dead or unable to function. If he’s right, he wins the jackpot; if he’s wrong, he doesn’t lose much. What’s one more murder? As for your intentions, in case you think you’re going to get to kill Abner in some situation that can be described as self-defense, you’re out of your mind. And I hope you realize that if you do somehow assassinate him you’ll be up most likely for first-degree murder in a Texas court—because where else but in Texas would you do it—and it just so happens that Texas has the death penalty. And hands it out! Who knows what a Texas jury would do to a guy who killed its leading wing-nut billionaire? Would the twelve Texan jurors give a shit even if everything in Kerry’s file has come out? Or what a Texas judge would do? How would you adjust to life in a Texas penitentiary? My advice to you, which I am one hundred percent sure is the advice poor Kerry would give you, is as follows: Get the fucking file to the U.S. attorney now. Make a real effort to find the rest of Kerry’s stuff, and if you don’t find it, let the feds look for it. Turn over to the district attorney in Manhattan what you find out about this guy Boris. Martin Sweeney will know how to go about that. Don’t try to kill the guy. And while all this is going on, don’t let Jovan or another one of those goons kill you. My son doesn’t need a dead godfather. One other thing, brother: if you really want to go to Sag Harbor tomorrow so it will be easier for Jovan to shoot you or blow you up, don’t take Heidi. She doesn’t need to get hurt. Take your .45 and, if you’re as smart as you used to be, take Feng and let him have your back. I know a lot about him.

  —

  Had Scott and I drunk one old Armagnac too many? I got up later than usual, and all the same went running in the park. The thought that it might be nicer to run on the beach apparently didn’t cross my mind. Feng prepared an English-style breakfast, which I ate with gusto, speed-reading the Times. B
reakfast finished, I threw a couple of sweaters, my running shoes, .45-caliber ammo, and the Ka-Bar into the duffel. The Colt I stuck into my waistband. Next I called the garage and asked for my car to be out at ten. As part of the exorcism process I’d embarked on, I had traded in Harry’s Audi for a Volvo station wagon. Since the curse on the Sag Harbor house, alas, wouldn’t lift, I had driven the Volvo there only once or twice before leaving for Italy, and never since I returned. The guys at the garage, though, had been running the engine every few weeks to keep the battery in shape, and Ricardo, the boss man, reported proudly on the phone that it was waiting for me ready to go, just a little dusty.

  No, Feng, I’m not taking you with me this time, I told him the second time. Really. This time no, next time yes. It’s a deal. Back on Sunday evening, unless I stay until Monday, in which case I’ll call.

  My Sag Harbor housekeeper, Mary Murphy, was expecting me around twelve-thirty. I’d called my painter neighbor and Harry’s friend, Sasha Evans, and invited her to dinner. I called again to confirm and said, Sure, I’d be delighted to come to her house instead.

  Anbar Province and Helmand had fried my brains. It was ten, and I hadn’t called Heidi to say, as I had told Scott I would, that I wouldn’t take her with me and we’d have dinner instead, anyplace she liked, Sunday or Monday. A message came on: Hi, this is Heidi! I’m away for the weekend. If you wish to leave a message, please do so.

  Heidi, I cried out, dismayed, I wish you hadn’t done this, really….

  Naturally, there was no answer.

  I opened the email on my iPhone. She’d sent a message: What’s happened to your manners, Captain Dana? Instead of driving me out to Sag Harbor and entertaining me by your conversation, you’ve obliged me to get my old Mini out of the garage and make the drive by myself! You might try to redeem yourself by taking me to lunch at the American Hotel and giving me the best guest bedroom, but I’m not sure it will work. Your disappointed partner, H.