Blackwell elbowed the door open and stood in the rain with the other men. It wasn’t a downpour yet but was coming down hard enough to be uncomfortable. Carolla and the Mexican both backed up a couple of paces to give him room. Santiago was a big man, but Blackwell still towered over him. Blackwell’s size made him an intimidating presence and had always been one of the secrets of his success in this sleazy business of being a fixer.
The grave markers looked sad and forgotten standing in the tall, dead grass. Blackwell looked past his hired men to the freeway beyond the chain-link fence. Trash had snagged in the links, blown by the wind but unable to escape.
Carolla was clean-shaven and his frames were heavy and black. The lenses looked thick enough that if he took them off the world might disappear from in front of him. He was a narrow man with a serious face. Deep wrinkles were set into his forehead, like he spent most of his life frowning. The part in his hair was crisp. He had the look of a precise and efficient man. His blue button-up shirt was already specked from raindrops.
“Where is the girl?” Blackwell asked.
“She is at the warehouse, as we told you earlier,” Carolla answered. He was irritated having to come here and be intimidated like this.
Blackwell’s eyes moved over them. “Is she alive?”
Carolla nodded. “We decided to wait for your word before disposing of her.”
“What about the other one?”
“They are both at the warehouse.”
“She’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“You killed the wrong woman.”
“We are aware.”
“Do you have any idea how stupid someone has to be to kill the wrong person?” His tone was flat but firm.
“It was a mistake.”
“You were given a photo.”
“There was confusion. The woman in the photograph was not there.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Carolla hesitated a beat to arrange his thoughts, then cleared his throat to speak. Santiago stared silently ahead like a big, dumb ape.
“We arrived as instructed,” Carolla said. “This was around one in the morning. We went to Ingram’s apartment first, yesterday evening, to do the job because her car was parked outside, but turned out she wasn’t home. We had watched from the street for hours, but I figure she must have slipped out another way. Either way, we missed her. So we were confident she would be staying the night with Cortland. We found the apartment and Santiago stood out of sight while I knocked on the door. A woman opened the door and we forced her inside and pinned her to the floor.”
“This wasn’t Ingram?” Blackwell interrupted.
“Correct,” Carolla answered.
“Continue.”
“We were prepared to kill both of them and make it look like a burglary, again as instructed, but Cortland was already completely unconscious in bed. I checked his pulse and he seemed alive, so I thought it smarter to choke out the girl and make her death look like kinky sex. Make it look like Cortland got a little rough with her and took things too far.”
“No bullets?”
“No bullets.”
Santiago added nothing. He remained expressionless. Blackwell decided he probably didn’t know enough English to follow the conversation.
No bullets was always preferable to leaving a bloody mess, but these morons had complicated a simple situation. Getting rid of two bodies wasn’t much more complicated than getting rid of one, but they had been forced to snatch Ellen Ingram off the street during daylight. That meant more leering eyeballs to worry about. Indoors at night was fairly simple to control. Out in the open in daylight was not. There were a million variables to consider, but sometimes, like this time, there seemed no other choice, because Nick Cortland would be waking up to find a dead body in his bedroom and there was a huge risk that Ingram might go into hiding then pop back up at a very inconvenient moment. They simply couldn’t afford for that to happen.
Blackwell didn’t care a thing about this Cortland guy other than how his questions might get in the way and complicate things. All things considered, it probably would have been smarter to put a bullet in both him and the woman and make it look a burglary as planned.
Blackwell scratched at the stubble under his chin. This was a very dangerous game. There was no option other than to kill Ingram. Blackwell didn’t like that. He preferred having as many options as possible.
The rain was becoming annoying and Blackwell was ready to get back inside the car and pour a drink and light another cancer stick.
“The girl has to go,” he said.
Carolla nodded, eyes drifting across the three acres of weeds and grave markers. There were no other cars in the cemetery, no one grieving or placing flowers. He glanced around nervously, turning his head to look over his shoulder.
“We will take care of it,” Carolla said.
“You know what to do?”
“There is a construction site twenty minutes from here. We will put a bullet in Ingram’s head, then toss both bodies in a hole and use a bulldozer to bury them under two tons of rock. No worries.”
Blackwell didn’t react. The task sounded simple enough but these two clowns had already managed to jack up their first assignment of the day. He wasn’t too confident that they could do as told without any additional complications.
“Don’t screw this up.”
“Not a problem,” Carolla said, drops of rain visible on the lenses of the glasses.
“Get rid of the bodies tonight. Make them disappear forever. Don’t contact me until it’s done.”
Blackwell got back inside the limo. Carolla and Santiago watched the car wind up the lane and turn back into the street. Santiago grunted something under his breath that caused Carolla to nod.
“I’ll let you kill her,” Carolla said, “but I get to bury them.”
CHAPTER 17
I had dinner plans. My mind was a million miles away but there was no way in the world I was going to miss dinner with Nate and my ex-wife.
Connie is remarried to a very successful corporate attorney for one of the big Wall Street banks, and Richard and I get along great. That makes a tough situation considerably more tolerable. Divorce sucks no matter what, but when all the parties involved decide to be mature adults and get along and treat each other with respect and kindness, well, let’s just say it has allowed Nate to be able to adjust to things much more smoothly than he probably would have otherwise.
We have dinner twice a month like clockwork. Usually on the weekends and sometimes during the week if schedules allow. Sometimes I’ll drop in at their place on the Upper West Side, but usually we just meet at a restaurant like tonight. Richard frequently joins us but often he lets me and Connie and Nate have a little time for ourselves. Like I said, he’s a good guy and I’m happy that he and Connie managed to find each other. He does a fine job of taking care of both of them. Richard has two girls from a previous marriage and they seem to adore their stepbrother.
Tonight the girls were with their mom so Richard joined us. I was running late so they were at the table when I arrived. Richard stood to shake my hand. He’s built nothing like me, which I find interesting. He’s kind of small and wiry, with thinning blond hair that looks like it started falling out in high school. I apologized for my tardiness but I think they hardly noticed.
I immediately grabbed Nate and put him in a headlock.
“Have you ordered dessert?” I asked him. That’s always the first thing I ask him before dinner has arrived because for whatever reason it totally cracks him up.
“Nooooo, of course not, Dad!” he said, making it sound as though I’ve just asked the most ridiculous question he’s ever heard. “We haven’t even had dinner yet!” And so it goes, every other week, twelve months a year.
I kissed Nate’s mother on the cheek and she smiled but remained seated.
“You look amazing as always, Connie.”
“I couldn’t agree more,�
� she said. Typical Connie.
We’ve made much better friends divorced than we ever did when we were married. One of those inexplicable anomalies in life. Something to do with chemistry, I suppose.
A waiter showed up with wine and I was happy to introduce alcohol to my blood stream. Nate got a root beer and couldn’t drink it fast enough. The restaurant was one of our favorites. The fish there was great and I decided to go with the grilled salmon.
Nate was excited to tell me more about his day and I looked straight into his eyes and hung on every word to show him he had my full attention even though I damn well knew he couldn’t see me. I could have been totally zoned off and staring into space and he wouldn’t have known the difference, but I would, and that’s not the way I parent my son. I’m going to give him all of me even if I’m the only one aware of it. It’s a cosmic kind of thing, and I think it matters. I just think the love somehow rubs off of me and onto him and he knows in those moments that I’m one hundred percent focused on only him. He was still wearing his school clothes but his shirt was unbuttoned and his favorite Star Wars T-shirt was visible underneath. He had nearly worn that thing to rags. I really couldn’t believe it still fit. It was a Christmas gift from me, the first Christmas after the divorce. He had only recently discovered the joys of science fiction, and he wore that shirt every day during the entire month of January. His mother was forced to wash it every forty-eight hours just so the garment wouldn’t sprout legs and walk off from the nasty kid funk. There were times I swore I saw stink waves wafting up from it.
It was a pleasure to lose myself in family conversation and great food. The events of the day, if only for a short time, drifted to the back corners of my mind, though each time my eyes passed across the windows that looked out onto the night, I was reminded that my world had turned upside down. Connie and Richard discussed business while I entertained my son. Nate worked on his cheeseburger and fries as he shared all the juicy gossip from his second grade social circle.
I suddenly realized Connie had spoken to me but I hadn’t heard the question. I was smiling from something Nate had said as I looked at her. She always ate like a bird, pushing pasta around her plate like she was trying to make it disappear without actually consuming it. Her eyes watched me expectantly.
“Are you still seeing Ellen?” she asked, repeating the question.
I was thankful for my mouthful of salmon. It gave me the better part of a minute to come up with a reasonable response.
“She stays busy,” I replied, then took a quick drink of wine.
“But you are still dating?” Connie wasn’t Ellen’s biggest fan.
“Yes.”
“Good for you, I guess,” she said, returning her attention to her pasta. Her tone told me everything I needed to know about her opinion.
My entire afternoon had been consumed by matters revolving around Terry Burgess. I had fielded dozens of phone calls from people in the industry wanting to find out what had happened. Turns out Terry had more friends that Mark Zuckerberg. Many of the calls came from clients responding to the memo Louis had put together. Many of those clients had gotten into business with our agency specifically because of Terry or his father. The day was a blur.
Carmen had called from the plane and we briefly discussed funeral arrangements. For a woman who rarely stopped talking long enough to catch a breath, her words were few.
Still no word from Ellen. Calls to her cell went directly to voice mail. After leaving the office I made a stop at the Whole Foods where she worked. The manager told me they had her scheduled to work but she hadn’t shown up. He wasn’t happy about it but his disposition shifted to mild concern when I mentioned that her car had been stolen.
“If there was an emergency, she should have called,” he told me.
“I agree,” I said. “That would have been best.”
Ellen’s roommate was rarely home, and I didn’t have her cell number. Jill didn’t strike me as someone who was going to be overtly concerned about Ellen’s well-being. She was quite strange and I had always found her passively hostile to me. I secretly believed she was gay and resented my relationship with Ellen.
Nate wanted cheesecake for desert. I ordered a big slice so I could steal a few bites. He talked nonstop. He is such a great conversationalist, and I suspect that is because of his loss of sight. Unlike the vast majority of kids his age (or for that matter, anyone under the age of 60) he is not distracted by iPads or Xboxes or the endless stream of mindless crap on television. He’s a great listener in a world that seems to have a huge shortage of great listeners.
We said goodbye outside the restaurant after Nate told me one final terrible joke. I put them in a car and sent them on their way, then grabbed a taxi back to my building. I didn’t go up to my apartment but instead went to the garage to get my Mercedes.
I drove to New Jersey and found the impound lot where the police were holding Ellen’s car. Tall chain-link surrounded the impoundment yard. I parked at the curb across the street and walked over and stood at the fence. It was getting late so it was hard to see much. I went inside and spoke to the person at the front desk. A man wearing coveralls and a trucker’s hat led me out a side door and across the gravel yard to rows of impounded vehicles. He carried a clipboard and stopped several times to run his finger down a printed page.
“Over there,” he said with a nod of his head, gesturing to the third row of cars.
The Acura was the second car in the row, dumped between an ancient Corvette and a Toyota minivan. I stood with my arms folded and stared at the remains. I never would have recognized it as Ellen’s car. What remained was little more than the frame. Melted rubber, melted plastic and foam, melted aluminum, every inch of steel charred completely black. It reeked of toxic fumes. What I was looking at did not set my heart at ease. I walked around and squatted at the license plate. The edges had curled slightly from the immense heat. It was definitely Ellen’s tag. So, she was missing and her car was destroyed. I suddenly had a million new questions to add to the million already in my mind.
Where could she be and what had happened?
I made a quick call to Detective Ballard to get the address where the car had been discovered. I was there in twenty minutes, standing in the spot where flames had consumed the Acura with headlights from my Mercedes illuminating the burn marks on the asphalt. I walked back and forth, studying the scene, mostly staring down between my feet. I stared at the four spots where the tires had been reduced to goo. The empty lot was surrounded by weeds. The area was dead. No homes, and the only functioning industries were likely sex or drug related and highly illegal.
I’d seen enough. I hurried back toward New York, my mind no nearer an explanation than before. In fact, the events of the day were now more of a mystery than ever.
CHAPTER 18
The man’s name was Dexter and last night he had committed murder. It was his first time to kill someone and the event had kept him awake all night. Dexter wasn’t really his name but he was never going to be able to use his real name ever again. During the night in a hotel in midtown Manhattan he had showered six times, desperate to wash the guilt of the crime off himself, but nothing helped. He wanted to get drunk but this wasn’t the time for such recklessness. It was vital that he remain sharp and sober and keep his wits about him.
He sat on the bed with a duffel bag beside him and ran through the next steps of his plan slowly and methodically in his mind a dozen times. A pay as you go cell phone was in his hand and he had waited hours for a call that had yet to come. The cell remained silent. Something had gone wrong, he could feel it, but he resisted the urge to panic. There was simply no time for irrational fears. Instead, he focused on the next step of the plan.
Dexter put the cell phone away and grabbed the duffel and took the elevator down to the hotel lobby. It was still dark out and the moon was blotted out by ominous layers of gray clouds. It was already beginning to rain. He wore a hooded sweatshirt and tugged the hood ov
er his head as he crossed traffic and jumped into a taxi. He told the driver to take him to LaGuardia airport. There was a long flight ahead of him, but if there was no trouble he expected to be in California in a few hours.
* * *
The men had been gone for hours but Ellen knew they could be back any minute. She had no idea what time it was. She was freezing inside the cooler but there was no time to worry about being cold, at least not until she could figure out a way to keep them from getting to her.
She had tried to open the cooler door but it was locked. She had put her shoulder against the cold metal and pushed with all her might but it simply refused to budge. Tears ran down her face and quickly turned cold on her flesh. She shivered violently. There was clearly no way out, so her only option at the moment was to keep the men out long enough to give herself time to think.
The cooler was filled with big, cumbersome storage racks loaded with perishable goods. The racks stood nearly as tall as the ceiling. She leaned her weight against one of the racks in an attempt to slide it across the floor but the effort was a waste of energy. The rack seemed to weigh a million pounds. It didn’t look like they were bolted to the concrete floor but the shelves were loaded with thousands of pounds of bulky boxes. It was difficult to focus her thoughts through the cold and fear and exhaustion, but she pushed through it and hoisted herself up and began clearing the shelves one at a time by simply shoving boxes to the floor on the other side of the rack. It was slow, exhausting work but she couldn’t afford to take time to rest. When the shelves of the first rack were empty she dropped to the floor and squatted to catch her breath. Then she squared her back against one end and gritted her teeth as she pushed. The rack was still much heavier than she had anticipated and it would have to be moved at least ten feet to be able to block the door. Ten feet. Might as well have been a mile.
Her thighs burned as she heaved against the upright beams. She was about to give up when she felt the iron feet shift slightly on the concrete. Ellen glanced around and could tell that it had indeed moved. So she redoubled her efforts and within five minutes had managed to move it all the way to the cooler door. She collapsed in exhaustion.
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