I didn’t know how to respond to that. “Towels are in the cabinet next to the sink,” I said.
She stood up and smiled. “Thanks,” she said.
As the shower ran, I got up and paced the living room. Johnny Trent had aimed Fiona at me for a reason. Was she a reward? Was one of the girls from the club standard issue for new members? Or was he recruiting her to spy on me, figure out what was going on in my head? If so, I’d be crazy to play along. Plus, there was the fact that I was already married. On the other hand, if I refused her, he’d be suspicious. He’d either lock me out of where I needed to be or find some other way to spy on me, something I couldn’t see coming.
The shower cut off. I stopped pacing. Before long she appeared in the doorway, dressed only in a towel. She had scrubbed off the caked-on makeup and the too-bright lipstick. Her hair was wet and hung straight to the small of her back. For the first time since I’d met her, I could see the pretty girl beneath the mask.
“I’m feeling a lot better,” she said softly as she let the towel fall. I didn’t move. She walked across to me, put her arms around me, and kissed me. Her lips were soft and sweet, and she moaned low in her throat as my own arms went around her. I broke the kiss and lay my head on her shoulder.
“What’s the matter, baby?” she whispered in my ear. “I’m pretty wiped out,” I said. “It was a long night.”
She took me by the hand. “Come on,” she said, “let me tuck you in.” She led me to the bedroom and drew me down onto the mattress with her. As I lay there wondering what to do, she unlaced my boots and pulled them off. The socks were next. She wrinkled her nose, balled them up, and tossed them out the door. Then she did something that surprised me. She slid up and snuggled onto my shoulder. “Sleep, baby,” she said. “I’ll be here when you wake up.” I didn’t think it would be possible to fall asleep with a naked girl tucked under my arm. I underestimated how tired I still was.
I AWOKE slowly out of the deepest sleep I’d had for a long time. Suddenly I realized that something felt very, very good. My eyes snapped open.
Fiona, still naked, was kneeling between my legs. She’d unzipped my jeans and taken me into her mouth. She moved her lips slowly up and down, her eyes on my face. I groaned in mingled pleasure and despair. She slowly slid me out of her mouth and smiled up at me, her hand moving slowly where her lips had just been. “Hey, sleepyhead,” she whispered before plunging back down on me.
“Oh, shit,” I grunted as she moved faster. This is not good, one part of me insisted. Like hell it’s not, answered another. Then both voices were drowned in the rising tide of pleasure. I heard my own voice crying out, felt as well as heard Fiona’s answering moan. Then she took me out of her mouth and slid her body up over mine. I slipped into her easily. “Oh, God,” she groaned, then leaned over to kiss me as she began riding me, hard and fast. She threw her head back, her eyes closed tight, moaning and gasping.
All I could do was hang on, the pleasure ratcheting higher and higher, taking me to the breaking point . . . then everything in my head exploded.
When I came back to my senses, Fiona was getting up. She darted to the bathroom. I heard the water running.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Fiona came back in, still smiling. “That was fun,” she said as she snuggled back into my arms.
“Ah . . . thanks,” I said.
“Anytime, stud,” she whispered. “And I do mean anytime.” The line sounded rehearsed, like something she’d seen in a movie. I felt my paranoia rising. She didn’t notice my tension, or if she did, she chose not to say anything. She kissed me on the chin and popped up out of the bed again. “I’d love to stay and do it again, baby,” she said, “but I gotta go to work.” I stole a glance at the clock. Two thirty. I remembered I had the night off. That was good. I didn’t think I could deal with the idea of watching Fiona onstage shaking her ass for strangers all night after what had just happened. Something occurred to me.
“Hey,” I said. She stopped putting her clothes back on and looked at me. “What the hell’s your real name, anyway?”
She looked surprised, then lowered her eyes shyly. “Why do you want to know?”
“I just think it would be a good time to find out,” I said. “All things considered.”
She laughed. “My birth certificate name is Susan,” she said. “Look, Susan—”
She interrupted me. “I like being Fiona. Susan’s boring.” She bent down and kissed me again. “See you later, alligator,” she said.
Oh, God. I thought. Kill me now.
I WANTED to go back to sleep and try to forget what had just happened, but I knew Steadman was probably climbing the walls wanting to know if I’d made it all right. I pulled out the cell phone and dialed.
“Glad you called” were the first words he said. “I was getting ready to send in the National Guard.” He paused. “You okay?”
Hell, no, I wanted to say, I just got the hell beaten out of me, killed a man, and cheated on my wife. “I’m fine,” I said. “A little bruised and banged up, but I’ll make it.”
“Tony,” he said, his voice guarded, “we picked up a report from the local cops. Last night, a Brotherhood member named Frank Coleman, aka Furry, was found dead. Apparent cycle crash.”
“Huh,” I said.
“I seem to recall that was the guy you’d had some trouble with.”
“Yeah.”
A long pause. “Anything you want to tell me, Tony?”
Glad you put it that way, I thought. “No,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. I really didn’t have anything I wanted to tell him.
I DON’T know how much fiona told him, but Johnny Trent seemed to relax his vigilance a little after that. In the weeks after my initiation, he began to trust me with more sensitive errands. I was allowed to go solo, without a chaperone. Sometimes another member would come along, but only if there was some need for extra muscle. Mostly I made pickups from meth labs, divided the product up, and delivered it to various dealers and clubs. I moved large parcels of cash to and from various places, with the money mostly ending up flowing one way, to Johnny or Nathan Trent. I got a pretty good idea of the layout of the drug distribution network. My “other duties” had cut back my hours at the club, but Johnny or Clay always made sure I had money in my pocket.
I GAVE Steadman regular, terse reports. If he thought something was wrong, he didn’t let on. I tried not to talk to Kendra. I knew she’d figure out if I was hiding something. I never had been able to lie to her. I could tell Steadman was getting antsy, wanting to put together the kind of massive, multisite raid that would get him onto the evening news, standing with the U.S. attorney behind a table piled high with seized drugs, cash, and weapons. I put him off. I wanted into the Trents’ other business. The tapes and DVDs that went out by mail. The ones that went to “special collectors.”
I got my first glimpse one day when Johnny Trent came up to the bar. “Axel,” he said, “I’m about to cut you in on the easiest money you ever made.”
“Okay,” I said.
“How’d you like to be in pictures?” I played it dumb. “What?”
“I hope you don’t mind, but Fiona and I were talking. She said you have the, ah, kind of talent we might be looking for.” He grinned. “I think she just wants another shot at you.” Fiona had hung around for a while, intimating she’d like to “get together” again, but I’d been putting her off. Her flirtation had turned to puzzlement, then irritation when I failed to pick up on her offer.
“Sorry, boss,” I said. “I’m still not getting you here.”
“We’ve got a little sideline going,” Johnny said. “We figured, we’ve got all these bitches around that guys want to drool over. They go home every night after the club closes and pull their puds thinking about Fiona or Ambyr or whoever. Well, why not take that and run with it?” I didn’t say anything, and he snorted with exasperation. “I’m talking video, my man. I’m talking a-dult enter-tainment.” He spaced the syllables out as if he were talki
ng to an idiot child.
“You mean fuck films?”
“Now you’re getting it, brother,” he said. “And the key word there is ‘fuck.’ You ever thought of being a movie star?”
“Shit,” I said. “Me? Fucking on camera?”
“Hey, from what Fiona says, you’ve got, ah, star quality.”
“Fiona talks too goddamn much,” I snarled.
“Hah,” he said. “That’s a bitch for you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like it.”
“Ah. That’s why you’ve been brushing her off?”
“That’s my business, ain’t it?” I snapped.
He held up his hands. “Hey, easy, brother,” he said. He was chuckling. “Guess you like to keep things private. That’s cool.” He leaned over the bar and whispered conspiratorially. “Ever change your mind, though, some of that shit’ll blow your mind. I’m talking two, three bitches at once, girl on girl, all kinds of wild-ass shit.”
I realized I was probably squandering an opportunity, but I didn’t think I’d be able to explain away my image in a fuck film to the Bureau when this was over. As Johnny was walking away, I tried a different line of attack. “Hey, Johnny,” I called.
He turned back. “Yeah?”
“Sorry for jumping on you like that, brother,” I said as humbly as I could.
“No problem.” He smiled. “I should have figured. Closemouthed guy like you wouldn’t be into flashing his cock on-screen.”
“No,” I agreed. “But, hey . . .” I hesitated.
“Yeah?”
“Pretty good money in that?” I asked as casually as I could. “Not on camera. I mean making ’em.”
Johnny’s smile faded. He studied me for a minute, and I felt my heart trying to climb into my throat.
“You know, Axel,” he said. All the good-buddy tone was gone. “I keep underestimating you. You hardly say shit, and so I make the mistake of thinking you’re a dumb-ass. But you’re not, are you?”
“Don’t guess so,” I said.
“A lot of brothers would have gone right for the pussy. You’re thinking about where the money is.”
I tried to keep my voice steady. “You got enough money, pussy’ll find you, right?”
“Right.” He turned and walked out. I let out the breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding and went back to work restocking the bar.
THE NEXT day, I woke up to a knocking on the door. I pulled on a pair of jeans and answered it. It was Johnny Trent. “Get dressed,” he said. “We’ve got someplace to go.”
The Suburban was waiting outside. Johnny drove. We didn’t talk. I tried to keep still, to keep from tapping my fingers on the armrest or my boots on the floorboard. It was torture, like being wrapped in a wet blanket, but I had to appear relaxed.
I was surprised by where we ended up, a nice suburban home on a nice suburban street. The place had a big, well-tended yard out front, complete with a large dog. Johnny pulled the Suburban up behind a new-looking Lexus parked in front of the garage. The dog, a mutt of indeterminate gender, raised its head, blinked, thumped its tail, and went back to sleep. Some watchdog.
The woman who answered the door didn’t seem at all taken aback by the spectacle of two leather-clad bikers on her nice middle-class street. “Johnny,” she smiled, “this is a nice surprise. Come on in.” She was in her late forties, tastefully dressed, every hair in place.
We followed her into the living room. I looked around. The place was gorgeous, with a high, beamed ceiling and skylights to let the afternoon sun in. Below the heavy oak beams, the room was spotless, furnished in standard middle-class style. I thought I recognized a Thomas Kinkade painting over the leather sofa, a small ivy-covered cottage with yellow light spilling out onto the ground in front of it.
The woman held out her hand to me, still smiling. “I’m Linda Spelling,” she said.
I took it, feeling a little surreal. “Axel,” I said. “Axel McCabe.” “So nice to meet you, Axel,” she said. The smile was beginning to unnerve me. There was something unnatural about it, something Stepford Wife-ish. For a moment, I had the insane thought that she might be some kind of robot.
“Charles is in the computer room,” she said. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”
“Give him this,” Johnny said, holding out a small foil-wrapped package.
Linda Spelling’s smile grew a half inch wider. “Oh, good,” she said brightly. “Charles was almost out of his medicine. He’ll be so grateful.” She walked out. We sat down.
“Nice place,” I said. Johnny just grunted.
In a moment, a man came in. He was as well dressed and groomed as his wife, but he had none of her self-possession. He was skinny, almost cadaverous, with sunken cheeks and a yellowish complexion. His long, skinny fingers twitched and tapped against one another nervously. He didn’t seem to want to meet our eyes. “Hi, Johnny,” he said in a hoarse, hollow voice.
Johnny nodded. “Chuck,” he said. He pointed at me. “This is Axel McCabe. He’ll be helping me out with this end of the business from now on.”
I stood up and shook hands with him. He kept his eyes downcast, like a whipped dog’s. He mumbled some unintelligible pleasantry.
“Why don’t you show Axel the operation?” Johnny said. Without speaking, Spelling turned and walked back out the door he’d come through. I looked over at Johnny, shrugged, and followed him.
We entered a room that looked as if it had started life as a spare bedroom. Now, however, it looked more like a computer nerd’s vision of heaven. There was a rack of computer equipment I couldn’t identify along one wall and a big computer desk along the wall adjacent, dominated by a huge monitor and a couple more tower cases. Words were scrolling across the monitor at a blistering clip. Fans whirred softly. Spelling was muttering something about commerce servers and affiliate networks.
“Hang on.” I stopped him. “Slow down. Exactly what’re you doing here?”
He shuffled over to the big leather office chair in front of the monitor and pulled out the keyboard. He typed a few lines, then hit a key. The words scrolling across the screen were replaced with a brightly colored Web site. “YoungPassion.com” was written in letters striped to look like candy canes.
“Okay,” I said. “Porn sites. I get it.” Spelling didn’t seem to hear me. He scrolled down, his eyes fixed on the screen. I had to look away from what I saw there. My heart was pounding like a drum in my chest. This was it. This was the center of what I’d been looking for. I tried to keep Spelling talking. “So how does this work?” I asked.
“Orders come in,” he mumbled. “Product goes out. Simple.” “Product? Like what?”
“Lots of people download the product. If they’ve got a fast enough connection. We ship DVDs to people who want them.” He worked the mouse. Another Web site popped up, this one called LolitaLuv.net He scrolled down for another moment, then shut it down. My skin stopped crawling.
“So where does all this, ah, product, come from?”
He shrugged. His attention had wandered from the screen and was now fixed upon the foil-wrapped package lying on the computer desk. He licked his lips.
“Chuck,” I said. “I asked you a question.”
He looked at me for the first time. His eyes took a few seconds to focus. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t make it. I just run the computers. Johnny brings me the files. I load them.”
“What about the DVDs?” I said.
He gestured vaguely out the door. “Burner’s in the other room. I try to keep up.” He was fixated on the package again. “I need to take my medicine,” he said. He picked up a manila envelope that lay on the desk next to the monitor and handed it to me. “Here’s the list Johnny wanted,” he said.
“Okay, Chuck,” I said. “Go take your medicine.”
He shuffled to the door. He stopped and turned back. “Will you be dropping off my medicine from now on?” he said.
“Probably. What difference does it make?”
“Don’t let that fool you,” I said. “Business isn’t going to change.” Hopefully, he was going to find out soon just how big a lie that was.
“I don’t mind the business,” he said. “But Johnny . . .” He stopped again. “I need my medicine.” He walked out, leaving me alone. I wanted more than anything else to walk over and smash every one of those computers, to rip YoungPassion.com and LolitaLuv.net right the fuck out of the World Wide Web. Soon, I told myself. Soon this shit will all be over.
I looked at the envelope. It was just closed with the little brass clasp, not sealed in any way. Carefully, I pried the clasp open and shook out the papers inside. It was a spreadsheet, divided into several columns. The first column was names, the second addresses. The third column was a list of sixteen-digit numbers, followed by a date. Probably credit cards. The last column contained a mix of letters and numbers. I didn’t know what those meant for sure, but since this was obviously the customer list, I suspected that those were codes designating various “products.”
I walked back out into the living room. I stopped dead in the doorway.
Johnny was seated in a leather recliner, kicked back and drinking a beer. Linda Spelling was seated on the couch across from him. She had her hands behind her head. She was naked from the waist up. She still had the same fixed smile, but there were tears running down her face, leaving tracks through her makeup.
“Sorry,” I choked out. “Didn’t know you were busy.”
Johnny got up. “I’m not,” he said. He grinned at Linda. “I was just bored. You got the list?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to look at the humiliated woman on the couch.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Let’s motor.” He walked over to where Linda sat on the couch and chucked her under the chin in a parody of fondness. “Gettin’ a little saggy there, Linda,” he said, a cruel smile on his face. “Might ought to consider getting a boob job.” He turned away, then turned back. “By the way,” he said, “just because Axel here’s going to be making this run from time to time, don’t think I won’t know if you try to fuck me over. And if I even think that, if I have even the slightest motherfucking suspicion that you’re trying to cheat me or that Chuck in there’s slacking off, it won’t be me or Axel here paying a visit. It’ll be Clay. And I don’t think you ever want to see him again. Isn’t that right?”
Breaking Cover (Tony Wolf/Tim Buckthorn) Page 14
