by Stone Kiss
“You’re a real good listener, you know that?” She pulled her legs straight out, yanked down on her nonexistent skirt, and laid her head on his shoulder. “Sure I can’t do anything for you?”
“You can do a lot for me, and I don’t mean sex.”
She sat up. “So… you really want information only?”
“Yes,” Decker said.
“Your wife must be amazing.”
“She is. Tell me about Merrin.”
“Horny old goat. Looks the other way when it comes to this place.”
“Donatti pays him off?”
Her shrug told him he was on the right track.
“Does Merrin look the other way with other things?”
“Like what?”
“Like if I wanted to score ecstasy, would I go to Merrin?”
“I have no idea.” She faced him. “That’s the truth. I only know Merrin as a client.”
“Well, who would I go to?”
“I don’t know. I don’t do drugs.”
“What about some of the other girls? I know you have a few here who also work at Tattlers.” Decker took a stab in the dark. “I’ve heard you can get a variety of pharmaceuticals over there.”
“Plunkett, right?”
“Right,” Decker lied.
“Figures. He’s a real jerk, but he’s a good source for referrals.”
“So maybe those girls would know about scoring… the ones who work at Tattlers?”
“You’d have to ask them. We don’t have anything on the premises, that much I know.”
“Anyone here from Tattlers that I can talk to?”
“Maybe Angela. She’ll be free in a half hour or so.”
“Could you set that up without calling him first?” A smile. “Please, Jen?”
She looked at him and shrugged.
Decker didn’t push her. “So you know the people in these townships pretty well?”
Jen laughed softly and bitterly. “I know the horny ones.”
“What about the boys?”
“Lots of horny boys.”
“Ryan Anderson and Philip Caldwell.”
Her face darkened. “I know Caldwell. He came in about two months ago. Right when he turned eighteen. Rich threw him out.”
“Who’s Rich?”
“The bouncer.”
“The one who’s behind the paneling in the lobby.”
Her expression was stunned. “You don’t miss a trick—oh, that’s right. I went there to phone Mr. Donatti.”
“Yeah, but I figured it out before. You kept looking over your shoulder. So Rich threw Caldwell out. Why?”
“He was roughing up the girl. It was Angela, come to think of it. Rich got to her before the little prick could do real damage. All the rooms have video cameras.”
Decker laughed. “Oh really?”
She pointed to the crystal chandelier.
“Rich must like his job,” Decker said.
“He’s gay and all business.” She looked down. “Everything’s being recorded. Eventually, Mr. Donatti’s gonna see the video. He’s gonna hit the ceiling.”
Decker patted her knee. “Look, Jen. He wanted you to pump me for information using whatever means, right?”
She was quiet.
“He knows me. Sex wouldn’t be an option. That means he knows you’d have to feed me info to keep me talking. My questions will tell him a lot. Was he pissed, by the way… Donatti?”
“What do you mean?”
“That this punk Caldwell was roughing up one of his girls?”
“He didn’t find out about it until way later… when he reviewed the tapes. Mr. Donatti doesn’t like problems. That’s why we’re here. So he doesn’t have to deal with problems.”
“I see. What about Anderson? Ever come across him?”
She thought a moment. “If I did, I don’t remember. They’re all the same, these rich-kid brats. All swagger, all bravado. Each one thinking they’re the biggest, baddest dude on the block. They deal in drugs; they show off their guns and knives; they think they’re real tough. They think they know what it’s like on the streets, but they don’t know shit. They don’t know how good they have it. They don’t know what’s important. They have it all, and yet they have nothing.”
The tears had come back in slow, steady droplets, but she didn’t appear to notice.
“Sometimes… sometimes God is just so unfair.”
33
He had about fifteen minutes to kill before Angela from Tattlers was done with her “massage” client. Stepping outside into the bracing air, Decker tried to clear his mind. The slashing rain had turned to steady globules of water, the woodland foliage melding into a thick curd of grays and browns as the daylight dimmed. He tightened the scarf around his neck and dug his hands into his pockets, feeling the jolt of iced steel on his fingers. He had forgotten about the snub-nose. He took it out, opened the chamber, and peeked inside. Four bullets. He snapped it shut, then secured the safety latch.
It would have been a perfect time for a smoke and a shot of scotch. He was cold and thirsty and could have used a kick to the system. He was sure that the place had a stash of stag toys, and with Rina absent, he didn’t have to worry about his breath or his bad behavior. That was the attraction of whorehouses. Guys could be swine and that was not only acceptable but also expected. Donatti was a down-and-dirty psycho, but the bastard understood married men. It wasn’t just a sex issue—though that played a big part—it was a control issue. Men prized freedom. Married men got tired of dealing with their wives because wives were constant reminders of their lost liberty.
In this seedy house of ill repute, he wasn’t as alienated as he should have been. In ’Nam, he had frequented brothels, but once he returned to the States, he didn’t need to pay for it. It was the 1960s and he was working in a college town. Free love was plentiful, although he frequently lied about his job when he went to bars. Cops were part of the military-industrial complex (whatever that was), pariahs with the flower-power generation. So instead of telling the girls that he was a vet and a cop—hence the short hair—he told them that his hair was short because of lice he had picked up in the Amazon jungle. They bought it hook, line, and sinker.
Sometimes, after he screwed them, if he was feeling particularly mean—and back then he often felt very mean—he told them what he really was. Far from being turned off, the women were excited by his profession, as if they were cavorting with the enemy. Jan had been one of those types. He had arrested her at an antiwar demonstration. Two nights later, they were humping like rabbits. Three months later, they were married. Six months later, Cindy was born.
Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Then there was that interim period after the divorce. Five years of being single before he had met Rina. The first couple of years were heaven—lots of sex with no emotional entanglements. The years that followed were absolutely dreadful—lots of sex with no emotional entanglements. Somewhere between the job and the sheets, he realized that the good life wasn’t endless sexual encounters and a fourteen-hour workday. He knew he was in serious trouble when he preferred his horses to his dates.
Thank God for Rina.
He suddenly missed her terribly, missed her and Hannah Rosie and his routine back in L.A. He wanted to go home. Instead, he was out here, freezing his balls off, trying to help a family that despised his intrusion. But it was too late for him to backtrack. He thought of the Liebers, of the hell they were going through. He wondered if Jonathan could be objective enough to give them pastoral comfort.…
Jonathan…
He’d been out of contact with him for the past hour. Maybe it would be a good idea to touch base. He turned on his phone but couldn’t bring up a dial tone. He walked back inside, shaking the cold from his bones.
Jen looked up, then at her watch. “Shouldn’t be too long now, Lieutenant.”
“Could I borrow your phone?”
She pushed it toward him, her chest stretching over the d
esk, giving him a full view of cleavage. Maybe Donatti had instructed her to give it one more try.
Decker averted his eyes. “Thanks.” He dialed up Jonathan’s cell phone. It connected but was full of static. “Jon! Can you hear me?”
“Where the hell are you?”
Through the electronic noise, Decker could tell his brother was yelling. “Is something wrong?”
“Is something wrong? Everything is wrong! I’ve been trying to get hold of you for the past half hour! I’m driving through the woods here, getting lost—”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Akiva!” he said sharply. “Where… are you?”
He turned to Jen. “Could you give my brother directions to the place?”
“It’s off the highway between Quinton and Bainberry.”
“I know that. What street does he take?”
“I don’t think it has a name.”
“Well, can he look for a landmark?”
She shrugged her shoulders helplessly.
Decker was miffed. “How do you know how to get here?”
“I just know it.”
His irritation turned to frustration. “Jon, where are you?”
“I’m about a mile before the Bainberry Mall.”
“You’re too far.”
“Far from what!”
“From the access road.”
“What access road? I didn’t find any access road.” The tension cut through the line. “We have an emergency situation, Akiva. I need to find you now!”
Decker felt his pulse rising. “What emergency?”
“Chaim’s missing—” Crackle bit through the line. “I’m losing you!” Jonathan screamed. “It’s raining, the visibility is poor, and it’s getting dark. Give me something to go on!”
“Hold on.” He put his palm over the receiver. “Jen, can someone drive me down to the highway?”
“Not now. Everyone’s busy.”
“How about Angela? You said she’d be done in a few minutes.”
“She doesn’t have a car. She gets picked up.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t have a car. I usually get picked up also.”
She wasn’t being helpful. Decker wondered if that wasn’t the idea. “Jon, I’m going to walk down to the highway. I’m closer to Quinton than to Bainberry, but I don’t know how much closer—”
“You can’t walk down!” Jen interrupted.
Decker ignored her. “It’ll probably take me a good twenty minutes or so—”
“You can’t walk down in the dark!” Jen reiterated. “One wrong turn and you’re lost.”
“It’s not completely dark yet.”
“I’ll look for you,” Jonathan said.
“Bye.” Decker hung up.
“You can’t walk down the road,” Jen insisted. “I’m telling you, you’ll get lost.”
“I don’t have any choice.”
“What about Angela? Didn’t you want to see her?”
“She’ll have to wait.”
“You’re going to get lost—”
“You’re repeating yourself.” He started toward the door.
“Wait!” She kneaded her hands several times, then opened a drawer and pulled out a storage-size flashlight, a battery-size square with a strong white beam on one end and a blinking red flare on the other. “Take this. Maybe it’ll help.”
“Thanks.”
She bit her lower lip and nodded. She wasn’t happy about this turn of events. Maybe she was enjoying his company. He smiled at the ridiculous thought. “Bye, Jen. Good luck.”
“Same to you, only more of it.”
He laughed but took her words to heart. He walked into the stormy dusk, umbrella in one hand, flashlight in the other, and began to descend the steep pathway that led to the highway. The road was a swirl of rain and mud, which immediately drenched his shoes, the muck rising to the cuffs of his pants. Because of the acute incline, he found that he had to crab-walk across the fluid earth, sidestepping one soaked foot against the other, mud squishing out from under his soles. His toes and fingers tingled with cold.
It was growing darker by the moment, but Decker kept the light off, wanting his eyes to adjust to the dusky conditions. Wasn’t much around him to use for landmarks, just endless arms of foreboding copses. A couple of years ago, he had read a Stephen King novel about a little girl alone in the woods. At least, she had the good fortune to get lost in the summertime.
No big deal, he assured himself, just follow the road. Which was quickly turning into a rapid downhill whoosh of silt and slush. He had to walk along the rim, his feet snapping branches and twigs and sliding across the wet detritus that lined the forest floor. As the road became even steeper, he lost his footing and fell unceremoniously on his butt. The good news was he missed landing on the gun.
“Jesus!” He tried to stand up, but the slick soles of his shoes slid out from under his weight. “Goddammit.”
Dimmer and dimmer.
“Oh Lord!” He took hold of a wet tree trunk and hoisted himself upward, his head missing a low branch by inches.
The road had become washed out, just a stream of thick coffee pouring down the hillside.
Weighing the options, he decided he needed his hands. He folded the umbrella, sticking it into his rear pants pocket, and was immediately assaulted by chilled water oozing down his face. He held the flashlight with his left ring and pinkie fingers and opted to play Tarzan. Grabbing hold of thick branches—whatever would hold his weight—he used them as a purchase to scale down the hill. Arms above his head, hands gripping one limb after another, he oscillated downward as if he were swinging on monkey bars. His movements were slow and deliberate and painful because his fingers were as flexible as frozen carrots. Several times, he conked himself with the flashlight. His language was foul and loud.
Now it wasn’t even getting darker: Decker decided it was officially dark. He couldn’t see beyond his nose and he could see his nose only because it was good-sized. He turned on the flashlight, arcing its beam through the thicket. In front of him was an endless tangle of denuded brush.
There was no way for him to orient himself except by using the roadway. He’d have to wade through the mud to keep himself from getting lost. Carefully, while still holding on to a tree branch, he stuck his foot into the moving muck—colder and deeper than he thought. It grabbed him by the ankle and threatened to propel him forward while rocks and pebbles pelted his leg. He slid his foot about the ground—as greased as an oil slick. To keep his balance upright, he needed a wide surface area and traction.
It was going to be a breech delivery—legs and butt first. He opened the umbrella and laid it onto the rushing rill. Grimacing, he lowered his butt onto the canopy of nylon. Using the handle to steer and his feet for brakes, he prayed, then pushed off.
Decker was never big on sledding, probably because he grew up without snow, but he found out really quick that he had a good sense of balance. Once he moved beyond the “cold and wet factor,” he was able to concentrate on the mechanics of getting down without getting lost or hurt. It was stop and go as he forded the stream, not exactly Washington crossing the Delaware, but it did bring out Decker’s more rugged side.
It took around a half hour, and though his backside felt sandpaper sore, he made it to the highway without so much as a stubbed toe. The umbrella was lunched, about half the spokes broken and the nylon ripped beyond repair, but the flashlight still worked. He waved the flare end with enthusiasm when he saw an approaching set of headlights. The vehicle slowed. A Chevy truck.
The driver, covered by a caveman beard, lowered the passenger window. “Hop in.”
“It’s okay,” Decker said. “I’m waiting for someone.”
Several moments ticked away.
“Not a lotta cars, buddy.” He looked Decker up and down. “You sure?”
Decker smiled like the village idiot. “Yeah. I’m fine.” Nodding to convince him. No doubt it m
ade him look even more ludicrous. “Just fine.”
The driver shook his head, rolled up the window, and left.
It seemed like an eternity, but it was probably only ten minutes before headlights came from the other side of the roadway. It had to be Jonathan because the illumination was creeping over the asphalt. Decker arced the blinking red light across the roadway. The van slowed, then pulled a U-turn, easing over onto what was once the shoulder of the road. Now it was a gurgling flow of mud.
Decker yanked the door open and hoisted himself inside. The two men looked at one another, water pouring down Decker’s face. He smiled. “Can I kiss your lips?”
Jonathan stared at him, his mouth agape.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a change of clothes back there? Maybe a towel? I’d take a grease rag at this point.”
“Let’s go find you something dry,” Jonathan said.
“First tell me about the emergency. What do you mean by ‘Chaim’s missing’?”
Jonathan inched the van back onto the road. “Exactly that.”
“He took off?”
“Appears that way.” Jonathan sneaked in a glimpse at his brother. “Are you all right?”
“I’m drenched and my ass is sore, but otherwise fine. Tell me about Chaim. Details.”
“When I got to Quinton, he was already gone. Apparently, right after Sha’chris, he claimed he wasn’t feeling well and needed to lie down. But when Minda went to check on him, the room was empty.”
“Any ideas?”
Jonathan had reduced the van’s speed to almost nothing. He was still struggling to keep within the lines of the roadway. It was as black as pitch outside with no street lighting. “About twenty minutes after I arrived at shiva, we received a phone call from Leon Hershfield. I took it.”
“What’s going on?”
“Hershfield had just gotten off the phone with JFK airport police and the local FBI.”
“Oh my God!”
“You can see what’s coming.”
“He was trying to skip.”
“Those guys you were telling me about… the ones Randy mentioned.”
“Weiss, Harabi, and Ibn Dod. They were with him?”
“This was per Hershfield… who was sketchy with the facts. Anyway, he told me that they were all set to board an international flight to Israel. Security stopped Harabi and Ibn Dod because apparently something was wrong with their passports or maybe they looked too jumpy or didn’t look Chasidic enough—”
