He chuckled. “Ah, now you’re pissed. Well, I’ll be sure to tell her you said hi in a few days.”
Shit. Then he said, “Hey, we forgot all about Fiorio, didn’t we? Aren’t you wondering about her?”
“No.”
Of course I was. But I knew he had to tell. And he did.
“Mind games, Drummond.” He began ticking down fingers. “Fiorio had nothing to do with this. But she was famous, the cops and FBI would flip over backward to solve her murder, and get more totally misled and lost.” He paused a moment, then confessed, “And, hey, I was a little starstruck. I was nuts for her show. I really wanted to meet her. But I regret it now. There’s a real hole in my life at six-thirty every evening.” He laughed. “Do you believe, I got her autograph before I killed her?”
He glanced down at his watch, and somewhat cavalierly said, “Hey, I hope you don’t mind if I start making preparations. I’m sure you understand.” He bent down and starting pulling items out of the duffel bag. He said, “Next question, please.”
I looked at what he was pulling out of the bag, and given the situation and all I probably should’ve asked him to read me War and Peace. But instead I asked, “Who hired you?”
“You don’t know already?”
“Maybe I do.”
“Merriweather, initially. He didn’t say who he was working for, and in this business, you don’t ask. But he offered big money. Ten million up front, five million bonus if the job was done to complete satisfaction. He explained his problem, I briefed him on my plan, and he loved it.”
“Hal was impressed by a cheese sandwich.”
He frowned at me. “You’re still pissed at me about Morrow, aren’t you? But see if you can look at this professionally. Four victims in a chain, and they had to be done quick. I thought about arranging four accidents, but arithmetically, you know, it’s a loser. The accident thing, you know the problem with that? It’s high risk, never a sure thing. When you have to do multiples, the copycat thing’s the only way. Someone else gets blamed, no suspicion about ulterior motives, and the cops end up chasing their own asses.”
I said, “Who hired you to do Merriweather and Morris?”
He laughed. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. It was all handled over the phone. Five million to do him and Morris.”
He had stood up and started stripping out of his uniform. Uh-oh. The game plan, obviously, was he’d get naked to do his slicing and dicing, and you could tell he’d really planned it out in advance, and remembered all the little things. A pile of tools lay on the floor, several sharp knives, a hacksaw, wirecutters, and so forth. Also three fluffy towels and four boxes of babies’ Handi Wipes he’d use to clean up, before he got back into the uniform, packed everything back inside the duffel, marched out of the building, and disappeared.
By this time he was totally naked, except for a pair of shower clogs he had slipped onto his feet. The guy made even my brother John look like a stud stallion. Why is it guys with tiny pudleys always feel like they have something to prove? It’s not the size that counts, it’s the technique-any woman will tell you that.
So what if they’re lying.
And I had a really juicy dig about that I wanted to get in, and this was really a nuisance, but I couldn’t, because the second I finished asking about Merriweather and Morris, Mr. Asshole had reached over and slapped a tape gag over my mouth. I think this meant our conversation was over and it was time for the real fun to begin.
As you might imagine, I found this both frustrating and very annoying.
He bent over, picked up a serrated knife, and studied me. He said, “I believe we agreed that I would start with the middle finger of your right hand.” I nodded. He said, “I don’t want to upset you, Drummond, but I lied. I’m doing your dick first.”
He reached forward and undid my zipper. He was bent over, and just about to pull Mr. Willie out, when a shotgun blast ripped into his ass. He stood up straight and dropped the knife. He looked quite surprised, actually.
Then came two more blasts in quick succession that nearly blew the guy in half, and splattered his blood and viscera all over me.
Then a voice said, “Military police. Please drop your weapon and place your hands over your head. Don’t make me shoot.”
By this time the big asshole was standing somewhat precariously on his stout legs, teetering and wobbling, and staring down at his abdomen, very surprised to see his entrails oozing out of some fairly large holes. His eyes shifted to my face. The tape over my mouth kept me from smiling. But I did put forth my very best effort to make my eyes look really, really happy.
His legs collapsed beneath him.
I looked over at the window where the shots had come from, and Danny Spinelli was peering in at me and smiling. The next moment, the door to the classroom crashed open and two MPs with a SWAT battering ram rushed in, followed by Feds in their wind-breakers and then more MPs.
Well, it took a few minutes before everybody got organized and settled, before I was untied and ungagged, and before a team of medics provided the official verdict on Mr. Asshole’s medical condition-definitely dead. But frankly, I was a little peeved; and in fact, they immediately regretted untying the ropes before they undid my gag, because within seconds, you could see they all wanted to slap that tape back over my mouth. I was howling at everybody in sight.
Finally, the pair I really wanted to talk to, Spinelli and Meany, showed up. Spinelli I was particularly annoyed at. I mean, the deal I’d made with Phyllis was that I’d be bait for this guy, but on one condition. The Army had to be involved, and Spinelli had to be in charge of the Army contingent. Not that I completely trusted Spinelli. I didn’t. I just definitely did not trust George Meany.
Never put your complete faith in a man with a score to settle. I didn’t think Meany would deliberately leave me hanging in the wind or anything like that, but these matters often come down to split-second timing, and a little voice in the back of his head might have said, Okay, George, wait one more second… look, he’s about to cut off Drummond’s dick… his dick, George… remember what he did to you and Janet, George… now, one more second, and before you know it, Sean doesn’t need zippers for his pants anymore.
So I looked at Spinelli and said, “That guy was two inches from altering my life, you asshole.”
He said, “Ah, Jesus, you’re such a friggin’ ingrate.”
“What took you so long?”
“How the fuck were we supposed to know the guy made it in here?”
How about because the guy wasn’t supposed to have made it in here in the first place? They had stakeouts set up around this building, and around the BOQ. Make sense? Sure did to me.
But an MP, who was studying the array of tools on the floor, looked up and said, “Chief, the guy wore a uniform. No wonder he got past us. It’s right here. He’s an Army guy, and his name’s Smith.”
Spinelli looked at me, and said, “You see what I got to work with here?” He shook his head and repeated sarcastically, “Says his name is Smith.” Then he asked, “Hey, think this will get me promoted to chief warrant five?”
I shook my head.
Meany, looking not at all apologetic, said, “When we saw your class depart, we decided to give you fifteen minutes. We thought you were packing your materials, maybe a student stayed after to talk, whatever.”
Right. And I’ll bet George was out there arguing to give me thirty minutes. But I left that one alone.
Well, it had been damned close, and my legs were still a little shaky and wobbly, but I stumbled to the window, where I stared up at the sky for a while. Everybody sensed I needed a moment of privacy and left me alone.
As I mentioned, I’m Catholic. Yet, I have to confess I harbor a few visceral doubts about that heaven and hell thing. If God had a criminal lawyer’s soul, it would make sense, Saint Peter at the gate with his ledger of sins, the whole pattern of eternal justice, the blessed and the damned, good people in one chamber, evil people cast into another.