Jonathan put his hand on Decker’s shoulder. “Are you certain that Donatti didn’t kill her?”
“No, I’m not certain of anything. But it doesn’t make sense for him to do it. He knew that if something were to happen to her, I’d be all over his ass. Which was exactly what happened. He seemed genuinely shocked when I told him about the murder.”
“Could that have been an act?”
“Sure, he could have been snowing me blind, except she did seem so dependent on him. He even said that he’d return her to me intact when things cooled down. I guess I just decided to believe him because it was my only option.”
“What do you mean ‘intact’?”
“He screws the kids he pimps. I think he does the boys as well as the girls. He said he wouldn’t do it with her.” Decker waved him away. “I don’t know… I should have made a grab for her when I had the chance.”
“He would have killed both of you.”
“Probably. You don’t want him on your bad side. Although I’ve certainly pissed him off and he’s never done anything to my family or me. I don’t know. Psychos like him… they’re like these half wolf/half dogs that people adopt for pets. They’re okay for a while. Then they just turn on you when the mood hits. Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe he just turned. Maybe he considered it biblical revenge against me-eye for an eye, a girl for a girl. He thinks I screwed up his relationship with this girl. This could have been his big revenge.”
“What girl was that?”
“That’s irrelevant. It was one of my cases, about eight years ago. When Donatti lived in L.A.”
“He lived in L.A.?”
“For about a year.”
Jonathan sat back in his seat. “That’s not what the Bible means when it states ‘eye for an eye.’ ”
Once a rabbi... Decker said, “I know. Rina explained it to me. It means monetary compensation. Can you dispense with the nit-picking right now? And let’s get off the expressway. It wouldn’t be good to make two women widows in one day.”
Jonathan started up the motor and carefully merged into speeding traffic. “You’re angry at me.”
“I’m angry at myself. I screwed up royally. I keep thinking to myself… what should I have done? Should I have gotten a gun and shot him? Should I have bribed him? Should I have gone to the police? All this Monday-morning quarterbacking. But at the time, I thought I was handling it pretty well.”
“You did the best you could.”
“So did you,” Decker answered back. “Make you feel any better?”
“No. I feel that God was punishing me for breaking my word. Ridiculous, of course, but tell that to my conscience. Also, I can’t help but feel that I set her up somehow. I should have gone to the police. Like you said, at the very least, they could have traced the call to a source. They might have sent out troops to look for her.”
They rode without speaking for several minutes.
Jonathan said, “You honestly don’t think that Donatti killed her?”
“Honestly, no. Because why would he do it?”
“What did he say after you told him that Shayndie had been murdered?”
“First I went into a rage. Then he went into a rage.” Decker pointed to his eye.
“Aha.” Jonathan nodded. “That makes much more sense than the ridiculous excuse you gave me. Go on. What happened after he punched you?”
“He calmed down. We talked. He claimed that he last saw her around six that morning. She was just like she had been that night-clingy. He was hell-bent on revenge, Jon. I managed to convince him to hold off until I did all that I could do. Last thing I wanted was a professional mob cleaner sweeping around, especially if Chaim’s not looking so clean.”
“Akiva, you have no proof!”
“I know I have no proof. But if Chaim’s involved, it’s better that I get to him before Donatti does, agreed?”
Having no comeback, Jonathan maintained silence.
Decker said, “So this is the deal, bro. You poke around Quinton and find out if there are any new and secretive people being hosted in the community. I go to the Quinton Police and try to find out if Shayndie was hanging out with the wrong crowd. Remember, Randy told me that there were some local Quinton boys arrested for ecstasy possession down in Miami. If they bought it down South, they most certainly bought it in their hometown. Maybe I can get the name of the distributor. Also, I might go back to Tattlers, find out if any of the girls were ever asked to be couriers.”
“And they’d admit it to you? Just like that?”
“Well, no, of course not. That’s why it takes a professional lieutenant detective with a genuine gold shield!” He smiled sadly, thinking of a sheltered fifteen-year-old who never stood a chance.
“Stop it, Akiva,” Jonathan chastised. “You’re a good man and I respect you immensely. I hope you feel the same way about me.”
“Of course I do.”
“So let’s both stop the flagellation.”
“Deal.”
Jonathan said, “Am I correct in assuming that you want me to help you?”
“Yes.”
“What you are asking me to do is to go behind my relatives’ backs and play spy for you. Even if it means setting up my wife’s remaining brother.”
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
Jonathan was thoughtful. “I will find out what I can. But I will not serve you Chaim on a silver platter. All right?”
Decker threw up his hands. “Sure.”
Jonathan glanced at him, then focused on his driving. “I agreed more readily than you expected.”
“Yes, you did.”
The van fell quiet.
“How far are we?” Decker asked.
“Half hour away.”
“Not so bad,” Decker said. “Time goes quickly when you’re having fun.”
“Indeed,” Jonathan said. “I hope that I’m a better partner for you than Donatti.”
“I’m sure you will be for the most part.”
“For the most part?”
“Chris has his benefits.”
“Such as?”
“If things get tight, the psycho’s familiar with a gun.”
30
Coupling, by its very nature, meant somewhere down the line there would be an uncoupling, and when the inevitable happened, he’d always slip into a deep black funk, knowing that the only person in this entire world who gave a rat’s ass about whether he lived and breathed was gone. He knew it was about money-he wasn’t stupid-but she faked it well enough so that he could delude himself that some fraction of her heart cared even if she didn’t love him.
Today was a perfect case in point, because it was good. Too good, and that made the loss that much harder, the void that much bigger. His mood was foul, and his dispirited body ached with profound deprivation.
As he lay in bed in a room devoid of any light, courtesy of blackout drapes, he stared at nothing, random thoughts drifting through his brain, a stupor made possible by booze and painkillers.
Yeah, today had been real good.
As measured by her orgasms because that was how he judged the sex.
It hadn’t always been like that. She had started out like all the others. For him, sex had always been a one-way street because he didn’t give a shit how the girls felt, and 99 percent of them were unable to climax anyway, so why even bother with a pretense. He assumed that Terry was like the rest. He did her like he did all of them, mounting her from behind because it was his favorite position-terrific view, good penetration, and minimum body contact. He abhorred being touched because physical contact in his youth always implied pain. Even the first time Terry had brushed against him, he had stiffened with revulsion. So he did it doggy style, even though almost all the girls he had ever fucked preferred being on top, probably because they felt more in control.