“Is that all?”
She shook her head. “No. He said he’d send the link to everyone at the hospital I work at.”
Son of a bitch.
“I’ll lose my job,” she said. “It’s a religious hospital. They won’t want to deal with the scandal.”
“You could get a job at a different hospital,” I offered. “Nurses are in demand.”
“I could. But I like it there. It’s a good job. Besides, it isn’t just the job.”
“Then what?”
She paused. “It’s hard to describe.”
“Try.”
She heaved a sigh. Her breath blew across my chest in a hot rush. “When I was young, I felt differently about things. Sex was just sex. Love was a myth. Everything was for fun.”
“And now?”
“Now?” She sighed again. “Now, I just know that there should be a certain dignity to it. Some kind of meaning. Not trotted out onto the Internet for some horny perverts to look at and…”
“Can you pay him?”
She snorted. “No. I’m up to eyeballs in student loans and it’s expensive to live in Seattle.”
“Did you try to reason with him at all? Offer less money?”
She nodded. “I offered fifteen hundred. He said no.”
He should’ve taken the deal.
“What are you going to do, then?” I asked, though I knew what the answer would be.
But she didn’t answer.
She didn’t have to.
Erik Yeager’s house was a California split-entry on the fringe of the Hillyard neighborhood. Beyond a haphazardly shoveled walkway, there were no signs of habitation. The windows were absent of Christmas decorations.
I knocked, reverting to the authoritative rapping of a police officer, even though those days were more than a decade behind me.
A red-headed man without a shirt opened the door. Flaccid nipples hung from his soft chest above a roll of fat at his middle. “Yeah?”
“Erik Yeager?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Cassie,” I said.
His eyes narrowed. “What about her?”
“You think we should talk about blackmail out here in front of you neighbors?”
His glanced darted left and right. “You got the cash?”
“Let me inside.”
He pursed his lips for a moment, then swung the door open and stepped aside.
“Lead the way,” I told him.
He gave me an irritated look, but turned and stomped up the stairs.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. Almost immediately, the gamey scent of body odor assaulted my nostrils. There was another smell, too. I’d encountered it when I’d done walkthroughs of the dirty book arcades. That was years ago, but there’s no forgetting the pungent stench of stale come.
Yeager stood in the center of his living room, his arms crossed in front of his flabby chest. “You got the money?” he asked again.
“No,” I said.
“Then why are you here?”
“To negotiate.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m a friend of Cassie’s.”
He studied me for a moment, then smiled. “You’re banging her, aren’t ya?”
I didn’t answer.
He took my silence as affirmation. “She still a hot number?” he asked. “Because she was a fine piece of ass back when I had her.”
I ground my teeth. “Listen-”
He leaned forward conspiratorially and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Cause ya know I had her first, don’chya? Had her when she was a ripe young thing. Had her every which way you can imagine, too.”
“Shut up.”
He leered at me. “She still give good head?”
“Do you want to work out a deal or not?” I gritted through a clenched the jaw.
His leer spread into a greasy smile. “Does she still like to take it in the-”
I hit him.
I didn’t plan it, but the smug look on his face and the image of him and Cassie together was just too much. I lashed out with my left hand before I even thought about it. My hand curled into a fist on its way toward the center of his face. I drove that fist into the tip of his nose, smashing it. Blood exploded from his nostrils.
Yeager squealed. His hands flew to his face. I threw my right as a reflex, stepping into the hook punch and catching him low in the gut. My fist powered through the roll of fat with a slap. Yeager grunted and sank to a knee.
I didn’t hesitate. The left came back across, landing on his jaw, right on the knockout button. This time he didn’t make a noise, but his eyelids fluttered and he fell forward to the carpet with a thud.
I stood stock-still in his living room for a moment, staring down at his unmoving body. The coppery smell of blood mixed with the putrid odors already dominating the air. Then I looked around. The far wall was dominated by a computer desk. Wild lines drew themselves randomly against the dark background of the computer monitor. Next to the desk, I spotted a bookshelf full of videotapes and DVDs.
Yeager groaned and stirred.
I strode to the bookshelf. Many of the movies were commercial titles I recognized. Some were obvious porn titles. On the third shelf, nearest to the desk, I found a series of homemade labels. Each label had a name. The fifth one was Cassie.
“You son of a bitch,” Yeager muttered in a thick voice.
The DVD cover showed a much younger Cassie, arms in air and topless. I ground my teeth and slid it into the inside pocket of my bomber jacket.
“Take it,” Yeager said. “I’ll just make another one.”
He looked at me from his knees, one hand pressed against his nose to staunch the bleeding. His eyes remained smug.
I’d have to destroy the computer file. I touched the computer mouse, exiting the screensaver. A password request popped up.
“What’s the password?” I demanded.
“Fuck you,” he said.
I stepped toward him and drove the point of my boot into his stomach. He folded over, retching. I stepped to the side to avoid the vomit. My bad knee throbbed.
When he’d caught his breath, Yeager began to laugh. He looked up at me, blood streaming from his nose. “You can beat on me if you want. Maybe I’ll eventually tell you my password. But then you’ll have to find the file. And even if you do, it’s backed up online.”
I stared down at him, processing what he’d said.
“You think I’m stupid?” he asked me. “Now where’s my fucking money?”
I shook my head slowly. “She doesn’t have it.”
His eyes burned into me. “Then she’ll be the star of the Internet.”
“How about if she just calls the cops?”
“How about if I call them on you?” he sneered.
I considered that. Right now, I couldn’t prove the blackmail, but he could easily prove that I assaulted him.
He shook his head and spit on the carpet. “If the cops were an option, she’d have called them already.”
He was right, but I didn’t want to show it. “Then maybe she’ll just sue your ass. Take your shitty little house.”
He laughed harder. “Now that’d be real quiet, huh? A public lawsuit?”
I lowered my voice. “If you don’t delete those files and destroy the DVDs, I’ll come back and visit you.”
His laughter turned hysterical. Fresh droplets of blood flew from his mouth as he howled. “Oh, that’s good, that’s good.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. His mood swings were lunatic. “I’m serious,” told him.
His laughter melted away. “Oh, I hope so. Because next time I’ll be waiting for you with a little friend.”
We stood there, not speaking. I glanced around the room to see if he had a gun stashed anywhere nearby. The hum of the computer fan was the loudest thing in the room. When I looked back at him, he glowered darkly. I noticed that all the smashing I’d done hadn’t knocked that smugness off his face.
“What do you want?” I finally asked.
“Five thousand dollars,” he said, and grinned at me.