by Mark Schorr
He inspected the credit card statements. As of six months earlier, they owed twenty thousand dollars to Visa and MasterCard. He remembered Jeanie preaching to him that credit card companies were legal loansharks and they should never accrue credit card debt. But the biggest surprise was that their mutual fund account, which had held more than three hundred thousand dollars six months earlier, was now empty.
Where had their money gone? There was the mortgage, Jeffrey’s school payments, the rest of their usual expenses. What had happened six months earlier? Was there really a Grand Cayman account?
The outer door opened and he almost nervously closed the desk. Instead he gritted his teeth and waited for Jeanie to enter.
On the ride home, Jeanie had been considering confessing to Brian. But when she saw him standing at the pried-open desk, looking both guilty and angry, she thought about her father’s advice, “Never play from a defensive position. Attack, attack, attack.”
“What’re you doing?” she demanded.
“I got curious about our finances.”
“You couldn’t wait until I got home?”
“I didn’t want to.”
She inspected the latch and saw that nothing was broken. She roughly took the papers from his hand. “I would’ve answered any questions you had without the need for a two-bit burglary.”
“I don’t believe one can be accused of committing a burglary in one’s own house.”
“Perhaps one can’t,” she said sarcastically. “How about invading one’s partner’s privacy?”
“Maybe.” His tone was flat, unemotional, his gaze unwavering, “But your privacy involves my savings too.”
Jeanie felt a tightness in her throat. She recognized the repressed menace in her husband’s expression. Usually when they quarreled he put up his therapist’s shield, absorbing her emotions with calm passivity, reflecting back feelings in a way that was annoying but made it difficult to stay overwrought. Now she didn’t know what he was going to do.
“How dare you not trust me?” she demanded.
“I did trust you. Until proven otherwise.” He thought of Louise Parker’s stinging words. “Our savings disappeared about six months ago and we even have credit card debt now. I don’t recall major unforeseen expenses. What happened?”
“We became a silent partner in a project,” she snapped. “Bought in with a ten-percent share. That’s one-tenth of the possibilities.”
“I know what ten percent equals,” Brian said. “What project?”
“One of the senior partners told me. It was a bonus, an insider’s tip. This was going to be our chance to make it big.”
“Is doing this illegal?”
She glared at him patronizingly. “No, that’s the stock market. The development has to be kept confidential or every dinky landlord in the way drives up his price. And the speculators come in. Once we’re past the initial offering and it’s public knowledge, then we can cash out.”
“You should have told me about this risk you are taking with our money.”
“You could have asked me about this at any time and I would have told you. You never cared at all about finances. I wouldn’t have had to go out on a limb if you had been making anywhere near a respectable salary all these years.”
“My job won’t be a problem. I was suspended today.”
“What?”
“Pending an investigation. I’m sure what you’ve done with our finances will only add to the problem.”
“Don’t try and blame me,” she said shrilly. “I know about the strip clubs you’ve been visiting, your obsession with your dead whore.”
“How can you even say something like that!” He took a slow, calming breath that did little to abate his anger. “You still haven’t told me where you put our money. What about a Grand Cayman account?” He stared at her silently, arms folded across his chest.
“The Grand Cayman account is only a few thousand dollars. One of the partners suggested we have it as a safety net, if money were to flow in that we didn’t want to leave a paper trail on,” she explained. “The rest is invested in a chance to be in on the city’s development, to be rewarded for my hard work. To finally be an insider, not some low-rent loser wannabe.”
He turned and strode away, afraid of what he might say or do.
Sitting in his parked car, Wolf watched the scene through Zeiss 8 x 40 binoculars. Hanson and his wife were quarreling but he had no idea over what. He had a small aerosol spray in his pocket with a lethal dose of cocaine.
The wife was a complication. But Wolf was pleased as he saw the light go on in the bedroom and her packing with crisp, determined movements. Two large, matching black suitcases.
She came out the front door with the suitcases, tossed them into her car, and sped off on squealing tires. Wolf waited in his car, parked in the shadow of a towering elm. He sat on the passenger side, an old surveillance trick, so that if someone saw him it looked as if he were waiting for the driver. About an hour later, the light went on in the master bedroom on the second floor. Fifteen minutes later, it went out.
It was close to midnight by the time the neighborhood was quiet. Wolf patted the spray and hefted the twelve-ounce blackjack he carried. A lock-pick gun in his right pocket, a Maglite with red cellophane over the bulb end, and a black ski mask rounded out his prowler essentials.
He switched off the dome light and eased out of the car, walking with a quick determination that would convey to anyone watching that he belonged, while also ensuring minimal open-ground exposure.
He had seen no signs of a guard dog at Hanson’s. A quick scan of the perimeter showed no alarm tapes on windows, or eave-mounted siren, or alarm company sign. Wolf put the lock-pick gun against the cylinder, and the projecting probe rose a half inch, stroking the tumblers. He adjusted the thumb wheel and pulled the trigger again. Rewarded with a click, he tugged the door open and slipped in.
He flicked on the red-filtered flashlight, keeping it low. As he played the light around the room, he saw an open bottle of scotch and a glass on the counter. It would make his job easier. He moved quietly toward the stairs.
Hanson lay in his bed, their bed, unable to sleep. Either he could accept and forgive, or let Jeanie’s deception be the final reason to take his marriage off life support. Staring at the ceiling, he focused on his breathing, in and out, the moments of his life ticking by. He envied those who could drift off to sleep without pushing painful images to the side.
The sound. At first his conscious mind could not place it. The old house, like an old man, had its own sequence of grunts and groans. The windowpane on the first floor that rattled with the wind, the hum of the oil furnace as it kicked over, the whistle of air in the gaps in the wall. He thought momentarily it might be Jeanie, but after so many years together, he could recognize her tread as quickly as he could spot her cart in a supermarket full of shoppers. This was different. He was instantly awake.
A heavier tread. Slow, nearly silent. An intruder. His hand snaked under the bed to where he kept a Louisville Slugger. Gone. Periodically, Jeanie would vacuum the bedroom, moving the bat to the basement. An annoying quirk that he attributed to her unstated dismissal of his PTSD concerns. But as his hand explored, finding nothing, he saw it as her last act of hostility toward him. Or maybe she had set him up. Could the intruder have been sent by her? Or Dorsey? His mind raced as he lay still in the dark. His hand came up from under the bed and crawled around the night table. He grabbed the TV remote and hefted it. Not much of a weapon, but at least it was a hard surface.
He worked on slowing his breathing. He was moving into his zone, the place where the overstimulation of PTSD was a lifesaving reaction.
The stair tread creaked. He knew which one it was, three steps up from the bottom. A few moments of silence, then another creak, higher pitched. One of the stairs right near the top. He feigned sleep, breathing slowly. The fact that the intruder had come directly to the bedroom and not prowled looking for valuables mad
e him more likely a predator than a thief. Most likely armed.
A figure silhouetted in the doorway. Hanson’s hand tightened on the remote. Could he kick off the blanket and quickly untangle? Hanson felt strangely calm. Like on a night patrol when it was so dark all you could rely on was sound, smell, and touch. The splash of a water buffalo, the overripe tropical barnyard stench. The soft loam compressed beneath combat boots. The great relief of spotting the glisten on a trip wire before it sprung.
The figure raised his right hand. Hanson hit the button to turn on the TV with the highest volume. At the same time he pitched the remote at the intruder’s head and rolled toward him.
He grabbed at the startled intruder’s throat. The man let him grab, then seized control of four fingers, and snapped him backward in a hold that sent a jolt down Hanson’s arm. Hanson swung a fast right chop at his assailant’s neck. The man dodged, but the glancing blow forced him to let up pressure on the fingers. Hanson launched a kick that caught the attacker’s shin and heard a pained grunt. He grabbed the attacker’s left arm at the elbow and shoulder and slammed him to the ground.
Then the two men grappled on the floor, trying to gouge, grab, or strike. They were of nearly equal expertise, and despite determined efforts, neither could gain control.
“Okay, Brian, get off.”
The voice. McFarlane.
Hanson rolled off, hands still in an on-guard position.
McFarlane pulled off the ski mask. He had a slight grin, then a flinch as he moved his left arm. “I think you dislocated my shoulder. Not bad.”
“What—what the hell are you doing here?” Hanson panted, massaging his fingers and checking that none were broken.
“I came to kill you.”
TWENTY-ONE
A stunned Hanson asked, “Who? Why?”
Wincing, McFarlane stood up. “You know Tony Dorsey?”
“Deputy mayor. He’s got something going on with Jeanie. I had a run-in with him at a dinner.”
McFarlane nodded. “He wants you dead.”
“You agreed to do it?” Fists clenched at his side, Hanson stood about three feet from his sponsor. The counselor struggled to make sense out of his sponsor’s double life.
“I agreed to do it. That doesn’t mean I was going to do it. I’ve done wet work for him.”
Hanson stared at McFarlane. “Wet work?”
“Bloody jobs.”
“What’s going on?”
“This’ll be the last time you see me, so I owe you that. I must admit when I saw the liquor bottle and thought you had relapsed, I was thinking about hurting you some. But you didn’t smell like a drunk. Or fight like one.”
“Jeanie used it. I decided not to touch it.”
“Good for you.”
They had been shouting over the noise from the TV. Hanson shut it. The room was dark. Wolf headed downstairs and Hanson followed. They sat in the dining room, the lights off, the dim glow from the streetlight outside providing the only illumination.
“A while ago I did a briefing for the mayor on a case I had worked on where the scumbag was going to get off. A serial pedophile. The cop I had inherited the case from had screwed up on a warrant.” McFarlane hesitated. “Tony Dorsey was there. Invited me out to lunch. Said he had heard about me through some Agency people he knew. Asked if I was interested in covert ops work for him. Dorsey told me he had a mandate from city leaders to clean up the town. You ever hear of the Pareto effect?”
“No.”
“Holds true for most systems. Twenty percent of the subjects will consume eighty percent of the resources. In this case, twenty percent of the criminals account for eighty percent of the serious crimes. My task was to get rid of that twenty percent. That small percentage spread their misery on the vast majority. Think of all the people who live in fear when a mugger terrorizes a neighborhood. Think of the economic effects when an area gets known as high crime. Think of the dozens, the hundreds, the thousands of victims. Think about their families, friends, neighbors. The FBI did a study of forty serial rapists. They had more than eight hundred victims. Any idea how much of a ripple effect one serious crime can have?”
“You were a contract killer?” Hanson persisted.
“That’s kinda harsh. Never for much money. Talk about job satisfaction. Nothing like seeing a scumbag who had beaten the system when he realized his days of getting away with it were over. They were all bad guys. The worst of the worst. No loss to humanity. Dorsey told me he first got the idea when he heard the mayor’s campaign slogan, “One person can make a difference.” Kind of a double entendre in this case. One creep can make a difference in crime stats and quality of life. One person willing to take out the garbage can make an even bigger difference.”
“What about killing Tammy?”
“No way,” McFarlane said contemptuously. “Look how clumsy a job it was. Compare that to my work.”
“What about Trixie?”
“Amateur hour. Whoever did that screwed up mightily,” McFarlane said. “Do you really think you would’ve survived if I had been intent on killing you?”
Hanson heard the pride in Wolf’s voice, and it chilled him. “Who else did you kill?”
“There’s probably fifteen less dirtbags in this town directly attributable to my missions. Another ten or so who were personally scared out of town. I suspect a few dozen more who moved on after getting the word that this is a bad place to be a shithead.”
“Vigilante justice.”
“Better than no justice at all.”
“Dorsey gave you names and you killed them?”
“I’d get background info from him and check them out, confirm what he had told me. I didn’t want to leave a paper trail, so I’d run them through NCIC on someone else’s computer or review files at the courthouse. See what I could pick up from on-the-job gossip. I wanted to be sure they were mega-scumbags, getting away with real evil.” Wolf got a glass of water and sat back down at the table. “The number’s been escalating. Dorsey’s pushing too hard, too fast. Then he gave me your name with some bogus story.”
“I’m curious, how were you supposed to kill me?” Hanson asked. McFarlane pulled a small black aerosol tube labeled “Security Pepper Spray” out of his pocket. “Dorsey gave it to me. CIA surplus, I suspect. Cocaine derivative, causes a heart attack and quickly metabolizes.” “Why’d you come here? Why’d you go as far as you did?”
“I don’t know if Dorsey has anyone else working for him. If I passed on this assignment, he’d he liable to farm it out. I didn’t haul your sorry ass out of the gutter so many years ago, then watch you grow up into a respectable citizen, just to have a pissant politico with a grudge undo our good work.” McFarlane took a key out of his pocket. “This is to a service door on the southwest side of city hall. It’s designed for emergency police access.”
Hanson regarded him quizzically. “So?”
“Tony Dorsey is in his second-floor office right now boffing your wife.” McFarlane rolled the spray canister toward Hanson. “He wanted me to use this on you.”
Hanson held the tube in his hand, unable to speak.
“No one wants this conspiracy revealed.” Wolf handed him the key.
“This’ll get you in without going past the guard. No security cameras if you follow a direct route.”
“How’d you get the key?”
“There are dozens of them in the department. Homeland Security whizbangs got the idea if the big cheeses at city hall were ever taken hostage it would allow SWAT to enter.”
“But doesn’t having these keys available decrease security?”
“In a way, yeah. But you think a hostage taker would have much trouble overpowering the rent-a-cop at the front desk?” McFarlane stood. “Good-bye, Brian. Wear disposable gloves. And take care of yourself.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“I’m a survivor,” he said with a cheerful wink. “Don’t worry about me.
McFarlane had taken a
few steps toward the door when Hanson said, “Wait. You said you only killed the worst. Then who killed Tammy?”
“All I know is I didn’t kill her,” Wolf answered before walking out.
Hanson parked his car a couple of blocks from city hall and walked to the side doorway. Everything was as McFarlane had described it. He stood, hesitating, gazing up at the lit second-floor office. No one in sight on the street, though he had the feeling of being watched.
He slipped on the thin ski glove liners, slid the key in, and opened the door. Part of him didn’t really believe he was doing it, as if he were watching himself in a movie.
The long narrow corridor was dimly lit, the linoleum shiny, the pale blue walls bare of decoration. He glanced up and down, seeing no security cameras. The spray felt heavy in his pocket. At the end of the hall, he eased open the heavy metal door with his gloved hands. There was the distant sound of a vacuum running. He forced himself to slow his rapid, shallow breathing. This was no combat killing, not self-defense, or crime of passion.
Then he was at the door to Dorsey’s office. He pressed his ear against the oversize oak door and heard the low murmur of Dorsey’ voice. He tried the doorknob. Unlocked. He padded soundlessly across the thick blue carpet.
There was a blindfolded naked woman, tied spread-eagled across Dorsey’s desk. Hanson recognized his wife’s body. Dorsey, without pants, was standing next to the desk.
“You’re going to hear greatest hits from the Tony Dorsey collection, sweet cheeks,” Dorsey said. He swatted her butt and Jeanie flinched. “Past performers, right from the very spot you’re on. Yes indeed, this office is wired for sound. Tricky Dick Nixon did it right.” He took out a pair of Koss headphones and slipped them on her head. From a file cabinet drawer, Dorsey removed a half dozen black leather items and several audio cassettes. He set a silver Bose boom box down on his desk and plugged the headphones into it. He popped one of the cassettes in.
