It enhanced her vague resemblance to Sydney.
Merselus scrolled to the bottom of the page, to a message that was superimposed on the image, written in bold red letters: CHOKE ON IT. And she would, too. Some pervs got off on the kiddie porn, turned on by underage girls having sex for the first time. Others-guys like Merselus-got off on women having sex for the very last time.
He moved closer to the bed, towering over the image on the screen, preparing himself for two minutes of insanity that would leave him and her-especially her-breathless. This one had shown such attitude at one time, real push back, just like Sydney. She’d even tried to talk him into reversing roles, to let her try erotic asphyxiation on him, but he was no fool. The hotel maid would have found him the next morning hanging in the closet with his dick in his hand. No one, however, would ever find little Miss Choke-on-It. These two minutes were all that remained. His self-made films didn’t come close to capturing the excitement of the conquest, but they were better than raw memory. They were his movies, his moments.
With a click on the START arrow, there began another dark night down memory lane.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Jack and Andie did a Saturday-morning run through Crandon Park to the beach and back. It wasn’t a race. Still, it bugged him that the only way to make his pace a workout was for Andie to run backward while pulling along a dog on a leash.
“I think Max wants to go again,” she said.
They were in the driveway, Jack hunched over with his hands on his knees and trying to catch his breath. “We’ll see how spry he is when he hits forty.”
Andie took Max for another three miles. Jack recovered in a hot shower.
Jack’s to-do list was chock-full. Sydney’s remark about Merselus-“he found me in jail”-had put one more thing on it. Jack wasn’t sure if that meant he called, wrote, or came to see her. He sent Theo to the women’s detention center to get a log of every visitor, every caller who had contacted Sydney. By the time Theo returned, Jack had killed a pot of coffee and mapped out the strategy for the upcoming hearings.
“We’ll have it this afternoon,” said Theo.
On a weekend, that wasn’t a bad job of cutting through the red tape. “We can check on it after we see Mr. Bennett,” said Jack.
A follow-up with Sydney’s parents was at the top of Jack’s task list. He’d called them immediately after his phone conversation with Sydney. Sydney wasn’t a minor, but they were her only family, and Jack felt they should know that their daughter was apparently on the run and in danger. Her mother had seemed appreciative of the call-enough so that she’d promised Jack that both she and Mr. Bennett would meet with him in the morning. But that was before her husband had snatched the phone away from her and bid Jack good night. Jack decided to show up anyway.
Theo drove. They were in Miami Gardens before lunchtime. The garage door was open, and Geoffrey Bennett was inside, lifting weights on his bench press. He was dripping with sweat, his arms and chest pumped up from too many reps. He was actually in better physical shape than Jack would have expected-a reminder that even though the Bennetts were grandparents, they were just a few years older than Jack. Still, the nylon shorts were way too formfitting for a man his age, and the thick leather weight belt was a notch too tight, as if vanity refused to let him admit that his waist had expanded even an inch in the previous ten years.
“Is Ellen here?” asked Jack.
“What’s this about?”
“I’d like to speak to your wife.”
“She’s not feeling well. What do you need?”
It was the same old story. No one got to Mrs. Bennett except through her husband.
“I need to know who Merselus is,” said Jack.
“Who?”
“Sydney says that’s the name of the man who met her at Opa-locka Airport on the night of her release.”
“You mean Merselus,” said Bennett. “I thought you said merciless.”
“It’s becoming a common mistake.”
“I like that name,” said Theo. “Merciless. Has a bad-ass rapper ring to it. Like Killa Sin or Gangster Starr or-”
“Shorty Shitstain?” said Jack.
“Whatta you know about Shorty?”
“More than I want to,” said Jack.
Bennett glanced at Theo, then back at Jack, as if not sure what to make of them. “Why would I know who this Merselus is?”
“He tried to strangle your daughter after they left the airport.”
Bennett paused before answering, staring at Jack. “That’s disturbing, to say the least. But that doesn’t mean I know him. To the contrary, do you think I would put my daughter in the hands of someone like that?”
“Sydney said they connected when she was in prison. More to the point, she thought you had checked him out before she trusted him to be her agent.”
“Well, that would be just like her to blame someone else, wouldn’t it?”
Theo grumbled. “Just cuz she’s the one doin’ the blamin’ doesn’t mean you ain’t to blame.”
“The big guy actually has a point,” said Jack.
“Look, her mother and I did what Sydney asked us to do. She told us she had a big-shot agent who was going to take care of her, but they needed us to lease the plane in my name to keep the Hollywood connection out of the press. The money landed in our bank account, and I took care of the plane. That was my whole involvement. And her mother’s. We never met the guy, never talked to him. That was the end of it.”
“You didn’t ask-”
“I didn’t ask anybody anything,” said Bennett. “I wanted Sydney out of jail and out of our hair.”
Jack studied his expression, taking a read. “That’s a good story.”
“It’s the truth.”
“What do you think, Theo?”
“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Theo. “I think somebody in this house needs a good ass-kicking.”
Bennett took a step back. “Is that a threat?”
“No, that was purely an expression of opinion. See, the man asked me what do I think. I told him what I think. That’s an opinion, and if you want to get legal about it, the opinions expressed here are solely those of Theo Knight and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of Jack Swyteck, P.A., the Florida Bar, or the pansy-ass association of nonviolent white guys who keep friends with former death row inmates just in case they might need to call up an ass-kicking. You got a problem with that?”
“I–I don’t think so.”
“Good. Cuz if I was threatening you, I would-”
Jack extended his arm, stopping Theo before he could take another step closer.
Bennett made his chest swell. “Y’all need to leave my property.”
“You need to think about what I said,” Theo said.
“Let’s go,” said Jack.
They walked back to the car, and Bennett returned to his bench press, the free weights clanging as Jack and Theo climbed inside and closed the doors.
“Pansy-ass association of what?”
“Sorry, dude. Was just makin’ a point.” Theo started the engine and pulled away from the curb.
“I’m almost afraid to ask for another opinion, but what do you think? Does Mr. Bennett know Merselus?”
Theo put on his shades, eyes on the road. “Just like his daughter. Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
Jack glanced out the window as they passed the Bennett house. He noticed Mrs. Bennett watching from the front porch, her gaze following their car down the street. A bright yellow sundress made her perpetual tan look even darker than usual. Colorful sundresses were what she had worn almost every day for Sydney’s trial.
“The key here is to talk to someone in this family who doesn’t wear pants.”