Detective (53 page)

Cynthia said, "Good. So maybe you
understand why I want to kill them."

After the briefest hesitation,
Jensen nodded. "Yes, I do."

"So you will help me."

For two hours Cynthia and Patrick
Jensen talked sometimes heatedly,
occasionally calmly, at moments
persuasively, but never lightly.
Their thoughts, arguments, doubts,
discussions, denials, threats,
persuasions, were all arranged,
discarded, and rearranged, like
jumbled dominoes.

At one point Patrick tried: "And
suppose I don't say yes to your
insane proposition, if I tell you
the hell with it, go screw yourself.
Then would you really open up that
box of snakes that could put me in
the chair? If you did that, you'd
accomplish nothing."

"Yes, I'd do it," Cynthia
answered. "I wouldn't make the
threat if I didn't mean it. Besides,
you deserve to be punished, if not
by me, then for Naomi.''

"Then what would you do, Lady
Noble Avenger?" Jensen's voice was
contemptuous. "Without me, how would
you plow the killing fields?"

"I'd find someone else."

And he knew she would.

Much later, Jensen argued, "I told
you that what I did was a crime of
passion; I admitted that, and wish
I could

DETECTIVE 445

undo it. But I couldn't simply know
I couldn't do a cold-blooded,
premeditated murder." He threw up
his hands. "Like it or not, that's
the way it is."

"I know all that," Cynthia said.
"I've known it all along."

Jensen sputtered, "Then for God's
sake, why in hell "

"I want you to arrange for someone
else to do it," she said calmly.
"And pay them."

Jensen inhaled a deep breath, held
it, then let it out. Both his body
and his brain felt an overwhelming
sense of relief. Then, a moment
later, he wondered: Why?

He already knew the answer.
Cynthia, adroitly and with cynical
psychology, had maneuvered him to a
point where what she now proposed
was the better of two choices: Go to
prison for life, or perhaps pay the
ultimate penalty of death for the
murders of Naomi and her friend, or
take a chance in arranging for
someone else to do another killing
for which he, Patrick, had no
stomach. He might not even have to
be present when it happened. There
would be a chance of discovery and
exposure, of course, with a penalty
for that, too. But that had been the
case since the night he killed
Naomi.

Cynthia was smiling slightly as she
watched him. "You've figured it out,
haven't you?"

"You're a witch and a bitch!"

"But you'll do it. You don't really
have a choice."

Strangely, in his storyteller's
mind, Jensen was already thinking of
it as a game. He supposed it was
perverse, undoubtedly despicable.
Just the same, it was a game that he
could play and win.

"I know you've been banging out
with a pretty scummy crowd lately,"
Cynthia prompted. "All you have to
do is find the right guy."

446 Arthur Halley

In fact, Jensen had been slowly
immersing himself in the criminal
underworld, beginning more than two
years earlier when he decided to
write a novel about drug traf-
ficking. In the course of
researching the story he had sought
out some small-time drug dealers not
difficult because of his own
occasional cocaine use who, in turn,
had referred him to bigger sharks.

Two or three of those bigger
operators, while agreeing to meet
him out of curiosity, were slow to
relax, but finally decided that a
real, live author, "a smart guy with
his name on books," could be
trusted. The inherent vanity of most
career criminals and the compulsion
to be noticed also opened doors for
Jensen. In bars and nightclubs, with
drinks and confidences flowing, a
question he often encountered was
"You gonna put me in a book?" His
stock answer was "Maybe." Thus, in
time, Jensen's criminal
acquaintanceships widened, beyond
what he needed for research, and he
began doing some occasional drug
deals and drug transporting himself,
surprised to find how easy it was,
and how pleasantly profitable.

The profit was helpful because his
crime novel did not do well, nor did
another that followed, and it
appeared that Patrick's high-flying
best-seller days might be over. At
the same time he had made some bad
investments, based on poor advice,
and his accumulated money was
diminishing alarmingly.

The combined factors made
Cynthia's bizarre objective at least
more feasible, not entirely
unthinkable, perhaps even
interesting.

"You know we'll have to pay
someone a lot for this job," he said
to Cynthia. "And I don't have that
kind of money."

"I know," she said. "But I have
plenty." And she did.

Gustav Ernst, as part of his
attempts to make peace with

DETECTIVE 447

his daughter after the long years of
abuse, had given Cynthia a generous
monthly allowance, which
supplemented her salary and enabled
her to live well. For her part, she
accepted it as her due.

In addition, Gustav also arranged
for substantial sums of money to be
placed in a Cayman Islands bank
account in Cynthia's name. But
Cynthia had not acknowledged the
Caymans money or used any of it,
though the accumulated amount, she
knew, was now in excess of five
million dollars.

For many years Gustav Ernst had
been a successful financial
entrepreneur; his specialty was
buying major interests in small,
innovative companies in need of
venture capital. His instincts were
uncanny. Most companies he chose
would burgeon in a short time, their
stock soaring, at which point Gustav
sold out. His net worth reputedly
was sixty million dollars.

Gustav's younger brother, Zachary,
had shed his United States
citizenship as increasing numbers of
wealthy Americans were doing to
avoid punitive taxation. Now Zachary
divided his residency between the
Caymans and the Bahamas, both
congenial, sunny tax havens. It was
Zachary who opened Cynthia's Cayman
account and put money in it
periodically, always as a tax-free
"gift." On each occasion Cynthia
received a confirming letter along
the following lines:

My dear Cynthia:

I do hope you will accept the latest gift I have placed

in your account. These days I seem to have more money than I
need, and since I have no wife, children, or other relatives,
it gives me pleasure to pass these sums along to you. I trust
you are able to make use of them.

From your affectionate Uncle Zack

448 Arthur Halley

Cynthia knew the money was, in
fact, from Gustav, who had his own
arrangements with Zachary involving
tax avoidance or was it evasion?
Cynthia neither knew nor cared,
except for being aware that
avoidance was legal, evasion
illegal.

She did care, however, about her
own legal position and, while not
acknowledging the letters, saved
them and sought a tax consultant's
advice.

He reported back, "The letters are
fine. Keep them in case you ever
need to prove the deposits were
gifts and nontaxable. About your
Cayman account and your receiving
gifts there, all of that is
perfectly in order. But each year on
your U.S. tax return you must report
having that account, and declare any
interest earned as income. Then
you'll be in the clear."

Subsequently one of Cynthia's tax
returns was audited and approved,
with the consultant's advice
confirmed, so she never had to worry
about breaking the law. Even so, she
kept her Cayman wealth a secret from
everyone except the consultant and
the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
She had no intention of telling
Jensen, either.

For a few minutes he had been
silent, thinking.

"Plenty of money will be a help,"
he resumed. "To do what you have in
mind, making sure the killings stay
unsolved and no one talks . . . the
price will be steep maybe two
hundred thousand dollars."

"I can pay that,'' Cynthia said.

"How? "

"Cash."

"Okay. So what's our time frame?"

"There isn't one not yet. You can
take however long you need to find
the right person someone who's
clever, tough, brutal, discreet, and
totally reliable."

DETECTIVE 449

"It won't be easy."

"That's why you'll have plenty of
time." She would savor the waiting,
Cynthia thought, knowing that
eventually her revenge, which she
had planned so long ago, would be
fulfilled.

"While you're at it," Patrick said,
"figure on a lot of money for me,
too."

"You'll get it, and part will be
for protecting me. You are not to
mention my name to whoever you hire.
Don't even hint of my involvement at
any time, to anyone. AISO, the fewer
details I know, the better except I
must be told a date at least two weeks
ahead."

"So you can have an alibi?"

Cynthia nodded. "So I can be three
thousand miles away."

3

"Take however long you need,"
Cynthia had told Patrick Jensen. But
it was almost four years certainly
longer than Cynthia had
intended before the irrevocable
steps were taken.

The intervening time passed
quickly, however particularly for
Cynthia, who was climbing the
promotion ladder at the Miami Police
Department with exceptional speed.
Yet neither Cynthia's successes nor
the passage of time tempered the
hatred she felt toward her parents.
Nor did it diminish her need for
revenge. From time to time she re-
minded Jensen of his commitment to
her, which he acknowledged,
insisting that he was still looking
for the right guy someone
resourceful, ruthless, brutal, and
dependable. He had not, so far,
appeared.

At times, in Jensen's mind, the
whole concept seemed eerie and
unreal. As a novelist he had often
written about criminals, but all of
it was abstract no more than words
on a computer screen. The true
darkness of crime, as he saw it
then, was in a world that belonged
to others a whole different brand of
people. Yet now he had become one of
them. Through a single crazy act he
had committed a capital crime and,
in that instant, his formerly law

DETECTIVE 451

abiding life was gone. Did others
enter the underworld in that same
headlong, unplanned way? He supposed
many did.

As time passed, he sometimes asked
himself, What have you become,
Patrick Jensen? And answered
objectively, Whatever it is, you've
gone too far; there can be no turn-
ing back.. . Virtue's a luxury you
can't afford anymore . . . There was
once a time for conscience, but that
time has gone . . . If someone ever
discovers and discloses what you've
done, nothing nothing at all will be
forgotten or forgiven . . . So
survival is all that
matters survival at any cost. . .
even at the cost of other lives. . .

All the same, Jensen was still
haunted by that sense of unreality.

In contrast, he was sure, Cynthia
had no such illusions. She possessed
an inflexibility that never
abandoned a target. He had seen that
trait at work, knew that because of
it he would not escape his mission
as Cynthia Ernst's surrogate
executioner, and that if he failed
her, she would keep her promise and
destroy him.

In essence, Jensen came to realize,
he was no longer the same person he
had once been. Instead he had become
a self-protective, ruthless
stranger.

Despite the delay in her primary
objective, Cynthia had taken care of
a secondary one by using her senior
rank, plus some biased research and
use of old records, to thwart
Malcolm Ainslie's promotion to
lieutenant. Her motives were clear
enough, even to Cynthia. After a
childhood of what amounted to
complete and utter rejection, she
was determined that no one no
one would ever reject her again. But
Malcolm had, and for that, she would
never forget, never forgive.

452 Arthur Halley

Eventually, after the long delay
in her final reckoning with Gustav
and Eleanor Ernst, Cynthia decided
she had waited long enough. She
conveyed her impatience to Patrick
during a weekend in Nassau, Bahamas,
where again they were registered at
separate hotels, Cynthia at the lux-
urious Paradise Island Ocean Club.

After a long and satisfying
morning of sex, Cynthia suddenly sat
up in her bed. "You've had more than
enough time. I want some action, or
I'll take some." She leaned over and
kissed his forehead. "And trust me,
sweetheart, you won't like the kind
of action I have in mind."

"I know." Jensen had been
expecting this kind of ultimatum for
some time and asked, "How long do I
have?"

"Three months."

"Make it six."

"Four, beginning tomorrow."

He sighed, knowing that she meant
it, aware also that for reasons of
his own the time had come.

Jensen had produced one more book,
which, like the two preceding it,
was a failure compared with his
earlier bestsellers. As a result,
the publishers' advances Patrick re-
ceived for all three books, which he
had spent long ago, were not earned
out and no more royalty payments
were forthcoming. The next step was
predictable. His American publishing
house, which during his successful
years paid him handsome advances
against books not yet written, de-
clined to do so anymore, insisting
instead that he submit a finished
manuscript before any contract was
signed and money changed hands.

This left Jensen in a desperate
situation. During the preceding few
years he had not moderated his
expensive living habits, and not
only were his current assets nil,
but he

DETECTIVE 453

was deeply in debt. Thus the
possibility of receiving two hundred
thousand dollars to hire a killer of
which Jensen intended to keep half,
plus a similar sum he envisaged for
his own services was now urgent and
attractive.