by R. J. Jagger
“You’re certainly the clever one, I’ll hand you that.”
“Look,” she said, “we both know that I could have shot you ten different times out there in the sticks. I didn’t. For that, you owe me.”
“You should have killed me while you had the chance.”
“Maybe but the fact remains that I didn’t,” she said. “Here’s my proposition. We call it even. You go your way and me and Deven go our way.”
Silence.
“The one who hired you to send me to Miami is that lawyer, Madison Elmblade, right?”
“Right. I didn’t know anything about it being a setup. I thought it was just business as usual. If I had any inkling it was anything other than a hundred percent legit, I would have tipped you off.”
“For the moment, let’s assume that’s true just for the sake of argument.”
“It is true.”
“If it is then prove it by helping me get her,” he said. “Do that and then we’ll be even.”
A beat.
“Look, we’re already even on account of the fact that I didn’t kill you,” she said. “If it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”
Cave exhaled.
“Let me make it clear,” he said. “My way or no way.”
“Damn it.”
“Decide.”
“What exactly do you want me to do?”
“I’ll give it some thought,” he said. “Meet me in one hour at the Rikki. Come alone and don’t do anything stupid.”
“Okay.”
The line went dead.
Yardley powered off and looked at Madison, who had been listening to the exchange, pacing.
“He wants to meet me in an hour at the Rikki,” she said.
Madison tapped two cigarettes out of a pack, handed one to Yardley and lit them both up with a gold lighter. She flicked the lid closed harder than necessary.
“It’s a trap,” she said. “He’s trying to flush you out.”
“So what do we do?”
“Simple. We oblige him.”
52
Day Three
July 20
Wednesday Night
The Concrete Flower Factory turned out to be a large creepy building buried between an industrial complex and railroad tracks. A spiraling dark parking lot out front was packed sardine-tight with everything from shiny new euros to rusty old pickups. Renn-Jaa found a spot at the end of the line and killed the engine.
“Popular place.”
“Yeah, I’m surprised.”
The entry was an unceremonious red door with the name stenciled in black paint. Immediately inside was a riveting blond dressed in black accents—black stilettos, a short black skirt, black cuffs on her wrists and ankles and a black collar around her neck.
She fixated on Pantage, kissed her on the lips and then did the same to Renn-Jaa.
“Yummy,” she said. “Are you here for a session or the Gathering?”
Pantage shifted feet.
“A friend of ours comes here,” she said. “His name is Evan Starry. He uses someone and recommended her, but I can remember her name.”
The blond wrinkled her nose.
“Evan Starry,” she said. “That doesn’t ring a bell.”
“He’s about six four and built like a gladiator.”
Her face lit up.
“I know who you mean,” she said. “He mostly uses Secret. Hold on.”
She checked a notebook and said, “She’s in a session; she’ll be free in about forty-five minutes. The Gathering’s a fifty dollar donation, but since you’re getting a session, you can wait in there for free if you want.”
Renn-Jaa looked at Pantage and shrugged.
“Sure.”
“I’ll come and find you when Secret’s free.”
“Sounds good.”
The Gathering was down a long hallway to the left, which emptied into a large space that must have housed manufacturing of some sort back in the day.
Smoke and perfume and sex permeated the air.
Rap dropped from ceiling speakers.
Bodies were everywhere.
Not just men, either, plenty of women too.
Most of the guys were normally dressed, some up, some down, but not too much that would raise an eyebrow on the street.
The women were the opposite.
They were flaunting skin and tattoos and panties and hair and attitude.
Drinks were being served from makeshift bars.
At first it looked like an ordinary rave.
When they got a few steps inside, however, they saw a rack with a woman stretched out tighter than tight, naked except for a black thong. Her mouth was open and another woman was licking her tongue.
Not far down was a second setup.
A woman was hogtied on a table with her face in the crotch of a second woman.
Pantage and Renn-Jaa bought glasses of white wine, five dollars each, and made their way around the room.
There were ten or twelve stages all told.
Most had at least two or three women in line, waiting their turn.
Someone came up behind Pantage and wrapped their hands around her stomach. Lips nibbled the back of her neck. She turned to find the blond from the front door.
“I’m on break,” she said. “I’m up next on the rack. I want you to be the one to dominate me.”
“Me?”
The woman nodded.
“Yeah, what do you think?”
“What am I supposed to do to you?”
“Whatever you want,” she said. “You can tease me or tickle me or make me come or put clothespins all over my body or whip me or whatever you want.”
Pantage pictured it.
“You don’t have to get naked or anything,” the woman added. “You can if you want but you don’t have to.”
“What would you like the most, if I agreed?”
“The most? Stretch me out tight and make me come.”
Silence.
Then Pantage shook her head.
“I’ll do that if you want, but it would need to be in private.”
The woman looked at Renn-Jaa.
“How about you? Are you up for it?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“No meaning no, or no meaning you’re not sure?”
“No meaning I’m not sure. To be honest, I’m half tempted.”
“Then say yes.”
Renn-Jaa exhaled, deciding.
The woman grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the rack. Over her shoulder she said to Pantage, “You can join her if you want. Do a tag team on me. Pain and pleasure at the same time, or whatever you want.”
Pantage wandered around the room then made her way over to the rack. Renn-Jaa and the blonde had their arms around each other’s waist, waiting for the device to free up.
Pantage put her face next to the blonde’s ear.
“I’ll make you a deal,” she said. “This is confidential so don’t repeat it.”
“Okay.”
“I might be getting into a relationship with the guy I told you about, Evan Starry.”
“The gladiator.”
“Right, the gladiator,” she said. “That’s why I came down here tonight, to find out what he does down here. Are you privy to that information?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if you fill me in, I’ll join in on that tag team.”
“Stick your tongue out.”
Pantage obeyed.
The woman sucked it, wet and deep.
Then she said, “You have a deal.”
53
Day Three
July 20
Wednesday Evening
The glare of the sun gave way to shadows, which gave way to long shadows, which gave way to all shadows. Full night was next, not more than 45 minutes away. Pantage left a message; she was safe with Renn-Jaa and would call him later.
Today had been the worst.
Teffinger still hadn’t identified the longhaired man who saved Pantage and could identify Jackie Lake’s killer.
He had zero information on the gladiator.
His little trick at September’s office was about to drag him down into an eternal black abyss.
As far as Michael Northway went, the videotapes were golden but that’s all there was. Teffinger’s counterparts in New York couldn’t get Northway’s image on the news since the case didn’t involve a child or a missing person in imminent danger. Also, they didn’t have time to try to identify the woman who had been walking with Northway. The FBI profiler, Leigh Sandt, was more of the same, sympathetic and willing but overworked and unavailable.
His phone rang.
“Are you at home?”
The voice belonged to Kelly.
“Yeah, why?”
“Do you have a woman with you?”
“No.”
“I’m coming over.”
The line died.
When she showed up, Teffinger was showered and in fresh jeans with a white cotton shirt rolled at the cuffs. Towel-dried hair, damp but not dripping, hung over his face. A cold blue can was in his left hand, half empty from two long swallows.
Kelly looked good.
No, not good, way beyond.
She wore Daisy Dukes and a minimal cerulean tank, with white ankle socks and Sketchers down below. Her hair was loose and ruffled.
Teffinger handed her a glass of white wine over ice, then ran an index finger around her bellybutton.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi back.”
Behind Teffinger’s house, Green Mountain dropped into his yard, almost to the back door. Up that incline at the top of the property was a redwood deck that looked over the roof and onto the billion city lights that twinkled to the east. That’s where they ended up.
The talk was light.
The temperature was nice.
Teffinger filled her in on the Michael Northway tapes, the fact that it was definitely him that Kelly saw, and that no one was available to run down the lead.
“Go yourself,” Kelly said.
“Can’t,” he said. “I’m working that Jackie Lake case.”
Kelly knew that.
It was all over the news not to mention the talk of the legal community.
“Send Sydney.”
Sydney.
Sydney.
Sydney.
She still hadn’t returned Teffinger’s calls.
He took a swallow of beer and said, “I want you to be my attorney for a minute. If you agree, then you have to keep what I say confidential, right?”
“Yeah but there’s a downside.”
“What’s that?”
“Attorneys aren’t supposed to sleep with their clients.”
He knew he should smile.
Instead he got serious and told her how he broke into September Tadge’s law office and copied the file on a suspect, Van Gogh, who had committed several murders in the past identical to Jackie Lake. Teffinger ended up getting caught on videotape, which was now in the hands of Grayson Condor who was acting as September’s attorney. “He’s keeping the tapes under lock and key so they stay private, but if anything happens to September, i.e. Van Gogh pops out of a shadow and kills her, then Condor’s under instructions to turn the tapes over to the D.A.’s office, plus my chief.”
“God, Nick, this is serious.”
He swallowed what was left in the can then crumpled it in his fist.
“I know.”
“You could lose your job.”
“I know.”
“Not could, would,” Kelly said. “They’d have to protect the system. They wouldn’t have a realistic option to do otherwise, no matter what your track record’s been.”
Teffinger exhaled.
“I’m telling you because I don’t know where this thing between you and me is going,” he said. “You need to know that I might not have a job or an income down the road.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said.
“I wish it was that simple.”
“I know of September Tadge but don’t know her personally,” Kelly said. “She does criminal defense so our worlds don’t really intersect. I could talk to her though. Maybe I can get her to back off.”
“You think?”
She patted his knee.
“Even so, though, we still have the problem of Grayson Condor,” she said. “That firm’s extremely political. Having dirt on the person in charge of Denver’s homicide unit could have a value in some way at some point down the line. I wouldn’t put it past him to keep a copy of the tape even if September tells him not to.”
“Do you really think he’d do that?”
“Yes.”
Teffinger exhaled.
“Is there any way around it?”
Kelly took a sip of wine.
“Maybe,” she said. “It only shows a break-in if September says so. If September were to say, for example, that she hired you to enter like that as a test run to be sure her security system was working the way it should, then it wouldn’t be dirt at all.”
Teffinger frowned.
“Right now she won’t even talk to me,” he said. “Having her lie on my behalf is something I can’t even imagine. Plus, what about Condor? He could contradict her story and say she hired him because I’d broken in.”
Kelly shook her head.
“No he couldn’t, not if she didn’t give him permission. Anyway, we’re getting way too far down the road,” she said. “I’ll talk to September tomorrow, as your attorney.” A beat then, “There’s one thing nagging at me. She obviously has some type of connection to Condor to choose him as her attorney. In fact, he’s sort of a weird choice because he’s almost in a conflict position. I mean, here he is working against you while you’re the guy trying to find out who killed an associate in his firm. If I was September, I would have picked someone outside the firm to represent me. She must have chosen Condor because they have some past relationship together.”
Teffinger shrugged.
It made sense.
“In that case, if she asks him to return the tape and not make a copy, maybe he will,” he said.
“Maybe.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“Here’s what I’m getting at,” she said. “She knew that her mystery client was the prime suspect in Jackie Lake’s murder. I have to imagine that if she already had some kind of relationship with Condor, she would have mentioned it to him. If that’s true, why didn’t Condor tell you?”
“I don’t know.”
Teffinger stood up.
“Want to take a ride?”
“Where?”
“There’s a guy I’m curious about who may be Van Gogh,” he said. “I want to swing by his place.”
“What’s his name?”
“Evan Starry,” he said. “He was stalking Pantage Phair on Friday night. He’s built like a gladiator.”
She studied him.
“Who’s Pantage Phair?”
“She was at the scene when Jackie Lake got murdered,” he said. “This is confidential by the way. She may have been the intended victim, not Jackie Lake.” He exhaled and added, “She’s also the woman who wrote on my mirror.”
She wrinkled her face.
“What mirror?”
“In the master bathroom.”
“She wrote something on the mirror in your bathroom?”
He nodded.
“When? Today?”
“No, six months ago.”
“She wrote something on your bathroom mirror six months ago and it’s still there?”
Yes.
It was.
“What’d she do, scratch it in?”
“No, it’s written in lipstick.”
“Lipstick?”
Right.
Lipstick.
“Show me.”
54
Day Three
July 20
Wednesday Night
The Rikki had a checkered past, starting life as a biker bar, then morphing into a disco, then a drug-driven hard rock club and now a theme club, with hump day being British Invasion night—Peter & Gordon, Beau Brummels, Kinks, Stones, Who, and of course those four guys from Liverpool. The crowd stretched from 21 to 35. Tie-dyed shirts, headbands, peace signs and bikini tops were the attire of choice.
It was located east of the South Platte, backing up to the BNSF line.
The side and back parking lots were full.
Latecomers lined the service road, both sides, for a good hundred yards in each direction. That’s where Yardley found a slot, fifty yards up on the opposite side of the street, next to the culvert.
There were no streetlights.
The only light came from the neon signs of club or the cut of headlights.
Yardley killed the engine.
Madison stuffed a gun in her purse.
“Don’t leave the club,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“Even if he sticks a barrel or a knife in your ribs, don’t leave the club. He won’t kill you inside no matter how much he might pretend to.”
Yardley nodded.
“Where are you going to be?”
“Somewhere across the street where I can see the exit,” she said. “Do you know if the club has any security cameras?”
“I don’t have a clue.”
“Look around when you get near,” Madison said. “See if there’s anything mounted on the side of the building shining on the entrance or the parking lots. If there is, call me when you get inside. If I don’t hear from you I’ll assume the negative.”
“Okay.”
Yardley got out, walked up the road to the club and paid ten dollars at the door.
Inside, “Paint it Black” pounded through the air.
Yardley made her way to the bar, squeezed in and ordered a rum and coke.
The place was jammed to the walls with bodies.
She looked around for Cave.
His James Dean face didn’t appear.
She was ten minutes early.
Knowing Cave, he’d show up at exactly the appointed minute.
Ten minutes passed.
Yardley stayed put.
Cave would find her.
She ordered another rum and coke. Time passed, Cave’s face wasn’t appearing. Thirty minutes later, Cave would have had plenty of time to scout every corner of the club.
