The ladies and I ate at a shiny dining-car diner near the train station, and afterward I put them on the 1:19 to Harrisburg, where they'd get a connecting train to Williamsport. Ev, God love her, didn't give me any speeches when I said good-bye to her, just told me to be careful and that she loved me whatever happened. That was good. That was what I needed to hear—an all-inclusive, unconditional I love you, simply because I didn't know what the hell was going to happen.
I decided to play the first hand, and called Runnells's number from a pay phone outside the station. It rang twice, and then I heard Michael Eshleman's voice telling me that I'd reached the number and inviting me to leave a message. I hung up. I didn't want anything on tape.
One thing I did want to do, though, and that was to get out of my house and into a hotel. The house was too approachable for someone trying to kill me. Though in a suburb, its back looked onto an undeveloped field covered with high grass, a perfect blind for anyone wanting to play commando. Another reason was that I wanted to get away from the things that reminded me of Carlie and Ev and my life in general. I needed the solitude of a strange room in order to think about what I was going to do next.
Constantly watching for tails, I drove home, packed a few things, and hied myself to downtown Lancaster to the Brunswick Motor Inn, a seven-story building surrounded by a vast number of outdoor staircases and public walkways that would insure that I could come and go unseen.
On my way there, I spotted a car that I felt sure was following me. It was hanging far back, too far for me to even see how many people were in the car, but I was certain they were tailing me. When I moved, they would move ten or fifteen seconds later. I switched lanes several times in the heavy late-afternoon traffic, and the other car always stayed with me. I couldn't discern the make of car either, only that it was white and fairly large. I thought it might have been a late-model Buick, but couldn't really tell.
When I turned into the parking garage that was part of the Brunswick complex, I waited at the first turn to see if my tail would follow me in, but they didn't, and an impatient Volvo that came in soon after prevented me from waiting to see if I could pick out the car as the traffic went by. I doubted if I could, however. Once they saw where I was headed, they probably took the first side street. I had to give Michael credit if it was him doing the driving. I couldn't have tailed anyone so sweetly myself.
I parked, checked in, and was taken to my room, then toyed with the idea of going to the bar and getting a drink, but decided against it, figuring that whatever came, it would be better to be sober. I didn't think that Runnells and Eshleman would try to kill me with so many people around, but I couldn't be sure.
For the life of me, little as that was worth, I couldn't figure them. Why keep following me? Why keep trying to kill me? If my life was in danger, wouldn't they have figured that I'd have gone to the police and told them everything already? (And maybe that explained why no one was home at Ravenwood—they were hiding out.) They didn't know that I didn't give a shit about my life, so wouldn't they have figured on my instinct for self-preservation to finally overcome my sense of honor? The only thing I could imagine was that they didn't care anymore, that they were so far into their fucking little game that they couldn't keep their priorities straight.
I didn't realize how badly I had underestimated them until that evening when I tried to force their hand by taking a walk. I waited until after dark, then left the hotel and walked down to Prince Street, browsed for a few minutes in Stan's Record Bar, then walked back up to the corner and into the Prince Street parking garage, taking the stairs to the third level. The other end of that level led out onto a pedestrian plaza, and I walked toward it, hearing footsteps far behind me, trying my best not to turn around and look back to see who it was.
As soon as I passed through the opening into the plaza, I ran to my right and leaped silently up a flight of concrete steps, then walked onto a balcony above the plaza. I didn't have long to wait. My tail came out in less than a minute, although he was directly under me, and the only way I could see him was to lean out over the balcony, an act that would be sure to get me noticed. So I waited, standing with my belly against the rail, my eyes looking straight down, praying that the son of a bitch would take just a few more steps into the plaza to see where the hell I went.
God listened for a change. The man was directly below me. And as I looked down on him, saw his size, his hair, the shape of his face from above, I realized that I'd been wrong. It hadn't been Runnells and Eshleman who'd shot Ev through the window, who'd followed me downtown in a white Buick, who'd tailed me down Prince Street and through the parking garage.
Neither Runnells nor Eshleman was black.
Ben Arkassian
Chapter 15
There were a number of reasons why Ben Arkassian wanted to kill Robert McKain, all of them centering on the murder of Christopher Townes. Not the least important of these reasons was Arkassian's own feeling of complicity in Townes's death.
At first he hadn't believed Chris when he told him about the tape that Carlton Runnells had shown him. "Come on, Chris, it must've been a snuff film, man, something the guy bought."
"It was a snuff film, all right," Townes said in the huffy tone he always used when Arkassian doubted him. "But he was starring in it."
"It doesn't make sense, man," Arkassian went on, throwing his legs up over the side of the couch and reaching out for his glass of Kirin. "Why the fuck would some guy be stupid enough to make a tape of himself killing his wife? And then why would he be stupid enough to show it to someone he hardly knows?"
"Well, he was pretty stoned at the time, and remember, we weren't exactly strangers, Ben."
Arkassian looked at him languidly. "Don't try and make me jealous, Chris. Next time my hand's up there, I just might decide to yank something out."
"Idle threats."
"Uh-huh. So what you want to do about this guy?"
Townes stood up and walked to the bar, from which he took a small ceramic canister of cocaine. He did a line on the smooth wood surface of the bar, then walked over to the couch and sat on the floor next to Arkassian. "I don't want to do anything. What I'm afraid of is that he'll want to do something to me."
"Thought he already had."
"Don't be cute. You know what I mean."
"Hurt you? Man, don't worry about that. If I worried about every dude whose secret I know, I wouldn't have no time for eatin' or drinkin' or fuckin'. This guy sounds like a pussy. Probably next morning when he realized what he showed you, he just got scared shitless and burned it or something."
Townes shook his head. "I don't know, Ben. I think Runnells is capable of anything. Christ, if you'd seen that tape . . ."
"Bad shit, huh?"
"Horrible. I don't know how they could do that to her . . ."
"Hell, you can't imagine doin' nothin' to no woman anyway."
"You shit."
Arkassian grinned. "Don't worry about him. He gives you any trouble, I know what to do."
Ben Arkassian did know what to do. He'd known what to do since he was a fifteen-year-old on his own in the Bronx. He stole, he fenced, he let white men give him blow jobs in the restrooms of movie theatres and bars down on Times Square. He hustled and he lived and he listened, and by the time he was nineteen he was moving drugs for a syndicate, making a lot of money at it. By the time he was twenty-two he had stopped trying to make it with the syndicate's whores and finally accepted the fact that he was gay. Three years later, when he was twenty-five, he met Christopher Townes.
It began as a business partnership, and a highly sensible one. Townes's clients were wealthy and chic, just the kind of people to add a little spice to their parties with the kinds of recreational drugs that Ben Arkassian was ready to supply. While discussing his concepts for the party, Townes would let slip a hint or two about being privy to such treats, and most of the time the client would inquire further. The markup was severe, so Arkassian's syndicate was happy,
Arkassian was happy, and Townes was happy. With all this happiness around them, it was only a matter of time before Townes and Arkassian became lovers. Despite the difference in their ages and races—or perhaps because of them—the two men felt attracted to each other beyond the merely physical, and eventually Townes moved into Arkassian's apartment.
Mr. Demeter, the man from whom Arkassian took his orders, knew of the arrangement and approved. "Times have changed," he had told Arkassian when he gave him his blessing. "And who the hell are we to legislate morality, am I right?" He was right. Even if he'd been wrong, Ben Arkassian would never have told him. Ben Arkassian never disagreed with Mr. Demeter. Mr. Demeter would not have appreciated that.
More than anything else, Ben Arkassian did not want to annoy Mr. Demeter, because staying in the good graces of Mr. Demeter was how Arkassian earned his money, and Arkassian liked money, though he worried about it frequently. Of all the benefits that accrued from working with the syndicate, a good retirement plan was not among them, and Arkassian was neither foolish nor shortsighted enough to think that his career with the syndicate could last forever. There were too many risks involved in handling large quantities of drugs for him to expect a life free of arrest. One day he would be caught, and tried, and maybe convicted, and although the syndicate would be grateful for his silence and reward him for it after his imprisonment, they would not be very likely to include a convicted drug dealer in any of their future expansion plans. So Arkassian made it a point to invest wisely, and to make any extra money that he could when the occasion presented itself.
And this situation with Carlton Runnells, the maverick movie maker, seemed to be such an occasion.
Maybe Runnells did cause his wife's death, and maybe he was kinky enough to film it, and maybe he was even stoned and turned on enough to show the tape to Chris. Still, there were problems. After all, Runnells had to know that Chris had no proof that he could take to the police, and, too, if Chris ratted on Runnells, what was to prevent Runnells from ratting on Chris? Besides, either one could deny the other's story. There were in fact so many problems with the scheme that Arkassian put it in the back of his mind as something to be dealt with in the future.
The future did not arrive until several months later, when, in a rare moment of idleness, Arkassian remembered it and thought what the hell, it was at least worth a try. So he sat down and typed a letter to Carlton Runnells. To a guilty man, it was a blackmail letter. To an innocent man, it was rubbish. He mailed it, and waited for a reply. If money was forthcoming, he intended to split it with Townes and tell him what he'd done. But Arkassian really didn't expect a reply.
Still, if Runnells was stupid enough to do everything Chris had said he had, maybe he was stupid enough to pay a blackmailer with no evidence. Arkassian had seen stranger things happen. So he mailed the letter the same way a person mails a magazine sweepstakes ticket, not really expecting to receive a reply.
He had particularly not expected to receive the reply that he got, or rather that Chris Townes got five days after the letter had been sent. Arkassian heard the shot from their apartment on the eleventh floor, and went to the window to investigate. Gunshots, although commonplace in some New York City neighborhoods, were rare in Arkassian's. But when he looked out the window he saw nothing, only the usual traffic on Fifth Avenue. He shrugged off the unaccustomed noise until Townes burst through the door crying a minute later.
"Oh Ben, oh Benny, oh Christ Jesus, somebody shot at me! Some maniac shot at me! . . ."
Arkassian calmed him, sat him down, gave him a tumbler full of scotch and ice, and finally got the story out of him. Townes had just turned the corner from Fifth and was ten yards away from the door to their apartment house when someone shot at him from a car.
"Did you see the guy?" Arkassian asked.
"Yes, yes . . . well, sort of. He pulled away fast, but he looked scruffy."
"See the license plate?" Already Arkassian was thinking about Runnells.
"Uh, uh, yes, I think so, I don't remember the number, I mean, Christ, Benny, I was too scared!"
"What state?"
"State? I . . . I don't know . . ."
"What color, Chris? You saw the color."
"Uh . . . gold. Gold and blue. But it wasn't like New York."
"Pennsylvania."
"What?"
"Pennsylvania. Have a thing in between the numbers?"
"A thing . . . yes, I think so."
Arkassian nodded. "Pennsylvania. Shit."
"You think it was . . . Runnells?"
"Who else you know live in Pennsylvania want to kill you?"
"Oh Jesus! But why now?"
"Maybe he just started getting nervous."
"Well, my God, we've got to stop him! I mean, nobody's ever shot at me before! Let's call the police!"
Townes had drained his glass, so Arkassian refilled it. "Going to the police wouldn't be a very good idea, under the circumstances, Chris. One thing leads to another, and your hands ain't exactly clean. Neither are mine. Uh-uh." He patted Townes on the shoulder. "You let me take care of this. Don't you worry none."
After another drink, Townes had calmed down enough for Arkassian to leave him alone in the apartment and go out on the street, where he found a freshly chipped spot on the building's stonework ten feet above the sidewalk. There was no one else around—no curious passersby who'd seen the incident, and no police. He loved New York. Everybody minded their own goddamned business.
The height of the bullet mark told him that this Runnells, or whoever Runnells had sent to New York, wasn't really serious about killing Chris Townes. Nobody was that bad a shot. It had been a warning, that's all. And people didn't give warnings because they were tough—they gave them because they were scared, too scared to just hit Townes and say the hell with him, and too scared to ignore him. People like that, from Arkassian's experience, were the kind of people who'd pay blackmail money. The potshot was no more than a bit of bravado, the same kind of stupid exhibitionism that had made Runnells show Townes the videotape in the first place.
He'd keep after Runnells, and Runnells would pay. Arkassian snorted a laugh. Because of this bullshit tonight, he'd pay even more. He went back up to the apartment, sat with Townes for a while, and then they went into the bedroom and made love, Arkassian turned on by the vulnerability and need of his roommate, and Townes by his close brush with danger.
The phone woke them just after eight the next morning. Townes answered it with a sleepy "Hello," and then his eyes got very wide. Runnells, he mouthed to Arkassian, who immediately hopped out of bed and padded bareass into the kitchen, where he picked up a second phone and listened. Runnells was speaking.
". . . apologize a bit for overreacting to your letter. I really hadn't intended Michael to . . ."
"What letter? What are you talking about?"
"Come on, Christopher, don't joke about this. You know what letter, the letter from my designing friend that you sent me."
Motherfucker, Arkassian thought.
"I didn't send you any letter, goddammit! Now what the fuck are you sending people after me for?"
"All right, I admit that was a little overkill, you'll pardon the expression . . ."
"Why did that asshole shoot at me?"
"You know why, Christopher, so please don't treat me as if I were stupid. I suggest you keep your mouth shut about our little extracurricular viewing, and you need fear no more visits from George Raft, all right?"
A sharp noise struck Arkassian's ear, and he realized Townes had slammed down the receiver. He met him on the way back to the bedroom. "Benny, what can I do?" he wailed. "I don't know what the hell he's talking about! What letter? What does he mean?"
Arkassian hugged him. "He's nuts, that's all. Paranoid. He's sorry he showed you that tape, so he's coming up with all sorts of fantasies and shit to give himself bad dreams."
"Then you believe me? You believe that tape was for real?"
"Sure. Only thing to explain
why that asshole's acting the way he is."
"What do I do?"
"Like I say, I handle it. I want you to disappear for a while. Get out of sight, out of danger. I don't think this dude'll try anything else, but you never know with these fuckin' nut cases."
"No! I don't want to leave you, I feel safe with you."
"Hey. I ever do anything to hurt your pretty ass?" Townes shook his head. "And I won't neither. I love you, man. I'm gonna stick you down in a place in the Village for a while. Demeter's got a building down there he hides people out in when they need hiding. I give him a call, he'll come through."
"How long?"
"Not long. Long as I need to clear this crap up. I come visit you, you get your lovin', don't worry." Townes smiled. "You better."
A phone call to Mr. Demeter was all it took. The older man asked no questions, just told Arkassian to drop by for the keys whenever he liked. Arkassian felt relieved when he had Townes safely ensconced in the flat off Houston. He loved the man and wanted no harm to come to him, although he expected no more attempts from Runnells. No, Runnells was ripe for picking, running scared and ready to pay to end the whole messy business. He tried to put himself in Runnells's place and imagine how he might have responded to the phone conversation with Townes. Chris had sounded scared enough to go running to the police regardless of the consequences, and the bit about not having sent the letter was sincere enough (since it was true) to make Runnells even more paranoid than he already was.
One more letter should be all it would take. So he sat down and wrote:
Dear Carlton,
Innocent people don't shoot at other people. Cash always makes a thoughtful present.
McKain's Dilemma Page 17
