“Preferably one involving sexual deviance,” Walton said. “Even a straight arrow like Donna Winship had desires she wasn’t aware of until they were awakened in her by Carl. He was good at his work.”
Carver felt his anger rise, a pressure pumping through his veins. “The victim usually agrees to any divorce conditions, knowing that if there’s a court fight the affair and the tape or photographs will be made public and they’ll lose big anyway, as well as suffer loss of reputation. The illicit lover has disappeared by then, run out on them the way Maggie did on Charlie Post. But that only makes the affair seem more tawdry and increases the likelihood of the victim losing even more money, property, or child custody in the divorce.”
“You’ve got it,” Walton said, as if Carver were a struggling student who’d finally grasped the lesson.
“But Donna Winship figured something was wrong and hired me to follow her-because she thought someone else might be following her.”
“Our private detective and photographer. But he wasn’t following her constantly. He’s a busy man and spread too thin. You can understand why there’s such a need for our services. The world’s full of people-male and female-who need the best possible terms of divorce when they want to terminate a bad marriage. I mean, to me, marriage is a valuable institution. Reverend Devine and I agree on that one. He was easy, by the way. Cindy Sue Devine knew about his addiction to sex, so Mandy Jamison became a devout churchgoer and volunteer. It only took a month. She had to wait in line. So now he knows how it feels, huh?” He raised his arms and tilted his head to one side in a parody of the Crucifixion. “It looks now like Cindy Sue is going to control the good reverend’s church and the flock that gets shorn regularly.”
“In a way, she and you are in the same business,” Carver said. “You both prey on people’s misery, offer them paradise, then make your killing.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Walton said, “but praise the Lord, you’re right.”
“Speaking of killing,” said a voice Carver knew. The other door behind the reception desk had opened and Beni Ho stepped out and leaned on his cane.
“You’ve placed us in a compromising position of our own, Carver,” Walton said. “We’re going to have to close shop here, it appears. Make ourselves impossible to find. It’s a real shame.”
“You’d still be in business if you hadn’t gotten greedy,” Carver said. “Which of the Winships approached you first?”
“Mark. He wanted the divorce and he wanted the child. So I assigned Enrico Thomas-Carl Gretch-to Donna. Gretch knew she was weak and he could get her to do almost anything with enough time, so he stretched things out. She got kinkier and kinkier, loving every second of it and loving him. Couldn’t help herself any more than a woman drowning in the middle of the ocean. One night she told Gretch she’d decided she was going to divorce Mark, and she was worried someone might know about their affair and she might lose child custody.” Walton grinned. “Gretch got my okay, then he told her how to avoid that.”
“So you accepted both spouses as clients.”
“It was the first time we’d done that,” Walton said. “It opened a whole new world of opportunity.”
“But Donna wasn’t as blinded by love and lust as you and Gretch thought. She suspected what was going on and suffered so much guilt that she killed herself, and Beni Ho murdered a remorseful Mark to keep him quiet and made it look like suicide. Then he killed Gretch, after you’d talked him into moving back into his apartment to deflect suspicion after he’d panicked and run. Maggie would have been next. She started out by faking alcoholism, then found it wasn’t all an act. Her drinking, and what she knew, posed a problem, even after you left her that dismembered doll as a warning.”
“Donna’s death was something Mark hadn’t figured on,” Walton said. “It hit him hard, made him feel responsible. Maggie had managed through Charlie Post to get a position at Burnair and Crosley so she could get next to him after Donna hired us, so she was in a good position to keep an eye on him almost on an hourly basis. And she knew how to get him to talk in bed. She told us he was considering committing suicide and leaving a note explaining why. So we had to prevent that. We simply moved his schedule up and persuaded him to write a note that met with our approval. That zipped everything up neatly. Then you came along,” Walton said bitterly, “and it was a matter of time before Gretch would break and talk. So I gave him to Beni.”
“And now,” Beni Ho said through his ever-present smile, “I get you.” He stood up straighter and tossed away his cane. It clattered off the far wall and dropped onto the carpet. “We’re not alike anymore, Carver, except on the inside, where it counts most. You understand why I need to kill you.”
“And you understand it works in both directions.”
“We’re more alike than different.”
Walton said, “I’ll finish packing what we need from here,” and went into his office, closing the door with his name on it. In his mind, Carver was finished business.
Beni Ho moved toward Carver in a slight crouch, still favoring the leg Carver had shot. There was intense and glossy concentration in his eyes and anticipation in his smile. Carver could see his tiny, lithe body readying itself, like a cat gathering energy for its spring. The cold fear in Carver’s gut was like novocaine, partially paralyzing him, slowing reaction and movement. Ho knew about that and winked at him.
Then he screamed and came at Carver with what martial arts practitioners call a crescent kick, wheeling his body and leg sideways, his foot arcing with bullet speed toward Carver’s head.
But the injured leg slowed him enough for Carver to lean back and away. He felt the swoosh of air as Beni Ho’s foot flashed past his face. He lashed out with the cane but missed as the little man spun in a complete circle so fast he was a momentary blur.
The sudden action flushed fear from Carver. He thought he might die, but in the fatalistic core of him he wasn’t afraid. It had come down to mechanics.
Ho was on him again so fast he could react only by lifting his cane with both hands to try to block the downward chopping blow. The hard walnut cane split in half like balsa wood, doing little other than slowing the edge of Ho’s hand before it glanced off Carver’s shoulder, probably breaking the collarbone. Carver kicked out with his good leg and felt pain in his toe as it made contact with Ho’s shinbone. It was Ho’s injured leg, and the little killer’s smile was replaced by a look of annoyance as his backhanded elbow blow at Carver missed and he staggered toward him. The mental repose of the trained assassin had momentarily been broken by surprise and pain. Carver kicked the leg again, this time the thigh where the bullet had entered, losing his footing and falling hard onto his back. The unbalanced Ho grunted and stumbled, beginning to fall. So quick and agile was he that he managed to change the direction of his fall so he’d land on top of Carver. In midair he was already drawing back his hand to strike what would be a lethal blow to the throat.
Carver raised the splintered cane and it entered Ho’s chest below the sternum. The hand thudded into the carpet near Carver’s head. Ho’s face was inches from Carver’s, grinning with shock, the eyes just beginning to register what had happened. He grunted but couldn’t rise. Tried a straight blow with his knuckles that bounced off Carver’s forehead and didn’t hurt much. Carver twisted the cane and shoved on it at an angle to the heart, letting Ho’s weight help drive it deeper. He felt the warm blood on his fists and between their bodies spread.
The little man thrashed wildly and ineffectually, then made a deep, animal sound in his throat and went limp. He sighed, blood frothing at the corners of his grin, and lay in the stillness and silence of death.