Adrenaline

by Bill Eidson

  Geoff left Jansten’s body beside the bed.

  In the hallway, Geoff caught sight of himself in the mirror and it pulled him up short. His hair was dank with sweat, and blood trickled from his temple where Jansten had gouged him.

  Geoff felt tired all of a sudden.

  Killing the old man had been so different from stabbing Jammer’s cousin. Not that the old man hadn’t given him a good run.

  He had.

  The old man had looked at him close and said, “Don’t take what little I’ve got left.”

  Geoff had glanced away, feeling something like sympathy, at least for the moment.

  And hope had sprung into Jansten’s eyes and he had turned away fast, saying, “Let me get you that cash. I’ll get you the cash and you can go and that’s it.”

  “Stay here,” Geoff had said, but the old guy had already made it around the corner into his bedroom, talking fast about how he kept close to a thousand bucks in the house for emergencies and if this wasn’t one, he damn well didn’t know what qualified. His voice was still quavering, but he was trying to hold it together, still talking even when Geoff strode in after him saying, “I don’t need your goddamn money.”

  The old man opened his dresser drawer and came out with a gun.

  He was bringing it to bear when Geoff nailed him. Two shots, one under his arm, one in the throat. The old guy dropped his gun, but still kept coming. Managed to claw Geoff in the temple before Geoff clubbed him to the floor.

  Now Geoff felt ill.

  He peered closely in the mirror. Was he crazy?

  As much as he tried to justify killing Jansten, he couldn’t find a good enough explanation. He told himself Jansten had pushed him into it, but he knew that wasn’t true. He told himself he needed the use of the house. He told himself he owed Jansten some payback for humiliating him in front of the others.

  But none of it stacked up. Whereas killing Ball had exhilarated him, Jansten had only his brains and guile to pit against Geoff. Physically, he had been no match.

  Black despair seeped through Geoff, feeling very much like shame. Jansten had been so frail in comparison. This wasn’t the way Geoff wanted to see himself.

  And now the police were involved. They would be after him in earnest once Jansten disappeared. Geoff had not been overly worried before when the two detectives had taken his name up in Jammer’s apartment because they would have no way to tie him in to Ball’s death once Jammer was dead. And Geoff had intended to leave Jansen’s house so it would look as if Jansten had surprised a burglar. Geoff had figured the Sea Crest police and Boston police wouldn’t connect a robbery and murder with a mugging death in Roxbury.

  But now that the Boston police had already interviewed Jansten, his murder would definitely send them back to the subject of the interview, Geoff Mann.

  Geoff considered leaving the state right then. He wasn’t afraid exactly, certainly not of getting hurt or killed. And capital punishment held no terrors. But prison, that did scare him. Years in a little cell, the drab, mundane existence …

  The thought of a cell squeezed his heart.

  Having nothing to do. Three steps across the room to the bars, then back again to the cement walls.

  The boredom would suck him dry.

  A wave of despair swept over Geoff. With unsettling clarity, he saw himself as a punk—a kidnapper and killer.

  Lisa.

  He felt a flicker of hope. He hadn’t killed her yet. Maybe he wouldn’t.

  He had to admire her. She had managed to keep her head. Conned them day after day. It made him respect her and feel a shade weaker himself.

  But more than anything, the thought of her made him relax a little. Like waking from a bad dream and realizing he was still in control. Maybe he would give her that chance she had been asking for. Not a good chance, but a chance.

  That made him feel better.

  For a few seconds, he even envisioned Lisa as his new partner. Now that he had seen her strength, he found himself making the comparisons between her and Carly. Lisa was not only closer to him in age, she was clearly more sophisticated, more appropriate for a man like him. And a beauty in her own right …

  Abruptly, he pushed away those thoughts. He was crazy if he thought she would ever love him after what he had done. And Carly would do just fine.

  Better than fine. She seemed to love him no matter what … he could put it down to her youth, her naïveté. She wasn’t stupid; there was too much intelligence shimmering behind her eyes for him to think that. More than anything, she seemed to read something in him that she chose to see as his love for her. He didn’t know if that was true or not, but he felt a sudden rush of sentimental affection that made him laugh aloud, sweeping the blues away.

  Lisa didn’t know whose house it was until she saw a picture over the mantelpiece of Jansten with a young woman. As Carly took her from one room to the next, a tear slipped down Lisa’s cheek. She had heard the gunshots.

  She wiped her face with her bound hands and stood straighter. The least she could do was let them know how she hated them.

  “Honey?” the girl called.

  “Right here.” Geoff came in from the hallway, the gun in his belt. His eyes looked bright but Lisa noticed he avoided her eyes. He smoothed the girl’s hair, making her smile uncertainly.

  “Where’s the guy?” Carly asked.

  Geoff didn’t answer her. Instead, he took the tape off Lisa’s mouth, looking at her now, challenging her to say something. “Listen. The house is off by itself. Your screams wouldn’t be heard, but they would be very irritating to me and Carly.”

  “What a shame.” Lisa’s voice was hoarse with her contempt.

  “I’ll show you a shame, girl,” Carly said, her hand slipping into her purse.

  Geoff snatched away her purse and took out the straight razor. She tried to get it back, but he held her away with his forearm. “I’ll tell you when and if we need to do that. I’ve still got plans for Lisa. Now take her upstairs and shower her off. She stinks.”

  He cut the line binding Lisa’s hands as if it were ribbon. “I’ll be right outside the door. Don’t give Carly any trouble.” He slipped the razor into his back pocket.

  Carly took Lisa up to the bathroom. A moment later, Geoff threw in some clothes, a pair of jeans and a button-down shirt. Jansten’s presumably. “Put her in these afterward.”

  Once the door was closed, Carly gestured toward Lisa’s clothes. “Get them off. He’s treating you like the frigging queen.” She turned the shower on and the bathroom quickly filled with steam.

  Lisa hesitated, then stripped off her filthy clothes. She looked at herself in the mirror: Her hair was filthy and there were dark shadows under her eyes. She smelled bad to herself.

  Carly looked in the mirror at her scar and then she turned her attention to Lisa. For a moment their eyes locked, and Lisa saw such fury there that she braced herself, ready to go at it again.

  But then Carly said, “Just get in the frigging shower, okay?”

  Once Lisa was inside, she let the water rush through her hair and she lost herself in the heat. When she finally stepped away to soap herself off, she saw that the girl was still standing right outside, looking in at her. The girl stepped closer, and Lisa couldn’t help but notice how young she was. Not much more than twenty, if that.

  “It’s just that I tried to help you,” the girl said. “I opened that box because you said you were cold. And you cut me for it.”

  Lisa resisted the urge to slap the girl’s face. She resisted the urge to remind the girl that she had kidnapped Lisa, helped store her in a box, and had helped kill Alex. That very likely Jansten’s body was lying somewhere in the house. Instead, Lisa leaned forward and said, “After Geoff jerks me and Steve around some more, he’ll probably kill us. What do you think is going to happen to you after that?”

  Carly watched Geoff tie Lisa to one the beds. He was surprisingly gentle, touching only her hands and arms. Lisa was fully dre
ssed in the clothes he had given her. “We’ll bring you some food,” he said.

  In the hallway, Carly said, “Why don’t you just fuck her and get it over with?” She brushed past him and went into the bathroom. She pulled her hair back from her neck to look at the scar. “I see how you’re looking at this. It’s over with us now, isn’t it? I’m useless because I’m ugly.”

  Geoff came in behind her and looked over her shoulder into the mirror. He reached past her and opened the medicine cabinet and found some disinfectant. “We’ll shower first, and then I’ll put some of this on.” He kissed her above the ear and held her close. “Is that what she said to you? I heard you whispering in here.”

  “Are you going to leave me behind?”

  “It’s not going to happen that way.”

  “What way is it going to happen?”

  He unbuttoned her blouse and slowly pulled it off her shoulders, looking at her in the mirror the whole time. “See how beautiful you still are,” he whispered. He touched the edge of her scar gently. “We’ll fix that. When we leave here, we’re going to Miami. They have more plastic surgeons than palm trees down there. Both of us will need new faces to start our new lives.”

  “Our new lives?”

  “Ours. Just you and me.”

  Her eyes welled up. “When?”

  “Ssssh. You’ll see.”

  He took her into the shower. As they made love, with the steam billowing up against the old man’s walls, she wondered if Geoff was lying. And, if so, was it just to her? Or to himself as well?

  Chapter 30

  The guy show up?” Bannerman said over the phone.

  “Finally. Not that it was so bad waiting.” Lazar was at the phone booth at the edge of the marina parking lot. “Nice life out here.”

  “Learn much?”

  “Nah. Dern’s not as old or the kind of stiff you’d think would be president of a big company like that. But he wasn’t volunteering anything. In fact, he was pumping me. Why I was investigating Mann? Who had filed charges? That kind of thing.”

  “Nosy bastard.”

  “Probably.” Lazar looked back at Dern’s boat. The guy was belowdecks now. Lazar couldn’t shake the feeling that the man wanted to talk more, but he had deftly shut off Lazar’s attempt to probe further.

  Lazar continued, “Did the courier deliver Mann’s personnel files like Jansten promised?”

  “No. I got his secretary on the phone just a few minutes ago. She was on her way out. Ice water, that chick. Said Jansten hasn’t authorized it, hasn’t said a word about it.”

  “Shit. Must’ve forgot.”

  “Yeah. Anyhow, she said he had left a message with the service saying he was going to be home for a couple of days. She said to get back to her then.”

  “Fuck that. You explain that we’re officers of the law?”

  “Sure I did. Made it sound like I’d have her ass in jail later tonight. She explained she worked for Jansten, and if he wanted his privacy at home in Sea Crest, he had the right.”

  “She told you that, did she? Told you he lived in Sea Crest?”

  “Good executive secretaries have to be politicians too, you know.”

  “If you say so.”

  “So the Sea Crest police came through. Got his number and address. But this can wait until we’re back.”

  “Give it to me anyhow.”

  Bannerman read him the information, his voice caught somewhere between amusement and exasperation. “You’ve got to get laid, man. We don’t have that much on Mann, and you’re ready to roust this captain of industry at home. What exactly has Mann done? As far as I can see, he likes a girl who might be a hooker, he’s been away from his apartment for a while, and he’s got an ego so big he needs to plaster his walls with pictures of himself. This isn’t the kind of evidence we arrest people on in this country. I say we’re due our two days off and we should take them.”

  “Ball was killed with a sword and then Mann and Jammer disappear at the same time. Doesn’t that interest you?”

  “Not even a little bit. Just because your life is boring and lonely, mine isn’t.”

  Lazar laughed. “Thanks for clarifying. See you Saturday, dickhead.”

  “Saturday.”

  Lazar got onto the Southeast Expressway, heading for home in Norwell. He sighed heavily the first time the traffic backed up, and realized abruptly he had been doing that a lot. Sighing.

  He dreaded his days off.

  Partly it was the house. Memories of her in every goddamn nook and cranny. Maybe he should just sell the damn place, end up in a cockroach-infested Brighton apartment like a normal divorced guy.

  He wished he could talk to her. He wished he could get a clear answer about why it had all changed. Why what was once a good thing—what was once their life—was now worthless.

  Lazar rubbed his forehead, trying to shove the whining, hurt-puppy voice out of his head. He abruptly thought of Mann’s apartment.

  All of those photos, but none of them showed the guy with a woman or anything that suggested family or friends. Jansten said something about grandparents, a girl in San Francisco. The personnel file would have a next-of-kin phone number. Hell, maybe Lazar would call it and Mann would answer. Got himself fired and scurried back to grandma and grandpa for free food and clean laundry.

  Lazar glanced at his watch. Just before seven. Maybe he would stop by Jansten’s instead of calling. Standing at the man’s door, he’d be much more likely to get Jansten to move things along. With Lazar standing right there, Jansten might even be willing to send somebody back into the office over the weekend, find Mann’s file.

  Get this fat cop off my porch.

  Lazar grinned as he took the exit for Sea Crest.

  Carly brought a bowl of soup and a sandwich to Lisa. The revolver was on the tray. Carly put the food aside and undid the ropes on Lisa’s feet and one of her hands so she could sit up. “There. Feed yourself.”

  Lisa noticed that there was less menace in the girl’s voice than before and her hair was drying as if she too had just showered.

  “You were wrong,” the girl said.

  Lisa was famished. She ate the chicken sandwich and tomato soup without saying a word. This was the most complete meal she had eaten since they had kidnapped her and she wasn’t going to risk offending the girl.

  When she finished, the girl said it again.

  “How do you know?” Lisa said quietly.

  The girl flushed. “Because he loves me.”

  “Did he say that?”

  The girl’s expression grew stony. “You think that’s a joke? A girl like me?”

  “No.”

  “I know what he feels. He doesn’t have to say it—I can make a man feel things a tightass bitch like you never could.”

  Lisa was silent.

  That seemed to make the girl angrier. “What makes you think you’re so different? What makes you think you’re better? It’s just clothes and … this rich-bitch attitude!”

  “Does my having money justify what you’ve done to me? Does that make it all right to put me in that box? To kill Alex and Jansten?” Lisa looked closely at the girl.

  Carly looked away. “You don’t know anything about me. I was just a kid when Jammer turned me out.”

  “So what he did to you makes it all right?”

  Carly’s face flushed. “It makes that fucker dead! It means that it’s my turn to get what I want. I’m young enough, I can wash those years away, and nobody’s going to know. And if no one knows, it’s like it didn’t happen.”

  “So you’re just going to pretend I didn’t exist when Geoff kills me?”

  The girl looked away from Lisa’s eyes. “I don’t want to talk about that. It might not happen anyway. Geoff can be real sweet when he wants. And if you want to stay on my good side, don’t kiss up to him.” She walked over to the mirror and looked at her scar. “He says we’re going to get this fixed. Maybe if we both make enough of a change, he’ll let you
go. I mean, you wouldn’t be able to identify us any longer.”

  “Do you actually believe that?”

  The girl was silent and then she came and sat beside Lisa. “Look, I know what you’ve been going through, and I’m not saying I like it. Me and Darlene—she’s one of Jammer’s other girls—sometimes we would look up and see the disgusting shit we’re doing day in, day out … and we say like, ‘How did I end up here?’ And I know that’s different from what you’re in, you know, this situation. But I know you’ve got to be thinking the same thing.”

  “You know that, and yet you’re keeping me.” Lisa looked at Carly and said quietly, “Please help me out of this.”

  Carly shook her head. “I can’t go against Geoff. He’s the only guy who’s ever taken care of me.” She blushed. “Maybe that sounds stupid, coming from a whore. But I’ve got feelings too.”

  “You think I don’t?” Lisa couldn’t keep the desperation from her voice. Her lower lip trembled. “You’re willing to do this because you’re waiting for him to say some words to you? What do you think is going to happen the first time you cross him? He’s doing this to me because Steve beat him out of a job. And I embarrassed him, maybe. I slapped him.”

  “Why?” Carly looked at her closely.

  “Because he was risking lives. For his stupid damn job, he was risking lives. Proving something that no one else needed proving. For what?”

  “Huh. You’re too rich to know what it’s like to be poor. He was rich, now he’s lost it. This will get it back.”

  “Rich? Maybe someday we would be. But for now, I don’t know how Steve raised the money he did. Believe me, I know our finances. There isn’t any more.”

  The girl smiled. “You think you know everything. Geoff says that money he got from your husband was just flash money. He’s going to do some payback on a guy who hurt me and he’s going to make us rich. Geoff is going to take me all over the world.”

  “How nice,” Lisa said, feeling the hysteria she had been holding back push to the surface. “How nice to know you’ve got a good reason for killing me.”