by Mark Pryor
A watching brief for both of them, they’d agreed, until the cavalry arrived.
At the next corner of the house, Hugo paused and dropped to one knee. Anyone watching for him would be aiming higher, so this little trick should give him a split-second advantage. Should. The two bank robbers inside the house were suddenly trigger-happy—they’d proved that much today—and Hugo wasn’t taking anything for granted.
He tried Tom one more time on the radio but got nothing in return. He took a breath and swiveled around the corner, his body low and his gun high.
No one.
He rose to a crouch and moved forward, with his eyes sweeping the weed-tangled yard to his right, but with his gun staying pointed at the back door. When he got close to it, he called out.
“Tom. Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, in here. It’s clear, but keep your gun handy because this motherfucker looks twitchy.”
Hugo moved quickly to the doorway, and squinted into the dim room, making out a table and chairs to his left, a stove and fridge to his right. Tom stood in front of the fridge, his gun pointed at something or someone on the floor. A tumble of cardboard boxes blocked Hugo’s view, so he stepped into the small kitchen and moved toward his friend. When he reached him, Hugo stopped and took in the scene.
One of the robbers lay on the floor, two bullet wounds in his chest. The man’s eyes were open, his mouth slack, and he didn’t appear to be breathing. The second man was, though, his chest heaving and his eyes fierce, furious, when he looked at Hugo. He was on his knees, about three feet behind the dead man, with his hands on his head and an expression of pure hatred on his face.
“What happened, Tom?” Hugo asked. He looked around the dusty room, and his nose wrinkled at the stale air.
“Have a guess,” Tom growled.
“I’d rather not. You were supposed to be outside, waiting. Watching.” He holstered his gun and unclipped a set of handcuffs. He turned to the kneeling man. “Hands behind your back. Try anything, and my friend here will gladly shoot you.”
The man complied. “He murdered my fucking brother. Just came in here and shot him!”
“I doubt that,” Hugo said. “Special Agent Green is an officer of the law and takes his oath to serve and protect very seriously.”
“Bullshit, he fucking shot him—”
“Zip it,” Hugo snapped. The oppressive heat in the room made the cuffs slick in his hands, but he finally got them on the subject. “You have any identification on you?”
“Yeah, a fucking library card.”
“That right?” Hugo asked. He raised a boot and placed it between the man’s shoulder blades, then shoved him face-first into the floor. “I’m shocked you can read.” He went through the man’s pockets but found nothing identifying him. Nothing at all, in fact. No ID and no guns. The latter confirmed Hugo’s suspicion that the dead man was the one responsible for the three murders at the bank. “Just so you know, you’re under arrest for bank robbery in accordance with statute eighteen, US Code section twenty-one thirteen. And when we’re done with you, no doubt the state of Texas will charge you with capital murder.”
“I didn’t kill anyone. Your fucking partner did, though.”
“So did your brother, in that bank. And under the law of parties, you are equally responsible.”
The man jerked on the floor. “Bullshit. I didn’t even know he had a gun.”
Tom stepped forward. “Now that’s a load of bullshit. You’re as guilty as he is.” Tom pointed his gun at the man’s head. “And you deserve the same damn fate.”
Hugo stepped over the prostrate man, getting between him and Tom. “Easy, partner.”
“Yeah,” the man said, “try to explain killing an unarmed man. You think I’m not gonna say something?”
Hugo glanced at Tom, a question in his eyes. Unarmed?
“He had a gun, fuckface,” Tom snapped.
“Stay where you are,” Hugo said to the man. “Or it’ll be me who shoots you, and I won’t care whether you’re armed or not because I’m entitled to shoot a fleeing murderer and robbery suspect.”
“I ain’t going nowhere. You’re fucking dead men, both of you.”
“Naw,” said Hugo, in his best Texas drawl and nodding toward the still form on the floor. “He is, though.”
“Damn right,” Tom said.
Hugo steered Tom to the doorway and kept his voice low. “This was a good shot?” he asked.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“You know what I mean.”
Tom ran a hand over his face. “I guess.”
“Thing is, you shouldn’t be in here. You shouldn’t have come inside. Can you explain that?”
“It was quiet,” Tom said. “I didn’t see or hear any movement, I thought maybe they’d left.”
“We were watching the house; that’s not possible.”
“Yeah, well. I came up close, still didn’t hear anything. I opened the door and stuck my head in. Jackass number one came into the kitchen about a second later.”
“With a gun in his hand?”
“Sure.”
“Tom, for fuck’s sake.”
“What?” Tom demanded. “You know what he did, he shot and killed—”
“I know what he did,” Hugo interrupted. He looked out across the backyard as the distant sound of sirens drifted in through the door. “You have maybe a minute to make sure all’s well that ends well.”
“That’s easy enough.” Tom drew his gun from his holster and turned toward the man prostrate and muttering on the floor.
Hugo put a hand on his arm. “No.” Hugo felt a flash of panic that Tom might actually do this, put a bullet in a man who was in custody. That panic turned into anger at the thought that his friend might already have crossed a line But, first things first—they had to get out of whatever mess they were in.
“Then what?” Tom demanded.
Hugo walked over to the dead man and looked down. “Where’s the gun, Tom?”
“He must have put it back in his pocket. Or somewhere.”
“After you shot him twice in the heart?”
“He’s a tough one. Was.”
Hugo knelt and patted the man’s pockets, pausing when he felt a familiar bulge. “In his pocket all right.”
“See?” the man on the floor said. “He fucking murdered him.”
“Shut up,” Hugo said mildly. “You have no cause to complain about anything.” He walked over to Tom. “I think I need to check the front of the house, make sure it’s secure.”
“Why? What the hell are you talking about?” Tom asked.
“Just to make sure.” Hugo put his face an inch from Tom’s and fixed him with a serious look. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. “So your position is that these men were trying to escape from the house when you commanded them to stop and the dead guy drew on you. I can’t remember if you said you were inside or closer to the backyard.”
Tom stared at him for a moment, then said, “Closer to outside.”
“I thought you said that, yes. Inside would’ve been hard to explain, especially given . . . you know.”
“Yeah,” Tom nodded. “Go check the front. I got things back here, no worries. My mess and all that.” He unclipped the cuffs on his belt and handed them to Hugo. “You should take these.”
“Right, thanks. And, Tom, the other one. The one that’s alive right now.”
“Yeah, I know,” Tom sighed. “He stays that way.”
Hugo squeezed his friend’s shoulder and strode quickly outside onto the deck. He turned right, toward the front of the house and away from the crime scene.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hugo and Camille Lerens stepped out of the elevator and were almost flattened by Helen Hancock, who was red in the face and shouting over her shoulder at Jill Maxick. For her part, Maxick just stood and stared at her celebrity guest, mouth agape, wordless.
“What’s going on?” Hugo asked.
Ha
ncock sputtered, unable to find the words, and shoved her way past Hugo and Lerens into the elevator. As the doors closed, she pointed past them at the manager and shouted, “Ask her! Just ask her!”
When Hancock disappeared from view, Maxick’s shoulders slumped.
“Follow me,” she said. “I’ll show you.”
Hugo gave Lerens a look, but she just shrugged and started after Maxick. Hugo trailed behind them, all three gathering in the manager’s office.
“Is Helen OK?” Hugo asked, impatient with Maxick’s silence. She was fiddling with her computer, muttering under her breath, and Hugo was pretty sure he heard some curse words.
A moment later, she swiveled her laptop so the screen faced them.
“What are we looking at?” Lerens asked.
It took a second to register, but Hugo soon caught up. “It’s one of your hotel rooms. From a spy camera?”
“Correct,” Maxick said.
“A new camera?” Hugo asked.
“Just watch and see,” she snapped.
After a few beats, a figure appeared on the screen. It was blurry at first, but then the camera focused and a naked man walked across the room to a woman lying on her front, sideways across the bed. She raised her head and Hugo clearly saw the face of Helen Hancock. And a lot more when she rolled onto her side, clad in a black bra and panties of a style, Hugo guessed, designed for effect rather than comfort.
The more you pay, the less you get, Claudia had once explained, and the romance writer had evidently paid a great deal for this set. Hugo watched as Hancock pushed herself to her knees and beckoned for the man to join her. He knelt on the bed and embraced her, kissing her as he deftly unhooked her bra.
Hugo glanced at the URL bar but didn’t recognize the name of the website. He looked up at Jill Maxick. “This was posted online, I take it.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere you can think of. YouTube for a while, then Reddit, 4Chan, xHamster.”
“And clearly she knows about it.”
“Blames us. Which she probably should.”
“How long does it go on for?” Lerens asked.
“About twenty minutes. As long as it takes to . . . Well, you can guess.”
“And you get to see . . . everything?”
“Absolutely,” Maxick said. “Including fur-lined handcuffs, two vibrators, and what looks like a leash but might not have been. It’s quite a show.”
“Do you know when it was posted?” Hugo asked.
“No, I didn’t look.” Maxick shrugged. “I don’t know if you can tell somehow, but the first I heard about it was when Ms. Hancock came knocking down my door moments ago, right before you showed up. I gather a few of her fans, quite a few, saw it and let her know. I presume overnight.”
“Who’s the man in this little performance?” Lerens pointed at the screen, where Maxick had paused it. “Does she have a boyfriend or lover here in Paris?”
“I don’t know who he is. I’ve never known her to have a male friend for dinner, much less a lover.” Maxick shook her head. “But I feel like his face is familiar. I couldn’t say how or why, though I can tell you he certainly doesn’t work here.”
“No,” Hugo said. “He doesn’t.”
Maxick and Lerens both looked at him. “You know who he is?” Lerens said.
Hugo gave them his best enigmatic smile. “I do, indeed.”
“Well?” Lerens put her hands on her hips and glared at him.
“He is an aspiring writer. A friend, student, and apparently lover of Helen Hancock.”
“He’s one of her students?” Maxick asked. “That’s right! Now I remember, I’ve seen him here, they had tea together a week or so ago.”
“His name is Ambrósio Silva. Nice fellow,” Hugo said. “But I think we need to go talk to him again, because apparently he likes keeping secrets.”
“Guys, come on.” Silva sat at the small kitchen table at the apartment he shared with Mike Rice. Hugo and Camille Lerens sat across from him. They’d not yet told him about the online publication of his encounter with Hancock, just that they knew the two were sleeping together. “I couldn’t tell you, surely you can see that?”
“Not really,” said Hugo mildly. Lerens had suggested that he ask the questions since her English was good, but not perfect. It was her tape recorder, though, that sat on the table between them. “You knew we were investigating a murder at the hotel, right?”
“I read about it, of course.”
“Then, given the choice between telling the truth and lying to officers conducting a murder inquiry, I’d have thought telling the whole truth was a given. But that’s just me.”
“No, look, I wasn’t lying!” Silva looked genuinely upset. “I didn’t lie, I just didn’t . . . tell you. I couldn’t, because she made me promise not to. I mean, it’s not like I’d go around blabbing about it anyway, I’m not like that, but she thought it’d look really bad if she was caught sleeping with one of her students.”
“She was right,” Hugo said. “It does look bad, and by hiding that from us you just made it look a lot worse.”
“I’m sorry, I really am. I know it wasn’t for me to judge, but I promised her, and I figured it wasn’t really relevant to anything, you know?”
“As you said, but that’s not exactly your judgment to make.”
“How did you find out?” Silva asked.
Hugo shifted in his seat. “Well, I’m surprised you’ve not heard from anyone else. Do you have e-mail, social media?”
“I do, but I haven’t been online today. Every morning I put my phone in my suitcase until I’ve written two thousand words. And we don’t have Internet in the apartment.” His brow furrowed. “Wait, why would I have heard from anyone else about this? You’re confusing me.”
“Ms. Hancock no doubt told you,” Hugo began, “about the spy camera found in her room.”
“Yeah, she did. And she said I wasn’t on it; you guys told her that.”
“It seems someone selectively edited what we found and kept a few tidbits for themselves.” Hugo paused to let it sink in. As Silva’s eyes widened, Hugo went on. “There’s a twenty-minute clip making the rounds online. In it, Ms. Hancock is wearing very little and eventually nothing. You start out naked and end up that way, and I hope to God your mother doesn’t see what happens in the meantime.”
Silva’s face drained of color. “Us having sex? Online?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And you can see . . .” His voiced tailed off.
“I didn’t watch it all,” Hugo said. “But I gather there’s absolutely nothing left to the imagination.”
“Oh, my God.” Silva sat back, shaking his head slowly from side to side. He looked up. “Does Helen know?”
“Some of her kind readers let her know first thing,” Hugo said. “I imagine she’s tried to call you.”
Silva shook his head again. “She’s going to be so humiliated. Poor thing, I can’t believe someone would do this to her.”
“To you, too,” Lerens said.
Silva nodded, and smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, but it’s a little different.”
“How so?” Hugo asked.
“Well, for one thing, I’m not a famous author with worldwide name and face recognition,” Silva said. “For another thing . . . and, look, don’t get mad that I didn’t tell you about this either, because I’m certain it’s not relevant to anything.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I dabbled in the other arts when my soccer career ended. Like acting. Let’s just say that my screen name was Max Peter.”
“How delightful,” Hugo said, unable to hide his smile. “And I think we can forgive you for keeping that to yourself. I don’t recall asking for your job history.”
“Yeah, thanks. It’s not something I’m especially proud of, although I got to travel and meet some interesting people. Five films was enough, though, and hopefully they won’t haunt me fo
rever. My point, though, was just that this doesn’t amount to a great humiliation for me, depending on what’s actually posted.” He gave them a small smile. “To me the outrage is in not being paid for my performance.”
“Well, when you take that all into account,” Hugo said, “one might actually come to the conclusion that this is a good thing for you.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Silva began, then caught Hugo’s meaning. “Now, wait just a moment. Are you suggesting I had something to do with this? Because if you are, there’s no way!”
“Oh no,” Hugo assured him. “I’m sorry, sometimes I think aloud when I’d be better off keeping my mouth well and truly shut. It’s just that this raises your profile without doing it much harm. That’s all I was thinking.”
“I don’t want my ‘acting’ confused with my writing,” Silva said emphatically. “Remember, I’m in an MFA program—you think this looks good for me?”
“Does the school know about your filmography?” Hugo asked.
“No, they don’t.” Silva was getting testy, which was what Hugo wanted. “As far as I recall, it wasn’t one of the questions on the application.”
“I don’t suppose it was.”
“Have you talked to Helen about this? How is she?”
“Not yet,” Hugo said. “We figured she’d need a little time to get over the shock, maybe talk to her publisher and figure a way to get as much of it off the Internet as possible.”
“Poor woman,” Silva said. “She’s such a private person; this will be humiliating. You can see her naked, too?”
“Yes,” Hugo said. “When we leave, you can hop online and see for yourself.”
“I guess,” Silva said sadly. “Been a while since I’ve seen myself naked on screen, and things are a little more wobbly than they used to be. Plus, I don’t want to add clicks to something like that. This may sound odd to you, but everything in the porn world is totally consensual. Some stuff can seem pretty freaky, but behind the scenes everything is negotiated and worked out in advance. So this, doing it without us even knowing, it’s sick, frankly.”
