Flight of Aquavit (42 page)

wait any longer. He couldn’t afford to play this

dangerous game at the risk of a similar bouquet

showing up at his home or something worse hap-

pening. And I can’t say that I blamed him.

“I’ve made a move,” Daniel announced. “I

know I should have waited until I could talk to

you about it, but…well, I did it anyway, because I

know it’s the right thing to do.”

I exchanged glances with a silent Herb Dufour.

His heavy jaw moved slowly from side to side.

Obviously whatever Daniel had done did not sit

right with his business partner. Daniel handed me

another piece of paper across the desk.

I took it and read:

334 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

Dear Loverboy,

I have received the flowers. In return, I am will-

ing to send you one payment of $10,000.00. If I

hear from you again, even once, after your

receipt of this payment, I will immediately call

the police and reveal to them and anyone else

necessary the details of the events of this black-

mail scheme. I will, at risk to my own personal

reputation, career and marriage, most happily

ask them to pursue you, apprehend you and

incarcerate you to the fullest extent possible

under the law, which, after all, is on my side.

If you are agreeable to this arrangement, send

me a letter with the appropriate details.

D.G.

While I reread the letter a second time, Herb

Dufour came to life. “Russell, you have to tell him

how dangerous this is. The blackmailer will not

accept this. There’s no reason for him to be open to

negotiation. He set his price.” He turned to

Daniel. “Daniel, you’ve got to pay it. If not, he will

take your ten thousand and come back for the rest

of it, if not right away, eventually. Or, even worse,

he’ll accept the ten thousand and spill the beans

anyway because you didn’t meet his original

demands.”

“Why would he do that?” Daniel shot back.

“What good would it do him?”

“Oh come on, Daniel,” Herb said, “this is a

blackmailer we’re talking about. He doesn’t live

life by any moral code of ethics we’d recognize.

He’d do it for sport, to see you ruined, humiliated,

Anthony Bidulka — 335

while he laughs all the way to the bank with your

money. He’s not going to buy your bluff.

“Russell has been at this for less than two

weeks. Give him a chance to find this asshole.

When we know who he is
then
we can figure out

how to deal with him, maybe get your money

back.” Herb shifted in his seat and brought the full

power of his attention to bear on me. “You must

have some idea. Who is this guy? Who the hell are

we dealing with?”

In a sudden motion Daniel stood up behind his

desk. With a bang he slammed both palms down

on its surface and leaned towards us, staring at us

with an unflinching gaze. He calmly spoke the

words, “I—am—not—bluffing.”

A hollow silence filled the room. Daniel

straightened up but did not sit down. This had to

stop. We were getting nowhere. “Daniel,” I said,

“could I speak to you alone for a moment?”

Herb did not wait for an answer. He jumped

up from his chair and headed towards the door

where he stopped, turned and said, “You’re mak-

ing a big mistake.” And with that he was gone.

Daniel fell to his seat like a boxer returning to

his corner of the ring after a punishing ninth

round. With his hands against his face, steeple

fashion over his nose and mouth, he gazed at me

and asked, “Do you think I’m making a mistake

too?”

“I don’t know, Daniel. I wish you had waited to

talk to me first, so we could have decided together

whether or not it was the best strategy at this stage

of the game. But what’s done is done. What we

336 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

need to do now is focus on the right next move.”

He let out a big sigh. “Thank you, Russell.”

“For what?”

“For everything,” he said. “For everything

you’ve been doing for me. I know I haven’t been

the easiest client to deal with. But through all of

this, the one thing I’ve come to rely on is you.

That you are looking out for my best interests.

Even when I’m not always sure myself of what

those are.”

“You’re welcome” seemed insufficient. I nod-

ded. I looked closely at Daniel. His perfect hair.

His perfect suit. His perfect pinky ring. But under-

neath it all, this was a man whose whole life,

whole being, was slowly being recast. He was

becoming someone different from the man I first

met. Someone he himself was having a hard time

recognizing, a hard time living with—at least for

now.

I spent the next few minutes telling him about

the damage to my car and the stink bomb sent to

my home. At first I thought the two unfortunate

incidents were simply that. But no more. The van-

dalism and stink bomb were meant to send me a

message. They were thinly veiled threats meant to

say, “Yoo hoo, I’m still here, I want my money and

you’d better stay out of it.”

We needed to come up with some new possi-

bilities. I goaded and pressured and urged Daniel

to think of someone else, someone he might have

missed or discounted for whatever reason, some-

one we could look into, a family member, an

employee, a business colleague or long forgotten

Anthony Bidulka — 337

acquaintance, perhaps another sexual partner

he’d failed to mention. But he came up with noth-

ing. And as I left the DGR&R building the same

feeling I’d woken up with came back to haunt me.

I had all the pieces but they frustratingly refused

to fit together.

“Even if you run really fast on a treadmill, you still

don’t get anywhere.”

Errall had caught me slumped over my desk,

staring at my computer screen. And she was right.

I did feel like I was exerting myself like crazy, but

getting no further for it. I was thinking about my

case and the frenzy of dead ends, suspects that

weren’t suspects, and the growing pile of stuff in

the Herrings file. I wordlessly raised my chin off

my forearm and looked at her. It had been a while

since Errall had made the trip upstairs and

stepped foot into my office. It was after four in the

afternoon and I’d forgotten to turn on an over-

head light. The room had become dim as the churl-

ish grey snow clouds congregated over the city,

effectively blocking out the sun.

“I was wondering how Brutus was? Is he doing

okay?” She had ended up in front of the balcony

doors gazing out at the encroaching storm. She

stood with her back to me, hands on slender hips.

“You didn’t come over with Kelly when she

was checking on my mom while I was away?”

Her head swivelled towards me, a surprised

look on her face. Did she even know about this?

Didn’t Kelly tell her?

338 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

She turned away. “No. I didn’t,” was her only

answer.

I let her off the hook. “He’s doing great. Barbra

loves the company and so does my mom.” I decid-

ed not to tell her about the sleeping in the bed-

room thing. It would only make her feel guiltier

than she obviously already was. “You know you

and Kelly can come over to see him anytime?”

“You know what?” she said, approaching the

desk. “The real reason I came up here was

to…Gawd, I don’t know, I guess to get some adult

conversation about anything other than this. I am

sick to death of thinking about it. Sick of it.”

That much was obvious. I changed tack. “So

work is busy?” I asked, somehow glad we had still

not switched on any lights.

She grimaced and sat down. “Actually no.

Most of my clients have either gotten ‘nice’ for the

holidays and don’t want to sue each other, or else

they’ve left town. I’d be working half days just

like everyone else around here seems to be doing

this week…except, well, home’s not a great place

to be right now, so…How about you? You were

looking mightily perplexed when I came in. Give

my brain something to do. Give me an update.”

Since moving into PWC, Errall has acted as

my business and personal attorney. That arrange-

ment of legally bound confidentiality allows me to

talk freely with her about my clients. It’s at times

like these where my relationship with Errall

becomes something much different from our

usual state of agreed-upon acrimony—something

neither of us cares to inspect too closely. So I glad-

Anthony Bidulka — 339

ly gave her a rundown on what had transpired

over the last couple of weeks. A cathartic experi-

ence.

“And you have no other suspects?” she asked

when I was done.

“No solid ones. And none endorsed by my

client. He’s having a hard time accepting the fact

that Loverboy might be someone other than

SunLover or James Kraft.”

“Could he be right?” she asked, her sharp blue

eyes glinting like sparks in the almost-dark room.

“Well,” I began, rolling the possibilities again

through my mind, “James was the one Daniel had

pegged as the most likely candidate to be

Loverboy. But when I met him in New York, he

seemed genuinely in the dark about any blackmail

scheme. And living there would have made it dif-

ficult for him to perpetrate the crime. There was

the threatening note
hand
-delivered to Daniel’s

office. And then this morning, the bouquet of

flowers from Loverboy—well after James’ death.”

“Those could have been sent from anywhere in

the world and ordered at any time, even before

James died. Did you check the florist?”

“There was no way to identify which florist

was used—if at all. As far as we know, Loverboy

himself could have purchased and delivered the

flowers.”

“What about an accomplice?”

“I’ve thought of that too. But the more I think

about it now, the less likely I think it is. It seems

pretty risky to carry out a blackmail scheme and

then leave town and have a buddy handle all the

340 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

cash. I don’t know, it doesn’t feel right to me. I think

Loverboy, whoever he is—or was—acted alone.”

“You have circumstantial evidence, but no

proof, Russell. James Kraft could still very well be

your Loverboy. Everything that has happened

since could have been arranged by him before his

death.”

“Except the stink bomb and my car getting

trashed.”

“He coulda hired that out…and besides, we

don’t even know for sure if that has anything to

do with the blackmail. There was no note making

a threat or claiming responsibility with either one,

right?”

I nodded my head.

Errall opened her mouth to say something but

I saw her catch the words before they left her

throat. We both knew why.

“Could it be him?” Errall whispered in the

darkness.

“Could Anthony

actually

be

Loverboy?”

I wanted to chastise her for even suggesting

our friend could have played such a heinous role.

But I couldn’t. For I was wondering the same

thing.

She took my silence as tacit permission to go

on. “Unlike James Kraft he was physically present

throughout the blackmail period,” she said. “And,

he has nothing to lose.”

I stood up. Now it was my turn to stand at the

balcony door staring out. “That’s where you’re

wrong,” I said, placing my hand on the back of my

neck, rubbing the lumps of stress that had grown

Anthony Bidulka — 341

there. “He does have something to lose. Jared.”

There was quiet behind me. I didn’t turn around.

I couldn’t bear for us to be talking about this; I

couldn’t bear to look at her while these words

came out of my mouth. “It would however

explain all his money,” I admitted. “People have

always wondered where it all comes from. It can’t

just be from the stores. They do well enough, but

not that well. It’s retail for Pete’s sake.

“Maybe he operates a whole blackmail ring,

with several men on the hook. A few thousand