“How do I know you really have it?”
“Because I took it.”
“From Kozelka’s thug? Right. The guy’s a Goliath.”
Sheila glanced over her shoulder. Rusch lay naked on the bed behind her, flat on his back. He was still erect — a bigger stud unconscious than he was wide awake.
“He’s not so tough,” she said with a smirk.
Ryan’s interest piqued. He sensed a crack in the alliance. But he also feared a trap.
Sheila said, “What’s it gonna be, Doc? You want the gun or don’t you?”
“Of course I want it.”
“Then you gotta pay.”
He froze, undecided. Then an idea struck. This was a chance to pull it all together — to put Marilyn Gaslow and Kozelka’s goons at the same place at the same time. It would be telling indeed to see how they treated one another. “All right,” said Ryan. “Meet me at Cheesman Dam. Two A.M.”
“See you then,” she said, then hung up the phone.
Yeah, thought Ryan. See us then.
The phone rang in Marilyn Gaslow’s bedroom. She hadn’t moved from the edge of her bed since dialing Joe Kozelka’s pager. She checked the caller identification box on her nightstand. It was him.
“Joe, thanks for calling back.”
“What’s going on?”
“Trouble.” She told him about the faxed invitation to Cheesman Dam.
He was silent, the way he usually was whenever he got angry. Hundreds of times during their marriage, Marilyn had watched him internalize his rage. Joe was a pressure cooker that totally blew about every ten years. The first time, she’d forgiven him. The second time she’d decided not to wait for a third. She was afraid she wouldn’t live through the third.
“Who sent it?”
“It came from the seven-one-nine area code. I assume it’s from the Duffys.”
“Probably. But Amy Parkens was down that way this morning, too.”
“How do you know?”
“We know. Rusch put a tracking device on her truck.”
“Amy wouldn’t send a fax like this.”
“No, but she and Duffy could be cooking something up.”
“Let me call Amy.”
“No,” he said sternly. “Just let me handle it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Leave your Mercedes in the driveway with the keys in the glove box. I’ll arrange for someone to pick it up this evening and drive it to the dam.”
Marilyn blinked nervously. “And then what?”
“Whoever sent this has to be taught a lesson. I had a deal with the old man. Frank got five million dollars. His family was never supposed to see the letter. He obviously broke his end of the deal. Now the family has to deal with the consequences.”
“Please don’t get carried away here.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he said, his voice tightening. “I’ve paid a lot of money to call the shots, Marilyn. Five million to Duffy. Millions more in campaign contributions to get you in line for some useful presidential appointment. It took a long time for the right opportunity to come along. To be honest, the Board of Governors was even beyond my expectations. But now that it’s for the taking, we are not going to be denied your one and only shot at the chair.”
“You mean your shot,” she said bitterly.
“I will never influence a decision of yours, Marilyn. I just want to know what your decisions are. Before anyone else does.”
Her stomach wrenched. A man as wealthy as Kozelka could make billions of dollars knowing that the Fed was going to raise interest rates a day before the public announcement. “Do you have to rub it my face? I’m well aware that you’re the one who stands to gain.”
“And if you resist me, you’re the one who stands to lose. That’s the real beauty of it, Marilyn.”
She said nothing, knowing it was true.
“I’m counting on you,” he said. “Study hard for your confirmation hearing. And leave the rest to me.”
The dial tone hummed in her ear. Marilyn felt numb as she hung up the phone. She was poised to assume one of the world’s most powerful positions, yet she was a puppet. Worst of all, a puppet under the control of her ex-husband. In hindsight, she would never have paid the extortion. Once she did, however, there was no going back. She knew of no public official who could survive a teenage rape scandal that involved the payment of hush money.
Back then, saving her career had seemed like the only thing to do. Right now, however, it wasn’t her career she was worried about. It terrified her to think that Amy might show up with Ryan Duffy at Cheesman Dam. Had she known Amy had been in Piedmont Springs this morning, she would never have called Joe. As it turned out, she might well have signed Amy’s death warrant. That was something she could never live with.
She reached for the phone, then put it down. There was too much to tell, too much to explain. She grabbed her purse and started for the door.
It was time she and Amy had a very frank talk.
58
It was Amy’s first trip down Holling Street since the night her mother died. For over twenty years she had avoided the old house, the street, and pretty much the entire neighborhood. She recognized the contradiction — a scientist who refused to look at the data. As much as she wanted the truth, her intellectual curiosity had always yielded to emotion whenever she came too close to her past. The house had become like the Ring Nebula, the dying star she had captured on that tragic night in her telescope. She just couldn’t look at it again.
Until tonight.
Amy parked at the curb, beneath a streetlight. The two-story frame house sat in relative darkness on the other side of the street. Just one light was on. It came from the dining room, or at least what used to be the dining room. As her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, she noted all the things that had changed. The tiny Douglas fir she and her mother had planted in the front yard was now over twenty feet tall. The front porch where they used to swing had been enclosed in makeshift fashion. The clapboard siding needed a fresh coat of paint, and the lawn needed mowing. Cracks in the sidewalk seemed more plentiful. Amy remembered how she used to skip over them as a child, determined not to break her mother’s back.
“You sure you want to do this?” Gram asked from behind.
Amy nodded. She started up the sidewalk, ignoring the cracks, letting her feet fall where they may.
As she climbed the front steps, the night could no longer hide the telltale signs of aging and neglect. Several broken windows had been boarded rather than replaced. The front door bore the scars of a previous break-in, or perhaps just a tenant who had forgotten his key. The porch railings had nearly been consumed by rust. The basement window was framed with water damage. Amy had expected some disrepair. Her mother’s violent death had stigmatized the property. Gram had tried to sell it after the funeral, but no one wanted to live there. An investor finally picked it up for less than the remaining mortgage. For the past twenty years, it had been rented to college students for less than half the going rate for a three-bedroom house. The owner was apparently content to let it deteriorate to the point where it could be razed and replaced by ghost-free new construction.
Amy knocked firmly. Gram touched her hand as they waited. Finally, the chain rattled on the door, and it opened. A young man wearing blue jeans and a white UC Boulder T-shirt stood in the open doorway. Something that resembled a mustache covered his upper lip. He was like a big kid who had grown a little facial hair to make him look like college material.
“You’re the lady who called?” he said.
“Yes.” Amy had called in advance to explain who she was. The students who lived there had no qualms with her visit. They actually thought it was pretty cool. “This is my grandmother,” said Amy.
“Cool. I’m Evan. Come on in.”
Amy stepped inside. Gram followed. Amy stood in the foyer, nearly breathless. It looked almost as bad as Amy’s apartment after the break-in. The fireplace had been boarded up to keep out the weather or worse. In traffic areas, the vintage seventies shag carpet had worn through to the floorboards. Wires dangled from the ceiling where there used be a chandelier. A collage of posters covered the cracked and dirty walls. A mattress lay on the dining room floor.