"Four, five years ago about."
"I didn't know you'd done time."
Nestor looked at him, surprised. "Hey, there's probably a thing or two we don't know about each other. Like I don't know how long your dick is."
Boggs said, "Long enough to keep a grin onher face for an hour or two." His eyes slipped to the bar, where a round-faced young woman, with two-tone hair – blonde returning to black – sat with her elbow on the bar and her hand up, a cigarette aimed at the ceiling like a sixth finger. In front of her was a no-nonsense martini. The way she stared vacantly at the TV he figured the drink was the descendant of a long line of the same.
Nestor said, "You can have her. She don't have tits."
"Sure she does. She's setting hunched over."
The food arrived and took both men's attention. Boggs was eating slowly, cautiously, but he'd found his appetite was gone. Maybe the steak was too rich. Maybe the burgers had filled him up or the alcohol had burned out his taste buds. He thought about Rune, about the little girl. He ate mechanically. He looked at the woman, who caught his eye and held it for a minute before she looked back at the TV. He thought a bit more then decided to finish eating. Maybe food would sober him up.
Boggs finished while Nestor was still halfway through.
"Man," Boggs said, "that was a meal."
Nestor looked at Boggs's thin stomach. "You eat that way, how come you ain't fat?"
"Dunno. I just never gain any. Notmy doing." Boggs's voice faded as he stared again at the girl at the bar. This time she gave him a bit of a smile.
Nestor caught it. "Oh-oh." He smiled. "Prison-boy gonna get laid."
Boggs finished his beer. "You mind if I take the room for about an hour?"
"Shit, boy, it'll take you five minutes, unless you jerked off every night inside the slammer."
"Well, gimme an hour anyway. Maybe we'll wanta do it twice."
"Okeydokey," Nestor said. "But get her butt out by two. I'm tired and I need some sleep."
Boggs stood up and walked slowly toward the bar, trying to remember how to be cool and slick, trying to remember how to talk to women, trying to remember a lot of things.
27
Boggs and the girl had been gone a half hour when Jack Nestor finished the lousy apple pie and sucked the ice cream off his fork. He took the last swallow of coffee and called for the check.
The bar was pretty empty now and, aside from the waitress, there was nobody who saw him stand and go out to the parking lot. He looked up and saw the light on in his and Boggs's room. He opened the trunk of the car and took out his pistol. He hid the gun under his jacket and climbed the stairs to the second floor then moved slowly along the open walkway to the room. He'd thought about getting another key from the desk but that would have given the clerk another look at him. He'd decided to just knock on the door and when Boggs opened it shoot him in the gut – his I-dunno-I-just-eat-and-don't-get-fat gut. Then do the girl, if she was still there.
He paused. What was the noise? The TV? They were fucking and the TV was on? Maybe she was a screamer and Boggs kept the sound up so other guests wouldn't hear. That was good. Maybe it was a cop show and there'd be gunshots, which would help cover up the sound of the Steyr.
Nestor walked closer to the door. He pulled the slide back on the gun. He saw something flashing.
That putz…
Boggs was so horny he'd left the key in the door, which wasn't even fully closed. All Nestor had to do was push. He made sure the safety was off, slipped his finger into the trigger guard and swung into the room.
Empty.
The bedclothes weren't even turned down.
The bathroom was dark but he walked inside anyway, thinking that maybe they were fucking in the tub. But no, that was empty too. The only motion in the room was the flicker of the TV screen, on which severalHill Street Blues cops were looking solemn. Nestor shut off the set.
Then he noticed that Boggs's bag was gone. Shit.
He picked up the note, which rested on the pillow. Shit.
Jack, Lynda – that's her name – and me went back to her house. Seems she is going to Atlanta tomorrow, that's a coinsidence, huh, so we're going to be driving together for a spell, her and me, I mean. I will meet you at your place in Florida in a couple days. Sorry, but you don't have legs like her.
Son of a bitch.
Motherfucker!
Nestor kicked the bed furiously. The mattress bounced off the springs and came to rest at an angle. He slammed the door shut violently, which brought a sleepy protesting pounding from the next room over. Nestor hoped the guest would come over because he had an incredible desire to beat the living hell out of someone.
He sat down on the bed, picturing Boggs balling the scrawny bitch while the passbook sat in a crumpled paper bag probably five feet away from them. The anger seeped away slowly, as he decided what to do.
Well, it wasn't the end of the world. It was a change of plans was all. He had to kill the girl anyway – the one on the houseboat. He might as well do that now then get down to Atlanta or Florida and take care of Boggs. It didn't really matter who he did first.
Six of one, half a dozen of another.
The way Piper Sutton found out was thePost headline: "TV Scoop Becomes Oops." Which she wouldn't have paid any attention to, except that there was a picture of Rune talking to a couple of men in suits. They didn't look happy. Rune didn't either, and now Piper Sutton joined the club.
Standing on the street corner near her apartment, she stared at the story. She'd bought thePost and then aDaily News and aTimes. Ripping open each furiously, skirt and hair tousled by the wind as she stared at the smudged type. Thank God for a big assault in Central America that buried theDaily News story inside. TheTimes had simply reported, "Houseboat Burns in Hudson," with a reference to a possible convict's escape.
But theTimes would be on the story today. How the Fit-to-Print paper loved to take potshots at the competition, especially TV.
Sutton flagged down a cab, giving up her usual mile walk to the office, and sat with the newspapers on her lap, staring out the window at people on their way to work. But not seeing a single one of them.
At her office Sutton found her secretary juggling two calls.
"Oh, Ms Sutton, Mr Semple has called several times, there're calls from all the local TV stations, and somebody from theVillage Voice."
The fuckingVoice?
"And a Mr Weinstein, with the Attorney General's Office, then-"
"Hold all the calls," Sutton hissed. "Ask Lee Maisel to come over. "Get me the legal department. I want Tim Krueger here in fifteen minutes. If any other reporters call tell them we'll have a statement by noon. If any of them say they have an earlier deadline take his or her name and let me know immediately." Sutton pulled her coat off. "And I wanther. Now."
"Who, Miss Sutton?"
"You know who," Sutton replied in a whisper. "Now."
Rune had been fired worse but the sad thing was that the other times she didn't care.
She'd screwed up often in the past, sure, but there's a big difference between getting fired from a video store or restaurant and getting fired from a real job, one you cared about.
Usually she'd say, "Eh, happens," or "Them's the breaks."
This was different.
She'd wanted to do this story. Badly. She'dlived for this story. She'd breathed it and tasted it. And now not only was she getting axed but she was getting fired because the whole thing had been a complete lie. The very core, the most very basic fact was false. The worst. It was like reading a fairy tale and then the writer telling you, Oh, yeah, by the way, I was just kidding. There's no such thing as evil spirits.
Although she had proof there was such a thing. And his name was Randy Boggs.
Rune now stood in front of Piper Sutton's desk. Also in the room were a tall, thin, middle-aged man in a gray suit and white shirt. His name was Krueger. Lee Maisel leaned against the wall behind Sutton, reading thePost account. "Jesus Christ," he muttered. He looked at Rune with dark, impenetrable eyes and went back to the paper.