Beg Me (29 page)

And I’d bet she also did it just for fun. Not a gal into sadomasochism. A pure genuine sadist.

Evil. She really was.

“I bet you always come when you’re with her, don’t you?” I suggested to Isaac. “She builds up your ego when you need it, but she
never, ever,
lets you forget what you are. Is that what it is? You’re really intimidated by Asian chicks or black women? So you go for nice safe vanilla?”

“I don’t care about that!” he shouted, his eyes flicking to the others nervously.

“Yes, you do,” I said. “You can barely stand to live with yourself. But you actually were attracted to Anna, weren’t you? And that just fucked you up more! When she figured out what you were doing, she had to go. Let me guess: Danielle came up with the whole drug-buy-gone-bad scenario. And then, because you hate what you are, you hate that you’re black
and Asian,
you wanted to rub her brother’s nose in it! Look what you can do to the nice, prim Asian girl. Look what you can do to those people who scarred you!”

“They can all rot in hell,” he growled.

“That’s how you gave yourself away,” I said, twisting the knife. “Why go to all that meticulous care and then blow it by gloating? Danielle’s the careful one, but you—you had to gloat. Those pictures you sent Ah Jo Lee. You might as well have autographed them!”

He stared at me, dumbfounded by the extent of my knowledge. Impossible for him, so much of the dead past and the recent past, now dredged up from its slime to grab his leg and pull him in.

“They didn’t get him, by the way,” I said to Danielle. “Anna’s brother. We stopped your assassins. You sent them when you realized what Isaac did, right? It’s the only thing that explains the schizo attitude toward Jeff Lee—taunting him and then sending men to kill him. You knew Isaac’s porn-o-gram might help Jeff Lee track you down. And you were right. He hired me to find you. By the way, you should thank me—I told him I wouldn’t kill you.”

Danielle stared at me too, in disbelief. Shaking her fists, looking like she wanted to jump out of her own skin, she screamed helplessly, “
How can you know all this?
How can you know where he’s from? How can you
know
?”

Free of the chains, I stepped forward and socked her one in the nose. As she fell on her ass, I replied, “You gave me library privileges, remember?”

For the benefit of the others, I added, “It’s what I do.”

They all stared at me, shamed, contrite, feeling foolish. I wish I could have taken the time to assure them that I didn’t judge what they liked or did. How could I when I had been part of it? It was Isaac and Danielle who came along and played on their sexual desires, who warped them into a movement for their own ends.

“You’re some kind of detective or something?” asked a shy girl.

“No, I just solve problems. And Anna was my friend. They killed her….”

The tattoo on Anna’s thigh, taken from a Vietnamese gang motto. Isaac’s contribution to the staging of the cover-up.

“And they killed Anna’s boyfriend, a guy in London named Craig Padmore.”

Craig, who purchased a book, searching for Isaac’s father, but found Isaac between the lines instead. The references to GIs hooking up with young Vietnamese girls and setting up their own informal domestic arrangements—Craig Padmore had put it together. All because Isaac was ashamed of his mother’s roots so he compensated by inventing on his dad’s side.

“Just like they killed Violet,” I went on.

“I didn’t kill Violet!” protested Isaac.

“No, your stupid dom bitch murdered Violet just for fun. And she’s spiked your drug cocktail. It’ll massacre thousands, and I bet you don’t give a damn about that because it’ll kill more Asian men, right?”

Now the princes and princesses were muttering words of shock,
oh, my God,
stuff like that, and a few had the good sense to grab hold of Danielle and keep her restrained.

But nobody had moved on Isaac.

He shouted something like “Ungrateful bastards!” And bodychecked his devotees out of the way, fleeing the room. They watched him go, paralyzed with indecision, hardly knowing what to think anymore.

I did.

He’d been their object of worship. So many of them had secretly, privately resented Danielle, and I knew I didn’t have to worry about her going anywhere. But Isaac. Couldn’t let him escape.

I ran up out of the deep cellar and into the ground-floor hallways, listening for which direction he’d gone. Then I stopped at one of the guest rooms to grab a robe to throw on. I was naked and in chains a minute ago, and I had had enough of that.

“Isaac!” I yelled.

The door was flung open.

I ran out in bare feet, instantly regretting that I hadn’t donned a pair of shoes, too late now. He was a silhouette up ahead in a field, his back to me, panting. I suspected his labored breathing was more from mental breakdown than physical exhaustion. He turned to me yards away, and though I couldn’t see his face, I heard a guttural wail, terrifying in its anguish. It wasn’t me who destroyed him. I know I wasn’t the one to do it. It was the culmination of a process that had started forty years ago.

Oh, God, he’s wearing—

“Isaac! Isaac, no!
NO!
”

Wearing a collar. I’d seen one like it before.

“Isaac!”

In Bangkok.

The same grotesque studs, barbs on the inside of the leather. I watched helplessly as he dropped to the ground and pulled the cord taut with his legs. I didn’t have a prayer of reaching him. He sent the studs shooting out, and they did their gruesome work on his carotid artery. Dead in seconds.

My guess was that it would probably turn out he’d designed the stupid thing. Had been meaning to do it off and on for ages.

I turned around and walked back to the mansion, which flickered in strobe lights from the police cruisers. Red, red, blue—red, red, blue. Chen stood in the doorway, a couple of patrolmen with him, already asking me if I was all right and where was Jackson. I briefed them on how I’d been captured and brought here, the whole scene in the dungeon.

I remembered what Jeff Lee had asked me before I flew out.
Hurt them for me.
That’s what he had wanted me to do.

Too late, I thought.

“Tell me you didn’t let that bitch slip away,” I said to Chen.

“Sitting in the back of a cruiser at this very moment,” he answered. “We got the others in the street—that Gordon guy and your sparring partner too. Even better, those guys already gave up Danielle as the one who killed your friend—they left her body in the park. The murder plus the drugs plus the poison—she’s going to sit in a hole for a long time.”

That gave me some satisfaction, to think Danielle would find out what a real dungeon was like.

And I relished the idea that the sneaky little bastard Jimmy got dragged away in cuffs, still saying, “Please…Please…” He could say it all the way to Rikers Island.

“You know Danielle’s damn lucky we do have her,” said Chen. “I can’t stop every leak, and word’s already made it to the triads. They’ve put out a contract on her. Her and Jackson.”

“They don’t have to worry about Jackson anymore. What about the drugs?”

“We think we managed to intercept most of them. I know that sounds piss poor at the moment, but we’re spreading the word. With the media’s help and more raids in the next couple of weeks, we’ll hopefully prevent any tragedies.”

“Yeah…”

“You sound tired, Teresa. Plus it looks like the paramedics ought to take a look at you.”

“I’ll be okay. What about the minor royalty back there?”

“Take ’em all in for questioning. Probably have to let ’em go in a few hours—unless you want to add them as accomplices to your formal complaint of kidnapping.”

I shook my head. “You’ll want to question a girl called Eve Baker. But I doubt most of the others knew anything about the drugs. I didn’t recognize all the faces at the lab. Those here who were in on it…I’m sure you can sniff them out and break them.”

“But they must know,” Chen complained. “Come on! You’re telling me all these people didn’t know something?”

“It’s a
cult,
” I said, a slight edge in my voice. Nerves after the ordeal. “Just because they’re black and go in for kink doesn’t mean they’re criminals, too. These guys deluded themselves into making that couple their heroes.” I let out a heavy sigh, couldn’t help it. “Listen, John, if justice is blind so is faith. And I
know
Violet didn’t know anything. Violet was innocent.”

He wasn’t going to contradict me. Certainly not about Violet.

“Fair enough,” he answered. “They’ll still have to answer subpoenas and appear in court to testify about Isaac and Danielle. Won’t be fun for them telling an open court about their sex lives.”

“Speaking of testifying…”

I wasn’t crazy about the idea either. Maybe they’d call me a hero for helping to bring down an ecstasy drug ring, but my dad could probably do without a Reuters story describing how his little girl went on all fours naked in a doggy collar.

Chen’s lip curled in what could pass for a smile. “Yeah, I thought you might ask me about that. Short answer: We don’t need you. We got the drugs. We got the key street personnel. We’ve got Danielle and the testimony against her—and she’s most of the financial connections.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“How does it feel to know you’ve earned the gratitude of major triad operations in New York City?” he teased. “Must be good for a couple of favors from them.”

“Let’s hope I don’t have to call any in,” I said. “Look, John, if you can, try to spare most of those people in the house from court, will you? They were sucked in and used, and they don’t really know anything. Their private lives…”

“It won’t be my call, to be honest. But if we can get the guys on the street to testify against Danielle, all the sex stuff is kinda beside the point. It’ll probably come out. I mean, Jesus! They’ve got all that BDSM gear, for Christ’s sake. But maybe the lawyers won’t need everyone.”

“Do your best,” I said.

“Go see the paramedic,” he ordered. “Then come find me.”

“What for?”

“I think I owe you a really good Chinese meal.”

14

A
h Jo Lee heard about the case even before I phoned him to make a report. I guess I had John Chen to thank for that. Lee was so grateful, he deposited a bonus in my account. That just left some loose ends to tie up, and I knew that I had become one of them. What I was going to do now. What kind of person I had turned into.

To catch Isaac and Danielle, I had temporarily left myself. I had come to Oliver and willingly handed my mind and body over to him, let him train me and condition me, mold me into a supposed tool for someone else, even though I was a knife waiting for a back. I couldn’t lie about what I felt. The pleasures, the sensations…I had to admit that I got lost in them.

But, then, they counted on that, didn’t they? Isaac and Danielle. The pool doesn’t feel so warm and cozy anymore as you slip under the water, but still you go quietly down, and you’re not breathing. It’s such a quiet slow-motion sinking slide down, personal identity floating away as if that was more vain affectation.

Violet. The sensible, the tangible became Violet, and I couldn’t help but wonder if we would have had a chance of lasting if we had met outside. I was going to bleed from that wound for quite a while. Oh, God, Violet.

I had left a piece of myself behind in that mansion, and when I came back to the bookshop, I knew there was no future with Oliver.

“But I left them, babe!” he insisted. “Goddammit, Teresa, you’re not being fair.”

“We never talked about having a future,” I reminded him. “I don’t want to be with someone who’s always going to remind me of that case.”

“That’s a fucking cop-out!”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “I got into it for a job. This…stuff. It’s in you. You repress it, Oliver. You blow hot and cold on me. You’ve got demons I can’t help you with.”

I heard the resentment in his voice. “Who are you trying to fool, Teresa? You really think I couldn’t have done what I did to you unless you had
a need
?”

I looked at him and didn’t respond. What would be the point? I could never convince him, and while it sounds callous, I didn’t have strong enough feelings for him that I cared about his good opinion of me. I think he
tried.
Hey, he would always try to be a loving partner to someone. But give him enough rope…He had desires that I didn’t want to share anymore. Not that I was ashamed of them, but I didn’t need them, not really. I threw out the big philosophical question once about what was normal. And I knew what normal was now.

It was what I wanted to feel, what I longed to feel with someone that lasted beyond seconds of shock-pleasure. Genuine tenderness.

And the undeniable, unspeakable truth that made him completely wrong about me was Violet.

I told him we should keep things on a professional level. There was one last piece of business I could do to avenge his father, and it meant him picking up the tab for a few expenses, including a British Airways ticket back to Europe.

“Okay,” he said. He didn’t hesitate to bring out his checkbook.

Bishop. Time to settle up with that destroyer of lives.

Simon had come through days ago, but I didn’t learn that he had found Bishop’s whereabouts until I’d wrapped up all the police stuff with Chen and had gone through my saved messages. Simon said he hadn’t confronted him yet. He thought I might want to…He didn’t say
participate.
He used the simple words
be there.
I might like to be there. So he would wait awhile.

I appreciated the professional courtesy. I did want to be there.

I phoned Simon and told him that I had booked a flight to Portugal and for him to please get me a separate room at the hotel in Albufeira. “Understood,” he said, and hung up.

God help me for what I was going to make happen.

Albufeira. Gorgeous, sandy beautiful beach, and yellow, pink, and blue apartment blocks near the marina. They looked like a child’s rendering of a townscape. You heard the Algarve accent in the locals’ Portuguese but also a jarring sprinkle of British expat gossip, the newest homeowners whining about the DIY needed on their extensions. My friend Helena had been here, I seemed to remember. Lovely—the type of place where you shouldn’t have to struggle with your conscience.

For some, of course, there’s never a struggle. It’s just blue skies and warm beach and a white villa going for a steal at so many thousands of Euros outside the small town. For some, the best revenge is living well—
after
you’ve killed off your enemies.

I was very quiet riding shotgun in the convertible Mercedes Simon had rented, brooding behind my sunglasses as we drove out of town. We passed within sight of the Torre do Relógio, and here and there I thought I saw bits of old Moorish architecture. Then we were into the hills above the sea, and while it was another ninety-degree afternoon, a nice breeze cooled things today.

Simon misinterpreted my silence. He must have thought I was having mixed thoughts about confronting Bishop. Not at all.

“You didn’t have to come along,” he said gently. “I could have taken care of this.”

“I know. I appreciated the call.”

“You’re treating this job like a penance,” he commented.

“Simon, let’s not talk for a while.”

He knew enough to shut up.

We parked the car in the lot of a little survey spot overlooking the sea. Then we trudged up a hill for fifteen minutes to where Bishop’s gleaming white villa sat behind a gate. Both of us were mildly surprised that it wasn’t even locked, and we strolled in like a couple ready to knock on the door for directions.

As we made our way around to the backyard, our target stomped out of a greenhouse, a man in his late sixties with milky blue eyes and a weak jaw, wearing gardening gloves and a floppy khaki hat. He was bare to the waist, a farm-hand’s tan on his arms, his chest a sallow white like a sickly fish, potbellied and with tufts of white hairs.

“Who are you?” he barked. Northern accent sanded down over time from living in foreign parts.

Simon pulled out his 9mm Glock 18 and leveled it at Bishop. The old mercenary sighed and started to pull off his gloves.

“You don’t seem terribly surprised,” I said.

Bishop offered a faint smile. “I bought this house ahead of the boom, lived here ten years. You get sloppy over time. What? You expect me to beg for my life?”

“No,” answered Simon.

“Good! Because I’ll be damned if you get your fucking rocks off over that, mate.”

“Do you know why we’re here?” I asked.

It was almost as if he’d got word somehow and was resigned to us coming. Then he exploded that myth with a contemptuous wet laugh.

“I don’t fucking care!” And enjoying my surprise over that one, he took the floppy hat off his silver mop, wiped his brow, and explained, “I’ve made enemies. I’ve made lots of enemies! If not you then some other one would come. Oh, let me guess. You’re here to drag me to a tedious trial somewhere, yeah? But you’ll still give me three squares a day so your Kaffir masters look good and noble and just. Or you want to pop me off and make a big speech about how somebody I long forgot got hit ages ago. Yeah? Right. Get bent. I’m a professional. I did a job. Now get on with yours.”

I had no ready counter. You think about Nazis getting hunted down, evil that men do, appendix A through Z, and all the righteous philosophy becomes a soap bubble.

He was about to be executed, but he was going to rob us of any satisfaction of vengeance.

I didn’t expect him to beg or say he was sorry. I had actually hoped for anger, defiant rage. He wouldn’t give us that either.

You still kill the cockroach, even if it doesn’t protest.

“What is it, cancer?” Simon asked Bishop. “Got to be cancer. Something quite unpleasant like bone or prostate—not that any of them is a picnic.”

Bishop attempted a poker face. Failed. He blinked too many times.

Then Simon had an inspiration. It was one of those moments when his character made any long-term association with him next to impossible. He went to dark places I could never—
would
never—want to follow, far darker than anything Oliver could imagine.

“You haven’t quite guessed the program,
mate,
” he said, keeping his voice casual. “This isn’t just an execution, this is also a robbery.”

Then he looked at me—it was a reflex for him to anticipate my dissent. Today I had none. I had come along, after all. I was here.

My objections had always been: Can we bring this person to trial? Can we expose a greater evil by hanging on to the bad guy? Would getting rid of him bring down a reprisal shit storm on the innocents?

“What do you bloody mean, robbery?”
demanded Bishop.

I had no such qualms over this retired thug. I thought of all the domino lives crumbling in the decades of his career.

“Here’s how it’s going to go,” Simon told him, and even though I didn’t know his plan, I had a pretty good idea. I’d seen enough. I nodded and started walking away, back toward the front of the house.

“Bishop,” Simon went on. “I just
know
you are sitting on a nice pot of assets with a smart rate of interest. You are going to sign over your remaining holdings to an account I give you. Call it a charitable donation. Oh, by the way, it’ll be used for child victims of land mines in Africa, in case you’re wondering. Now, you’re still going to die, but if you want to be a stupid stubborn bastard, it will take you longer, and I’ll still forge your signature….”

It was enough for me to hear Bishop’s growing fear. I didn’t need to see what was coming.

“Wait a minute, now, you just wait a minute!” Bishop was stammering.

“Keep in mind, Bishop, you need only
one eye
to be able to sign your name to documents. By the way, are you right-or left-handed?”

I heard Bishop still negotiating as I reached the front gate. I didn’t want to think hard about the mind that could dream up this brand of retribution.

Especially when it belonged to an off-again, on-again lover.

But so help me, I was grateful for his idea.

I sat in the car and watched the sea.

Maybe the hour and a half was to pull up banking records and passwords from the Internet. Search through desk drawers. Yeah, maybe.

Interesting thing about guns: They can be like car alarms—in a place with too much violence, no one pays attention. And here, where paradise is hardly ever defiled, no one recognizes the sound. Must be a truck backfiring.

I heard a single
bang
—then the flutter of spooked birds.

The road stayed quiet, and even the tiny figures on the beach below didn’t turn at the noise. After a few minutes, Simon walked down the hill and got in the car. We didn’t talk as we returned to the hotel.

We slept in our respective rooms that night and had breakfast together the next morning. Hardly chatted at all. Finally, he asked with a mischievous smile on his face, “Do you think it’s odd that we keep crossing paths, darling?”

“You’re my designated stalker.” Weak joke.

“Listen, whatever happened to you in New York—”

“Simon, I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. I tried not to sound so brutal. “New York was…” But I couldn’t finish the thought, and yesterday had sapped me of any strength to confide in him.

“I’m flying out this morning,” he announced. Then: “You know you don’t have to be on a case to pick up the phone.”

“That wouldn’t work.”

“Okay, how about this,” he said cheerfully, still trying to lighten the mood. “Next time I’ll get myself in
real
trouble—major, major shit. You come rescue me.”

“Are you saying I owe you for the bus thing in Lagos?”

“Not at all! I’m saying I might need you. You mean you wouldn’t race out to help if I was in major, major shit?”

“I’m sure I could have got out of that scrape if you hadn’t turned up, Simon. I would have thought of something.”

I smiled, pretending to tease him. Trying to stay brave and keep from falling to pieces.

He kept grinning at me. “You don’t do it as repayment of debt!” he said, making a big act of being offended.