“Shoot,” I said, then regretted the choice of word as I caught my reflection in the window. I saw a man who looked remarkably like me, but holding a gun, trying to put some fear into a couple of slimeballs. I had no idea who this person was. And I could not believe that he was composing sentences in his head that contained words like “slimeballs.”
“Just who the hell are you and what business of yours is any of this?”
It was a good question, no doubt about it. And one that would take, if you were to do it properly, too long to answer. I said, “I sort of stumbled into all this, but now that I'm in it, I need to know as much about it as I can before I get out. My questions will probably be easier to answer than Mr. Benedetto's. What's he going to think when he gets out here and finds the two of you handcuffed, the ledger missing, the negatives gone, plus a few thousand in cash—”
“That money meant nothing,” Greenway said.
“I guess not,” I said. “Since it was fake. Is that the machine”—I pointed to the one outside Greenway's office door—“you used to print the stuff?”
“Look,” said Greenway, “it wasn't something we did very often. Just when our cash flow was a bit down. Stefanie, I don't know what was up with her, sounds like she printed up a ton of the stuff before she decided to make a run for it.”
Carpington said, “Fake? You were printing fake money?”
Greenway rolled his eyes. “No, Roger. We were printing real money. We got a franchise from the Mint.”
“So you were paying me in counterfeit funds?” He was aghast. Imagine, buying a councilman's vote with bogus cash. Was that ethical?
“Not all of it, just the odd bill here and there. Look, you got to buy stuff, people accepted it, what are you worried about?”
“Why was Stefanie making a run for it?” I asked.
Greenway almost looked sad. “I don't know. I treated her well. Gave her one of our houses to live in.”
“She needed a place to conduct your business. She fucks Carpington on your orders, he's happy and votes for your development. Plus, there's the added bonus of the hidden camera, so if he blabs, you've got something to show his wife and kids.”
If Carpington had had his hands free, he'd have put them over his eyes and wept. I turned to him as another set of headlights swept past the window. Earl was hiding the second car.
“Isn't that about it, Roger? A little sex, a little cash, plus the occasional romp in the trunk with Quincy, and you'd vote any way he wanted you to?”
He nodded, his eyes moistening.
“Plus, you knew about Spender, that Rick smashed his skull in down by the creek. And if Greenway could order Rick to do that, he could just as easily order him to do it to you.”
Carpington swallowed hard. “I've been scared out of my mind for so long. I took the money, I, I slept with Stefanie. But I swear to God, I just wanted it all to end somehow, if I could just find a way that it wouldn't ruin me and my family, or hurt my chances of being elected mayor.”
Where was this guy from? Neptune?
“You know, Roger,” I said, “I think this is the sort of thing, that if it all came out in the open, might work against you in a mayoral campaign.”
“Listen,” said Greenway, thinking, looking for a way out. “What if we give you Rick?”
“Pardon?”
“We say it was Rick who did these things, killed Spender and Stefanie, but we didn't know anything about it.”
“So you know he killed Stefanie, too?”
Greenway shrugged. “You've seen him in action. You know what a hothead he is. Who wouldn't believe it was him? But you leave us out of it. You let us go about our business. I could make it worth your while.”
I said, “Would you fix my shower? And do something about the caulking around my bedroom window?”
“Of course. We'd make everything right. I'll send in a team. We'll fix your place up, give you some more upgrades you opted not to get when you purchased. What about a pool? We could put in a pool for you.”
“Well,” I said, appearing to consider his offer, “it's awfully tempting, but I'd really rather see the whole lot of you go to jail.”
“No!” Carpington said. “Let me make a deal! I'll tell you everything! Just don't let them send me to jail! I wasn't the only one either! There are other politicians, from other towns.”
“Roger!” Greenway bellowed. “Shut up!” And he rose up, a somewhat wobbly action since he didn't have his hands available to push himself out of the chair, and started coming around the desk toward Carpington. It looked as though he was going to try to kick him. “Shut up!”
“Sit down!” I shouted. I mean, really shouted. I thought, for a moment, that maybe Earl had returned, that it was him giving the order, but then realized the two words had come from me. I raised the gun, pointed it in Greenway's general direction, but not right at him, still not trusting myself.
Just as well, too. It went off.
My best guess is, when I shouted, every muscle in my body tensed, including the one in the finger that was on the trigger. I thought squeezing off a shot would require more pressure, more deliberation, but nope. One moment, things in the office were, relatively speaking, calm, and the next, there was a huge hole in Greenway's desk.
“Oh shit, I'm so sorry,” I said.
Greenway jumped back, fell into the wall. Carpington screamed. The door burst open. Earl shouted, “What's happened?”
I stood there, gun in hand but pointed now at the floor, and said, “I shot the desk.”
I felt I had not made sufficient apologies to Greenway. “Really, I'm very sorry, I'll pay for any damages. I really didn't mean for that to happen.”
Earl took the gun from my hand. “Looks like I got back here just in time.”
I surrendered the weapon without hesitation. Earl took the half-inch of cigarette from between his lips, exhaled, and said to Greenway and Carpington, “I think I just saved your lives.”
“Thank you,” Carpington said. “Thank you so much.”
To me, Earl said, “Their cars are around back, and I was just about to hide my truck when I heard the shot. You about done here?”
“I think so,” I said.
Outside, we heard the familiar sound of tires crunching on gravel. Earl slipped back into the main part of the office that was still in darkness and peered through the blinds.
“What kind of car does Rick drive?” he called out.
“A little sedan,” I said. “Import, four-door.”
“No, this ain't Rick then. It's a big Beemer. Seven series.”
Greenway said, quietly, as though resigned to some terrible fate, “That would be Mr. Benedetto.”
“The more the merrier,” said Earl, who moved into position behind the door. When the first knock came, Earl swung the door in, held the barrel of the gun to Benedetto's nose, and said, “Won't you come in?”
He had a larger-than-life quality about him. Tall, broad, heavyset, immaculately dressed in a dark suit and expensive overcoat. Silver hair, wire-rimmed glasses, big bushy eyebrows. His mouth was wide and turned down at the ends. He didn't blink when Earl shoved the gun in his face, and he stepped into the Valley Forest Estates sales offices calmly.
Greenway called out from his office, “Mr. Benedetto! I can explain! We're just having a bit of a situation here.”
I stepped out of his office. “Hi, Mr. Benedetto. I've heard a lot about you. And my friend and I would love to stay and chat, but we've pretty much finished conducting our business here.”
While Earl kept the gun on him, I went back to Greenway. “Where's my phone?” I asked him.
For a moment, my question didn't seem to register. Then he recalled grabbing it at the construction site. “Desk drawer,” he said. “Top right.”
I looked inside and sure enough, there it was. I slipped it into my jacket pocket. “Good night, gentlemen,” I said.
“Hey,” said Carpington, trying to show me his cuffed wrists. “W
hat about a key?”
I shrugged, smiled. “It'll just save the cops the trouble when they get here.” And I walked out, past Benedetto, Earl following me. We ran to his truck and got inside, backing out of the lot and heading up the street.
“What about Benedetto?” asked Earl. “Should we have used our last set of cuffs on him?”
I shrugged. “I think we've got what we need, regardless of whether he's walking around free.”
I took a couple of deep breaths, and then, out of nowhere, started making whooping noises.
“Whoa! Jesus! Did you see us in there? Were we bad?”
“We were bad,” Earl said.
“We were baaad!”
“Sure,” he said, lighting up. “We were bad.”
“We were some bad motherfuckers, weren't we?” I slapped the dashboard. I felt like we'd just walked out of a scene in Pulp Fiction. “I can't believe we went in there, pushed them around, got some information. We kicked ass, didn't we?”
Earl nearly smiled. “Yeah, kicked ass. Nearly killed them, too, you dumb fuck.”
We drove along in silence for a moment. I realized we were heading out of the neighborhood, nowhere in particular, it seemed.
“Where we going?” I asked.
“Hey, you're the navigator. I just wanted to get us away from there. I thought maybe we needed a drink or something.”
“No,” I said. “No. I gotta finish dealing with this. I think I'm ready to go to the cops. I've got what I need.”
Earl nodded thoughtfully. “There's a couple of things,” he said.
“Okay.”
“First, I'd appreciate it if you could keep me out of this. I was happy to help you out tonight, but maybe you can find a way to keep from mentioning my presence to the authorities. I don't want them coming by and asking a lot of questions. I've got a business to run.”
“Sure,” I said. “I'll do what I can. I guess it depends on how much Greenway and Carpington say. They'll probably have enough to worry about without filing any sort of charges about our busting into their offices.”
“I expect. And there's something else, that can't come from me, since I'd like to keep a low profile.”
“What?”
“When you call the cops, you might want to suggest to them that they check those clowns' cars. I noticed, when I was moving them, there's a lot of shit in those cars, books and files and stuff. Might be just the thing they're looking for.”
I nodded. “Sure, I'll be happy to pass that along.”
“You want me to drop you at the police station?” he asked.
I thought. “No. There's a street behind ours, where I parked Stefanie Knight's Beetle. I'll pick it up, drive it over to the police station, get them to give me a ride home later.”
“Sounds good.”
He turned around, headed back to our neighborhood, and pulled up alongside the Volkswagen. As I opened the door, I said, “Thanks, Earl. You didn't have to do this.”
“S'okay. Just remember to do what I told you.”
I nodded, slammed the truck door shut, and, as Earl drove off into the night, reached into my jeans for the VW keys. I got into the car, fired it up, and decided to check that my cell phone was on.
I dug it out of my pocket and saw that Greenway had turned it off, not keen to have to take my messages, I guess. I watched the tiny screen as the phone became activated, searched for a signal. And then: “You have 4 new messages.”
I could guess who they were from. Before I went to the police station, I thought I'd better give Sarah a call at work. It was time to come clean. She was going to be pissed, I knew that, but there was going to be no way to keep all this from her once the police were involved.
Without bothering to check the messages, I called her extension at work.
A male voice answered. Not Dan. Thank God. “City.”
“Sarah Walker, please.”
“Not here. Can I take a message?”
“It's her husband. She go home in the middle of her shift?”
“Some emergency. Had to go home.”
And I thought, What if that was her who phoned when I was hiding out in the construction site? And when a strange voice answered—Greenway's—and said I was unavailable? What would she have thought? Especially when she was unable to raise me, or the kids, at home?
Shit.
“Thanks,” I said, and then, as soon as I'd ended the call, I realized the gravity of what Sarah's colleague had just said to me. Sarah had gone home. To the one place where I'd felt, all night, it was unsafe to return.
I started to key in our home number when the phone rang shrilly. I nearly dropped it. I pressed the green button and put the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Zack?” Sarah.
“Yes, yes, it's me!”
“Didn't you get any of my messages? God, I've been trying to get you all night.”
“I just got my phone back and hadn't had a second to check them yet. I'm so sorry, it's been quite a night.”
“I phoned you, and this other man answered, and I tried to call back, and I called home, and you haven't been here, I couldn't get the kids. So I left work and—”
“Sarah.”
“—I've never been so worried in my entire life, especially when—”
“Sarah.”
“—only a few blocks from here, they found this woman with her head smashed in, I think I told you about that—”
“Sarah.”
“—drove home as fast as I could and—”
“Sarah!”
“What?”
I tried to stay calm. “Get out of the house.”
“What?”
“Just get out of the house. Walk out the door, get in the car, and, and just drive to the doughnut shop. I'll find you there.”
“What do you mean, get out of the house?”
“Sarah, I'll explain later, but right now it's important that you—”
“Hang on,” she said.
“What?”
“Just hang on. There's someone at the door.”
“Sarah, don't answer the—”
And I heard her put the phone down. She must have been using the one in the kitchen, not a cordless, otherwise she would have kept talking as she went to the door.
“Sarah.”
Nothing.
“Sarah?”
Still nothing.
“Sarah!”
And then, a minute later, the sound of the receiver being picked up.
“Sarah?”
“Hey,” said a voice I recognized. “I'll bet this is Zack.”
“Rick,” I said.
“Gotcha. Why don't you come home, bring along that ledger I think you got, before I kill your wife.”
26
i was barely two minutes from home, but it was the longest drive of my life. I stomped hard on the gas pedal of the Beetle, screeched around two corners and through two stop signs, and drove right up onto our front lawn, jumping out of the car without turning it off or bothering to close the door. Sarah's Camry was in the drive, blocked in by Rick, who had parked his car behind it.
The front door was locked, so I fumbled in my pocket for my own set of keys, got the right one into the lock after a couple of tries, my hands were shaking so badly, and burst into the house.
“Sarah!”
The house was eerily quiet. I paused, just for a moment, wondering where Rick and Sarah were. Blood pounded in my temples.
“Hey, Zack!” Rick called out casually. “We're in the kitchen!” Like he was saying “Come in for a beer.”
I moved through the house slowly, wondering how I should be handling this. The truth was, I had no idea how to handle this. I was already thinking I'd made a terrible mistake, that before I got here I should have dialed 911, or grabbed Earl again, or banged on Trixie's door and gotten the ledger, but I wasn't thinking all that straight. Sarah was in trouble, and all I could think to do was get to her as quickly as possible
.
And now I was here, and there she was, sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, duct tape wound about her waist several times to secure her. Her hands were bound behind her, and there was more tape around each of her ankles, securing her legs to the chair. Rick stood by the sink, wielding the switchblade I'd seen him use to pick out loose pieces of caulking in our shower.
“Hi, honey,” I said weakly.
She looked too frightened to speak. Tears had streaked her mascara, and there were a couple of dark trails leading down across her cheeks. But she managed to say one word, a question.
“Kids?”
I nodded. “They're fine. They went to stay with friends overnight.”
“Isn't that keen,” said Rick, looking at me. “I used to love sleepovers when I was a kid. This could have been such a great night for the two of you, kids out of the house, chance to get it on, right?”
I said nothing. Rick waved the knife about, swung it into the corner of the countertop, chipping it. He whacked at it again, taking out a chink. He was going to whittle away our kitchen.
“So, Zack, good to finally catch up with you,” Rick said. “I feel like I've been running around all night looking for you.”
“It's all over,” I said. “Your boss Greenway, and Carpington, the police are going to be on to them in no time. Just get out of here and make a run for it. It's not going to take any time for them to figure out you killed Spender, and Stefanie.”
“Whoa, you got that all wrong, fella.”
“Just go. Don't hurt us. We won't call the cops for an hour. That'll give you time to get away.”
Rick looked hurt. “But Sarah here and I were hoping to get to know one another. I feel that you and I have had a chance to get acquainted, but Sarah and me, we don't hardly know a thing about each other.” To her, he said, “You know I didn't even realize, until the second time I was here, that your husband wrote one of my favorite books.”
“Really,” Sarah whispered.
“That's a fact. And I'm not a big reader, so you can imagine my surprise when I found out.”
“Of course,” Sarah said.
Could I rush him? There was the matter of the knife. At least it wasn't a gun. He couldn't get me from where I was standing. Suppose I ran? Just bolted, went for help? Outran the son of a bitch? And while it seemed like at least a possibility, I had some trouble with the optics of it all, of fleeing the house, leaving Sarah behind with this guy. At least now, if he went after her with the knife, I could try to do something about it. Try to be some kind of hero.