I glanced at the sleeping Quinn and hoped he wouldn’t wake up in the middle of an argument between me and Janet. Talking out loud to Lou about my date with Jenine had been embarrassing enough. I took a chance and dialed Janet’s number.
“What do you want?” she snapped, as if she was hours into a bad mood and suddenly turned to see me standing beside her. I ignored her tone, knowing Janet had to rev herself up in order to deal with me. I didn’t blame her for keeping her guard up. According to her shrink, she may have divorced me, but she had never been able to drain “the reservoir filled with unresolved pain from the relationship.”
Janet’s question had been a good one. What, in fact, did I want? Down deep, I guess I wondered if her breakup with Chapman could somehow provide the catalyst for friendship. Maybe she’d thought about it this afternoon and realized I wasn’t the bad guy in all this, that by making her aware of Ken’s shortcomings, I was the one who’d been looking out for her and Kimberly. If Quinn hadn’t been sitting there, I might have casually mentioned some of the good things I’d done since the marriage, like the way I helped save some lives today. I wondered if she’d develop a greater appreciation of my character if I did so.
“Did you hear about the hotel bomb in LA?” I said.
“Was that your doing?”
Or not. “Jesus, Janet.”
“So that’s a yes?”
Janet wasn’t the most classically beautiful woman I’d ever known, but she was certainly the prettiest who ever professed to love me. While some might not care for her thin, cruel lips or sharp facial features, everything about her appearance used to tantalize me.
“I’ve obviously caught you at a bad time,” I said.
“Are you for real? Any time spent talking to you is a bad time, you son of a bitch!” She screamed, “I’d rather spend ten days strapped to a machine that sucks the life out of me than spend ten seconds talking to you!” Then she hung up on me.
I thought about what she said. The part about the life-sucking machine. I wondered if such a device could be built. If so, how would it work? How large would it be? What would it cost? Would it have much value as a torture device? I couldn’t imagine anything better than the ADS weapon. It was relatively portable now, but the army was already working on a handheld version that could be functional in a matter of months. Also, with ADS, the pain is instant and so is the recovery. Now that I’d compared the two in my head, I’d have to put the ADS weapon way above Janet’s lifesucking machine idea. Then again, Janet probably hadn’t heard about the ADS weapon.
I was pretty sure she’d choose talking to me over being exposed to the ADS beam.
I thought some more about Janet and the good times we shared. Then I pressed another number on my speed dial to shake away the image of her tight body and firm, slender legs.
Sal Bonadello answered as he always did: “What.”
It was more a statement than a question.
“Tell me about Victor,” I said.
“Who?”
“It’s me, goddamn it.”
“The friggin’ attic dweller?”
“The same.”
“Where are you?” he asked. I imagined him looking at the ceiling over his head, wondering if I were up there right now. I heard he woke up from a bad dream a few months ago and pumped six rounds into the ceiling above his bedroom while screaming my name.
“Relax,” I said. “I’m in the air, somewhere over Colorado.” I noticed Quinn was beginning to stir. Maybe he’d been awake the whole time and was giving me privacy with Janet and Kimberly. You never knew for certain about Augustus Quinn or what he might be thinking at any given moment.
“I heard what happened in Jersey.”
“You sound almost disappointed.”
“Nah, not really. But hey, it’s hard to find good shooters, you know?”
“Which is why you put up with all my shit,” I said.
“Tell me about it.”
“Listen up,” I said to Sal. “You said you met Victor. Where?”
“You know I can’t—whatcha call—divulge my sources.”
“Cut the crap, will ya?”
“He needed some heavy shit. I gave him a name.”
“What kind of heavy shit?”
“Guns, drugs, explosives—shit like that.”
“And your contact required you to be there?”
“Right. Look, what about that blond of yours, the one on TV driving the van—the real one, not the bullshit picture the FBI showed. You talk to her about me yet?”
“Don’t even,” I said.
“What, I can’t dream? What, I’m not good enough for her? How about you put in a good word for me, ah? I’ll consider it a favor.”
“Do you guys go to school somewhere to learn how to talk like that?”
“Yeah, wise ass. It’s called the friggin’ school of bustin’ heads, and I’m the—whatcha call—headmaster. So, you want my help or what?”
I sighed again and realized I’d been doing a lot of sighing lately. “I’ll mention your interest to the little lady.”
“All I’m askin’.”
“Next chance I get.”
“Ask her nicely.”
“Fine.”
“’Cause you never know.”
“Right.”
“Tell her I’m a man of mystery.”
“For the love of God!” I shouted. A few feet away from me, in the cabin, Quinn did that thing where he sort of smiled. I decided to come at Sal from a different angle.
“Did you happen to catch the hotel bombing in LA?”
“What am I, blind? Everywhere I look that’s all I see on the friggin’ tube. Was that you?”
I sighed again. I should be blowing balloons for a living.
“Sal,” I said, “the hotel bombing, it was DeMeo.”
“What? Joe DeMeo? That’s nuts!”
“I had a meeting with DeMeo this morning. Afterward, I met a hooker. That bomb you saw on TV? She planted it in my room. I found out later she was one of DeMeo’s girls.”
“You sayin’ they blew up that whole goddamn hotel just to kill you? And missed? I’d a used a friggin’ ice pick.”
“That’s a happy thought,” I said.
“Hey, nothin’ personal.”
“Right,” I said. I got us back on track. “Do you think Victor and DeMeo are working together some way?”
“Why?”
“Victor gave me the hit on Monica Childers. Suddenly the pictures are all over the TV. Turns out Victor hijacked a spy satellite and downloaded the photos. Then Monica’s body goes missing. The government pins it on Russians, supposedly working with terrorists. Next thing you know, DeMeo tries to kill me and makes it look like a terrorist attack on a hotel. That sound like a coincidence to you?”
“What do I look like, Perry Mason? Whaddya think, I got a friggin’ crystal ball in my pocket? What, I’m gonna check the horoscope for—whatcha call—worlds colliding?”
I took that as a no. “Can you give me anything at all on Victor?”
“You tryin’ to find Childers’ wife? Make sure she’s gonna stay dead this time?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Might cause a—whatcha call—rift between you and the midget.”
“I’ll try to solve the one without losing the other.”
“Well, nuthin’ from nuthin’, but things go bad between you, I don’t give refunds. Anyway I already donated my share to charity.”
“Spare me.”
“The Mothers of Sicily. You should look into it. They do great work here in the neighborhood.”
I said nothing.