CoverBoys & Curses (21 page)

WE
DELIVERED THE bag and its contents to Victor Romero. It had not survived the
elements in the plastic bag. The heat had melted what was left of the plastic
surrounding the element. A creature had long ago ravished most of it,
extracting what he could to make a nice comfy den somewhere nearby, Romero told
us.

           
“Indeed,” Romero said. “The
treasures of the desert. I’ll have to send it to a lab. See if we can get
anything off of it. I can’t promise you much.”

We
nodded.

“Do you
mind telling me how you found it?”

           
I looked across at Sterling. Carly
looked at me. Sterling looked at my backpack.

           
“Must have been voodoo magic,” I
said.

DETECTIVE
WRAY MIGHT as well have been Denzel Washington as he took over the halls of
CoverBoy.
He’d interviewed the entire staff
at least twice, and they all loved him. He was still an annoying
Columbo
to me.

           
He positioned himself at my door,
holding up a hand with the index finger raised. “Just one more question, today,
Ms. Visconti. This won’t take long.”

           
I kept reminding myself his presence
around our offices meant free additional security.

           
“Yes, Detective?”

           
“Do you know of a place called The
Center?”

           
The lump in my throat wasn’t going
down. What was he up too, now?

           
“I’m just curious,” he continued.

           
“Yes. I know of it.”

           
“Now does that mean you know of it
in the magazine publishing business, or is it a personal knowledge?”

THE
LAWYER COAL HAD scrounged up along the way and so many years ago turned out to
be his trump card. A coup to find the little esquire. Not so hot at getting him
off the string of misdemeanor charges and warnings, but most excellent in
handling the mishandling of estate law. It seemed the guy had found his niche
acting as executor to the largest estates whose heirs were either MIA or
otherwise mentally incapacitated. When Coal first met this fine attorney, the
man was acting attorney and executor to twelve of the city’s largest empirical
fortunes.

Unfortunately
Coal put an end to that prosperous relationship when some of his carnal
temptations made their way to the misguided and unforgiving press. Turns out
that by some cruel act of fate one of Coal’s conquests turned out to be the
whiney attorney’s ten-year old nephew.

Coal had
learned his lessons. After the revocation of his license in New York, he headed
off to the dusty highways of Arizona, where life promised him anonymity and
along with that, a certain absolution if only by omissions.

Coal was
a master at patience. That discipline would unlock the larger than life pocket
books unsuspectingly hidden around the small city of Tucson. He was the only
player in town. He’d hone in on the lonely and the depressed and especially,
yes—the suicidal. Great companions. Better marks.

The next
stage was the most delicate. Wait. As they turned to him more and more he’d
start them out on a diet low in protein. Wait. Then love-bomb them again. And
wait again. He’d deplete their bodies of nutrients, then enrich their fragile
minds in what he could do for them. And he would wait with a timing superior to
the rising and falling sun.

This
crazy runaway drifter kid he’d met in New York led him directly to Tucson and
his even crazier sister. Payton Doukas was relatively low stakes, but her two
friends were royal tickets. And the third friend from Chicago would be moving
to California. He had every intention of setting up ‘shop’ long before her
arrival.

He’d
studied their profiles. Lauren Visconti would be the biggest mark he’d ever
made. Poor little rich girl. Daddy died. Fiancé died. Everybody poor little
Lauren loves seems to die.

It didn’t
hurt that Coal knew about the rape, too. Bad blood running in that girl. And
Coal knew that idea of a bastard seed left Visconti helpless. And Visconti had
no idea that she and Coal shared the same blood. Poor little Lauren. She didn’t
stand a chance, especially because she believed it.

Armand
was right. Two little problems with Visconti. She was smart and well connected.
She was also messed up and vulnerable. And perfect for a take. Especially given
the fact that with every one of those tragic deaths Lauren’s financial pot grew
exponentially.

Sterling
Falls would prove to be a bit more challenging. Oh, not getting her into bed.
That would only be his problem if it came time to perform with a woman.
Smallish boobs, and he didn’t even like boobs. An outrageous personality, which
Coal admitted fascinated him. Maybe that would prove to be the ultimate challenge.
But she was dumb and dumber. With a very rich daddy.

She had
no money to speak of, but all of that would change dramatically with the fatal
fall of Old Man Falls. Coal would take care of those nasty details, and who
knows? Maybe he had groomed Armand well enough to take the Falls girl in the
sexual relations department. He’d seen Sterling fixate her eyes on any and
every handsome foreign-looking man. God knows Armand would be up to the task,
as long as he didn’t beat her up. The thing is, and oh, Coal was so good at
this—he saw something in the bimbo no one else could perceive. Something. She’d
be tricky to fully conquer. He’d have to go to work, research her a little
more, and trust in his powers of persuasion.

Knowledge
is power.

Chapter
Sixty-Two

No
Kissing Cousins

WHEN
BAD THINGS happen to good people they either get tough or let go. Sometimes
they die.
Que
sera, sera.

           
But when bad things happen to
everyone you love, you give up. You quit loving.

The
wedding dress turned to paper. The smoke and flames engulfed everyone but me
and yet I wore the tinder.

           
I sat straight up in my bed. The
windows were open. The sea breeze had calmed to a gentle movement timed to the
crashes of the tide. The rhythmic motion should have centered me. Instead, it
made me further delve into the very notion of life’s rhythms and the messages
hidden in the dream.

There
was a new twist to my Visconti Curse that gnawed at my stomach lining. I had
adored the runway model. And I loved and respected Dhurra. They were both dead.

           
I deplored the ruthless and greedy
plastic surgeon. I hated the pedophile priest. They, too, were dead.

           
What had changed? Was the curse now
attaching itself to anyone I felt
any
emotion toward? Good or bad?

THE
NEXT MORNING I asked Geoff to meet me at a local café. He had yet to sit down
before I started drilling him. What had I done out there with the snake in the
middle of the desert and with his dead grandmother’s voodoo potion in my hands?
He hadn’t exactly given me instructions on snake encounters and voodoo potions.
Sure as hell didn’t tell me anything about spitting in my friends’ faces.
 
I acted as if I’d rehearsed the scene twenty
times before. I knew exactly what to do. Somehow.

           
He simply stated, “My grandmother.
That’s all you need to know. She journeyed with you.”

WHILE
TWO OF MY head writers had abandoned
CoverBoy
,
three remained.

           
Gone was the electric charge of
creative energy. Instead people shuffled into chairs, mumbled pleasantries and
closed their mouths.

“We have
to ramp up our stories. It’s either that or we might as well bail out right
now,” I told them.

They
fidgeted in their chairs. I chose to nurse on a quad-shot of pure caffeine.

My
junior writer spoke first. “The article on podiatrists and cut off toes got us
lots of traffic. And no death threats. We’re on the right track.”

“That’s
great,” I said. “Let’s talk about traffic. The slave-trafficking entering
America. The girls, the slaves being shipped into the cities hosting big sports
events. Play-off games. March Madness. The Super Bowl. Thousands of sex slaves
right here in America.

“Don’t
tell me we’re back off to Afghanistan?” Sukie whined.

“I said
America. And that means roundtrip tickets to Toledo.”

GABRIELLE
CRISCIONE steadied both her thoughts and her carving knife. The thick venison
on her cutting board needed to be sliced razor thin, for her guests would
expect nothing less of her.

           
She focused on the task at hand,
with no remorse for the sick sonuva bitch. How many names had he burned
through? Hell, he may be her second cousin, but he would always be a Judd. The
Judd’s and the
Criscione’s
family tree intertwined
the branches of wickedness cultivated by immorality and a vicious greed.

           
It made her sick.

Chapter
Sixty-Three

The
Fall of Falls

STERLING
CALLED ME at 10:30 the following morning. Her voice rattled off in a distant
stream of consciousness. Clearly, her throat sounded strangled as if wrapped in
leather boot laces. One word and deep gasps. Another sentence, inaudible, with
garbled words choked by tears.

           
“It’s Dad. He’s not in yet.”

           
“He’s not at the store?”

           
“No. I mean yes,” she cried.

           
I knew instantly why panic
registered. Her father always arrived at Falls & Falls at precisely 9:00
a.m., even though the jewelry store didn’t open its doors for business until
ten. That, and the fact he had undergone two major heart surgeries in the past
eighteen months provoked good cause for alarm.

           
“Theresa said Dad wanted her in
early to inventory some new loose diamonds.”

           
Theresa ran as slow as the last
smidgen of catsup oozing out of the bottom of a spent bottle. She’d also been
an employee of Falls & Falls for some thirty years.

           
“Did you call his home? And his
cell?” I asked.

           
“He doesn’t pick up!”

           
“Who’s there with you?”

           
“Theresa, Curtis, Kathleen, and me.
We’re all here.”

           
“Sterling, it’s Wednesday. Doesn’t
your dad play gin at his old tennis club today?”

           
“Not until 11:00. He should be here
by now.”

           
“He probably didn’t charge his
phone. You know how he is. And he’s just running late. These things happen. The
man likes to play his cards and he’ll be there.”

           
I didn’t believe my own words.
Something was wrong.

           
“What the hell do I do?” Sterling
asked.

           
“You wait twenty minutes and then
you call some of his gin buddies. If he’s not there I’ll meet you over at his
house. In the meantime, if it will make you feel better, you call the police
and see if he’s been in an accident.”

           
Silence.

           
“Just give them your dad’s name and
a description of his car. And the roads he takes to work. Okay?”

           
“Okay. But Lauren, I’m scared to
death.”

           
“I’m worried, too,” I admitted, but
we both knew he liked his nips of booze, too. Sometimes it didn’t matter the
time of day.

           
Fifteen minutes later I agreed to
meet Sterling at her father’s home. I was closer.

MY
ROUTE TO Oliver Fall’s house proved short and direct. I arrived well before
Sterling. With the garage sealed up tight and no windows, I couldn’t tell if
his car was inside.

           
I rang the bell and used the heavy
brass door knocker. I called out his name, always Mr. Falls to me.

           
Kicking off my heels, I sprinted
across the lawn and the perimeter of the front. The window blinds were closed.
I headed toward the side of the modest home when I heard the familiar engine
purr of Sterling’s car.

           
She wore an ashen gray face with the
key fob shaking in her hand. I grabbed it from her and unlocked the front door.
Sterling had the presence of mind to disengage the alarm system.

           
Looking through to the family room,
we could see Mr. Falls asleep on the sofa.

           
“Good grief,” Sterling grumbled.
“Daddy must have gotten into his gin bottle before his gin table today.”

           
She stormed ahead of me. “Dad. Get
the hell up. You blew off your meeting with Theresa and you had us all worried
sick.”

           
I knew what was happening. Mr. Falls
always met his commitments, in spite of his penchant for a nip or a guzzle of
liquor now and then. Concern and worry turn into anger before the next stage,
which is usually truth. They say love is blind. This was that special beautiful
bonding love between a father and daughter as I saw it unfolding in front of
me.

           
And I knew this much was true. The loving
daughter was blind to the reality she was facing.