Fixed in Blood Page 19

  “We’ll swing back by another time.” Lydia reached for the doorknob.

  Mort was impressed with Lightfoot’s speed as he slammed his left hand against the front door, barring their exit.

  “Who the fuck are you and what do you want with my daughter?”

  Lydia held firm. “We need to speak to Jennifer, Tom.”

  Lightfoot stepped closer and stood nose to nose with Mort, showing him the steel that made him a Marine.

  “Get out of my house.” Lightfoot’s breath was hot on Mort’s face. “Now.” He opened the front door and stood guard as Mort and Lydia left. They were halfway down the broken concrete path when he called behind them through the rain.

  “And tell Boss Man if he has trouble with my daughter, he doesn’t have to send you. Tell him to come straight to me.”

  Chapter 32

  Boss Man hated that phone hanging from Staz’s neck. It was like talking into one of those damned fast-food ordering stations. Only there wasn’t any bag of steaming-hot fries waiting at the next window.

  “I don’t think you appreciate my situation.” Boss Man decided to keep it professional. She liked that. Like maybe they could all pretend they weren’t pimps and whores if they used Harvard Business School lingo. The bitch was nuts. And the silent tree trunk standing in front of him looking like he’d enjoy nothing better than for her to give the word to start wailing on his ass was a little loco, too. So if the skirt on the other end of the phone wanted to play corporate America, he’d go along.

  “I understand your situation perfectly well.” Her voice was smooth. Like maybe she got her start working the sex lines. Helping beer-bellied losers too lazy to head down to the corner tavern to pick up a real girl get their rocks off while sitting at the kitchen table in their tighty-whities. He’d met a few of those phone sex whores. They all had voices made you think of Beyoncé or Angelina but looked more like your fat aunt Gertie with the hairy mole on her chin.

  This one wouldn’t look like that. She was Vadim Tokarev’s number one bitch. Guy like that didn’t settle for anything less than prime. Had the money to keep her looking that way, too. Maybe when he made his move, he’d get a look at her. Maybe even more than a look. Women like her had a nose for sniffing out the man in charge and using what they got to get next to him. What the hell. Once he took back control of the action here in Seattle, he might give her a tumble.

  But for now he’d play along.

  “You take your direction from me. That’s been the arrangement since I bought your operation. Do I need to remind you it was my cash infusion that kept Vadim from collecting?”

  “No, ma’am.” He’d been desperate. He had a sweet thing going, running the girls in three counties. His legit business was good, especially for laundering the money the whores brought in, but it didn’t offer the jazz of walking on the wild side. The city knew him as a success, but Kiwanis meetings and quarterly reports didn’t light his candle the way his side business did. He loved everything about it. From kissing the kids goodbye in the morning, posing like he was off for another dull day like any other, to keeping the girls in line and soaking the johns for every dime he could. It made every breath a buzz. After expenses his racket was netting a cool forty grand a month that nobody knew about. Not even his wife. Life was sweet. But he’d gotten greedy and made the stupid decision to expand into the drug business. Nothing hard core. Just a little cocaine. Provide his customers one-stop shopping for all their party needs. Things had hummed along for a couple of months. His profits shot up to almost sixty grand a month but even that wasn’t enough for him. He went to his supplier, talked an especially impressive line of bullshit, and drove home with a quarter million dollars of powder bought on credit stashed in his trunk. He’d turn it into a cool million in thirty days. He got a hard-on just thinking about having a pile of cash that high. But six guys in ski masks were waiting for him when he pulled into his garage. His source had set him up. Stole the whole stash. That’s when he learned his supplier controlled the West Coast drug operations for one Vadim Tokarev, the baddest badass south of the moon. Nothing left to do but tell his wife where the cemetery plot was and pick out the hymns for his funeral.

  Then Staz had walked into his office, blocking out the sun with his mile-wide shoulders and water tower head. He’d pointed to Boss Man and opened the speaker on the phone hanging from his neck. Never said a word. All these months and he’d still not heard the big man speak. But he loved the sound of the chick talking from the phone. Especially when she’d offered up the money to pay his supplier.

  All she wanted was the whore operation. Just like that, he was out of the drug business and forced to call the woman who sucked the dick of the criminal who would scare Al Capone “ma’am.”

  But someday he’d call her something else.

  “You violated so many aspects of your job description I hardly know where to begin,” she said. “First and foremost you failed to remember the cornerstone of my business model: treat my employees with respect. Then, you stepped around me and approached my associate with a business opportunity you knew I would never approve, and two women are dead.”

  Boss Man looked up at Staz, the silent mountain. She’d called the man topping every Most Wanted list in the world “my associate.” As though she was on a par with Tokarev. Staz hadn’t cracked so much as a grin at that knee-slapper.

  “What was I to do, ma’am?” Boss Man hoped he sounded sincere. “The guy was offering so much cash. If we didn’t cast his production, he’d go to the competition. You want to grow the business by fifteen percent this year. I can’t do that by sending customers elsewhere. And like you said, a snuff film didn’t fit your business model. I thought if I offered it to Tok—” He caught himself. No one spoke his name aloud. “To your associate, the two of you would discuss the matter and give me guidance on how to proceed. I assumed when he gave me the go-ahead, he spoke for the both of you. And when your associate told me to cast another production, well, I figured you’d okayed that one, too.”

  The speaker was silent for several moments. Boss Man was proud of his performance. No way she could expect him to cross Tokarev. If he played his cards right, she might even see him as the victim of bungled management communication…maybe offer him a bonus to offset the stress of being caught in the middle.

  “We cannot have an effective working relationship without honesty.” Her voice stayed calm, but he sensed her mood had shifted. “If you truly felt my associate spoke for us both, you wouldn’t have explained Crystal’s death as an accident. And you wouldn’t have pretended not to know Francie was dead.”

  Boss Man dropped his gaze to Staz’s hands. There would be no bonus. There would be punishment. He was relieved to see Staz as relaxed as a human sequoia could be. There were no fists. No gun or blackjack. He dialed his voice to contrition.

  “I was wrong. I wanted to impress you. You and your associate. I’m guilty of ambition. Is it so bad? Me wanting to grow your profits?”

  “You didn’t report the income.” Her voice was as calm as if she was telling him the time. “When discovered, you exaggerated the expenses. Those are not the actions of someone wanting to impress me with profit growth.”

  He was cornered. Tokarev had assured him he’d handle his whore. Boss Man huffed out a short chuckle.

  “You find this amusing?” she asked.

  “Maybe a little. I mean no disrespect. I’m laughing at myself for trusting your associate. I should have known better.”

  “Whom should you have trusted?”

  Boss Man looked up at Staz before lowering his focus to the phone. “You. I see that now. You’ve never lied to me. You’ve always been fair.” The hell she had. But now was not the time. “I won’t make the same mistake again.”

  He was in no position to tell her another film was about to go into production. Tokarev had made arrangements for the deposit of the money. Distribution channels had been promised a fresh product. But Staz and the jackhammers h
e called hands were standing right in front of him. He’d get himself out of this situation, contact the Russian, and make sure he took care of the silky-voiced woman weighing judgment on him. “Give me a chance to demonstrate my loyalty. Let me earn your trust back.”

  There was another long silence. Boss Man offered a hopeful smile and collegial nod of the head to Staz. Finally she spoke.

  “I am a woman who believes in second chances.”

  Boss Man exhaled.

  “But you’ve already had yours. And a third as I recall. I’d hoped the penalties of cash would have corrected your behavior. They didn’t. Nor did the penalty of physical pain.”

  Boss Man felt his bowels rumble. This was going to be bad.

  “On the other hand you do know the area. The customers. And you have demonstrated an ability to recruit employees through your lending business. It would be unproductive to begin with someone new.”

  Boss Man allowed himself a small hopeful breath.

  “I promise,” he said. “No more behind the back. No more side deals. From now on you call the shots. I’m done with your associate. I’m just your eyes and ears here. Your arms and legs. How can I prove you can depend on me?”

  “You can’t.” Her answer came too quickly. “You’ve proven yourself completely untrustworthy. The responsibility of enforcing your loyalty falls to me. Staz?”

  Boss Man stiffened in his chair, ready for the first blow. He was surprised when the big man pulled an electronic tablet from his jacket pocket. As silent as ever, Staz manipulated his large fingers over the screen, then turned it around for him to view.

  His chest seized. A gasp escaped his suddenly dry mouth.

  “This is Nicky, I believe.” Her voice accompanied the displayed photo of Boss Man’s six-year-old son. He recognized the T-shirt the boy wore to breakfast that morning.

  Staz swiped his finger across the screen and another photo appeared. “And here we see David and Teddy.” A picture of his grinning ten-year-old twins brought the spinach and feta omelet he’d had for breakfast back into his mouth.

  “Leave them alone.” His voice held little volume. “I beg you. Hurt me. Take from me. Leave my children out of this.”

  “I have taken from you.” Her calm terrified him. “First I took money and you failed to learn. Then I took your comfort and again you betrayed me. I’ll need to take something else.”

  Staz moved his hand again across the screen.

  “And this is your Maria. Every daddy deserves a beautiful girl. You certainly got yours.”

  Boss Man broke into short, choking sobs as the screen showed a photo of his fourteen-year-old daughter. He’d tied that blue ribbon around her shiny dark ponytail this morning while his wife warned they were all going to be late if they didn’t hurry. Her eyes, so like her mother’s, had glistened with the joy of a well-loved child as she thanked him for making the bow just right. He’d pinched her freckled cheek and promised her they’d watch that television show she loved so much when he got home. He hated it, but it was magic to watch his daughter as she rooted for her favorite contestants to receive a rose.

  “Please,” he begged. “Please.”

  Staz again popped his fingers across the tablet before turning the screen toward him. He saw a video. His beloved Maria slung over the shoulders of the giant who stood in front of him. His daughter looked to be laughing as she kicked her feet and impishly patted her hands against his back. Staz was walking alongside a large indoor swimming pool, pausing every few steps and making a move as if he would toss Maria in, clothes and all. While there was no audio, Boss Man could see each tease brought a fresh wave of glee to his daughter’s face.

  She looked so happy.

  Boss Man watched as Staz entered the pool. The startled look on Maria’s face was replaced in an instant with the silent vision of more laughter.

  Maria was always up for an adventure.

  He watched her squirm as Staz took measured steps toward the deeper end of the pool. Staz stopped in the center and repositioned Maria in front of him. Held her high over his head. Just like Boss Man had done thousands of time when Maria was a toddler.

  Boss Man had no voice now. Not even a murmur to plead for his child’s life. He couldn’t turn his eyes away. He watched Staz lower his daughter into the water. He saw the joyful look on Maria’s face turn first to confusion and then to fear as Staz held her under the water time and time again. Each time longer. He watched her gasp for air whenever Staz lifted her from her torment only to plunge her beneath the surface again.

  He knew what was coming. He wanted to close his eyes. To save himself from seeing an image he knew would haunt his sleep as it drove him deep into the pit of insanity. But he couldn’t. He had been there when his daughter, fresh from her mother’s womb, had taken her first breath. It was his duty as her father to watch her take her last.

  He was almost grateful when Staz ended her torture. Staz clamped his large hands on her tiny shoulders and held her down. Her head turned this way and that. Frantic at first, but weaker with each moment. Finally she stopped. Staz held her there a minute longer, but Maria didn’t move.

  Only her ponytail, still wrapped in the blue ribbon her daddy tied, floated on the surface.

  The video ended. Boss Man willed his own breathing to halt. His heart to stop. His mind to give him the blessed gift of madness.

  “And so we have made a film for you.” He’d almost forgotten she was there. “And just like you, we are prepared to make others.”

  His mind flashed to the boys. His baby and the twins. How would they adjust to an emptiness where there used to be a big sister? How long would his wife scream in hopeless grief for the daughter she’d lost?

  “Will we have to?” Tokarev’s whore asked.

  His lips stuck to his teeth. His tongue lay huge and heavy, swollen in his mouth. Boss Man ached with effort to stutter out one word.

  “No.”

  Staz closed the tablet and slipped it back into his pocket.

  “Your wife will call when Maria fails to come home. You will reassure her all is well. Just like you reassured me there wouldn’t be another death. At some point the two of you will call the authorities to report your daughter missing. I have shown your wife a kindness. Her daughter’s body will be easily found. That’s more than you showed the families of Crystal or Francie. Should you betray me again, even in the slightest way, I promise you there will be no mercy extended. Your family will grow smaller with each misstep.”

  Boss Man nodded.

  “Staz will leave you now. I look forward to a new beginning for our working relationship.”

  Boss Man nodded again. There wasn’t any room in his mind for revenge. There was only grief and obedience.

  Chapter 33

  “We’ll find her, Lydia.” She’d been silent since they left Tom Lightfoot’s house. “We’ve got eyes on Jennifer’s school, her house, her friend Shaina’s house, too. Jennifer will surface. We’re watching Charlie Fellow, too. He’s gotta be this Boss Man Tom Lightfoot alluded to. One of them will make a move. Then we’ll get to Delbe.”

  Lydia focused on the changing scenery as they drove free of Tukwila’s urban trappings toward the film site in the foothills. She might look serene as a lotus flower, but Mort knew she was totally focused on finding her patient. And they both knew time wasn’t their friend.

  “We’ll find her,” he promised.

  Lydia put her finger to a raindrop riding on the side window. “What’s going to happen will,” she finally said. “I can’t let myself get caught up in the fantasy I can control any outcome. All I can do is all I can do.”

  Mort glanced over, then brought his eyes back to the twisting climbing road. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Destiny’s a funny thing, Mort. Take Delbe. Did she deserve what we’re afraid is happening to her right now? Or was it simply her destiny?” She shrugged. “Vadim Tokarev took your daughter. Is Tokarev a bad guy, or is it the role he’s d
estined to play in some cosmic drama we can’t understand?”

  Mort didn’t like the road she was turning down. “That philosophical stuff does us no good. I don’t want to believe we’re powerless.”

  Her smile was small and tired when she turned to face him. “I didn’t say we have to stand by. We just have to know our role.”

  And I don’t want to think about what The Fixer’s role might be, he thought. He pulled off onto a gravel road. The Subaru geared down automatically as the bumpy trail offered it a challenge. Like it was its destiny.

  Lydia relaxed her body into the rough ride. He recalled her telling him she was done apologizing for her past. “Do I need to be worried here? You’re a good woman. And right now you’re doing this investigation a great service. Let that be enough.”

  “You’ve told me more than once what a good woman I am. What makes you say that?”

  His tires spit gravel against the undercarriage of his car as he steered toward the center of the road. “You help people, Liddy. You do it every day.”

  “I do my job. Does that make me a good woman?”

  “Where you headed with this?” While he struggled to keep the Subaru from spinning out, she sat serene and calm.

  “We are what we do,” she said. “Not once or twice, but what we do repeatedly.” She glanced out the window. “Take you for example. You’ve lied to keep me out of prison. Does that make you a liar?” She considered her own question. “I don’t think so. But let’s say you lied repeatedly. Over and over. Across circumstances. Then I’d have to say you were a liar.” She turned to him. “I’ve killed scores of people. I’ve posed and I’ve schemed and I’ve manipulated to do it. Time and time and time again. Yet you tell me what a good woman I am.”

  “You don’t do that anymore.” Mort’s arms ached from battling the steering wheel, yet she seemed oblivious to the road they were on.

  She stared straight ahead. “No, Mort. I don’t do that anymore.”