Divine Fury (28 page)

“I can’t go there, Bobbie,” said Lee.
 
“Protecting sources and all that.
 
But I think you’ll eventually get what you need from him.
 
He’s not a Mafia hit man, you know.
 
Things just went wrong.
 
I know it sounds kind of trite and I’m not trying to excuse him.
 
But I think he was as shocked as anyone.

“At this point, I think he just wants to protect his family,”
 
he added.
 
“And do what he can so he doesn’t lose them completely.
 
He wants to limit the damage.”

“Right,” said Connors.
 
“I read it the same way.
 
Guy’s a programmer for Christ sake!
 
He gets his lawyer.
 
Eventually, we get his help.
 
But my question is what are you going to do in the mean time?
 
And, is
that
going to mess up my investigation?”
  

Lee pondered her question.

“Listen,” he finally said.
 
“We’ve always been able to help each other in the past.
 
I mean we’re each dancing to different tunes here.
 
But in the long run, our interests are probably about the same.

“I can’t make any promises because I don’t know where all this ends up,” he continued.
 
“I’m just turning over rocks to see what’s there.
 
And now we’ve got murder, the governor’s campaign, dirty tricks…the mind reels.”

“Yep,” said Connors.
 
“It’s a crazy world, ain’t it?

“Well, do what you can to keep me in the loop,” Connors continued.
 
“And, I know yo’ mama didn’t raise no fool.
 
So be careful and do not…I repeat…
do not
try to be a hero.
 
They usually come back in body bags.
 
And I want my box of See’s candy.
 
Nuts and chews. You still owe me that now.”
  

* * *

The tiny camera under the DVD player in the next room had been running for ten minutes when the couple came into the room.
 
The Terminator heard the door slam shut.
 
They didn’t waste any time.
 
The girl maneuvered the government bureaucrat to the foot of the bed and had his face over her shoulder as they undressed each other.
 
It was such a clear shot on the monitor that it occurred to the Terminator that he could probably enhance it to where he could see what kind of vegetables the poor jerk had eaten for dinner by what was still in his teeth.

The Terminator had added this assignment, which had nothing to do with the Harper campaign – his top priority – because he thought he could squeeze it in.
 
And something told
 
him he might need any extra cash he could raise quickly.
 
If things went south, he would face a long dry period.
 
This was what he called a “quick and dirty” with the emphasis on “quick” since almost everything he did had an element of dirt to it.
 

The unclothed gentleman next door worked for the Federal Drug Administration and was single-handedly blocking approval of a new drug in the never-ending fight against baldness.
 
While he fondled the best looking woman he had ever kissed, much less bedded, he was simultaneously holding up more than $300 million a year in revenue expected to flow from the pockets of the hair-impaired.
     

When every stitch of clothing was on the floor, the girl turned him sideways and caressed him a couple of times, leaving enough room between them so that he was displayed to the camera in all his erect glory.
 
Then, the girl turned toward the camera and winked.

The Terminator burst out laughing and covered his mouth so they wouldn’t hear him.

“This kid is hilarious,” he thought to himself.
 
“And what a body.”

He was watching her atop the bureaucrat, employing a pelvic thrust with a ferocity that was a little scary when he received the text message.
 
It was from his contact at the Royal Bahamian Hotel in Nassau.
 
It said merely that Oscar Wilkins, the computer programmer, had disappeared.
 
He hadn’t been seen for 48 hours.

“Dammit!” he thought.
 
This was it then.
 
Wilkins was off the reservation.
 
He was probably already home.
 
It was just a matter of time before he was spilling his guts to the authorities in a desperate attempt to get out of the California prison system before his 70
^th
birthday.
 
All this because some bastard he didn’t even know got carried away with his gun. The Terminator quickly ticked off the checklist in the drill he had carefully rehearsed – destroy his records, move any remaining liquid assets to a safe place and put himself beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement.
 
He figured he had 24 hours to be on a plane out of the country.
 
The Terminator wouldn’t bother to contact any of his clients.
 
Best to let his disappearance be shrouded in mystery and ambiguity, much like his operations.
 
They would figure it out soon enough.

But first he had to wrap up this job.
 
They were finished in the next room.
 
The bureaucrat was dressing hurriedly.
 
He was probably caught between the warm feeling that this might be luckiest night of his life and the vague worry that somehow it seemed too good to be true.
 
In two days, he would know that the second instinct was the correct one.
 
That’s when one of the Terminator’s associates would send him the video with the warning that it would be sent to his wife and made public on the Web unless a certain baldness drug became available to the public.
 
The same associate would ensure that a pharmaceutical company’s generous fee made its way to the Terminator’s Cayman Island account.

What was her name anyway?
 
He remembered “Karen” and a last name that started with a “V.”
 
“Volker?”
 
“Volkmann?”
 
He recalled that she had completed most of a college degree in English lit and knew Spanish.

When she knocked on his door 15 minutes later, he was already referring to her in his mind as “Karen the Voluptuous.”
 
She looked great with her clothes on, too.
 
But he preferred to think of her as he’d seen her earlier – naked but lying in the tropical sun with him as they rubbed each other with suntan oil from head to toe – and every spot in between.
   

“Have you ever been to Belize?” he asked as he handed her an envelope of cash.

* * *

When Enzo Lee visited the Soldiers of Christ Ministry’s website again, he noticed that Rev. Jimmy Burgess was in the middle of a two-week West Coast tour.
 
Starting in Vancouver, he’d hopped down the coast to Seattle, Tacoma and Portland.
 
On Saturday night, he had a date with the faithful at the Bayshore Amphitheater in nearby Mountain View.
 
Lee bought a ticket online.
 
He was looking forward to seeing the famed televangelist in the flesh.
   

Chapter 36

IF AN ALIEN warship hovered over a trattoria in a working-class neighborhood in, say, Rome, beamed up the entire place – including the four waiters and two cooks – and then dropped it next to the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco’s North Beach, the result might be something similar to Caffé Ravioli.

The place was tiny.
 
The downstairs dining room off busy Columbus Avenue held eight small tables.
 
There were four more tables upstairs you could only reach by passing the doorway to the kitchen and negotiating a tiny staircase.
 
The little second-floor room had a pressed metal ceiling half a foot lower than any reasonable building code would allow, and offered a long, thin window along the Columbus side that was usually propped open.

The food was more Italian working class than urban gourmet.
 
And the wine was more steady Italian Chianti than high-end Napa Cabernet.
 
But if there was a short list for the “most fun” restaurant in San Francisco, Ravioli would be on it.
 
On more than one occasion, Lee had joined the wine, music and waiters spilling out of the restaurant at evening’s end and danced on the sidewalk with other late-night revelers passing by.
  

Strolling through the door to a chorus of “Buonasera! Buonasera!” and smelling the mix of garlic, basil and grilling seafood borne on the heat from the ovens was enough to put him in a good mood.
 
Even better was seeing Lorraine standing by the cash register counter chatting with a waiter.
 
She’d had time after work to change into red-orange jeans, a black turtleneck and dangling silver earrings that were set off against her dark hair which hung straight with a slight curl at the end that stopped just below her chin.

Lee moved next to Carr while the waiter finished presenting some platters of seafood – filets of sole waiting for their turn on the grill, sardines lightly sautéed in olive oil and salted that were almost the size of small trout, and a pile of green-black mussels ready for steaming in a tasty broth.
  

She greeted him with a long squeeze on his forearm.
 
Lee glanced at her, a little surprised.
 
Carr gave him a smile while still focusing on the waiter describing the dinner options.

They were shown to a table at the top of the narrow stairway.
 

“Wine?” asked the waiter.
 
“Red?
 
White?”
 

He left and returned with two small tumblers filled with Chianti and a promise to keep them full.
 
Lee knew they could find a wine list somewhere if you asked for one.
 
But it was kind of relaxing to forego the whole elaborate wine-ordering ritual for a change.
   

“What shall we toast?” he asked, holding his glass.

“Umm.
 
How about to us?” said Carr.
 
“I think we both deserve it.
 
You’re leading the way on the Harper coverage, not to mention being a step ahead of everyone on the medical center murder.
 
And, I’ve survived another week as city editor.
 
Yea!”

They both took their first couple sips of the wine.
 

“You’ve got to have the hardest job at the newspaper,” said Lee.
 
“You’re basically putting out the paper every day.
 
No breaks.
 
When do you sleep?”

“The worst part,” said Carr, “is the limitations.
 
Not enough people.
 
Not enough time.
 
Every day, you basically just give up and say, ‘That’s as good as we can make it,’ and let it go.
 
Swallow another cup of imperfection and then get ready for the next.”

“Yuck,” said Lee. “Here.
 
Have some more wine.
 
Get that taste out of your mouth.”

Carr laughed.

“And then, of course, there’s the management side of the job,” she continued. “I hate job reviews.
 
Almost as much as I hate squeezing a weekend story out of a certain reporter who shall remain nameless but who covers education.”