George Pelecanos (37 page)

"Yeah,
I'd better go," he said, sagging. "I don't know. This flu..."

"Rest
easy, Jordie," she told him, as she turned to scurry back to the elevator.

Five
hours and two films later, Jordie arrived home.

The
password no longer worked on the S&M site, and he permitted himself to
think they'd taken the photos down. The thought lasted seconds.

He
had several emails, but one immediately caught his eye. The subject line read,
Urgent!
From Ana Mendes via her home AOL e-address.

"Jordie,"
she wrote, "I must see you. News! Meet me at the Bombay Club, Sunday, 1 p.m.
Happy, happy." It was signed, AM

The
signature and the "Happy, happy" made it real for Port.

Years
and years ago, he ran into Mendes at an
Editor &
Publisher conference in Chicago.
Drinks, sentiment, more
drinks; two people alone, despite the glad-handing at the banquet and bar.
He wanted her--the embrace mattered, the affection--and she thought, Why not? Up
to her room, and afterwards, as he lay with his head on her sweat-soaked shoulder,
she asked, "Happy?"

"Happy,
happy," he replied.

Port
stared at the email, and he permitted himself to think she had spoken to her
boss, who somehow got to Douglas Weil Sr. at ACCC. A book promoting Ronald
Reagan and his ideals was what America needed now. We ought to pull away from
these guys, Mr. Weil. They've only got a couple of years left anyway, and the
country's not going to keep tacking right...

The
thought lasted seconds.

It
took Port less than three minutes to hustle through the early-afternoon chill
to the St. Regis, and another two to reach the fifth floor. Room 523 was in the
center of the long, rose-carpeted corridor that was lined with white floral-pat
ern wallpaper.

Not
once did he ask himself why Mendes wanted to meet in a hotel when she had a
town house in Georgetown.

Port
knocked on the unlocked door. Then he stepped inside.

He
saw the red bedspread had been tossed aside, and the bed was in shambles. On
the off-white wall beyond the bed was an array of blood spatter. Blood was smeared
from the center of the stains to the floor where Mendes lay. A dimesized hole
was above her right eye.

Port
retreated in shock, stumbling against the desk chair, his arms flailing. He
stopped when he hit the closet door.

Bringing
his hands to his mouth, Port shuddered and he felt weak, and he understood.

Standing
in a silence broken only by the hum of the heating system, he tried to remember
what he had touched and who had seen him in the lobby or on 16th Street. Then
he went over and looked at Mendes, a friend who had tried to warn him.

She
wore a black chemise and was naked below the waist.

In
death, she seemed terrified. Ana Mendes, the most self-possessed woman he'd
ever known.

As
he turned from her, he saw on the desk an almost-empty bottle of wine, a 2001
Viognier from a Virginia winery. There were two glasses, a mouthful of golden
wine remaining in each, and he was sure one of the glasses wore his
finger-prints, gathered days earlier at Off the Record.

Port
hurried to the bathroom, grabbed a hand towel, and--

The
front door opened, and Port was joined by the Indian busboy and the black man
from valet parking.

The
black man spoke with cool assurance, as the man from India barred the door.

"You
have no possibility of escape," said the black man. "But you are left with a
choice."

Port's
mouth had dried and he struggled to speak. "I didn't--"

"Your call, Mr. Port."

Port
noticed they were both wearing latex gloves.

"First
choice: You killed her in a fit of rage brought on by the depression that's
been responsible for your erratic behavior."

"I
didn't--I wasn't angry with Ana. I--"

"You
argued at Red Sage. Several people noticed that she left when you took a phone
call."

"That's
not--"

"Dozens
of threatening emails to her from your ACCC computer.
Calls
from your ACCC cell phone."

The
Indian man stepped next to his associate. "You quarreled because you learned
Ms. Mendes had written a book about you."

"About
me?" he asked, his voice cracking.

The
man counted on his thin fingers.
"Your attempt to blackmail
Douglas Weil and the ACCC with your latest manuscript.
Your mental decline.
Your troubled
childhood.
Your reputation at the newspaper.
The sadomasochism..."

The
black man now had a gun in his hand. With the silencer, the barrel seemed more
than a foot long.

"I've
read this book by Ms. Mendes," said the Indian man.
"Fascinating.
Who would've known? This will surely profit Patriot Publishing."

Said
the black man, "If I shoot you from here, it's the second choice: You were
killed with Ms. Mendes when your tryst was interrupted.
A
jealous ex, a robbery?
Someone with an obsession..."

"An
obsession," the Indian man repeated.

"Or
I step up, put the gun to your temple, and make it look like murder-suicide.
If so, Ms. Mendes's manuscript is released, the S&M
website...Your psychological records.
Anecdotes.
Your name will become synonymous with a spokesman gone mad.

Said the Indian man, "A Jordan Port is a pig looking for a new trough."

Port's
mind reeled. He could see it unfolding--the headlines, the patter on talk radio,
schadenfreude, the mounting disgrace; reporters invading Davenport to interview
his step-mother, neighbors and high-school teachers to track down rumors fed
them by Doug Weil's PR machine.

"But
I don't deserve...I don't want to die," he said meekly, his voice dripping
resignation.

"Mr.
Port," said the Indian man, "you are already dead. It's a matter now of how you
are remembered."

The
black man raised his arm.

"Take
off your clothes, Mr. Port. Let's do it right."

As
his tears began to flow, Jordan Port slowly removed his camel's hair coat.

The
Indian man hung it in the closet next to Mendes's suit.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ROBERT ANDREWS
, a
former Green Beret and CIA officer, has lived in Washington, D.C. for over
thirty years. His last three novels, A Murder of Honor, A Murder of Promise,
and A Murder of Justice, feature Frank Kearney and Jose Phelps, homicide
detectives in the Metropolitan Police Department.

JIM BEANE
was born at Garfield
Hospital in Washington, D.C. and spent his early childhood in Michigan Park
near the city line. He grew up in the 'burbs. His stories have appeared in the
Baltimore Review, the Potomac Review and the Long Story. He lives in Prince
George's County, Maryland with his wife and daughters.

RUBEN CASTANED
covered the D.C. crime beat for the Washington Post from 1989 through the
mid-1990s. He has also written for the Washington Post Magazine, the California
Journal, and Hispanic Magazine. A native of Los Angeles, Castaneda, forty-four,
lives in Washington.

RICHARD CURREY
grew up in Washington, D.C. and environs and lives there today. His stories
have appeared in O. Henry, Pushcart, and Best American Short Stor collections,
aired on National Public Radio's Selected Shorts series, and performed at
Symphony Space in New York. His novel Lost Highway was reissued in 2005 in
print and as an audiobook.

JIM FUSILLI
is
the author of the award-winning Terry Orr series, which includes Hard, Hard
City, which was named winner of the Gumshoe Award for Best Novel of 2004, as
well as Closing Time, A Well-Known Secret, and Tribeca Blues. He also writes
for the Wall Street Journal and is a contributor to National Public Radio's All
Things Considered.

JAMES GRAD
is
the author of Six Days of the Condo and a dozen other novels. He has worked as
a national investigative reporter and a U.S. Senate aide, and has published
several award-winning short stories. Grady received France's Grand Prix du
Roman Noir in 2001 and Italy's Raymond Chandler medal in 2004. He lives inside
D.C.'s Beltway.

JENNIFER HOWARD
, a
native of Washington, D.C., grew up in the Palisades section of town, around
the corner from the old MacArthur Theatre. Her fiction, essays, reviews, and
features have appeared in the Washington Pos (where she was a contributing
editor from 1995-2005), VQR, the Boston Review, Slate, the Blue Moon Review,
Salon, New York Magazine, and other publications. She now lives on Capitol Hill
with her husband, the writer Mark Trainer, and their two children.

LESTER IRBY
was born and raised in Northeast D.C. He was first arrested at age thirteen and
later spent more than thirty years in federal prison for crimes ranging from
bank robberies to two prison escapes. Irby wrote "
God Don't
Like
Ugly" while incarcerated in the Lewisberg Federal Penitentiary. He
was released on parole in May 2005 and currently resides in Southeast D.C.

KENJI JASPER
was born and raised in the nation's capital and currently lives in Brooklyn. He
is a regular contributor to National Public Radio's Morning Edition and has
written articles for Savoy, Essence, VIBE, the Village Voice, the Charlotte
Observer and Africana.com. He is the author of three novels, Dark, Dakota
Grand, and Seeking Salamanca Mitchell

NORMAN KELLEY
is
the author of three "noir soul" novels featuring Nina Halligan: Black Heat, The
Big Mango, andA Phat Death. He is also the author of The Head Negro in Charge
Syndrome: The Dead End of Black Politics, as well as the editor of R&B
(Rhythm and Business): The Political Economy of Black Music. He was born and
raised in D.C. and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

LAURA LIPPMAN
is
best-known for her award-winning Tess Monaghan series, set forty miles to the
north of Washington, D.C. She spent part of her childhood just outside the
District line when her father was the Washington correspondent for the Atlanta
Constitution. Lippman still frequents the city, home to some of her favorite
people and restaurants.

JIM PATTON
grew up a D.C. suburb,
then
moved to the Left Coast.
Back in the area after many years, he finds the summers even more stifling, the
traffic more maddening. Worst of all, Shirley Povich is gone.

GEORGE PELECANOS
is
a screenwriter, independent-film producer, award-winning journalist, and the
author of the bestselling series of Derek Strange novels set in and around
Washington, D.C., where he lives with his wife and children.

QUINTIN PETERSON
is
a twenty-four-year veteran police officer with the Metropolitan Police
Department of Washington, D.C., where he is currently assigned to its Office of
Public Information as a media liaison officer. He is the author of several
plays and screenplays and two crime novels, SIN (Special Investigations
Network) and The Wages of SIN.

DAVID SLATER
is
originally from the Jersey Meadowlands, and has called D.C. home for more than
two decades. During that time, he has worked in several dive restaurants and,
for the last fifteen years, in environmental conservation. He currently lives
with his wife and two kids in the Clarendon section of Arlington, Virginia.

ROBERT WISDOM
grew up in the Petworth area of Northwest Washington, back when D.C. was still
a town. He attended D.C. public schools and graduated from St. Albans. He was
called Bobby growing up, which gave way to Bob in the world after D.C., got the
nickname Bayobe from his Brazilian capoeira master, and currently plays a
character named Bunny on HBO's The Wire. He's all about the B'

Also available from the Akashic Books Noir Series

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