by R. J. Jagger
“He is but think two birds, one stone.”
She swallowed.
“Will you help me?”
Suddenly Teffinger’s cell phone rang and a man’s voice came through.
“You left me your number.”
“Rail?”
“Yes.”
“That was quick.”
“I’m right behind you in a black Mustang. Do you see me?”
Teffinger turned.
The man was there, almost on their tail, holding a phone to his ear.
“I see you.”
“Have the good Miss Dandan drop you off at the first bar. I’ll buy you a beer.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Sure it is,” Rail said. “We walk in, we talk, we walk out and go in separate directions. No funny stuff from your end and none from mine. We have a thirty minute truce.”
Teffinger swallowed.
“No.”
The Mustang dropped back, swung around a corner and disappeared from sight.
Rail said, “I didn’t kill Kelly Nine but I know who did. I’ll give you his name in exchange for the Van Gogh.”
“Bullshit,” Teffinger said. “You killed Kelly. You also killed Susan Smith.”
“Susan Smith isn’t dead.”
“Then where is she?”
“I’ll tell you. Are we going to meet or not?”
“Call me back in an hour.”
He killed the line.
74
Day Eight
July 15
Tuesday Afternoon
Late Tuesday afternoon Teffinger pushed into the guts of a corner dive off Haight Street called the Dusty Beat. Deep in the dim lighting two half-clad hookers sandwiching a loud drunk in a cheap suit turned to check him out.
One blew him a kiss.
The other could care less.
Teffinger walked past them to the man in the last booth, the man with the ponytail, the man with the solid chest and python arms, the man with the GQ face and the white cotton shirt rolled up at the cuffs.
A draft sat on the table, waiting for Teffinger.
He slid in and took a long swallow.
It was his brand, Bud Light.
Rail extended his hand and said, “Rail.”
Teffinger shook it.
“Teffinger.”
The man’s grip was a vice.
“The first rule of what I do is to never get attached to the target,” Rail said. “With Kelly Nine I broke that rule. You know her. You can understand how that could happen.”
Teffinger nodded.
“Who hired you to kill her?”
“Oscar Benderfield.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t know the ultimate source,” Rail said. “Benderfield never disclosed his clients. It was better for everyone that way.”
Teffinger looked for lies.
He found none.
“I fell in love with Kelly,” Rail said. “I knew from moment one that it was a problem and I didn’t care. What I did care about was keeping it quiet. I told her about my involvement in the black market. I showed her the Van Gogh to prove what I was saying was true. There was a chance she would reject me at that point but it was a chance I had to take.”
“You never told her you were a killer.”
Rail shook his head.
“Of course not.”
“Then she never loved you back because she never knew who you really were,” Teffinger said.
Rail frowned.
“You’re trying to hurt me,” he said. “That’s not productive. You have something I want and I have something you want. We need to focus on being productive.”
Teffinger took a swallow of beer and hardened his eyes.
“The Van Gogh disappeared, you knew Kelly was behind it because she was the only one who knew about it, you followed her to Denver and killed her.”
Rail shook his head.
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Sure you did. Just admit it, you’ll feel better.”
“Like I said, I was in love with her,” he said. “The problem was that I was hired to kill her. My falling in love with her didn’t change the fact that someone out there in the deep dark world wanted her dead. Sooner or later my delay would be viewed as a default. The contract would be deemed terminated. At that point both she and I would be targets. So, I stayed around in the shadows waiting for my replacement to show up. I wanted to find out who was behind it all to get him to back off or kill him if it came to that. When Kelly went to Denver it was only supposed to be for a few days, to see her family and friends. I followed her there to protect her.”
“So you still had the Van Gogh when you left?”
“Yes.”
“You did?”
“Yes. It disappeared afterwards.”
Rail pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, tapped two out and extended one to Teffinger, who declined. Rail lit his from a book of matches, blew smoke and said, “She went out with you while she was in Denver. That was a shock to me. It was storming out. I waited outside in that storm in your backyard hour after hour and waited for the two of you to return.” He hardened his face. “I saw the two of you on the couch. I saw you screwing her. I saw her riding you the exact way she rode me.”
Teffinger remembered the night.
He remembered the storm.
He remembered the couch.
He remembered the sex.
He remembered every detail.
“So you got jealous and killed her.”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Rail said. “What I did was leave. I just pointed my face into the rain and walked away, right out of her life and right out of my life. I left her to my replacement. I didn’t know that he’d actually show up that same night. That was a strange coincidence. But I knew he’d show up sooner or later and when he did, I wouldn’t be there any more to protect her. She was as good as dead the minute I walked away.”
“So who was your replacement?”
“I’ll give you his name,” Rail said. “First let’s talk about the Van Gogh.”
Teffinger shook his head.
“No, first let’s talk about Susan Smith,” he said.
Rail shrugged.
“Sure, why not? I was hired by a private investigator named Fisher to kill Susan Smith,” he said. “He was a conduit, similar to how Oscar Benderfield played things, being paid by a lawyer named Jack Colder. I took Susan Smith out of a Denver nightclub. I danced with her and licked her ear and told her I wanted to do a lot more of that, except between her legs. That was the night you killed Colder, apparently thinking that he was the one after her when in reality he was trying to call the whole thing off. He was there to protect her. Life twists in weird ways, you have to admit.”
“Then you killed Fisher,” Teffinger said.
Rail nodded.
“He was a flake,” he said. “I gave Susan the oral reward, by the way. Never lie to a woman. Later she told me something you might find interesting. She told me she killed a man named Seth Lightfield, a dancer, apparently. She said now I knew her darkest secret. It was her way of trying to convince me that if I let her go she’d never tell the cops about me because now I had something just as bad on her.”
“Why’d she kill him?”
“They were lovers,” Rail said. “She took up with him after she got out from under that lawyer, Colder. It turned out that he wasn’t as true to her as she was to him. So there were are again, back to the world’s oldest motive.”
Teffinger processed it.
It could be true.
She said she suspected Colder of doing it but that could have been a ruse to keep the light off her. If that was actually true, it was more and more of a tragedy that Teffinger killed Colder.
“So what did you do with her?”
“I’ll tell you after we talk about the Van Gogh.”
“You said before that she’s alive.”
&n
bsp; “She is.”
“Then tell me where she is.”
“I will but first we have to talk about the Van Gogh,” Rail said. “I’m being more than fair here. So far I’m the one doing all the talking.”
“First let’s talk about one more thing,” Teffinger said. “You’re after me or Del Rey or both of us. Tell me why and tell me who’s behind it.”
Rail looked confused.
“I’m not after either one of you.”
“That’s a lie. You were on the dock last night. You were smoking, just like you are now. You ripped the wings off a bird. You tried to draw me away so you could double back and take Del Rey.”
Rail wrinkled his face in disgust.
“Someone ripped the wings off a bird? That’s sick—”
75
Day Eight
July 15
Tuesday Night
Tuesday night after dark Teffinger and Del Ray by-passed the hotel elevator, took the fire stairs down to street level and disappeared out the back side of the structure into the service alley. They stayed in the shadows for two blocks, flagged down the first cab they saw, had the driver zigzag this way and that until they were sure they weren’t being followed, and then got dropped off on Waverly Place, which was an alley in Chinatown between Stockton and Kearny, sometimes called the street of painted balconies.
From there they walked a block over.
Two doors down a green neon dragon hung over a wooden door. Scribed on that door were the words Green Dragon Oriental Massage.
They entered that door and found themselves in another time and place. Peaceful water trickled out of bamboo into a shallow pool. Soft music dripped out of hidden speakers. Lush red linens textured the walls. A vanilla scent perfumed the air.
A young Chinese woman in a tightly wrapped kimono emerged from behind a wall of hanging beads.
“This way,” she said.
They followed her down a corridor where the woman opened a locked door with a key and then escorted them up a stairway where she unlocked another door.
They entered and found themselves in a small apartment.
The window coverings were drawn tight.
The lighting was soft.
A woman on a couch got up, walked over to Del Rey and said, “You’re a lucky woman, to have him.” Then to Teffinger, “This place belongs to a friend of mine. No one will ever find me here. Del Rey can stay here too if you want her to.”
“We’ll see.”
They poured wine and then Teffinger got to the point.
“The Van Gogh doesn’t belong to Rail,” he said. “It belongs to someone else. Rail only had it because he was brokering a deal for the man. You took it at exactly the wrong time. Rail had already taken a $2,000,000 earnest money deposit from the buyer. He was supposed make the exchange the next week, meaning deliver the painting to the buyer, collect the full purchase price and then turn that money over to the seller, less his 20 percent commission. Needless to say none of that went down. The seller wasn’t happy. To stop a bad precedent, Rail needed to be dead. His only option was to disappear off the face of the earth until he could get his hands back on the painting and just hope that he could make things right again.”
Dandan frowned.
“What about the two million?”
“Rail kept it,” Teffinger said.
“That was stupid.”
“He needed it to stay hidden.”
“I doubt that the buyer took too kindly to that.”
“That’s one way to put it. Rail’s been looking over his shoulder for over a year now, both shoulders in fact. When the painting came back on the market Rail traced it to San Francisco.”
“To me specifically?” Dandan said.
“To a point,” Teffinger said. “You were on a short list. It probably would have been only a matter of days before he figured it out completely. Of course, after he got my note on his boat and then saw us leaving together in the Porsche, he now knows for certain that you’re the one who has it.”
Dandan frowned.
“What are my options?”
Teffinger walked to the window, pulled the curtain back a smudge and looked out. He saw nothing there that shouldn’t be.
“Here’s what Rail proposes,” he said. “He still has one million left out of that two. He’ll turn that over right now to you for the painting.”
“It’s worth twenty all day long,” Dandan said.
“Hear the rest of the proposal. Once he gets the painting in hand he’s going to try to get deal back on track. The sale price, ironically, is exactly what you said, namely 20 million. The buyer still owes 18. Rail will try to get it and then hand over 16 to the seller, which is the purchase price less his 20 percent cut, which comes to 4 million. That will leave 2 million in his pocket. He’ll turn that over to you when everything is complete.”
“So my total is 3?”
“Yes.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“It’s not your painting,” Teffinger said.
“It’s not his either. My broker has inquiries coming in at 21 and 22. I’d be crazy to settle for 3, especially when 2 of it is on the come. We both know I’ll never see it.”
Teffinger shrugged.
He couldn’t disagree with the last part.
Then he narrowed his eyes and said, “When Rail gets the painting he’s going to tell me who killed Kelly. He also says Susan Smith is still alive. He’s going to tell me where she is.”
“He’s lying to you. Like you said before, he’s been looking over his shoulders for over a year. He’ll say anything to get out from under it all. He’s lying right to your face. All he wants is the painting and he’ll say anything to get it.”
“I don’t think he’s lying. But either way keep in mind that if you don’t do a deal he’ll kill you sooner or later. That’s the end game. My advice is don’t let greed suck you into an early grave.”
Dandan topped off her wine, took a long swallow and looked Teffinger in the eyes.
“I’ll call you in the morning with my decision,” she said. “It’s too much to process right now.”
“Fine. But have a final answer by nine o’clock.”
“I’ll call you at nine.”
They left.
76
Day Eight
July 15
Tuesday Night
Outside a cold drizzle dropped down that hadn’t been dropping down before. “Dandan’s a greedy little bitch,” Teffinger said. “She’s not going to be thinking about anything tonight. She’s playing us off until morning so she can move the Van Gogh to a new location. She’s going to try to sell it herself and then disappear, even if it means she’ll have to spend the rest of her life worrying about Rail.”
“You think?”
He nodded.
“I can’t let her greed get in the way of Susan Smith.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning we need to get to the painting before she does.”
Del Rey wrinkled her brow.
“You gave her your word before she ever told you about the painting,” she said. “You wouldn’t even know about it if it wasn’t for her putting her trust in you.”
That was true.
“You can’t betray that trust,” she said.
“I don’t want to.”
“But you’re going to?”
“Pretend you’re Susan Smith for a minute,” he said. “What would want me to do?”
“Nothing because I’d be dead.”
Teffinger shook his head.
“You’d want me to help you. You wouldn’t care about an old piece of canvas.”
Del Rey held Teffinger’s hand. “You think she’s alive because that what you want to think,” she said. “I have to agree with Dandan on this one. Rail’s lying to you. If Susan was still alive, why wouldn’t she come forward?” A beat then, “This isn’t about Susan Smith. This is about Kelly Nine. You want to avenge her death.”
&
nbsp; Teffinger went to deny it.
No words came out.
“It’s about both,” he said. “It’s also about finding the source of the person who put a contact on Kelly. That same person might have one on you. So this is about you too if you want to get right down to it.”
“I still think Rail’s lying about that too,” she said. “He’s the one with the contract on me, or you, whichever.”
“No, he’s definitely telling the true on that one,” Teffinger said. “Think about it. He was initially hired by Oscar Benderfield to kill Kelly. He didn’t follow through and a second person had to be hired. At that point Rail had burned his bridges with Benderfield. Benderfield would never hire him again, not in a million years.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Del Rey said. “Benderfield gave Rail’s name to his P.I. buddy in Denver, Fisher, remember? Obviously the bridge wasn’t totally burned.”
Teffinger chewed on it.
He hadn’t thought of that angle.
It wasn’t totally crazy.
“We’re not going to figure it out right now,” he said. “Right now what we need to do is get the Van Gogh in our hands so we can keep all the options open.”
“I still don’t think you should betray Dandan’s trust.”
“I’m not betraying her trust,” he said. “I’m saving her life. That’s what she wanted me to do, protect her.”
Del Rey wasn’t impressed.
“There’s a saying,” she said. “To betray someone else is to betray yourself.”
They took a cab to Avis, rented a white 4Runner and pointed the front end across the Golden Gate Bridge towards Sausalito with the wipers swishing back and forth to a slow demonic beat.
Thirty minutes later they were at the marina.
“Wait here,” Teffinger said.
“Nick, I still don’t think we should do this.”
“Just wait here.”
He climbed around the security gate and took one careful step after another down the slippery docks. No one was around, or if they were they were sealed up in their boats doing whatever they did in there.
He made his way to Dandan’s Island Packard without slipping into the water.
