Payoffs

I swam up out of my sleep more easily this morning. Either the painkillers they had me on were working or I was feeling better. I opened my eyes and they focused slowly on the red hair and freckled face of Silas Grant.

“Damn,” I said. “I was getting used to beautiful women waking me up.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. “I assume that was a thank you for saving your wretched hide Sunday.”

“It was,” I moaned. “And Riley’s”

“That was an unexpected bonus. She is one hot…” he broke off. “Sorry. Strictly business. I thought you’d like to know what was in the truck.”

“Do tell,” I said. “We had theories.”

“Well did any of them have to do with the upcoming release of a major computer software system?” he asked. We’d definitely been a little slow on that one. “There was, at first calculation, twenty-two million dollars worth of counterfeit software in that truck. It became obvious that they weren’t taking it anywhere. They just drove back and forth from Seattle to Spokane. The one time they actually unloaded, it was in an interstate rest area where they transferred goods from one truck to another. We finally pulled both trucks over because if they kept splitting it up, we’d never have enough people to follow all of them. The drivers were very cooperative. They hadn’t received orders yet as to where to take the stuff. Apparently they were intending to keep it moving until just before stores got the official software in, and then start delivering theirs.”

“The joys of never knowing when a product is going to ship,” I said. “Bradley’s timing sucked on everything.”

“Well it would have been enough to convict him if he wasn’t dead already. We’ve moved on BKL to confiscate everything in the offices. Everyone at headquarters is a little ticked that there’s no one to convict.”

Thoughts started rolling around in my head faster than lightning. No one to convict. Bradley was just as scared of Oksamma as Simon was. Oksamma didn’t work for him, he was there representing someone else’s interest. Someone who was still in the shadows.

“What about Davy Jones?” I asked.

“Hired help. He was security chief for The Condo, he says. He thought Deb was being held because she had tried to steal something. That’s what they told him. Said as soon as they knew who she was working for, they were going to turn her over to the police.” Silas sighed. “He was a Marine. He’s used to following orders, and having served in Iraq, he’s used to some of them not sounding entirely legal when they are given. I think he really thought he was acting in the best interests of his employer. What did you hit him with, by the way? He was out most of Sunday afternoon.”

“The blender,” I said. That means I’d wasted precious minutes tying up a non-threat. When I got out of the hospital, I was through with being a detective. Riley was much better suited to the business than I was.

“He thought you’d hit him with your fist,” Silas laughed. “He has a tremendous amount of respect for you now.”

“Well, don’t tell him otherwise, will you?” I chuckled. A true pack animal. You respect the one who is more powerful. I decked him, I’m the alpha male. How simple. “By the way, did you find out exactly who he worked for? The Condo isn’t a business in and of itself is it?”

“No. His payment, he says, always came from BKL. Apparently that was one of the businesses that they were in. We hope that the records will show a flow of money from certain high profile men in this city in the form of bribes and blackmail.” Silas broke off when his phone rang. He snapped it open and listened quietly. “Thanks,” he said and broke off the call.

“It appears that I should make myself scarce,” he said to me. “That was Deb in the lobby. She says that “the Muffin-Top,” Brenda Barnett, just asked for your room number at the front desk.” My hand moved of its own volition and grabbed Silas’s arm. BKL. It wasn’t Barnett, Keane, and Lamb. It was Brenda Katherine Lamb. Chances are that Bradley didn’t even know he was being manipulated by the silent partner of the firm, his erstwhile lover, Brenda Barnett. Riley told me that she had found records indicating that it was Brenda who owned The Condo.

“I hate to put you in the closet, Silas,” I said. “But I’d like you to stay close and out of sight for this.”

“You think she’s…?” he questioned. I nodded. Without another word, Silas stepped into the closet and pulled the door closed. I didn’t think she was personally dangerous, but it crossed my mind that she might be coming to close my final chapter. I breathed out to relax my suddenly tensing muscles and struggled to prop myself more upright in bed. This was not a good meeting ground for an encounter with Brenda. I heard her heels in the hallway long before she got to my door. The waft of her lilac perfume preceded her through the door.

“Dagget, sweety,” she said, coming through the door. “I think I owe you hazard pay. I had no idea this little job would be so dangerous for you.” She swept across the room and bent to kiss my forehead.

I sneezed.

“You never could stand my perfume,” she said jumping back and grabbing a tissue to mop herself off.

“What brings you up on this visit, Brenda?” I asked. “I can hardly believe you were concerned about my health.”

“Dag, we’ve always been concerned about you, Simon and me.” She sat in the chair beside my bed, where so recently I’d seen Riley sitting. “Simon pushed me toward you in college. He always said you needed someone to look out for you. And now you’ve caught his killer. How can I say thank you Dag?” She pulled out a checkbook. I let her write the check. She handed it over to me and I counted the zeros.

“It’s a little more than we agreed to,” I said.

“Just a small token of my appreciation for all you’ve done and all you’ve been through, Dag,” she said.

“Yes. Let’s see, what did I accomplish? I tracked down your husband for you so you could send a hired thug to wire the plane and kill your husband. I’ll bet you were even mad that Oksamma tried to kill me before I found Simon—doubly so when you found there was nothing on my computer. Then Riley acquired the backup disks for Simon’s computer that you made before you erased his files. Since she already knew you owned The Condo, you knew she couldn’t resist an invitation to see it. You arranged to have a party for the girls and get her invited up. You kidnapped her and called Bradley in to recover the property. But it was you who hit her. It’s your office, after all. Riley saw the lilacs there. You sent Oksamma to see that Bradley stayed motivated. It was all a convenience to you that both Bradley and Oksamma got killed in the process. Now there are no witnesses that can tie you to your part in blackmailing area businessmen and laundering the money through cash card sales at a franchise you had Simon create.” I’d spilled everything. It was all conjecture, but I knew that Silas had heard it all.

“Simon always said you were the best,” Brenda said. “I never particularly believed him. I always thought Simon was the best. But he turned out to be such a disappointment. He could never make the really hard calls. He had a juvenile sense of ethics. He even felt guilty about sleeping with me when you and I were married. And here you are, with such a fabulous theory and no proof. And there is none on those backup disks, either. Nothing that will tie me to anything that has happened. Good theory though, smarty.”

“Why, Brenda?” I asked. “Why did you kill Simon? You had everything.”

“I have everything, Dag,” she said standing up. It was going to fail. “I was married to Simon for thirty years. I loved him to death.” Her smile reminded me of a predator’s open mouth after a kill. She leaned in close to me. The scent of lilacs was bringing tears to my eyes and I thought I might sneeze on her again. But what she said chilled me to the bone.

“I didn’t kill Simon, Dag,” she whispered. “You did. You with the help of that stupid blonde twit he thought the world of. I told you where the trigger was for the explosives on his plane. She spelled it out for you. F-8-e-d-2-d-1-e. When you sent the signal, the plane went poof.” She stood and turned to leave, then turned back to me.

“Spend your money fast, Dag,” she said. “I hear you’re not long for this world.” I saw Silas slip out of the closet behind her and when she turned he had his ID out and his sidearm drawn. She screamed and I saw Riley fill the door blocking any entrance or exit to the room.

“Brenda Barnett,” Silas intoned. “You are under arrest on suspicion of murder, attempted murder, racketeering, embezzlement, money laundering, blackmail, and running a house of prostitution.” He snapped handcuffs onto her wrists, perhaps more tightly than was strictly necessary.

“You have no proof of any of that,” she spat. “Do you think that I will sit for a day in any prison? When my lawyers get finished with you, you won’t even have a badge left.”

“Then let’s add this one,” I said from the bed. “As sole surviving partner and majority holder of Barnett, Keane, and Lamb Ltd., you can also be charged for counterfeiting of computer software and smuggling it into the country for illegal gain.” The instant look of loathing on her face was not directed at me.

“That idiot!” she exclaimed. It seemed she didn’t know about Bradley’s own endeavor to make money in the black market. Silas turned Brenda and headed for the door. Riley stepped in. I couldn’t resist one last dig at Brenda.

“Brenda,” I called after her. Silas stopped and turned her to face me. “How does it feel to get rid of two lovers in a week?” She paused and snarled at me.

“I’m hoping for a hat-trick, Dag,” she said and jerked forward out of the room with Silas holding her arm. I hate hockey.

Riley came to me and hugged me.

“That was brilliant,” she said.

“You only heard the end,” I answered.

“Oh, I heard it all,” she responded. I looked up at her she pulled back the hair from her ear and I saw a tiny earbud inserted there. She pointed to the lamp beside my bed. Tucked up under the shade was a tiny transmitter. I knew that someplace nearby she had also concealed an amplifier for the low-wattage signal that the little device would put out.

“You are very sneaky,” I said.

“Well, you showed me how to open the vault,” she answered. When I went to get your laptop, I saw the mike on your desk. I picked up the transmitter and earbud out of the vault before I came back. I wanted to be sure I could hear you if you needed me.”

“I need you Riley. You know that.” She perched up on the edge of my bed and I could see her smooth bare legs sticking out from beneath her skirt. She heard the beeping of my monitor speed up slightly and glanced at it in alarm, then turned and smiled back at me.

“So I do have some affect on you,” she said smugly. “What do you need me for right now?” I handed her the check for $100,000 that Brenda had written.

“I need you to get this to the bank right away,” I said. “Let’s hope it clears before Brenda thinks to stop payment on it.”

“You’d take money from her?” Riley said in disbelief.

“Can you think of a muffin-top more deserving of having money taken from her?” I asked. We both laughed. Dr. Roberts appeared in the doorway.

“I need to speak with Mr. Håmar, for a few minutes, Miss,” he said.

“Yes, Doctor,” she answered. “I’ll be back in a flash,” she said to me. She took the check and headed out the door.

“How am I doing, Doc?” I asked. I had to admit that I was feeling a little tired now, but other than that, I didn’t seem too much the worse for wear.

“You know the story, Dag,” he answered. “You were in cardiac arrest when they brought you in Sunday morning. No one counted on your heart restarting.” He opened my gown and examined my chest where there were two burn marks from the defibrillator. I noticed my meager chesthair was all gone and I was painted orange.

“What’s all that?” I asked.

“Well, they brought an organ donor in right on your heels. I had you rolled into the operating room and prepped for the transplant before we found out the heart was no good. The guy had fallen on broken glass and a sliver was driven right up under his scapula and into his heart. An inch higher and the bone would have stopped it. Of course, he wouldn’t have been donating then. We transplanted a lot of his other organs to recipients though. Too bad about the heart.”

Bradley had done some good in his death then. He just hadn’t done me any good. It’s okay. I don’t think I could have lived with part of him in me.

“A second body came in at the same time with a perfectly good heart, but no donor card. We can’t just harvest organs without the donor’s consent. We’re keeping you prepped though. We came through the holiday without as much activity as we often have, but we’ve got time. The ventricle chamber wall has grown extremely thin. A tear could be the last of it, so quit bringing business into the hospital with you, would you?”

“You’ve got it Doc,” I said. “It’s not giving me any pain right now.”

“Well, we’ve got you on ARBs, Beta-Blockers, and Diuretics to expand your blood vessels and slow you heart. It takes the pressure off the heart and makes it so it doesn’t have to work so hard. But it also gives you low blood pressure. That’s why you’ve got everything you need in bed. We don’t want to be getting you up and down a lot with this. So just lie back and relax and try not to aggravate the condition until we can get a donor through the door, okay?”

I agreed to Doc’s conditions and he left. It was getting pretty serious. I closed my eyes for what seemed like only a few seconds. When I opened them, I had another visitor. If this kept up they’d put me in a locked ward. Angel stood beside my bed with her lower lip clenched between her teeth.

“Are you all right, Dag?” she whispered. She glanced toward the door.

“Mmmm. Yes,” I said taking inventory. The machine next to me was still beeping along. I must be alive. “What did they tell you?”

“Just that you weren’t allowed any visitors now. I came up the back stairs and sneaked in.”

“Just to visit me, Angel?” I asked. “What’s on your mind?”

“You are a kind man, Dag,” she answered. “Simon trusted you. I trust you.” A tear was beginning to form in her eye. I wasn’t sure if I could trust my judgment that it was real or not. “Can you help Davy?” Ah there it was out.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“They are holding him for kidnapping your girlfriend. Or I guess she is your partner. He didn’t know. None of us knew. I wasn’t even going to go to the party Saturday night, but Cinnamon called and said she’d invited Debbie. I like her and I thought that it would be fun. And I still hoped that she was going to say by some miracle that Simon was alive and it was all a big mistake.”

“What happened?” I prompted.

“She disappeared. We’re all so used to each other walking in and out that we didn’t think anything of it for a while. Then Davy came out. He’s always there because he’s the security person, you know. He came out a little after midnight and said that we all had to go. He’d just gotten orders that he was to lock up The Condo until further notice. He collected all our security cards from us and ushered us to the elevator.”

“How many are all of you?” I asked.

“There were about twenty of us there at that time. We didn’t really get started until 9:00 or so. We thought it was pretty rude for them to kick us out so early. But that’s when Cinnamon noticed that Deb was gone. I asked Davy and he said she had left earlier. Didn’t I know? I thought that it was strange that she didn’t say anything to us, but we were all a little tipsy and I thought she might have gotten sick. I grabbed my cell phone out of the basket and called her as we got on the elevator. I heard a phone ringing as the doors closed. It gave me a little chill, but we didn’t know what to do. She didn’t answer, and I knew she was still in The Condo. I should have done something.

“Then Davy called me last night and said he was in jail. I went to visit him this afternoon and he said they’d kidnapped and hurt Deb and he was in trouble for it. He was just doing his job, Dag. He didn’t know they kidnapped her. They told him she was trying to steal something and they were going to hold her till morning and then call the police. He couldn’t believe the way you came busting in Sunday morning and decked him. He said you were like a berserker.” She paused and reached out to touch my cheek.

“He’s a good guy,” she pled. “He really didn’t know. Can’t you help him?”

“Angel,” I said, breaking the mesmerizing stroking of her fingers against my cheek. “I’m sure things will be all right.”

“If there is anything I can do for you that would help,” she said. I saw her unzip her short fur jacket and knew what she was attempting. Get real. I’ve got a fucking catheter in.

“Angel,” I said, “the thing that will help Davy is for him to come absolutely clean with the police, including agreeing to testify against Brenda Lamb Barnett. I’m pretty sure he knew who his boss was, just as I’m sure you knew that it was her and not Simon and Bradley that ran The Condo. And you can help by agreeing to testify as well. No one knows what you really did up there except those who were involved. We can’t expect any of the men who were there to come forward, especially if they think Brenda has something on them.”

“I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll talk to the other girls. Some of them believe their jobs will be in jeopardy if they talk, but I can convince some of them to testify. Thank you, Dag.” She leaned in and kissed my forehead again.

“Angel,” I said, suddenly curious about something. “There is one thing you could do for me personally.” She looked at me and smiled. “You told me that you and Simon and Bradley all had tattoos. What does yours say?”

I will never, ever understand women. All she had to do was tell me. Instead she kept that slightly sensuous smile on her lips as she stared into my eyes. Then she reached for her waist, unfastened the button, and lowered the zipper on her skin tight jeans. I stared in amazement as she slowly pulled them down. I kept expecting her to turn and show me her buttocks as the anticipated place for a tattoo. Instead the jeans crept lower and lower from her waist.

If Angel didn’t shave, I wouldn’t have been able to see the tattoo. When I saw it, I couldn’t believe she’d tolerated a tattoo needle on that sensitive flesh. When I read it, I knew she hadn’t chosen the tattoo herself. This was more of Simon’s work. “36DB00BS.” Nipples had been artfully positioned in the 00 with shoulders drawn above.

I tore my gaze away from the offered sight and looked back into her eyes. The sardonic smile was still in place and she pulled up the jeans and refastened them.

Damn.

No consideration for my ailing heart.

“Angel,” I said. “Why do you waste your time with older men? Why don’t you satisfy yourself with Davy, go to the house in Croatia, and be happy?”

“Davy is nice, and I love him in a way. But already he looks at younger girls at The Condo instead of me,” she said. “He sees me getting old. I’ll be thirty next month, and he’s right. When I’m with a man who is fifty or sixty, he sees me as young and beautiful. And as long as we are together I’m still twenty or thirty years younger. He keeps looking at me. When he’s seventy, fifty is going to look young. And even if he sees someone younger and prettier, he still knows he’s got a young beautiful woman that other men his age envy him for. And if he happens to be rich and kind, then there are all kinds of bonuses. I’ll be waiting for you when you get out of here if you say so.”

“I’m not rich, Angel,” I laughed.

“But you are kind,” she said. “Call me when you get out.” She zipped up her jacket and left. She looked down the hall both ways before she stepped through the door, then turned and waved good-bye as she left.