Wages of Sin (15 page)

She began packing that day while he was at work. When Brunner came home that evening, he was crying. “I don’t understand. Where’s this coming from?”

“I went to L.A., Todd, thinking I was going to get a high-paying job and be independent. And then I came back, and I’ve been feeling, uh, kinda unsettled. . . .” She never once mentioned Will Busenburg, but never once did Will Busenburg leave her thoughts.

The following day, Martin drove her Nissan Stanza over to the Aubry Hills Apartments and told Busenburg she had left Brunner. She and Busenburg made love.

Martin moved in with Roxy Ricks and Roxy’s boyfriend, Colby Ford.

 

 

A couple of days later, Will Busenburg gentlemanly opened the door for Stephanie Martin to enter the apartment he shared with Chris Hatton. Hatton sat in the living room drinking and watching a video.

Busenburg glanced over. “Oh, you’re watching that thing again.”

Martin asked, “What is it?” She saw uniformed men in hats walking across a stage receiving a piece of paper.

“That’s when I made it into the Navy SEALS,” said Hatton.

“So . . . why do you watch it all the time?”

He took a swallow of his drink. “Because that’s what I always wanted to do, and I’m mad that I went AWOL and gave it all up.” He took another swallow.

She thought about how Busenburg said he killed people—sharpshooting or with his hands. She looked around the room and noticed a dartboard on the wall and knife holes in the Sheetrock. “So . . . how do you make your hits?”

Hatton looked up at her. “I drown ’em.”

It was the last few days of October 1994, and Martin sat across from Busenburg. Again he had that faraway look in his eyes.

“I have this friend,” he said. “And he went on a hit in Colombia and got captured by drug lords.”

Martin moved closer with curiosity.

“He saved my life once, so I owe him. So I’m gonna take my own money and get him out.”

“Really,” breathed Martin. “How?”

“It’s gonna cost me three or four million dollars. That’s just about all the money I have. After that, I’ll only have about a million left.”

Busenburg had just spent hundreds of dollars on Martin, driving her to Houston, taking her to the Renaissance Festival, buying her gifts for her apartment, checking them into a nice hotel.

“When?” she said. “When are you going to do this?”

In less than a week, he told her, he had to leave on his rescue mission.

Martin reached over and kissed Busenburg for luck.

They drove from Houston to San Antonio, to play like kids at the Fiesta Texas amusement park. As Martin sped Busenburg’s truck down Interstate-10, Enigma blasted on the radio. Lightning flashed across their windshield. The rain beat in time to the music. Will Busenburg kissed Stephanie Martin all over her body.

She pulled the truck over to the side of the highway, switched off the engine, and switched herself on. They made love by the side of the interstate. Her sex drive was back full-speed.

“They say they’re full,” Busenburg announced as he reached into his truck and pulled out a card, and as Martin sat in the driveway of a very nice San Antonio hotel. “But I’ll get them to give us a room,” he promised. “Just wait.”

Ten minutes later, Busenburg was back. “The CIA got us a room. I just gave the clerk my number to call.”

Martin glowed. That night she stripped by the hotel pool and dove in, nude.

“I wish I could let my guard down like you do and feel free,” said Busenburg. They went inside and made love.

Halloween night, 1994, Will Busenburg, Stephanie Martin, Roxy Ricks, Colby Ford, and another couple drove to Austin’s Sixth Street to party and parade. In the crush of tens of thousands of ghouls and Satans, Busenburg was dressed as the Grim Reaper. Stephanie Martin was too, with deathly white makeup.

With the music of the clubs falling like candy into the streets, Busenburg and Martin swallowed a hit of Ecstasy. Then he told Martin that when he turned thirty years old he was going to inherit $30 million from his “grandpa.”

As beer sloshed and the throngs thickened, Busenburg squeezed up next to Colby Ford. “You know what I do for a living?” he said. “I kill people.”

Colby Ford walked away. He didn’t buy one word of Will Busenburg’s stories. He didn’t like Busenburg one iota.

At 3
A.M
., a group of boys grabbed at Martin and Ricks.

“Will! Will!” screamed Ricks. “Come get them!”

Busenburg rushed up, glared in their faces, then pushed them back. “You guys better move on.”

They did.

Martin smiled, impressed, again. She heard Busenburg say, “I could kill them all if I wanted.” To her, he looked serious. “Oh, c’mon, Will. They’re just guys drunk. It’s no big deal.”

 

 

Two days later, Martin didn’t get a response when she paged Busenburg.

“Oh, gosh,” she said, panicked. “He’s had to go early on his mission.”

“It’s going to be all right, Stephanie,” Roxy said, as she watched Martin pace.

“This is so nerve-wracking,” Martin cried. “I don’t know if he’s okay, you know.”

“It’s going to be all right. He’ll be back.”

The next two days dragged by like years. Stephanie Martin couldn’t eat; she couldn’t sleep; she couldn’t study.

The phone rang in Roxy’s apartment. Roxy answered it and yelled, “Stephanie, it’s Will.”

Martin raced for the phone. “Will, Will,” she gasped, “are you okay?”

Calmly he responded, “Everything went fine.”

A roar like a jet engine groaned over the phone line. “You’re—you’re still in the plane because I—I can hear it,” she anxiously stuttered.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I have a phone. I’ll be back in a few hours. I can’t talk to you about the details right now because there’s a lot of people around.”

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll be waiting.” It was 11
P.M
.

Will Busenburg knocked on Roxy Ricks’s door at 2
A.M
. Stephanie Martin threw it open and fell into his arms.

“There was a time,” he whispered, “when I almost didn’t think I was going to make it, but your love pulled me through.”

She squeezed him tighter.

“Now that I’ve got you in my life”—his soft breath caressed her skin—“I don’t think I can do this anymore. I don’t want to not come back.”

Stephanie pulled him into the apartment and finally stood back to look at her lover. Black greasepaint was smudged beneath his eyes. A black beret topped his head. A black sweater, black army pants with a black belt ready for bullets, and black boots completed the outfit.

Roxy and Colby sat on the couch staring.

Busenburg told them he had parachuted into a Colombian drug lord’s backyard while men and women skinny-dipped in the pool. “I had to kill them all,” he said.

“There were people naked in the pool and you had to kill them?” Ricks quizzed.

“Well, yeah. I have to do that sort of thing,” Busenburg responded nonchalantly. “If I didn’t, I would have got hurt.”

Later, when Stephanie and Will were by themselves, he told her, “All my life, I’ve been alone. All my life, people have hurt me. Since I’ve met you, I have reason to live.”

Tears came to their eyes.

“Before I met you, I had no conscience about killing. I just blocked it out. That was part of my job. It was for my country. But since I’ve been with you, my feelings have come back. I have nightmares about the men I’ve killed. I’m letting myself love again. Because of you, Steph, I want to get out of the CIA.”

Martin reached over to touch him.

The CIA wouldn’t let him go, he told Martin countless times, because he “knew too much.” They’d have him killed or thrown in prison, rather than let him go, he said.

 

 

Robert Martin sat at the dining table and listened to his daughter’s stories about Will Busenburg. “Stephanie, something’s wrong,” he warned.

Stephanie Martin kept talking, trying to convince her parents that Will Busenburg was indeed a CIA Special Forces operative.

“This guy is really telling some stories out in left field, Stephanie.” Martin’s blood pulsed angrily through his veins. “I don’t think he’s going to inherit all of that. I don’t think he’s been to Montana and owns this ranch.”

His daughter talked on.

Robert Martin saw that Stephanie and Will Busenburg were two intertwined personalities. “Stephie,” said Martin, seething, “Will Busenburg is a double-f liar.”

“No, he’s not!”

“There’s no question in my mind.” Robert Martin’s voice boiled over. “He is way out in left field! No way is this guy real! Can’t be!”

It was another night of arguing in the Martin home.

“You need to meet Will, Mother,” Stephanie pleaded.

Just over one week into November, Martin moved into the Villas of La Costa Apartments, a complex with two swimming pools, tennis courts, and a sand volleyball court.

Will Busenburg phoned. “It’s a good thing you and Lynn didn’t stay here last night,” he said. Lynn was Lynn Carroll, a study partner of Stephanie’s from Austin Community College.

“Why?”

“Come over. I don’t want to talk on the phone.”

Martin jumped into her Stanza and raced north to Busenburg’s apartment. She walked in, greeted by hugs and kisses. Busenburg sat her down.

“Two men who were sent to kill me came to the apartment last night. I sensed them at the door.” He talked again about his sixth sense, the sense that made him the best in the business, the sense that had awarded him with more than 300 confirmed kills.

“So I was waiting for them. They picked the lock, and as they entered the apartment, I caught one by the throat and killed him while I hit the other in the nose and killed him.”

“Will, oh, my God,” gasped Martin. “What’d you do then?”

“I picked them up and threw them in my truck. I drove them to Georgetown, to the house of the man that sent them, and set them on his doorstep with a note.”

“What’d it say?” she begged.

“If you send anyone else to kill me, I will kill you and your family.”

“Oh, wow,” she said, and hugged him.

Martin confessed to Busenburg that she wanted to go on one of his missions with him. She wanted to ride on the plane and parachute down. She wondered what it was like to kill someone. She was curious and in awe of the act.

“Does it make you feel like God? Or powerful?”

 

 

Martin entered Busenburg’s apartment. Will was still at work, but he’d given her his key. She walked over to the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room and noticed two bank deposits on the counter, each made out to Busenburg’s account, each for $15,000, each the price of a hit.

Wow, he really is telling me the truth,
thought Martin.

 

 

Everything Roxy Ricks said, Will Busenburg had to top. She had a pet lizard and a pet miniature Doberman. Busenburg said he had an eight-foot lizard and a full-size Doberman and the lizard ate the Doberman.

“Well, where did you have this big lizard? Where did you keep this big thing?” she asked.

“I have this awesome house, and it has this big terrarium room with waterfalls and trees.”

Ricks warily looked over at Martin. She believed it was stupid of Stephanie to believe “some guy in a titty bar” telling her this stuff. Roxy Ricks didn’t forget for one moment that Will Busenburg lived in a little dinky apartment.

He told her he was premed at Montana State. He wore a Montana State sweatshirt. Roxy couldn’t stop believing that Martin was gullible.

Crying, Busenburg phoned Martin. “Come over here now,” he pleaded. When she walked into his place, Busenburg wept, “Hold me.”

“Will, what’s the matter?” she said, stroking his hair.

“My grandmother died.” Will and his grandmother used to dance the waltz together, he said. He could still smell the bacon she cooked for him every morning, he said.

Martin wrapped her arms around him and held him like a little boy.

He inhaled within her hugs for a moment, then jerked himself back into military mode. He always did that, talked about one of his missions after fearing he’d acted too sentimental.

 

 

Busenburg hadn’t spent much money on Martin since they’d gone to San Antonio. “If you have millions of dollars,” she purred, “let’s just get up and go on vacation to Cancun or something.”

Upset, Busenburg replied, “I want you to love me for me and not my money. Other people in my life have wanted to be around me because I have money. But when I met you, I knew you were different. And I want you to love me for myself and not my money.” He looked down. “After I know you love me, I’ll spoil you.”

Martin hugged him tightly.

The next day, Busenburg presented her with a new VCR.

The day after that, while sitting in class at ACC, Martin flipped on the calculator she’d borrowed from Busenburg, and a message flashed across the tiny screen: “Stephanie, if I ever leave for a mission and I don’t come back, I want you to know that you were the love of my life, that you saved me from myself, and we’ll be together in the next life.”

During Thanksgiving weekend, Busenburg was off with his family, but he left his truck with Martin. She took the opportunity to search it. Beneath the seat, she found papers about military forts and maneuvers and information on karate and boot camp.

Less than a week into December 1994, Busenburg told Martin that Chris Hatton planned to leave the United States and join the French assassins.

“What’s that?” she said.

Navy SEALS sometimes resorted to working for the French assassins, he explained. “A black market sort of thing. So I have to train him to kill on land.”

The following day Busenburg showed up at Martin’s apartment. He and Hatton, he said, had gone to Houston to do a hit. “Chris did the job sloppy,” Busenburg reported. “He was loud and overexcited the whole time.” He shook his head. “Chris was just too into the killing and the thrill of it. He doesn’t take it serious enough. He’s going to make a terrible hit man.”

Friday, December 9, 1994, the day after the reported hit, Busenburg and Martin went to the Intermedics Orthopedics Christmas party at Austin’s Stouffer Hotel. There she once again met Fran Wallen, Busenburg’s mother.

Wallen recounted to Martin tales of abuse perpetrated against the children by their father. Will nervously paced around the room as she spoke, watching his mother and girlfriend as he paced.

Then he pointed toward a man. “He’s following me,” he said. “I recognize him from the CIA branch in Austin.”

“I love you,” Stephanie told him later that night.

“When you say that,” said Busenburg, “the room spins. I’ve never been happier. You’re all my dreams come true.”