Guilty Pleasures (38 page)

“I like it, sis.”

“You said you’d give me the film,” Jack said his face even paler.

Polly stared at him until he met her eyes. She tried to smile a little, to warn him that whether or not they liked it, they were on the same side. They were all they had.

His wild gaze slid away again. “I’ve done my part,” he said to Art. “Now I get the film and get out.”

“And blow the whistle.”

He waggled his head from side to side. “Honest. No. Not a word ever. I’ll go back to Mary, and I won’t know a thing about anything.”

“No, no, no.” Art brought a sneaker slowly, deliberately down on the toes of Jack’s shiny Ferragamos. He stopped the other man from falling. “Stand up and take it like a man, Jack. You got your expos
é
, now you’ve got to pay back.”

“And I smuggled all that dope into the States in my equipment. That was the payoff for the documentary.”

“You’ve got it wrong,” Art said as if Jack were a mentally
challenged child. “You got a fancy prize for the wonderful documentary. That means you still owe Emilio for not letting on about how you paid for the inside information. Now you’re going to settle the debt.”

Jennifer pushed the phone under the bed and walked behind Jack. She wrapped her arms around him and fondled his crotch. “I think I’m going to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”

These three had all played parts in a horrible scheme, Polly thought. She glanced toward the windows again, and at the lamp, and at the cord to the telephone. Surely someone would come if she threw something hard enough to break the glass.

“I found Ferrito, didn’t I—and I staged a show near him so you’d be in place and above suspicion when Emilio sent word he was ready”—Jack squirmed and plucked at Jennifer’s hands—“It wasn’t my fault if he got out of your net. You should have had him.

“And I found out where he’d taken Polly for you. You messed up again. He gave Art the slip again.”

“You were supposed to make sure he stayed away from pretty Polly as soon as we smelled trouble there,” Jennifer said and bit his neck. “She made it harder, Jack. Tonight she’s going to make it easier—but only because we’re good at rolling with the punches. She’s wasted a lot of time for us. Emilio’s not happy. He was ready to show his friends he can call the shots across the world whenever he wants to call them. You spoiled his party. Now he’s got to have another one.”

“Let me go,” Jack said. “Give me the film and let me go.”

Art turned to Polly. “He thinks we’ve got a film of him supervising our friends putting certain merchandise into his equipment. For shipment back to the States. Emilio said he’d give him the film if Jack would help us get Mr. Ferrito back. Mr. Ferrito did some terrible things in Bogot
a.
Terrible. He embarrassed Emilio, and he’s just got to go back and say he’s sorry.”

“You want to take him back so they can kill him,” Polly murmured.

Art’s mouth fell open. Waving his gun, he swung from looking at Polly to gape at his sister. “I told you to make sure she didn’t talk anymore. She just talked sis. What are you going to do about it?”

Jennifer unzipped Jack’s pants and slipped her fingers inside the fly. “Depends on what comes up.” She snickered. “I’ll either shut her up quickly, or not so quickly. I’ve got business to attend to here, first. Soon as it’s done, she’s done. Gag her. Call Ferrito and say Jack’s out of his mind. Say he’s always had a thing for her. Tell him Jack grabbed her from that house, but we came to the rescue. She’s here, but she’s asleep. Come and get her, baby! Better yet, Polly can tell him to come and get her. And she can say how good we’ve been to her.”

“I won’t call him.”

“Make her do it, Art.”

“He can’t make me do it.”

“Shut up, fool," Jack said. He hardly seemed aware that Jennifer was fondling him. “Keep quiet, or they’ll hurt you.”

“Touching,” Art said. “I do believe he cares.”

Polly avoided watching what Jennifer was doing to Jack. His breathing grew heavier. She turned hot with embarrassment.

“Ferrito made our lives hell,” Art said. “Emilio expected Jen and me to make sure he never got out of the compound alive. We killed him. Or we thought we had. But the bastard didn’t die, and we suffered for that.”

Nasty had it right, he’d had it right all along. His only missing link was the identity of these two.

“We were in the circus,” Jennifer said. “Till Emilio saw just how talented we really are. Cripes, I nearly had a flamin’ cow when Gavin made that crack about knife throwing, Jacko. Art and me can throw knives. Boy, can we throw knives. And we can shoot. And get in and out of anywhere. We’re bloody
indispensable, we are, but Ferrito spoiled our record. Now he’s going to go back for his own funeral.”

Holding Polly’s destroyed clothes aloft, Art pulled the phone from beneath the bed and thrust it on top of the mattress. “Jack abducted you. We rescued you. Come and get you. Make the call.”

“He’ll guess something’s wrong. He’ll know you’d have taken me to him if it wasn’t.”

“Why,
thank
you, Polly, love.” Art dropped her clothing in her lap. “We’re grateful to Polly, aren’t we, sis? She’s right, y’know. So here’s what we’ll do. You say Jack brought you here because he couldn’t take you home to Mary—but we wouldn’t go along. Tell him you’re afraid to go anywhere without him.”

Jack panted loudly and groaned.

“Kill me,” Polly told Art. “Kill me now or kill me later. So what? Kill me if I do what you want, kill me if I don’t do what you want. Right, Jennie?”

Jennifer said, “Smack the mouthy bitch.”

Art obliged, snapping Polly’s head around with the fist that held the gun. He hit so hard she fell forward onto her raised knees and closed her eyes. She tasted blood.

“Make the call,” Art said tightly.

“I’ll never make your call. And if you make it, I’ll scream so he’ll bring the police with him.”

Art dealt her another blow, this one to the other side of her head.

“Leave her alone.” Jack’s voice was strangled.

“Oh, a gentleman,” Jennifer said. “A gentleman with a little, tiny prick. Look, children. Look at Jack’s tiny prick. He wouldn’t look at me when we did it because I’m too big, and too bloody ugly. Now it’s Jack’s turn to be laughed at.”

Polly longed to lie down, longed for the voices to stop, for the horror to be over. She longed to know Nasty would be okay and that he’d be there for Bobby. Then she could let go. Then it wouldn’t matter.

“Dial the number for her, Art.”

Dredging up her strength, Polly lifted her head and swept the phone from the bed onto the floor. She pushed it as hard as she could and laughed when the receiver flew off and cracked as it hit a wall.

“Don’t!” Jennifer yelled as Art leveled the gun at Polly’s eyes. “That’s what she wants. She wants you to kill her. I’ve got one or two things I want first.”

Art kept on staring at Polly. “We had it in the bag,” he said. “You know that, Jen. If Ferrito hadn’t gotten the hots for this bitch, we’d be home free.” Insane hatred threaded every word. His finger tightened on the trigger.

Jennifer’s mouth pulled down at the comers. “Of all the rotten luck. They almost ruined everything for us. We can’t go back. We’ve got to go on.”

“I say we kill these two and run,” Art said.

His sister laughed a dreadful sound. “Like hell. How long d’you think it would take Emilio to catch us. No way, Art. We’re going to win it all. Get Ferrito here. I want him to watch first.”

N
asty pounded a fist into the opposite palm. Dressed in black, with a black stocking cap, he paced in front of the silent phalanx of police vehicles and men. They’d assembled at the end of the cul-de-sac where the Loders lived.

The threat of winter edged the night wind. From time to time a dark shape moved but made no sound. The army of the law had moved into position without lights, and after the nearest neighbors had been evacuated to a safer distance. These people huddled in a group on State Street, where a crowd had begun to gather behind the police cordon.

A police radio van stood to one side. Outside the back doors, a man waited for the signal that an outgoing call was being made from the Loder house to Nasty’s cell phone.

“What’s taking so long?” Nasty muttered to Dusty. “Maybe we’ve got it wrong. Maybe she isn’t even there. It didn’t have to be Jennifer Loder’s BMW. Whoever’s got Polly could have taken her somewhere else.”

“Bullock saw a dark BMW at the end of Rose’s street. When Bullock got to the house, Roman found the note. Polly—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Polly had been there only minutes before. The note said she was going with me. A lie. And afterward, the car was gone. And I know the Loder woman drives a dark BMW. And there’s a dark BMW right in front of the goddamn house now!” He couldn’t stand the waiting. “They could be killing her while we speak. She could already be dead. The Loder woman, too, if she was a decoy with a gun in her back. I’ve got to go in.”

Dusty grabbed his arm. “Keep your voice down.”

The officer in charge approached. “Better cool it, sir,” he said to Nasty. “We wouldn’t want to alert them.”

“I could be wrong. This may not have been an attempt to set me up. They may not try to call me.”

“We’re going to fan men out around the property and close in.”

These people didn’t know what they were dealing with. They didn’t know that the people inside that house dealt in death the way Tully’s dealt in coffee every day down in Kirkland. “Don’t do that,” Nasty said. “Let me go in alone.”

“I can’t do that, sir.”

“If you don’t, you’ll walk into a bloodbath. You may kill whoever made the Loder woman lure Polly away in my name, but he won’t leave Polly alive.”

“This is it, sir,” the man outside the van hissed. “Ringing now.”

Nasty leapt into the van, tearing off his cap as he went. He donned the headset a radio operator silently handed him and sank down in front of a microphone. At his signal, the operator flipped a switch and pointed at him.

“Yeah,” Nasty said.

“Is this Nasty Ferrito?” A woman’s voice, but not Polly’s.

“Speaking.”

“This is Jennie Loder. Y’know, Polly’s friend?” She didn’t sound threatened.

“I remember you, Jennie.”

“Polly’s here. I’ve got a bit of a problem on my hands.”

Nasty took a deep breath. It didn’t calm him down. He let the appropriate second pass before saying, “Polly? There? Where?” He hoped he sounded suitably amazed.

“At my place. I’ll give you the address.”

He counted off another pause. “Polly’s
…
Where is your place? Here in Kirkland you mean?”

“That’s right. Look, you don’t have anything to worry about. She’s sleeping now, but she’s okay.”

Sleeping? Or dead? He had to do this just right.
“How did she get to your place?
” If he didn’t ask the questions, they’d get suspicious.

“It’s a long story. Best you come on up here. I saved the day, I’m glad to say. No thanks to Jack Spinnel. Never would have guessed he was crazy enough to
…
Well, I’ve already called the police. They’re on their way. They’ll take care of Jack. You can’t swipe people and take them away just because you’ve got the hots for them.”

The radio operator looked at Nasty. No distress call had been sent by Jennifer Loder to the police. The detective, who was also listening in, looked at Nasty and gestured for him to wind up the conversation.

“Thank you, Jennie,” he said. “I’ll be right there. Give me the address.” He wrote it down.

“You’re leaving now?” Jennifer Loder asked.

“I’ll be there in about ten minutes.” Less than a minute would be closer to the truth, giving him at least a chance at a surprise attack.

“Good on you.” Jennifer cleared her throat. “We’ll be waiting. Don’t waste any time.”

Nasty sat back. He squinted at the lit panel in front of him.
“Time. It’s time. You won’t get away this time.
”

“We’d better get on with it, Mr. Ferrito.”

He took off the headset. “What? Oh, yeah. Ready.” On the street again, he replaced his cap. “Dusty. I want you behind me. Okay with you?”

“Mr. Ferrito, sir—”

“I know,” Nasty told the policeman. “This isn’t the way you’re comfortable doing things. Please bear with me. I know what these people are. We trained in the same kinds of jungles.” He’d almost died in their particular jungle, on a night when a husky voice had whispered
“It’s time. Checkout time.”
And a flare of light had blossomed the instant before a bullet smashed his ankle.

“You okay?” Dusty asked sounding desperate.

“Great. Have your men fan out, Officer, but please tell them not to move in until you get a signal from me.”

The officer adjusted the gun at his hip. “We want you in a vest.”

“We don’t do vests,” Dusty said. “They slow you down. Now we gotta go.”