Valentine didn’t believe a word of it.
Fuller liked sex, and he liked it rough. To get it, he hired prostitutes to service him. The patterns he’d shown in Atlantic City were of a man who lived in two worlds — the real one, and the one behind the curtain of his conscience. Hurting women during sex turned him on. It was what psychologists called his erotic mold, something he couldn’t change.
“Valentine?” a man’s voice said.
“That you, Fuller,” he said.
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“I’m calling about a situation at my house. Two of your agents are being held at gunpoint by my office manager. You aware of this?”
“What did you tell my secretary about the pictures?”
“What pictures?”
“Don’t pull that horseshit with me,” Fuller thundered at him. “What did you say to her?”
“I said I still had the pictures from Atlantic City.”
“You told me you destroyed them.”
“I did. But first, I burned them onto the hard drive on my computer. I’m looking at them on my laptop. You know, you’ve hardly aged.”
Fuller cursed like he’d hit his thumb with a hammer.
“What do you want,” he seethed.
“An explanation,” Valentine said. “I don’t deserve to have my house searched without the decency of a phone call. Your agents inferred that I was some kind of traitor. I resent that.”
“Your name came up in conjunction with a case involving national security. It was decided that your house should be searched.”
“Decided by who?”
“By me,” Fuller said.
“You couldn’t call me? You didn’t think I’d help you?”
“I couldn’t call you because you’re a suspect in a murder investigation. Your business card, and a Nike gym bag identical to one you purchased six months ago, were found at the crime scene.”
“I got here yesterday,” Valentine said. “You want to hear my itinerary? I didn’t have time to kill anybody, for Christ’s sake.”
“Your flight landed the day before yesterday,” Fuller corrected him, “a few hours before the victim was killed. Your things were found at the scene.”
“My flight was delayed in Dallas,” Valentine replied. “I arrived yesterday morning at one A.M. The airline lost my bag, and I killed two hours at the airport, filling out a claim sheet. If you don’t believe me, call Delta.”
“How do you explain your card and gym bag, “ Fuller said.
“I’ve given out plenty of business cards in Las Vegas,” he replied. “And the Nike gym bag is back in my closet at home. I don’t travel with it.”
“You landed when?”
“One A.M. I checked into Sin at three. There’s records of all this stuff. And plenty of eyewitnesses.”
There was silence. Then Fuller cursed under his breath.
“My sentiments, exactly,” Valentine said. “Now are you going to call your dogs off my house, or should we keep talking until somebody gets killed?”
25
Negotiating with people with guns was a tricky proposition. One party had to give in and put their weapons down first. That was the hard part. Since Mabel had drawn first, Valentine knew it would put the FBI at ease if she relinquished first. And since the FBI had his house surrounded, he talked her into it.
“Are they going to arrest me?” his neighbor asked.
“Absolutely not,” he assured her.
“But I pulled a gun on them.”
“They’re going to call it a big misunderstanding.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re not a traitor?”
Valentine’s face burned at the mention of the word. Fuller had never explained that. Someday he was going to pin the man down and find out why his agents had said that.
“No, I’m not a traitor.”
“So his men won’t be searching your house, then?” she said.
Valentine smiled into the receiver. Searching the house was the last thing Fuller wanted his agents to do. He’d told Fuller the photographs of him and the hooker were on the hard drive of his computer. His agents would certainly look there, and the cat would be out of the bag.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
“All right,” Mabel said. “I’m putting the Sig Sauer back in the refrigerator. Now I’m closing the refrigerator door. I suppose my next step is to release these two young men.”
“Not yet. I’m going to hang up, and then you’re going to get a call from Director Fuller. He’s going to want to speak to Reynolds. Put the cell phone next to Reynolds’s ear, and listen in. I’ll be listening in as well.”
“How will you do that?”
“I’ve got Fuller on the other line.”
His neighbor’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Oh, Tony, I’m so sorry this happened.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” he said. “You did what you thought was right.”
As Mabel hung up, she tried to hide the smile on her face.
“Looks like our bosses have reached an agreement,” she announced.
Reynolds and Fisher said nothing. Yolanda let out a sigh of relief, and sat down at the kitchen table. The chair was old and creaky. A startled expression crossed her face. She glanced at the back door as if expecting it to come crashing down and a SWAT team to enter the house.
“It’s all right,” Mabel said. “They’re leaving. Tony fixed everything.”
Yolanda went to the window over the sink. Parting the curtains, she peered outside at the neighbor’s house and said, “You’re right. He’s climbing down off the roof.” She walked into the living room with Mabel behind her. Through the front window they saw the car with tinted windows that had been parked in the driveway speed away. Yolanda put her arms around Mabel and began to cry.
“There, there,” Mabel said.
Yolanda’s cell phone chirped. Mabel pulled it from her pocket. “Hello?”
The caller identified himself as Director Fuller of the FBI and asked to speak to Special Agent Reynolds. Mabel remembered Fuller from his picture in the newspaper. Blond and handsome, his only flaw was his mouth, which was too thin for his face.
“He’s right here,” she replied.
Going into the kitchen, she put the cell phone next to Reynolds’s ear, then listened as Fuller told Reynolds that the bureau had acted on bad information, and that the job was to be aborted. Reynolds closed his eyes and muttered under his breath.
“Yes, sir,” Reynolds said. “I understand. We’ll leave the premises once Ms. Struck releases us.” Looking at Mabel, Reynolds said, “Director Fuller would like to have a word with you, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” Mabel said.
Putting the phone to her ear, Mabel listened as Fuller apologized for what had happened. His voice was flat and unemotional, the way so many law enforcement people were. Taking the handcuff key from her pocket, she released Reynolds and his partner.
Valentine listened to Fuller apologize to Mabel, then hung up. As he pushed himself out of the chair, a strange thought occurred to him. His house had been raided by the FBI.
His house. The FBI was probably the best law enforcement agency in the world. They could be world-class jerks and arrogant as hell, but it didn’t belie the job they did. They were pros, which meant there had been a really good reason for them to raid his house. His business card, and a gym bag that resembled one he’d purchased six months ago, had been found at the murder scene. A coincidence? Someone much smarter than him had once said that there are no coincidences in police work.