Aphrodite (18 page)

“I always wanted to be named Lucy.”

“You did?”

“See?” Kendall said with a smirk, just as the elevator door opened and let them out on three. “You don’t know
everything
about me.”

Five minutes later, they were both back in the lobby, in front of Elron. Deena was looking as miserable as possible.

“Mr. Hemmings is going to kill me,” she said. “I’m supposed to open up the office for him and I don’t have my key. I can’t believe it. This has never happened to me before. He is
really
going to be furious.”

“Uh …” Elron said. He didn’t have much more to contribute, since he didn’t have any decent solution to the problem. Then he suddenly thought of something. “Maybe he’ll bring
his
key.”

“Oh, right,” Deena said. “Like Hemmings has actually got a key. The guy makes me turn on the
lights
for him, for God’s sake.” She glanced over toward the front door, as if fearful that her boss would arrive before she’d solved the problem. “No, I just called Mr. Fromm at the management office.” She held up her cell phone, as if to verify that she’d made the call. “It was the only thing I could think of. He said I should come back down here, that you had a passkey and could let me in.”

“Well …” Elron said, and didn’t say anything else for a moment because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“You can wait up there with me until Mr. Hemmings comes in. I mean, if that’ll make you feel more secure about letting me in.”

“I can’t really do that. Somebody’s got to be down here in the lobby.”

“If you give me the key, I can let myself in and then run it right back down to you.”

“Maybe I should call Mr. Fromm, just to double-check.”

“He was on his way out, so I don’t know if you’ll get him. But here.” She held up her cell phone. She wondered if Justin had gotten to the building manager and managed to keep him away from the phone. She remembered the final detail that Justin had told her to add. It had a fifty-fifty chance of working, he’d said. “Just press Redial,” Deena told the security guard. “It’s the last number I called.”

“No need,” Elron said, waving the phone away decisively, then reaching for his key ring and handing it to her. “It’s not like you’re gonna lie to me, are you? A regular tenant like yourself.”

“Not me,” Deena said. And looking down at her little girl, she added, “And certainly not Lucy.”

Ten minutes later, Justin strode by Elron. It was six-thirty now, time when anyone coming into the building had to sign in. Justin wrote down the time and the name Ward Hemmings. Kendall had come up with the first name. Elron glanced at the signature, then up at the man. This one he recognized, he thought. He had definitely seen this Hemmings guy before, so he took the initiative and said, “Your secretary’s already up there, Mr. Hemmings. Nice lady. Very professional.”

“Glad you think so,” Justin replied. “She can be pretty damn forgetful sometimes.”

“Not tonight,” Elron said. “She’s got everything under control. You can count on her.”

“That’s good to know,” Justin said. “That’s really good to know.”

When Justin walked into room 301, he saw that Deena had an expression on her face as if to say: What the hell is this? When he looked around the office, he understood the expression. He had the same one on
his
face.

The Growth Industries office was one fairly large room, maybe twenty feet by twenty feet. There was one chair in the room, which was set in front of a small desk. The desk had no paperwork on it. There was nothing on it—or in it; Justin immediately opened up all three drawers to check—except a blank yellow legal pad and three ballpoint pens. Other than that the only items in the room were nine small tables. On each table were two telephone/answering-machine combinations. Eighteen phones and each one was connected to a separate jack in the wall. Justin walked slowly to one of the phones, picked it up, and dialed a number. A recording immediately came on and he hung up.

“Can’t call out,” he said to Deena. “These are for incoming calls only.”

“What kind of office is this?” she asked.

Justin shook his head. He went around and checked all the machines. Not one of them showed that any messages were waiting to be picked up. He went to one of the machines, pressed the Menu button, and followed the instructions until he could play the outgoing message. A man’s voice came on and announced, “You’ve reached Ed Marion. I’m not at home right now. Please leave a message after the tone and I’ll return the call as soon as I can. Thank you.” He did the same on each machine. Nine of them had the same message from Ed Marion, the man who’d said he was William Miller’s nephew. Nine of the phone machines had identical messages but they weren’t left by Marion, but by a woman, Helen Roag. Justin looked up, saw the question in Deena’s eyes, shook his head again because that was the only answer he had. He took a deep breath, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed. In a few seconds, his call was connected.

“Gary, it’s Westwood,” he said, and before the cop at the other end of the phone could sputter his name or say anything at all, he added, firmly and loudly, knowing that the tone would stop Gary cold, at least for a few seconds, “Don’t say anything. Don’t let on who you’re talking to. You understand?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Just listen to me. I’m going to ask you to do me a favor. It means you’re going to have to trust me. And I’m going to have to trust you. I don’t want you to say anything to Rollins or even to Jimmy.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know who’s involved in what. Or where there are leaks. And I don’t want you to end up like your pal Brian.”

There was a long pause after that. Then Gary said, “What makes you trust
me
?”

“What you saw and what I think that probably did to you.” Justin then breathed out a faint laugh. “And you told me to stop smoking. It was a nice thing to say and you looked like you meant it. It’s pretty thin but it’s all I’ve got right now.”

There was another long pause. Justin was certain that the images from Brian’s living room were running through Gary’s mind.

“What do you want?” the young cop asked. And from the way he lowered his voice Justin knew he was going to go along with him.

“I need more phone information. Similar to what you got for me before.” He gave him Growth Industries’ address and the names Ed Marion and Helen Roag. “There are eighteen phone lines coming into that office. I want the records of every incoming call on all of those numbers for the last three months. That’s one thing. I also want you to find out who gets the bills and where they’re sent. And I want you to get me as much information as you can on Marion and Roag. Check the tri-state area and Massachusetts, too. I want to get a home address and any phone numbers, including cells. I want
anything
you can get on them. I’m guessing on the spelling of Roag, but if you don’t find anything, run through any variation that makes sense.”

“Yeah,” Gary said. “I got it.”

“I meant what I said before, too.”

“About what?”

“About keeping this quiet. And about staying alive.”

“How do I get the stuff to you?”

“Take down my cell number. When you’ve got it, call me and we’ll figure it out. Don’t leave the number lying around, either. Don’t let Agent Rollins see it. Or Jimmy either, for that matter. Try to be smart here.”

“What’s going on, Justin?” Gary said. And suddenly he didn’t sound like a cop. He sounded like a scared twenty-four-year-old kid.

“I don’t know,” Justin told him. “But I appreciate the help. And the first day I can, I’ll take you out for a drink as a little thank-you.”

“I didn’t know about you.”

“What?”

“I didn’t know all the stuff that’s come out, that’s been in the news. I mean, I didn’t know what had happened to you.”

“No,” Justin said. “You wouldn’t.”

“Well, I read all about it. And Jimmy told me some stuff, too. Since it’s out in the open now.” When Justin didn’t respond, Gary said, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago, I guess.”

“They’re pretty pissed off at you here. You watch yourself.”

“Ditto,” Justin said. “If they know you’re doing this, they’ll be pretty pissed off at you, too.” And then he hung up.

“What now?” Deena asked.

Justin looked at Kendall, leaned down so they were eye to eye. “Is there one food your mommy doesn’t like you to eat?”

“More than one,” Kendall said. “She’s a health nut, you know. Right, Mom?”

“That’s right, sweetie. I’m definitely a health nut.”

“Well, what’s the worst?” Justin asked.

“A tie. Chocolate and french fries,” the little girl said.

Justin stood up and stretched his arms. “I’m starving,” he told his two traveling companions. “What say we go out and get some french fries and chocolate. I think we all deserve it.”

15

The dream came again that night.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. Even as he woke up, felt his shortness of breath, Justin knew that this dream wasn’t merely a gut-wrenching reminder of the past. It was a warning about the future. About the violence and danger and death that were all around them.

His instincts had dulled but they had not completely disappeared. His nostrils were filled with the scent of fear. What he didn’t know— what one never knows, he thought—was whether he would be strong enough to fight off the fear and make sure they all survived.

It’s why the dream kept haunting him; he understood that. It wasn’t just the losses he’d suffered. Nor was it the exposure to genuine malevolence. It was the despairing feeling in the pit of his stomach that told him he hadn’t been strong enough—or quick enough, or smart enough, or tough enough or mean enough or caring enough—to protect the people he had loved.

It had been his fault, everything that had happened. His choices. His decisions. His stubbornness. His life.

Their deaths.

The dream was shorter tonight. It spared him the pleasure and brought him right to the pain. He woke up to the image of himself, lying on the floor, feeling the river of blood spread beneath him. He could feel himself turning and he could see the remarkably vacant eyes staring down at him. It was a new detail, these eyes, and it forced him to remember that they had not been hate-filled or vicious. They were the eyes of a sociopath, calm and unemotional. They were the eyes of someone doing his job. Doing what he had been bred to do.

The image of Lili’s body was there, of course. Broken and crumpled. And he could see her eyes, too. Desperate and sad, in so much pain. Confused and pleading with him for help. In real life, there had been no pleading. Things had happened too fast. But in his dream, the sadness in her eyes lingered long after her life had ended.

Alicia’s eyes were in the dream too. Large and round and brown. And accusing. Staring and accusing.

Then there was the final bang, the last shot. It filled his head like an explosion, and then he woke up to find himself sweating and afraid of the violence that was sure to come.

Justin heard a door swing open and suddenly the dream didn’t matter. He hurled himself toward the bed table, grabbed his gun. His hands were shaking as he pointed it toward the door, toward the figure that was standing in the shadows. He exhaled a long and quivering breath when he heard a woman’s voice say, in hushed tones, “Are you all right?”

Justin focused his eyes on Deena, peering at him from behind the door that linked their adjoining rooms. He put the gun down.

“You cried out,” she said. “I heard you. I thought—”

“I’m fine,” he told her.

“I got frightened.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Me too, I guess.”

“Did you have a bad dream?”

He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Just the usual.”

“What do you dream about when you have bad dreams?”

“Just life,” he said, putting his gun back down on the nearby table. “That’s all it takes.”

Neither of them said anything for several moments. Then Deena whispered, “Well, I better go back to bed. Kenny’s still sleeping. Nothing seems to wake her up.”

He watched her disappear and close the door behind her. He looked at the cheap plastic clock radio by the side of his bed. It was 5 a.m. Justin decided to turn on his light. He would stay awake now.

No more dreaming today.

16

At 8 a.m. she knocked on his door. Justin cleared his throat, called out for her to come in. When she did, he saw that she was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Her legs and feet were bare. Instinctively he tried to cover up the glass of scotch he was holding.

“I meant to tell you this yesterday,” she said. “I want you to tell me how much all this grandeur”—she waved her hand around the motel room—“costs. You’re doing enough for us. So I just want you to know I’ll pay you back. I don’t know how long we’re going to have to be doing this, but whatever it is, I’ll pay my way. And Kendall’s, too.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I can cover it.”

“Is East End Harbor doling out six-figure salaries to their police force now?”

“I can afford it,” Justin told her. “You’ve got other things to worry about. But I appreciate it.”

She looked at him curiously, and he knew she was wondering about his secrets, but she didn’t say anything, then she gave her lopsided half smile and said, “I’m going to work out. You want to join me?”

“You mean, like …exercise?”

“Exactly like exercise,” she said, brushing one of the curls away from her face. “I thought maybe I’d give you a yoga lesson.”

“I don’t think so.”

“If you won’t let me pay you, at least maybe I can make you feel a little better.”

“I feel fine.”

“Is that why you’re drinking at eight o’clock in the morning?”

“I’ve already been up for three hours. So by my body clock, it’s really lunchtime.”

She just stared at him. Finally he put the glass down and said, “Okay. Let’s exercise.”

She led him nice and slow through a series of stretches as well as various sitting and standing positions with odd names like Downward Dog and Upward Dog. He felt extremely awkward and strangely vulnerable; he also was embarrassed because he knew he was out of shape. She kept trying to get him to repeat the Sanskrit versions of the names of the exercises, which he deliberately mangled to annoy her a little bit. Within ten minutes, he was dripping sweat onto the motel-room wall-to-wall carpet and feeling his muscles ache and his tendons stretch. She, on the other hand, wasn’t even breathing hard.