“A man like yourself, you have a name to protect, yet you want to live a certain lifestyle… Think of me like a personal assistant.”
“I don’t want to think of you at all,” Bennett said flatly. “Let’s get this over with.”
He set the duffel bag on the trunk of the kid’s car and unzipped it. “Twenty-five thousand. I’m not sticking around while you count it.”
“That’s cool, Mr. Walker,” the kid said. “I don’t want to put you out.”
Bennett turned and stared at him again. Unbelievable. What was there to say?
“Now, I’m sure you understand this only covers Saturday night,” the kid said.
“What?”
“The information specific to Saturday night,” he clarified. “There’s the other thing we haven’t discussed.”
“What other thing?”
The kid made the pained face again. “I hate to bring it up. I really do. But in light of recent events-”
Bennett advanced on him, towering over him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
The hands went up again. “Last April. End of the season. During the big Super Bowl or whatever you call it in polo.”
“The U.S. Open? What about it?”
“There was a night at Players… a girl… in your car…” the kid prompted. “She wasn’t very happy…”
Everything went cold inside Bennett. A fan, a polo groupie… he came on to him… She wanted it… They went outside…
“She was crying,” the kid reminded him. “You told me I didn’t see anything.”
He had paid the girl ten grand to shut up. She had been all over him in the club. No one would have believed her-without a witness to back her up.
Funny, Bennett thought, he had been agonizing over what he was going to have to do. Now he just acted. He put his hand into the duffel bag, curled his fingers around the short crowbar, pulled it out, and struck Jeff Cherry with it as hard as he could, burying the thing in his skull.
The kid’s head cracked like an egg. Blood and brain matter splattered, but not as much as Bennett had imagined. One hard overhand stroke, and that was it. He didn’t even have to bother to ill the crowbar free to give him a second whack.
Bennett stepped back and stood there as the kid dropped to his lees and fell over dead.
As simple as that.
He popped the trunk on the kid’s car, put the body inside with half a dozen mostly empty boxes from Sal’s and numerous crumpled Krispy Kreme bags. From the duffel bag he took a couple of small bags of cocaine and planted them among the rest of the trash, making certain to get a little drug residue on the kid’s fingers.
He closed the trunk. When the car and eventually the body were discovered, no one would find it hard to believe the kid had been on the wrong end of a drug deal gone bad. Everyone knew he supplied Players’ customers with recreational substances. Jeff Cherry would be considered just another fatality in the war on drugs.
Damage control.
“A pity it will not go so easily for you.”
He startled at the sound of the voice and spun around.
A square, neat man in a brown suit stood pointing a gun at him.
“You are wondering who I am,” the man said.
His accent was Russian. That realization sent chills through Bennett Walker like shards of glass.
“I am Alexi Kulak,” the man said. “I loved Irina Markova. You killed her. And I have come to kill you.”
As simple as that.
Chapter 55
“The boots aren’t here,” Weiss said. “Either he got rid of them or he’s wearing them right now.”
They stood in front of the house, taking a break, allegedly clearing their heads. Landry wanted a cigarette; the adrenaline was running full-bore. But he forbade anyone to light up within a hundred yards of a scene he was running. He wanted no chance of contaminating the scene in any way that could be prevented. Especially with a defense attorney standing right there watching every move.
“You’re not going to find anything, because there’s nothing to find,” Edward Estes announced.
“We know the girl was here Saturday night,” Landry said.
“You’re not going to find evidence of a murder here,” Estes said.
“Yeah, that’s the smart thing about choking the life out of someone,” Weiss said. “No smoking gun. No spent casings. No bloody lives.”
“You allegedly have the testimony of one man that the girl was ever here,” Estes said. “Has it occurred to you to wonder if that individual might have his own reasons for implicating my client in this? His own guilt, for instance.”
“Why would he bother?” Landry said.
“You might want to ask Scotland Yard that question.”
He’d done his homework, Landry thought-or someone had done it for him. Estes knew about Barbaro’s connection to the case in England. But if Barbaro had killed Irina, why bother to change his story? Barring a surprise witness coming out of the woodwork, no one would have broken the alibi he shared with Bennett Walker.
Maybe this was how he got his kicks, Landry thought: kill a girl, pin it on a friend, watch the fireworks. His friends were all wealthy, influential men. Wealthy, influential men didn’t go to prison for crimes they didn’t commit. It seemed they hardly ever went for crimes they did commit.
“You have not one shred of physical evidence the girl was here, in this house, on the night in question.”
Landry said nothing. Even if they came up with trace evidence- hair, bodily fluids, whatever-they wouldn’t be able to say it had been left the night of the murder. Estes would parade a bunch of hired guns into the courtroom-if they ever got the case to trial- and pound reasonable doubt into the minds of the jury.
They needed something irrefutable. Something that couldn’t have been in Bennett Walker’s house before the night of the murder, something personal to Irina. It wouldn’t surprise Landry to find out Walker videotaped his sexual conquests. He had that kind of ego. But even with a videotape, it could be difficult to prove the when of it unless the date and time feature of the camera had been turned on.
He thought about Irina’s things they had picked up that day along the canaclass="underline" a small, cylindrical handbag, gold encrusted with rhinestones. Inside the bag: a cherry-red lip gloss, a compact, an American Express gold card, three twenties, two condoms. No cell phone.
Estes was droning on. The usual defense-attorney crap about how his client was going to sue the sheriff’s office for harassment and how they would all live to regret fucking around with him and his big ego.
Landry pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Elena. She answered on the first ring.
“Elena. It’s Landry,” he said. “Your father is one colossal asshole.”
Edward Estes shut his mouth for the first time in hours and stared at Landry, suspicious.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Elena said. “Has he threatened to ruin your career yet?”
“A couple of times. Weiss thinks we should take up professional poker.”
“Money for nothing.”
“Listen, what’s Irina’s cell phone number?” She gave it to him. He thanked her and ended the call. “Hell of a girl you raised there, Mr. Estes,” Landry said. Though I have a feeling she is who she is in spite of you, not because of you.“
He turned and went back in the house, dialing the number Elena had given him. Weiss followed.
“It’s a long shot,” Weiss told him. “What are the odds that the battery still has juice?”
“Fuck the odds.”
“I’m just saying.”
Bennett Walker was into power, adrenaline, conquest. A man like that liked to have reminders of his prowess. Souvenirs.
As he walked through the house, Landry saw those souvenirs all around: photographs of Walker playing polo, racing boats, downhill skiing. Tanned, good-looking, the big white victory grin, one hand raised in triumph and a hot babe presenting him a trophy on the other.