Payback

by Lee Goldberg

  "Mack," Shaw said sternly, "get us over to Marina Del Rey Towers as fast as you can."

  "This stunt doesn't change a thing," Mordente broke in.

  "Jessie," Macklin said calmly, "I just saved your life. Doesn't that tell you anything?"

  "Yeah, it tells me you remembered at the last minute that if I die that story is published anyway," she shouted, residual fear cracking her voice. Both Macklin and Shaw winced as her voice boomed in their ears. "What did you think killing me would accomplish, Macklin? And why use two crooked cops?"

  Macklin sighed with frustration and decided it was best to ignore her for the moment. "Ronny, why are we going to the Towers?"

  "I got a call. There's been a hit on Aaron Tate, the black mobster behind 80 percent of the drug traffic in this city," Shaw said.

  "Is he dead?" Mordente asked quickly, suddenly the reporter. Macklin grinned to himself, certain now that she was all right.

  Shaw peered out the window at the hint of blue water in the distance. "Not yet."

  CHAPTER NINE

  Monday, May 21, 10:23 a.m.

  Macklin's helicopter streaked over Chace Harbor, where the frothy swells were cluttered with all manner of pleasure craft, and across the rooftops of dozens of stylish condominium and apartment complexes.

  Looming up in front of Macklin were the four, staple-shaped Marina Del Rey towers, facing each other and forming an imposing, eighteen-story steel cloverleaf without the rounded edges. A shimmering blue swimming pool and lush green putting green filled the center space between the towers.

  "It's the tower on your left," Shaw instructed.

  The helicopter veered towards the building and closed on it in a slow, gentle descent. Mordente hastily finished wiping the blood off her arms and face with alcohol-soaked gauze pads from Macklin's first aid kit.

  A pale young police officer who looked like he was just out of high school appeared on the roof as the helicopter touched down. He had a perplexed, lost expression on his face. Macklin pushed open his door and jumped out, faintly aware of how strange he must look in his Kevlar vest and jogging shorts. Why, he wondered, had Shaw insisted they come here?

  Shaw and Mordente dashed past him. The reporter shot an icy glare at Macklin and stayed close to Shaw's side. Her hair was mussed, her face was lined with scratches, and her blouse and slacks were specked with dirt and blood. Yet she hardly showed the trauma. Her stance was firm, and her face reflected a strong anger and determination. Her whole body radiated strength. Macklin regarded her with genuine admiration. She was quite a woman.

  Macklin remained at the helicopter and watched while the officer animatedly explained something to Shaw, who waved Macklin over with his arm.

  "C'mon, Mack," Shaw yelled over the sounds of the whirring chopper blades. Macklin reluctantly sprinted to the doorway to the stairs leading into the building. Their footsteps clattered down the stairwell to the penthouse.

  "Tate was found ten minutes ago by one of his aides," Shaw explained as he turned and started down the second flight of stairs. "The aide called the paramedics and the police. Unfortunately there's nothing any of us can do."

  "What do you mean?" Mordente asked impatiently.

  Shaw pushed open the door that led to a hallway carpeted with thick, white shag. The walls were covered in dark wood. Two medics paced in the hallway in front of a pair of open double doors and turned abruptly when Shaw, Macklin, and Mordente appeared in the hallway. Behind them, in the living room, Macklin could see two bodies crumpled on the floor and splashes of blood on the walls.

  "Hey, don't be mad at us, we're just following the law here," one medic said, raising his hands defensively in front of his chest and nodding his head toward the door to his right.

  "They don't pay us enough to deal with that shit," the other one said, dispensing with a defensive posture altogether.

  Macklin and Mordente followed Shaw past the medics and right through the double doors. Mordente involuntarily grabbed Macklin's wrist in terrified surprise and froze in the doorway.

  Aaron Tate, clad in a white satin jogging suit, lay on his back atop his long mahogany desk. His arms were slit open lengthwise and bound to his sides by steel wires that wound around his body and joined at a lump of gray clay on his chest.

  Blood flowed out of Tate's fleshy arms in thick streams that dripped onto the floor and formed a huge, expanding stain in the white carpet around his desk. His eyes were open wide and he was shivering.

  "That lump of clay on his chest is contact explosive," Shaw whispered. Mordente, realizing she was grasping Macklin's arm, jerked her hand away as if electrocuted. "It's a mixture of clay and nitroglycerin. If he moves too much, or if someone tries to remove those wires, he'll blow up."

  "He's shaking," Mordente muttered, staring at Tate.

  "I think that's the idea," Macklin realized. "It's from the blood loss. He's going into shock."

  "The bomb squad probably won't get here in time to dismantle the bomb before he bleeds to death," Shaw said. "That is, if his convulsions don't blow him up first."

  "What are we doing here?" Mordente asked.

  Shaw didn't answer.

  "Stay in the hall and get the medics to stand clear of the room," Shaw told the officer.

  "You got it, Sergeant," the officer said, stepping away eagerly.

  Shaw glanced nervously at Macklin, then at Tate. The detective motioned Macklin to follow him and then strode confidently into the room. "Tate," he ventured.

  Tate looked at Shaw with two horrified eyes. "Please help me, Shaw, I'll do anything," he said in a weak, drowsy voice. "I'll give you names, dates, places. Just get me out of here."

  Shaw bit his lower lip nervously and stopped a foot short of the desk. Macklin came up cautiously beside him.

  "Who did this to you, Tate?" Shaw asked carefully.

  Tate swallowed, his shivering increasing. Macklin glanced back at Mordente and saw that she now stood only a few feet behind them, just clear of the creeping bloodstain.

  "Mr. Jury," Tate sputtered.

  Shaw sighed, looked back at Mordente, and then to Tate again. "This man standing beside me, is he the one who did this to you?"

  "No," Tate muttered.

  "Are you certain?" Shaw insisted.

  "Yes," Tate replied, wincing. "I'm not going make it, am I, Shaw? Am I?" Macklin watched as a wave of violent muscle contractions crept up Tate's legs.

  Macklin tapped Shaw in the side with the back of his hand. Shaw watched, transfixed in grisly fascination, as Tate's body shook.

  "C'mon, Ronny, let's go." Macklin grabbed Shaw by the arm and led him away slowly. Mordente had back-stepped through the doorway into the hall.

  "Where are you going? Huh?" Tate yelled. "Help me, damn it, help me!" His stomach rose and fell with his anxious breathing. Convulsions wracked his body. "Don't go!"

  Macklin pushed Shaw through the doorway into the hall just as Tate burst apart in a whirlwind of blood and flame.

  A powerful fist of scorching air punched Macklin in the back and flung him against the wall outside the room. He flew into it like an insect splattering against a car windshield. The air rushed out of his lungs, and he slid dizzily to the floor, chunks of spongy flesh, cheesy adipose, and thick droplets of blood raining down on him.

  Lying sprawled out and dazed on the floor, the world spinning around him, he was unsure if the blood on him was Tate's or his own.

  Mordente, flat on the floor beside Macklin, was the first person to stand. She braced herself on the wall and rose shakily to her feet, nearly stumbling on a mangled Exercycle wheel. The windy sound of hungry flames filled her ears. The medics, at the far end of the hallway, were beginning to stand up. She peered around the charred doorframe into Tate's office.

  The carpet where Tate's desk had been was aflame, tongues of fire snapping at the ceiling and flicking out the shattered window into the blue sky. Torn flaps of flesh were plastered to the blood-smeared and fire-blackened bookcases around
the room.

  "Give me a hand," Shaw said, his voice distracting her from the carnage.

  She turned and saw Shaw wrapping Macklin's right arm around his shoulder. Swallowing back the bile rising in her throat, she grabbed Macklin's other arm, and together she and Shaw lifted him to his feet.

  "Are you all right?" Shaw asked Macklin, whose head swayed weakly from side to side.

  "Yeah," Macklin sputtered. "Give me a second to catch my breath." He stood in front of Tate's doorway and stared into the office decorated in gore. Damon's Mr. Jury had to be stopped.

  "Do you think you can fly your copter?" Shaw released Macklin's arm and was glad to see his friend could stand on his own.

  "Yeah." Macklin nodded, glancing away from the room and at Mordente. She didn't look like she agreed with his answer. "Help me up the stairs," he told her.

  "Hurry up. I want you out of here before this place is crawling with authorities," Shaw urged them. "I'll touch base with you later."

  Macklin nodded and they struggled to the stairwell, the door closing behind them just as the bomb squad appeared at the opposite end of the hall.

  # # # # # #

  Hot water pounded from the Shower Massage into the sore muscles between Brett Macklin's shoulder blades. Dried blood washed off his skin and swirled around the drain, reminding him of the murder scene from Psycho. A hand suddenly pulled back the shower curtain, and Macklin jumped back, nearly losing his balance on the slick enamel of his bathtub.

  "Take it easy," Jessica Mordente said softly, lifting her slim, naked leg over the bathtub rim. Macklin closed his eyes, relieved, and exhaled slowly. He had expected Norman Bates to slash him up with a knife.

  When he opened his eyes, Mordente stood bare in front of him. Water sprayed off his shoulders in a fine mist that coated her breasts with tiny beads. Her eyes met his and he felt her trembling fingers brush his chest.

  She had already taken a shower. While she was doing that, Macklin had scoured the house, found all of Stocker's listening devices, dropped them on his garage workbench, and crushed them with his hammer. He was brewing a pot of fresh-ground coffee when she came downstairs. When Macklin had left her a few minutes later, she was curled up on the couch in his terry-cloth robe and sipping a cup of hot coffee.

  "Being alone, downstairs, all I could think about was all the bloodshed." Her voice was raspy and her shaky fingers traced circles around his nipples. "I need to be with someone."

  Macklin understood how she felt. He had endured the same empty, floundering sensation when he first began his vigilance. Only for him, there was no one around to turn to. The fear, the disgust, and the uncertainty had just chewed away at him. He was past that now. Death was no longer a stranger to him.

  Her hands slid across his flat stomach and down to his buttocks. She gently kneaded the firm flesh and drew him closer until he could feel her warm breath on his face. He held her by the shoulders and kissed her lips, feeling her pliant body melt against his.

  He pulled back and let his hands slip from her shoulders to the smooth swell of her breasts. While kissing her, he lightly stroked her nipples with the palms of his hands. Her excited nipples hardened, poking into his palms. Her head fell back against the tile and her breathing became ragged.

  "Suck them, please," she urged him in a dreamy, far off voice. Macklin lowered his head, tenderly cupping her breasts and flicking his tongue across one of her pointed nipples. Then he encircled it with his lips, sucking and rolling his tongue across the soft areola. The shower's hard stream massaged his neck, the hot water cascading in sheets down his arched back and soothing his aching muscles.

  She moaned, her back pressed to the cold tile, her hands tightening on his shoulders. He placed his right hand between her legs and let his fingers slip deeply into the softness.

  Mordente's legs began to shake, and she slid moaning down the tile into a sitting position with her knees bent in front of her. The pulsing water drilled the tile above her head. Macklin stood and felt the hot water punching his sore back again and the luscious warmth of Mordente's mouth around his stiffening penis.

  She sucked and licked him with abandon, holding his erection with one hand and milking his testicles with the other. Macklin heard himself groaning pleasurably and was aware of his hips instinctively jerking back and forth. The tingling pressure of his excitement was becoming too much.

  Macklin, breathing hard, gently pulled himself away from her and unclasped the Shower Massage from the wall. He adjusted the dial to soft massage, spread her legs, and held the head over her auburn pubic hair. Jets of water splashed between her legs in rhythmic pulses. She writhed, dragging her fingernails across the tile and clenching her teeth.

  "Now, Brett, now," she managed to mumble, tossing her head and lifting her hips closer to the shower head. Macklin dropped the shower head, pulled Mordente towards him, and thrust his throbbing penis into her, both of them crying out with ecstasy as he began thrusting.

  They were lost in their own passions, and the horrors they had witnessed today no longer existed. Their bodies slapped together, their pleasurable, breathy moans resonating off the tile walls and intensifying as their excitement grew unbearable.

  # # # # # #

  The dwindling rays of the afternoon sun melted into the blue-gray shadows of approaching nightfall. Macklin, propped up against his headboard, stared out his bedroom window at the changing contrast of the trees set against the sky. Usually, he didn't notice the subtle transformation of light to dark. He didn't miss it. There was an emptiness about it that chilled him.

  Jessica Mordente nuzzled closer to him, shifting her head from his chest to the warm space between his neck and shoulder. He felt her lips lightly caress his neck. He had told her everything, sharing with her every detail of his life since his father's death. Then they made love again with a hypnotic slowness that built to a frenetic climax that left them sweaty and languid in each other's arms.

  "Does it scare you?" she whispered. It was the first time she had spoken since Macklin had told his story.

  "What?"

  "The thin line that separates you from the fake Mr. Jury."

  Macklin said nothing.

  "You don't think you two are much alike, do you?" she asked softly, her breath warming his neck.

  "I don't have as much hate."

  "C'mon, Brett, sure you do."

  Neither of them said anything for several long moments. Macklin felt warm and snug under the sheets. The sun had disappeared and the bedroom was dark. His skin was sticky with sweat where Mordente was pressed against him. Her body was like a smoldering fire.

  "I don't kill because I like it and I don't kill because I disagree with someone's skin color, religious beliefs, or political bent," Macklin said.

  "You kill because you think you're right. You kill to protect someone or to uphold the law. But by the very act of killing, you're making a mockery of the law you force others to abide by with their lives," she said. "So far, the people you've killed probably deserved it. But what about tomorrow or the next day, or the day after that?"

  Macklin sighed. "I have to have faith in myself. I have to hope that I'll know if I've slipped over the edge into the kind of madness that's driving him. I know, I know. He thinks he's making things right, too. But I am. That's the difference."

  "It's all how you look at it, Brett."

  "How do you look at it?"

  "I don't know," she replied, her voice shaky.

  Macklin squeezed her tightly against him. Her smooth body felt good and solid against him. He found the feel of her body close against his fortifying and comforting.

  "I'm sorry, Brett," she whispered. "I came very close to ruining a good man."

  "There's nothing for you to apologize for, Jessie. You were doing what you thought was right."

  "A part of me knew it couldn't be true," she said. "But I would have destroyed you anyway."

  "It's over now." Macklin buried his lips in her hair.

>   "No, it isn't." She sat up, leaning forward on her elbows, and gazed into Macklin's eyes. "There's still a killer out there. You aren't going to rest until you get him, are you?"

  Macklin nodded.

  "I want to help you," she said firmly. He knew he couldn't talk her out of it. He wasn't sure he wanted to.

  "When's your next interview with Anton Damon?

  "Thursday."

  Macklin leaned forward, brushing his lips against hers. "Bring me with you as your photographer."

  "Okay," she replied huskily, slipping her hand under the sheets and down his thigh, "on one condition . . ."

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tuesday, May 22, 11:30 a.m.

  "There is no tangible connection between me and your vigilante," said Anton Damon, tilting back until his chair tapped the interrogation room wall, "besides a similar view of the world, Sergeant Shaw."

  The black detective unbuttoned his collar and loosened his tie. He could feel perspiration rolling down his back. It was 102 degrees outside and, Shaw mused, 125 inside.

  "C'mon, Damon, let's cut the shit." Shaw leaned against the wall facing Damon, who sat at the end of the table beside his attorney, Steve Gregson. Shaw figured that Gregson would gladly trade his Century City office and Mercedes convertible for a thatched hut on a Malibu beach and a surfboard with a cellular phone. Gregson's sandy blond hair, seamless tan, and bright blue eyes made Frankie Avalon tunes ring in Shaw's ears. "The phony Mr. Jury is White Wash and those illiterate reprobates can't piss unless you help them aim."

  "Mr. Damon, being a parolee doesn't mean you've forsaken your constitutional rights." Gregson sneered at Shaw. "You don't have to answer these ridiculous, pointed questions."

  Damon shrugged. "Relax, Steve. Let Sergeant Shaw here flex his muscles. It's amusing." The White Wash leader cocked an eyebrow. "What makes you think this isn't the real Mr. Jury?"

  "The real Mr. Jury is dead," Shaw replied. "And while he was alive, he didn't hunt down blacks for sport. This man does, and calls it the White Wash way. Your way."

  "Shaw, you aren't thinking," Damon said, giving Shaw a reproachful glare and waving a scolding finger at him. "Mr. Jury is a vigilante who protects people from violent crime. I've yet to meet a black who hasn't committed a crime and wasn't a potential killer. It's only natural that blacks dominate the list of criminals Mr. Jury has . . . ah . . . restrained."