by Ellen Hart
“Did you ever spend any time with Elvio outside work?”
“You sure you’re not a cop?”
“Positive.”
Dorsey grabbed a rag and wiped up a spill. “I have no idea why Elvio knifed him. Far as I’m concerned, it was totally out of character.”
“You ever talk to Moore?”
“A few times.”
“He say anything about Elvio—something that might shed light on why he died?”
“Look, lady, all I know is he started coming in last week. Spent every night in here drinking and watching the dancers. That’s it. We talked about the weather once. We talked about the upcoming Super Bowl while I pulled him a beer. I don’t spend my time keeping track of customers.”
“You never noticed if he paid particular attention to any of the dancers?”
“No. Now, if you’ll excuse me?” He began to kick a double-wide Stolichnaya box to the end of the counter, where he picked it up and stuffed it next to a side door. Jane figured it was all she was going to get.
11
One A.M. An hour before closing. Vince sat behind the computer in his office thinking that his desktop was as chaotic as his life. It had taken him almost an hour to find the article he’d been searching for, something he’d saved out of a sense of human solidarity, a connection that had been buried out of necessity long ago, though one that still tugged at him.
There he was on the screen. Burt Tatum. The long, narrow, austere face. With looks like that, he should have been a monk—or a paid assassin. Of all the guys on the team, Vince had been closest to Burt. They’d been best buddies ever since grade school, gone out for the same sports in high school, double-dated in college. When their friendship ended, as they both knew it had to, a large chunk of what had made Vince feel good about life had gone with it.
Scrolling past the photo, he read the details of his friend’s death. Tatum had been a science teacher at a middle school in suburban St. Louis. Fourteen months ago, he’d been gunned down in the basement of his home. According to the article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the police had developed a couple of promising leads. Vince followed the story closely and was sickened to learn that, in a matter of weeks, all the leads had dried up. Here it was more than a year later and nobody had been arrested for the murder.
At the time, Vince considered it a strictly St. Louis matter, a simple equation: Burt must have stepped into some deep personal shit and someone had come after him. Two recent events, however, had changed his mind.
First had been the death of the African American man in the alley outside GaudyLights. Initially, Vince’s only concern had to do with the effect the man’s murder might have on business. Learning that the guy was from St. Louis had not set well, though he’d brushed it off as mere coincidence. Then, after discovering Rudmann’s body last night at the motel—like Burt, shot in the chest at close range—his belief in simple coincidence had been shaken. He’d spent the rest of the night sitting on his living room couch, drink in hand, trying to work it out. Were the deaths connected? Was he in any danger? If the deaths were part of some payback scheme, who was behind it? Two members of the team were gone, murdered in the same way. The odds that he was going to live to see a ripe old age had been cut significantly. Still, he couldn’t quite bring himself to hit the panic button. Not yet.
Vince hadn’t heard from the fifth member of the team, Ken Crowder, in well over a year. He’d kept in touch with Crowder mainly because of his business success. In the back of his mind, Crowder was a card Vince hoped he might be able to play one day when he needed it. In his last e-mail, Crowder had mentioned that he’d bought himself a cabin in the mountains above Park City, Utah. He’d bragged about the great views from the front deck, how he could see all the way down the valley to a reservoir. Of all the Wildcats, Ken had been the most successful. He’d retired a rich man after selling his software company for $8.5 million at the age of forty-eight. Vince and Crowder occasionally shared a piece of Internet hilarity via e-mail and always sent cards at Christmas. This past year there had been no e-mails from Crowder and no Christmas card.
Scrolling through his address book, Vince found Crowder’s and shot him a quick note:
Hey, man, what’s up? I’ve got bad news. Rudmann’s dead. Murdered. With Tatum murdered last year, I can’t help but wonder what’s going on. Write when you get this. We need to talk. Let me know a good time to call—give me a phone number. Or e-mail me. ASAP. I need to know you’re okay.
Vince
For now, it was all he could do. That and transfer his Walther from the safe to the bottom drawer of his desk.
After getting up to lock his office door, he set up a line of coke, spreading the last of it across his teeth. Good thing he had an in-house dealer. Thus fortified, he locked the door to his office and went out to the main pit to see if business had picked up. He stood along the wall and watched a couple of stage rotations, depressed by the lack of the usual psychosexual drama. Heading upstairs, he found four of the nine suites empty. Even with the loud music pulsing, the place felt like a tomb.
After he got himself a double bourbon on the rocks from the bar, Diamond Brown, his assistant manager, caught his eye and walked him back down the hallway to his office.
“We got a problem with one of the bartenders,” she said.
Vince liked Diamond. She was somebody he didn’t need to micromanage. Saucy, wily, and beautiful enough to be one of the dancers herself—if she’d been twenty years younger—she knew how to get what she wanted from the staff. Vince had tried his best to seduce her on more than one occasion. So far, she’d managed to elude him, though always with the unspoken promise that it was only a matter of time before she succumbed. That was Diamond. She knew how to play the game.
“Jason Dorsey,” she said. “You know him?”
“The skinny kid?”
“He accused me of stealing from his tip glass.”
“Did you?”
She grinned. “Of course not, sugar.”
Her Southern accent drove him wild.
“But he may come talk to you about it. Just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
He moved in close, so tantalizingly near that he could almost taste her chocolate brown skin. “We may need to talk about this in more detail.”
“I’ll be around,” she said, drawing a finger across his chest as she walked away.
“Woof,” he whispered, carrying the bourbon into his office. As he closed the door and sat back down behind his desk, he felt suddenly depressed and jittery. For the next few hours he tried to get some work done, checking his e-mail every fifteen minutes to see if Crowder had written back. A knock at the door finally interrupted him. “It’s open,” he called.
Diamond stuck her head inside. “We’re done with the payout. Everyone’s leaving.”
“How’d we do?”
“You don’t wanna know. We’ve got some definite grumbling in the ranks. I’m taking off.”
“You could always stay, you know.”
“Not tonight, baby.” She winked. “See you tomorrow.”
Switching off the desk lamp, Vince leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the edge of a file cabinet, the darkness wrapping itself around him like a comfortable old sweater. When it came down to it, he was a simple man with simple needs. He wanted his business to thrive, a good sex life with an occasional pop of Viagra to invigorate the plumbing, enough money to live a comfortable life without financial worries, and for the world—and his past—to leave him the hell alone. Was that so much to ask? He sipped his bourbon, pissed, even a little bitter, that everything was always such a goddamn struggle.
When he heard the floorboards creak outside his office door, he dropped his feet to the floor and sat bolt upright. It wasn’t the first time the old wood floors had warned him someone was headed his way. Glancing at the time on the computer, he saw that it was a quarter of three. Surely everyone had gone by now.
Removing his pi
stol from the bottom drawer, he switched the light back on and moved carefully over to the door. He hid the pistol behind his back as he stepped out into the hall.
Ten feet away a man stopped dead in his tracks, his face hidden in shadows.
“Who’s there?” demanded Vince.
The man didn’t answer.
His voice rising, he shouted, “I asked you a question.”
“What are you hiding behind your back?”
“Tell me who you are and what you want.”
Moving under the light of a wall sconce, the weedy-looking guy said, “I’m Jason Dorsey. One of your bartenders. We need to talk.”
Vince relaxed. This was the guy who was steamed at Diamond. “Look, I don’t discuss business at this time of night. You want to talk to me, do it during regular business hours.”
“But this is important. I’m being cheated. Diamond has been—”
“Leave,” said Vince.
“That a gun behind your back?”
“You really wanna know?”
Dorsey raised his hands and started to back away.
“Shit,” grunted Vince, realizing that the kid would set off the alarm system when he opened the door. “I’ll come let you out.” He followed Dorsey at a distance. Once out on the floor, he reached under the bar and tapped in a code to switch off the alarm.
“Sorry I bothered you,” said Dorsey. Pausing halfway out the door, he turned and said, “Stay safe, now.”
“What?”
“Just … you know. Be safe.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“It’s just something people say.”
“Get the hell out of here.”
The kid hustled away.
“Irritating little fuck,” muttered Vince, feeling vaguely unsettled. What he needed was another bump of coke.
12
The static electricity in the cabin made Emmett’s hair stand on end. “Total bullshit,” he said, watching his onboard instrumentation go dead. This couldn’t be happening. Twenty years ago, maybe, but this jet had backup systems for its backup systems. He banked left, shouting at his sleeping first officer to wake the hell up and radio the air traffic controller at MSP. “We’re in trouble,” he said. “Tell them we’re in deep shit.”
Struggling against the hands gripping him, Emmett screamed, “Stop it. Let go!”
“Dad, wake up,” came a voice out of nowhere. “Come on. You’re having a bad dream.”
Blinking open his eyes, Emmett fell back to earth with a thud. “What? Roddy?”
“You were screaming so loud you woke me up.”
Except for the moonlight streaming in through the window, Emmett’s bedroom was dark. His son stood over him wearing nothing but pajama bottoms.
“You been drinking again?” asked Roddy.
“I couldn’t sleep. I’m so tired, but I can’t turn my mind off.” He sat up a little, pulled a pillow behind his back. What he didn’t explain was that when he did fall asleep, the nightmares came, returning him to that single crucial moment with a terrifying immediacy. “What did I say?”
“Weird shit. Instruments. Lights. Red. Blue. Radio static. It was all garbled.” Roddy eased down on the bed next to him.
It was still so vivid that Emmett couldn’t seem to shut it off, even when he was asleep.
“What’s wrong?” asked his son. “I got your message that you’d be late tonight. Where were you?”
“Had to go into the office.” Emmett was glad that it was nowhere near the airport. The very idea of entering the Lindbergh Terminal filled him with dread. “I’m trying to wrangle a leave of absence. I needed to talk to a guy in HR. When I was done I was so wired that I went to the Y.” He’d ended up in a bar, though he didn’t offer that piece of information to his son. “You were asleep when I got home.”
“You’re scaring me. I’ve never seen you act like this before.”
“I’m okay,” said Emmett, taking hold of his son’s arm, squeezing the tight muscles.
“You’re not. When was the last time you took a shower?”
“At the Y after I worked out.”
“Well, you need another one.”
Sitting up a bit straighter, Emmett said, “Maybe we should get in the hot tub. Come on, it’s cold out. It would feel good.”
“It’s the middle of the night. I’ve got school in the morning.”
“Oh, yeah.” He ran a hand over his face. “Sorry. I’m not thinking.”
Roddy switched on a lamp. “What’s all that?” He nodded to a stack of printed pages spread out on the bed next to his father.
“Just something I was reading.”
Roddy picked up a page and held it next to the light. “It’s on post-traumatic stress.” He searched his dad’s face. “Is that the problem?”
It was, in fact, part of the problem. As far as he could tell, he had PTSD in spades. Difficulty falling asleep. Feeling jumpy and easily startled. Pounding heart. Rapid breathing. Excessive sweating. Intrusive, upsetting memories. It was all there. He supposed he should go talk to a counselor or therapist. Not now, he thought, pushing the idea away. Not yet.
“You said you had a problem on your last flight,” said Roddy.
Emmett gave a stiff nod.
“What was it?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“I mean, like, did you almost crash the plane or something?”
“We came close.”
“Jeez. Was it your fault?”
“It’s … complex.” Emmett hadn’t filed a report yet. No one at AirNorth had said anything to him about it, but they would. It was only a matter of time. Questions he couldn’t answer heated up inside him like a furnace. “I can’t seem to concentrate.”
“We all screw up,” said Roddy, leaning forward, arms resting on his thighs. “Doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Right?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Could you lose your job over it?”
“I don’t want you to worry about anything. Everything will be fine. I can handle it.”
“But I am worried,” he said, sitting up straight. He picked the empty bottle of Scotch off the nightstand and held it up. “What is this? The second—third—bottle you’ve brought home.”
“I’ll stop. I promise. I took my last drink tonight.” Emmett’s attention was drawn to the windows. “What was that?”
Roddy swiveled around. Standing to get a better look, he said, “I think Mr. Roth’s backyard light just flipped on.”
“Oh.” Simple explanations were good. Very, very good. Emmett switched the light off. He needed the darkness.
“I’m going back to bed,” said Roddy.
“Son? Wait.”
“What?”
He hesitated. “I have a question. I know this may sound strange, but … do you … I mean, do you believe in God?”
“Me? Yeah. Why? Don’t you?”
“I used to.”
“But not now?”
Wrenching his eyes away from the window, he said, “Go back to bed. I may go down and take that hot tub. I’ll be quiet about it.”
Standing over him, scrutinizing him one last time, Roddy said, “Chill, okay?”
Good advice, thought Emmett. He wished he could take it.
13
Early Wednesday morning, Jane had just stepped out of the shower when she heard Nolan’s cell phone begin to beep. He’d given it to her last night before she left the hospital, along with his wallet, his watch, his keys, and his ring. She’d tossed it all on the top of her dresser when she got home from GaudyLights.
Racing back to her bedroom, she clicked the phone on. “Hello?”
“Oh, I must have the wrong number,” came a woman’s voice.
“Are you looking for A. J. Nolan?”
“Who’s this?”
“Jane Lawless. I’m—”
“Oh, sure, I know who you are. You’re Alf’s friend. This is his sister, Fannie Lou. You’ve
never answered his phone before, so that kind of threw me. Is he around?”
“He’s in the hospital. He’s scheduled for surgery this morning.”
“Oh, my, no. Why? Is it the bullet fragment in his back?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I’ve always worried about that. Our family’s been hit with so much trouble.”
“I’m so sorry about your son.”
“Thank you.” She was silent for a few seconds. “So, tell me. What’s happening to Alf? Why is he having the surgery?”
Jane explained about the pain and weakness in his leg, the tests, the specialist, and how the upshot was that the bullet had migrated and needed to be removed.
“He never called and told me,” said Fannie Lou, sounding hurt.
“It was all decided so fast. I’m sure he meant to, but they kept him busy with tests and consultations.”
“Truth be told, he’s not the best one for keeping in touch. How long will he be in the hospital?”
“I’m not sure,” said Jane. There was no point in worrying her with the potential ramifications of the operation. After coming home last night, Jane had scoured the Internet until nearly two in the morning reading everything she could find about bullet wounds to the spine. She’d done this once before, when Nolan was in the hospital the first time, right after he was shot. She’d come away then with the impression that all such surgeries were iffy at best. Her current search yielded the same results. Yet, needing to feel that she was doing something positive, she’d continued on, doing what the Internet allowed a person to do so easily—mistake information for real knowledge.
“Will you call me later today, let me know how everything went?” asked Fannie Lou.
“As soon as I know, you’ll know.” She wrote the woman’s number on the back of a magazine.
“He’s my older brother. I’ve always looked up to him.” She had such a sweet voice.
“I’ll tell him that. Say, since I have you on the line, I’ve always been curious about something. What does A. J. stand for? He won’t talk about it.”
