Ring Game (12 page)

“Security,” Hyatt said. “I want her to have a good home and a secure future.”

Sophie smiled.

“I want what’s best for everybody,” Hyatt added.

“Good. Because you know what would be best for Axel? You know what he’d really, really like?”

Hyatt shook his head. Axel Speeter was a complete mystery to him. Like Carmen, Axel embodied qualities of the Sucker, the Asshole, and the Player—all rolled up into one.

What would Axel really, really like? Hyatt didn’t have a clue, but he was sure that Sophie was about to enlighten him.

“Swedish meatballs,” Sophie said.

“Excuse me?”

“He would like Swedish meatballs at the reception.”

“That’s it?”

Sophie nodded.

“I’ve got no problem there.”

“Good!”

They looked at one another, enjoying the warm feeling of having successfully communicated. Hyatt wasn’t sure where to go next, so he said, “Did Carmen tell you that I got a job with
Hard Camera
?”

Sophie’s eyes widened. “The TV show?”

“Yes. I’m a reporter now, working directly for Drew Chance, the host.”

“I know who Drew Chance is.”

“It’s just part-time. I’m what they call a stringer.”

“You’re going to be on TV?”

Hyatt nodded seriously. “Oh yeah. I’m gonna be on TV.”

Joe Crow found Wes Larson sitting in the rearmost booth at Garrity’s, nursing a mug of pale coffee.

“You’re late,” said Larson.

Crow had known Wes since college. Hadn’t seen him in more than ten years, and this was the greeting he got.

“Sorry. I got a speeding ticket.” He resisted the urge to prove it by showing him the citation.

Wes frowned as he digested Crow’s excuse. Physically, he had not changed much. He still looked like a giant thumb with beady, unblinking eyes. Only nowadays, the thumb had less hair, wore a cheap gray suit, and was employed by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The thumb said, “You must have been driving too fast.”

An unimaginative, suspicious, and humorless man, Wes Larson’s view of the world had much in common with that of a laboratory rat memorizing a maze. By way of compensating for his negative qualities—all of which he easily admitted to—Wes had become methodical, punctual, scrupulously honest, and profoundly frugal. Crow liked Wes, but he had never particularly enjoyed his company. There had been a year in college when they had almost been friends, but it hadn’t lasted. Being so different, they found each other fascinating to behold, but ultimately intolerable. Wes knew that he was boring, and that he made people uncomfortable. That was okay with Wes. He was who he was.

Having been born without an ounce of charisma, Wes had wisely married an ebullient, extroverted woman who did everything she could to preserve his existing relationships. For the past ten years the only contact between Crow and his old college acquaintance had been the birthday and Christmas cards he received every year from Wes and his wife. The cards always arrived in a timely fashion, and always included a short personal note in the wife’s handwriting—despite the fact that Crow had never met her.

“It wasn’t the speed, it was the car.” Crow went on to tell Wes about his GTO, thinking he might get a kick out of it.

Wes said, as if explaining something to a child, “The newer cars get much better gas mileage, Joe. You should consider getting a Toyota.”

“Next time I save up twenty grand I’ll do that, Wes.”

“Actually, the Corollas aren’t that expensive, Joe.” Two faint lines appeared on Wes’s brow, effecting an extraordinarily earnest expression. “They are rated very high by the Consumer Union.”

“I’ll check into it.”

“I’ve got two hundred thirty thousand miles on my Camry. The secret is to change the oil every three thousand miles.” Wes was squeezing his coffee mug. His nails and fingertips were white from the pressure.

“Amazing.” Crow decided to forget about bonding. It was too painful to watch Wes Larson talk about nothing. “Wes, let me tell you what I’m doing here.”

Wes’s chin bobbed once. He relaxed his thick fingers and rested his hands on either side of his mug. Blood returned to his fingertips. He remained upright and rigid, but Crow instantly sensed a lessening of tension in the booth. Wes Larson was happiest when he had a mission, a plan, a goal to achieve. Small talk had always been his personal nightmare.

Crow explained that he had been asked as a favor by a family friend to investigate the background of one Hyatt Hilton. “All I really need to know is if he has any sort of criminal record. No big deal.”

“That’s all?” Wes asked.

“Yeah. I’m just trying to do this guy a favor.” Recalling Axel’s concerns about bigamy, Crow added, “Also, I need to know whether he’s currently married. That’s easy to do, isn’t it? A simple computer check?” Crow cringed at his own words. He must sound to Wes the way Axel had sounded to him—begging a favor while minimizing the difficulty of the free services he was requesting.

“What do you have?” Wes asked.

“Name and address, that’s all. He used to work at a place called Ambrosia, but I think they went out of business.”

“And you want to know if he’s a bad guy, and to know whether or not he’s married, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Tell me this. If I do this for you, does it take care of the time you dragged me out of the Viking and drove me home?”

“The Viking?” Crow hadn’t thought about the Viking Bar in years. He wasn’t sure what Wes was talking about. It could have described any number of drunken nights.

Wes said, “I always felt I owed you one there, Joe.”

“You never owed me, Wes. But sure, this would definitely take care of it.” It made a kind of weird sense, he supposed, that Wes would think this way. That thumb-shaped brain case must contain a complex array of scales—good and bad, assets and debits, income and expenses, right and wrong.

“When do you need it?” Wes asked.

“Sooner is better.”

Wes nodded. “I’ll call you,” he said.

Val Frankel squared up the three-page contract and placed it face up on Polly DeSimone’s black glass desk.

“I’ve never seen a contract like this before,” she said.

“It’s perfectly straightforward,” said Polly. “You make two appearances, one week apart. We pay a flat fee of four thousand, eight hundred dollars. And you agree to complete confidentiality. We discussed all this on the phone. Is there a problem?”

Val lifted her cup of tea, touched it to her bright red lips, set it back on the desk. She could have been anywhere between thirty and forty-five years old. She had a narrow waist, surgically enhanced breasts, and the muscular legs of a dancer or waitress. Her makeup had been generously applied, giving her skin the look of calfskin. Most important, her hair was a rich, dark brown—its natural color.

“I understand that,” said Val. “But what’s this: ‘Provider agrees not to reveal the trade secrets of ACO Ministries, nor to describe any ACO Ministries practices, rites, or beliefs to any person or entity, living or dead, until such time as provider shall die, or until the end of time, whichever shall come first.’ I mean, isn’t that kinda over the top?”

Polly tapped her pen on the glass surface of her desk. It was always something with these actors, but this was the first time she’d actually seen one read the contract.

“Is that a problem?” she asked.

Val smiled and shook her dark brown mane. “Not really. I mean, I already signed a confidentiality agreement before you even told me what the job was. I just think it’s kinda weird is all.”

Polly returned Val’s smile, leaned forward, and placed the pen on the contract. “You’re an actor. You should be used to weird.”

Val rested her eyes on the pen, but made no move to pick it up. She said, “I do got a problem, though.”

Polly tilted her head, still holding the smile.

Val said, “The hair thing. I got a problem with the hair thing. I like my hair the way it is.”

Polly’s smile flattened.

“It’s the bleaching that concerns me,” Val said. “It’ll never be the same. Mr. Chandra said that I might be able to use a wig. Instead of bleaching it out, you know? That’s really hard on the hair.”

“A wig?” Polly sighed. “Look, Miss Frankel, you must have misunderstood Mr. Chandra. The hair is not negotiable. I really don’t have time to discuss this any further. I explained to you last week that would be required. If you have a problem with us changing your hair color, you should have said something then.”

“I didn’t think I was gonna have a problem with it. But now I’m worried it’s gonna go all brittle. Mr. Chandra said the hair wasn’t that important.”

Polly imagined herself giving Rupe his foot rub, dislocating one of his toes. What had he been thinking? The hair is not important? The hair was the closer, the thing that would dispel all doubts.

“Listen, Miss Frankel, I want you to forget whatever Mr. Chandra told you. You’re dealing with me, and I’m telling you that the hair is not negotiable. Do you want the job, or don’t you?”

“I could use the work,” Val said slowly. “I use to do a lot of ad work, but it’s mostly being done out of state these days, and I got a kid, too, you know. I need the money.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you what. I’ll throw in another eighty dollars, cash. You go down to Horst after the shows, and they’ll put your hair back where it was. Would that do it for you? Either say yes, or go look for another gig. Okay?”

Val squirmed for a few seconds, then leaned forward and signed the contract.

Polly stood up. “Be here at eight
A.M.
sharp on Friday. Be sure to wear something appropriate for a woman of sixty-five.”

Val smiled, relieved and happy now that she’d made her decision. “I’ll borrow something from my mom,” she said brightly.

Charles “Chip” Bouchet, Security Chief, removed the headphones and placed them on his desk. He reached up and rubbed the top of his head vigorously, reactivating his buzz cut where a band of short blond hairs had been flattened by the headset.

So, they were hiring another actress. Another false miracle. Compounding their crimes.

Chip was manning the Security Annex—what he thought of as the heart and soul of the ACO. From his swivel chair, he could monitor the four security cameras mounted on the outside of the building and the nine concealed microphones within the building. Seven of the microphones had been installed at Polly’s request, for the purpose of monitoring church employees, and to eavesdrop on conversations between members of the flock. The other two microphones, one in Rupe’s office, the other in Polly’s, had been personally and secretly installed by Chip Bouchet, for the purpose of monitoring his employers.

Some of the things he had heard concerned him greatly.

For instance, he had learned that the Anti-Aging Clinics, where Dr. Chandra performed the miracle of age reversal, were staged, using professional actresses such as this Val Frankel woman. He had learned that the First Elders smoked tobacco and drank alcohol, both of which represented Death Program behavior. And he had heard Polly refer to him, her very own Security Chief, as a “pig-faced Nazi son-of-a-bitch.”

Actually, he didn’t mind the “pig-faced Nazi son-of-a-bitch” comment. He was inclined to forgive that, especially since he had a special relationship with the First Eldress. When she called him her “little Nazi,” she meant it in an affectionate way. But the other things, especially the smoking, were clear violations of the Amaranthine Principles.

It’s a terrible thing, when one’s own religious leaders go astray.

Vary your play.

—Crow’s rules

B
IGG BODIES WAS BUSY
—typical for a Monday. Crow had to park between two of Bigg’s white limos at the back of the small parking lot. Beaut, perched behind the front counter, glared at Crow as he entered the gym.

After the weekend’s excesses, members were purging themselves by putting their bodies through another version of hell. All of the Stairmasters were in motion, as were the stationary bikes. Assorted groans, coarse shouts of encouragement, clanking iron plates, and the thud of dumbbells dropping to the rubber mats. The air was palpable, smelling of sweat and Ben-Gay and sweaty iron.

Crow stopped at the front counter. Beaut’s eyes flickered, but he did not move. Like many bodybuilders, Beaut avoided physical effort when he was not working out, subscribing to the theory that muscular hypertrophy was encouraged by a combination of heavy-duty training followed by periods of lethargy.

Crow said, “Is Bigg in? I need to talk to him.”

“In conference,” Beaut said. His eyes flicked momentarily toward the office door behind the counter.

“With who?”

Beaut blinked, but made no further reply.

Crow shouldered his gym bag and walked around the end of the counter to Bigg’s office door. Beaut watched him but made no move to intervene. Crow rapped twice on the door, then pushed it open. The tiny office was dark and empty. “Where is he?”

Beaut shrugged, a faint smile toying with his lips.

“Nice talking to you,” Crow muttered. He headed for the locker room, leaving the office door ajar. Sooner or later Bigg would show up. In the meantime, he’d get started on his workout. Today was leg day. Squats, leg presses, leg extensions, hamstring curls, and calf raises. The leg workout would leave him barely able to walk, but ultimately he would become stronger, a goal that Crow no longer permitted himself to analyze. He quickly changed into his sweats and threaded his way through the gym, giving wide berth to an obese man doing a set of flyes with five-pound dumbbells, flapping his arms like a Thanksgiving turkey attempting a vertical takeoff. Crow headed for one of the two squat racks. The other one was being used by a pair of acne-riddled kids—high school football heroes cutting classes to get in an extra workout. He tossed his leather lifting belt on the floor, shouldered the empty bar, and cranked out a quick fifty reps to warm up his legs. The two kids watched him, amused by the spectacle of him squatting the empty bar.

As he racked the bar, Crow saw the light go on in Bigg’s office. Bigg appeared in the doorway. What the hell? Had he been hiding under his desk? Crow added a pair of forty-fives to the bar. Bigg and Beaut exchanged a few words, then both looked at Crow. Seconds later, Flowrean Peeche came out of the locker room dressed in her baggy street clothes and headed out the front door. Crow fitted the bar onto his shoulders and lifted. It felt light. He must be getting stronger. He began a slow set of deep squats, pausing at the bottom of his lift, returning smoothly to a standing position. After fourteen reps he racked the bar and permitted himself another look at Beaut and Bigg.