Cool Heat (11 page)

At some point in her ruminations, she realized he was awake and staring at her.

“You looked stressed out about something,” he said, shifting in the bed, propping his pillow to sit up a bit.

“I had my police-reporter friend, my only real friend up here at the moment, check you out. His advice was to get the hell away from you.”

“Sounds like he’s a wise man. You don’t strike me as someone who doesn’t take good advice.”

“I don’t.” Sydney Jesup looked away from him, her gaze on the wall, the window curtain, the old furniture in the room. “I never, ever thought of myself as crossing certain lines. Always by the book, by the law. And then I did.”

“Let me tell you something,” he said. “You take the very best, law-abidingest person on the planet and you stick them in the midst of massive and brutal corruption that has even the law in its grasp, and that leaves a simple, if unfortunate, choice. You have to submit and become corrupt, as many cops do—if not most in Mexico and quite a few in this country—or you have to rebel and cross that line. You took the right moral path in my mind. It comes with costs and high risks, but it leaves you your soul.”

“And your Shelby Mustang,” she said with a smile.

“That’s right, and I’m going to get the bastard who put bullet holes in it.”

No, it’s not ending there, she wanted to tell him. You might not know it yet, but you’re in this, and you can’t get out that easy. You’re going to help me get those bastards.

I’m not a cop or DA’s investigator anymore,
she told herself.
And he’s not a soldier or border patrol agent.
But what did the things they were going to do—because she was confident that the deeper he got, the more locked in with her he was—make them? Criminals?

No. We’re not criminals, but we aren’t going to use the authorities, and we’re probably going to commit crimes. There needs to be a third category.

Staring at him, she made a decision: at some point in the not too distant future, she was going to climb into his bed if he showed interest.

23

Shaun Corbin was freaking out, yelling at himself in his head, coming apart.

You are such a moron! Jesus, man, you’re a dead man, Shaun Corbin. Sonofabitch. Is this how it ends?

His first panicked thoughts when he woke up in the dark in his pickup were,
I got to get the hell out of here. Pack, get money from Kora, hit the road.

He’d been sleeping in his truck on a side street near the ski run. He drove the short distance to his house. Earlier, he’d been afraid to go home, but now he needed to pack up and get ready to run.

He parked and stood outside for awhile, looking around for something amiss. Something that would tell him somebody was there. But he realized he was alone on the lonely road. He wasn’t even entirely sure it was the same night. He went inside and put stuff together in a backpack and suitcase. Just the essential stuff—his laptop, some files, the travel junk, some clothes.

Should I take it with me now? No, I can’t leave it in the truck and go up to see her. If she can’t get the money until the bank opens, then what?

A million damn questions and problems. He separated out everything with Kora North involved—the videotapes, photographs. It was what he would trade for the cash. He put it all out on the coffee table.

Kora was his greatest find. She was now the top call girl in Tahoe and worked exclusively for his cousin’s party set. But it was late—he assumed she’d have to go to the bank in the morning, and probably bring the money to him. By then, he’d make up his mind what to do. And she could find out some things for him, like when his damn cousin was coming back. Maybe she’d even know something about what was going on with the pro Gatts said was coming.

That scared him. Last thing he wanted was to be in Tahoe when some stone-cold killer showed up.

I’ll be gone by then, he told himself.

He sat for a minute, his brain all messed up from the binge he’d been on. But to get himself straight, he needed a drink. And he needed to go see Kora.

On his way to her place, like a broken record, his mind played the hatchery shooting again and again and again. He’d been so close, fired so many shots. Then the chase and her escape in the Shelby. It was the worst moment of his life when she’d gotten out of there. It didn’t seem possible. It was like the universe conspired against him. Hated him.

Instead of being on the hunt, he’d been riding the bottle. He’d messed up big time and it was over. He had to get out.

He was drunk and miserable. His greatest opportunity kicked him in the gut and mocked him. He hated himself for wanting so desperately to be accepted by the goddamn Thorps. All he did for them…the party girls, the drugs. God, he hated the whole arrogant elitist bunch of assholes. But he knew he’d screwed up big time. He was a dead man if he didn’t get the hell out and get far away.

Once he had some running money, he was thinking of Florida. He’d get what he could from Kora and from a guy who owed him. Then he’d pay a visit on his way out of town to Gatts, maybe, and relieve him of some cash and drugs and be on his way.

For sure, Kora North had become the star. Nothing like the demand for her. She had become the mother lode for Thorp and Rouse’s ambition to get everyone on sex tapes for future use. She was a sex magnet. Tahoe’s new Monroe.

He turned onto her street. Kora lived in a place at the trendy Tahoe Keys condos. Top of the line, all the way. Sixty to a hundred grand was what he figured he needed to get things going, but he doubted he could get much more than thirty out of her.

He parked. The Keys had fingers of land reaching into the wetlands they’d drained and made into boat docks, condos, and houses. He went up to her place, a corner unit with a nice view of the lake, and started with the doorbell.

After no response, he started pounding. “C’mon, bitch, wake up!”

24

Who the hell…? Oh, Jesus…

Kora North, on her bed writing in her journal, wearing her running pants and a T-shirt, heard somebody pounding on her door in the middle of the night and knew who it had to be. She went out into the living room and heard Shaun Corbin, the nemesis of everyone’s life, out there yelling for her to wake up. Looking through the peephole, she confirmed it, then opened the door.

“Shaun, what the hell are you doing here? It’s, like, one-thirty in the damn morning. You look like shit.”

He pushed his way in. “That problem I got is too big to argue with you. You didn’t talk to me. Hung up on me, you bitch.”

“What problem? You’re drunk. Get the hell out of here. You want me to call security or the police?”

“You got anybody here?”

“No. And I don’t want you here, either. Goddamn, you’re drunk and you stink.”

He went over to her bar, his gun sticking out in the small of his back.
He shoot somebody?
she wondered. She watched as he poured himself a half-glass of vodka.

“You got anything to eat?” He opened the little bar fridge and pulled out some string cheese.

“You’re pathetic. What do you want, Shaun? If it’s about your big screwup, don’t come to me. And don’t break anything. Who’d you shoot?”

“What do you know?” he said, giving her a look of concern.

“That’s the point of the question, isn’t it, genius?”

He looked almost relieved. “I got a serious big problem and I need some help.”

“You are your biggest problem. You did something, and I don’t care about it, so why are you here? Go. Get the fuck out of here. You mess me up and you know what’ll happen to you. They’ll hunt you down like a rabid dog, and it’ll go bad.”

“Kora,” Corbin said, turning, giving her his nastiest look, “you better shut up and listen to me.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’m not pissing around. I got to get out of here and I need some cash.”

“What, exactly, did you do?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m leaving and I’m not coming back.”

“You serious?”

“I am. So we need to settle up.”

“If that’s true? You’re leaving, I’m celebrating. As for the cash, forget that. I don’t owe you shit.”

“Hey”—he moved closer—”you bitch, all that money you have is my money. I put you on your back in the right crowd. I hooked you up. You’d still be pole dancing in some stinking club if it wasn’t for me, sweetheart.”

“Shaun, back the fuck off. I’m warning you.”

“You forget. I have something you don’t want spread around. And I know you have a lot of cash somewhere. Thirty from you will do to get me where I’m going. Travel expenses. I’m collecting from everybody owes me, and you owe me big time.”

“Screw you. I made you the asshole big shot you think you are,” she said.

“That right? Kora,” he said, “that video of what happened at the lake—you and the senator, half a dozen other big shots—you don’t want that out on the goddamn Net. You’ll get dead fast. So you want those tapes, you better dump the attitude.”

She knew Corbin, and he was a vindictive little bastard. He’d do it, and that would be the end of things for sure.

“I can’t give you what I don’t have.”

“Fine. See you on the Internet.” He turned to leave.

“Shaun, look. What I have is in a bank box. I can’t get anything until morning.”

He stared at her. “Morning ain’t all that far off. Get it and bring it over to my place pronto. And don’t get stupid. Don’t talk to anybody about anything.”

He downed the vodka, eyes closed for a second, then opened them and took a deep breath.

“What you did must have been really stupid,” she said.

“Just get my money.”

“This isn’t good, Shaun.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He slapped the glass hard on the bar. “I need to use your bathroom.”

“Jesus, can’t you just go home or to a bar?”

“I need it right now.” He headed down the hall.

She had a gun in a drawer in her bedroom. She had an urge to get it, shoot this prick, call the police, and say it was in self-defense. Mess the place up. Cut her lips. Give herself some bruises. But she had to get those tapes first. She was certain he’d do just what he said he would. The real question was, why didn’t the real slut—his mother, who’d dropped this abomination on the world—have enough sense to abort him? In her mind, Shaun Corbin was all the argument the pro-abortionists would ever need.

He came back and walked to the door. The man couldn’t do anything he didn’t find a way to make a little bit gross.

“Eight tomorrow morning with the money, Kora, baby?”

“Don’t be an idiot. Banks aren’t open that early. I can’t be there any earlier than nine.”

He stared at her. He was close enough that, besides his breath and the ugly mole in the center of his stinking forehead, she noticed how bloodshot his eyes were, and that he was afraid of something in a big way. Whatever he’d done, it had to be bad.

“You messed up good this time, didn’t you, hotshot?” she said, taunting him. “What did you do?”

“Don’t worry about it. You know when Oggie is coming back?”

“No.”

He left, throwing the door open and leaving it. Kora thought again about shooting the bastard. She could go over and just put a bullet in his peanut brain, then get the tapes and whatever he had and set his fucking house on fire.

Being part of his little escort business was one of the biggest mistakes of her life. Maybe the biggest—and she’d made plenty of them. To calm herself down, settle her mind, she poured herself a very large goblet of Merlot. Then she fetched her .32 Smith from the bedroom and returned to the living room. She aimed it like she intended to do. She pointed. She imagined shooting Corbin in the head, shooting out that fucking mole. Beauty kills the beast.

Then she’d do what she had been planning a long time—get the hell out of Tahoe.

I hate my stupid damn life,
Kora thought bitterly. She knew three things about herself: she had a high IQ, she was knock-down hot, and she was living a totally phony, rotten life. She didn’t believe in killing animals or eating meat, but killing assholes was definitely on her
to do
list.

Bang bang, motherfucker!

25

Leon, in post-kill euphoria, left the mountain and headed past the casinos.

“You talkin’ to me. Are you talking to me?” He smiled that same crazy De Niro smile in
Taxi
as he drove from Cillo’s to the GPS address for Jesup.

He parked down the street from Jesup’s. She lived a quarter-mile from the government complex that housed the courthouse, police, sheriff’s and DA’s offices. His client already had one of his goons sitting on the street in case she made any attempt to come home. Leon found him asleep in his car. He didn’t bother to wake him.

Leon used a simple lock-shock to get in. No alarm system on. Once inside, he went about his task fast and methodically. Before leaving Sydney Jesup’s bedroom, everything in piles, neat piles, Leon thought about what her clothes, the outdoor gear, and the pictures she’d taken of nature and stuff told him.

The girl he had to hunt and kill was lean and something of a minimalist and a mountain girl. No excess. Nothing very sexy except for some short shorts. He held a pair up, felt the material against his face. But the tight-ass cop didn’t fit his model. Mountain girl. Cop family, from the pictures. She run to family in Sacramento, maybe?

“Probably a nasty dike bitch,” he said his thought out loud.

The facts about her behavior didn’t make much sense. She hadn’t reported the shooting at the hatchery. At Cillo’s, according to the report his client had gotten, she was sitting up in the car and nobody seemed to know how bad she was hit other than what the nephew, Marco Cruz, had said. Why did the guy not get rid of her, get away from the whole thing? Made no sense. What was that about?

People are hard to figure,
Leon thought. Why would this guy risk everything for some low-level DA’s investigator on a short list to get the bus for the scenic ride to eternity?

Normally, Leon didn’t give a damn, the “why” about somebody to be taken out. But everything in this case hinged on the whys. Why was she anywhere around Tahoe, unless she was hit pretty bad? That made sense. But why was Cruz sticking with her?