Lethal Affairs (9 page)

Hayley stared at her. “Jesus. How’d you do that?”
“Who knows? Luck.” She shrugged it off. “I guess the missing never stops,” she added, changing the subject.
The tactic worked. Hayley let the unintended display of her reflexes pass.
“No, it doesn’t. But losing someone does make you stop and smell the roses. You realize what matters.” Hayley’s voice was wistful. “You know, before she died, I hadn’t taken any real time off work for years. My career was everything. I even ended a perfectly healthy relationship just because it didn’t fit in my professional master plan. But after the funeral, I realized drive is one thing—letting life slip through your fingers is another.”
Hayley took a deep breath and let it out. “Not that I’ve made drastic changes in that department yet, but at least I’m aware of it.”
“Making time to live is important,” Domino replied. “But for whatever reason, always underrated. It’s unfortunate how people need something drastic to happen before they realize that existing is not the same as living.” She paused for a moment and looked down at the napkin she had been absently folding. Without looking up, she continued, “Everyone counts on there being a next year, or a next month, to take that vacation or make that phone call or visit someone who matters. But in reality you can’t even count on there being a tomorrow.”
Hayley studied her curiously. “You say that like you don’t think there will be one.”
She looked away. “I hope there will be. But I don’t count on it. I try to live in the
now
because it’s here. Living for tomorrow would be like living for something that may never come.” Her words were out before she realized it. The slip scared and saddened her. Those weren’t emotions she wanted Hayley to witness, but at the same time it had felt good to share them with someone.
Hayley took her hand, threading their fingers together. “You talk so little about yourself and continue to be such a mystery, I often try to fill in the gaps. You try so hard to hide what’s there, but sometimes the sadness in your eyes gives you away. Hopefully some day you’ll let me in. I won’t push—I hate it when people do that—but I’d really like for you to open up to me. I’m a good listener, you know.”
Domino looked over at Hayley, then down at their enjoined hands. So unfamiliar, yet comforting. “I can’t tell you much, except I believe in enjoying every fleeting moment and, as far as tomorrow is concerned, I’d be content to sit here and wait for it with you.”
Silence fell between them as they watched the last sliver of sun disappear beneath the horizon. Hayley broke it when darkness descended, and Domino rose to sail back home. “I hope we can share more times like these.”

or once, Hayley was glad her
Dispatch
assignment for the day was a light puff piece. She hadn’t wanted anything to delay her meeting with Manny Vasquez, and she was too preoccupied with Luka to tackle anything taxing.

She put the top down on her red Ford Mustang for the long drive to Brooklyn, and the miles passed quickly. Most women, in her experience, talked easily about themselves. In fact, some could do little else. Luka, however, could always deflect the conversation away from herself and back to Hayley. By the end of the night, she’d confided all sorts of things she didn’t normally volunteer but had learned very little about Luka.

And that was rare too, refreshingly so—that someone wanted to get to know her more than to get her into bed. She hadn’t had anything more than a superficial relationship with a woman in what—three years? She missed real intimacy.

Her evening aboard
The Seawolf
had been one of the most relaxing and enjoyable dates she’d had in months. She wanted more chances to know Luka better.

She found The Three Sisters with little trouble, a seedy neighborhood joint that had seen its glory days three or four decades earlier. Now it was a convenient watering hole for undiscerning problem drinkers who didn’t want to risk driving home after a bender.

The bar was dark and gloomy, but from the doorway she could make out fifteen or so tables with mismatched chairs, a long bar with several broken stools, and a jukebox currently playing an old country western tune. Heads of deer and other animals studded the walls, as did assorted beer and whiskey promotional posters so stained by tobacco smoke many were illegible. The entire place reeked of smoke and unwashed bodies, and she wondered what such a dive said about the guy she was meeting.

Because she was driving up to Brooklyn straight from work, intending to get a man to give her information, she had dressed that morning in a clingy purple dress that hugged her breasts and showed a little thigh. Not enough to make Vasquez think he’d get something he wouldn’t, but enough to encourage his cooperation.

The dress was woefully out of place in The Three Sisters, but she’d have stuck out in anything that didn’t scream
working girl
. The three other women among the fifteen or so patrons currently preoccupied with getting soused wore the kind of cheap jewelry, heavy makeup, and provocative trashy clothing that said hooker. The rest of the bar’s clientele were mostly middle-aged men, with red noses and a look of despair, sitting alone, staring at their glasses or off into space.

A few, still sober, looked her way curiously, but most were more interested in the booze in their hands. When none immediately approached her, she went to the bar and perched on one of the barstools. The bartender, a tall biker type with a grizzled salt-and-pepper beard and beautiful blue eyes, wiped the counter in front of her with a rag that looked like it hadn’t been washed in months. “What’s your poison, babe?”

A bottle or can seemed less risky than something this man had been responsible for cleaning. “I’ll have a Budweiser, please, and no glass.”

He popped the top of a longneck and set it before her, and as she picked it up, a man entered.
She half turned to look at him, thinking for an instant it might be Vasquez, for he looked a bit out of place too. His pants were freshly pressed and he was too well groomed and clean shaven. She even caught a whiff of aftershave as he crossed to take a seat behind her, toward the front. But he only glanced at her as he passed and didn’t speak.
She looked at her watch. A couple of minutes after eight. She’d had to leave work a little early and drive like hell to make the three-anda-half hour drive and still arrive on time.
“Looks like you made it,” came a voice from behind her. She smelled Manny Vasquez before she saw him. Dank and odiferous, like the setting.
She swiveled on her barstool. Vasquez looked as though he’d slept in his clothes for the past week. Well, except for the tie. She’d wager he put that on for her, since it was the only item not entirely wrinkled. He still wore a wedding ring, but was obviously living alone, with no wife to dress him, not only because of the creases everywhere but because nothing matched.
He had a receding hairline and a round face, bloated from drinking, and skin the color of caramel. The broken blood vessels in his nose and cheeks said he’d had the problem with booze for some time. Probably in his mid-forties, Hayley guessed, though his hard living had added ten years. She wondered whether his marriage had ended the same way his job had, probably from the alcohol, and she also wondered whether she’d made the trip in vain.
“Mr. Vasquez,” she acknowledged.
“In the flesh.” He looked her up and down with an appreciative leer. Vasquez might have a problem with booze, Hayley considered, but he was certainly still a red-blooded man, and his cop background was apparent from the way he surveyed the bar and its patrons after he had thoroughly checked her out. But he seemed much more nervous than a former detective should be.
He signaled the bartender. “Scotch. Double.” When it arrived, he said to Hayley, “Let’s go sit at a table.”
“All right.”
He chose one in the rear corner, where he could see the door and the rest of the bar. After taking a healthy swig of his Scotch, he set his glass noisily on the table in front of him. “Show me some ID, Miss Ward.
Por favor
.”
She extracted her Maryland driver’s license and
Baltimore Dispatch
employee identification pass from her wallet, and he studied them and set them back in front of her.
“So what’s this all about?” He continued his surveillance of the bar and its inebriated clientele, seeming to pay particular notice to the man who had come in right before him, seated several tables away near the jukebox, his face in profile.
“Is something wrong?”
His eyes narrowed as he kept half his attention on her, the other half on Mr. Clean. “Let’s get to it, Miss Ward. What do you want?”
“Well, like I said on the phone, I’m looking into a case involving a female assassin.” She was anxious and uneasy, and chose her words carefully. “I want to know if mine is connected to yours. Your tape might help me there. And of course, I’d like anything you found out while you were investigating the case.”
“My case is officially
cerrado
and cold. Now, there is interest. Why you? Why now?” He focused his bloodshot brown eyes entirely in her direction, waiting for her answer.
“I think I told you that as well. I’m low on the totem pole at my job, and I’m hoping my story will be the big one. Get me better assignments.”
“Why
this
story?”
“I got a good lead on it. An exclusive.” Hayley wanted to be judicious in what she told him. Enough to get him to give her his tape and any information, but not enough to interfere with what she was doing or make her land in jail for withholding evidence. “But I’ve hit a dead end, and I’m hoping your tape will help break the impasse.”
“What’s in it for me?” He finished his double and signaled the bartender for another.
“How about a tip from an informant?” Hayley hadn’t even tasted her beer.
“Okay, lady, you got my attention. But you don’t get far in the Puerto Rican slums by taking someone at their word. Stop stalling. You said this would be worthwhile.”
She plucked at the label on her bottle, considering how much to tell him. The bartender set Vasquez’s second double Scotch in front of him, and he downed half of it.
“Do you know anything about a secret organization that trains assassins?” she asked.
Vasquez’s attention, which had been on Mr. Clean, snapped back to her. “I believe something like that exists. Yeah.”
“Do you have any proof?”
“Do you?”
“I’m being led to think so.” Hayley finally took a sip of her beer, which was lukewarm.
“By who?” Vasquez pressed.
“An anonymous benefactor. Who’s giving me very little to work with.”
He seemed to consider her statement as he took another swig of his Scotch. “I’d hate to see you waste your time, Miss Ward.”
“Hayley.”
“Okay, Hayley. Call me Manny. In the past few years, I’ve also got tips…or was led to believe this killing school was real. But the point is, nobody steps up to the plate, which has turned me into a
pendejo
, a fucking idiot. It’s cost me my job and my marriage. What makes you think you got the real thing and aren’t being jacked around?”
“I don’t know for sure…yet. But I believe my benefactor is a person of some significance.”
“You have to have a reason,
nena.
” Vasquez took out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and lit one. “What was in the envelope you got?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Hayley, I get your need for secrecy better than anyone,
pero
you gotta give something up. You asking for my help and that ain’t going to happen if you don’t play it straight with me and spill it.” He downed the rest of his second drink. “I already see the bottom of my glass and you still wasting my time.” He signaled the bartender for another refill.
“Okay, okay. The envelope contained a note, among other things,” she offered. “It said this school is called the Elite Operatives Organization. It’s in Colorado, and its power extends to law enforcement, the media, and the government. And the note warned no one can be trusted, that this EOO can and will cover up its dirty work.”
“Come on, girl, I know you didn’t bring your booty here all the way from Baltimore to tell me you got a note from just anybody. You know how many of them notes I have, all the wackos who say conspiracy is everywhere? Oh yeah, they know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried and who killed Princess Di’s ass.” He leaned forward and used the gruff tone that had probably served him well interrogating witnesses. “I’m not playing. What else was in that envelope? Yeah, right, you’re here because of some note.”
“So maybe I have more than a note,” she replied. “I can’t talk exactly about what I have, but I can tell you this much. It was worth coming all the way here. I’m not on a wild goose chase. And before I got this envelope, I had absolutely no interest in this subject.”
Vasquez was silent while he took another long look around the bar. “When did you get the envelope?”
“Recently.”
“
Quando
recently? Last week? Last month?”
“In the last month,” she answered.
He smiled, exposing teeth that looked like they hadn’t been brushed since he’d last laundered his clothes. “The situation in Miami is pretty crazy right now. You hip to any of that?”
She met his eyes. This detective might be a drunk, but he was a sharp drunk, to put all of that together, and she figured he might have some useful information for her after all. “Possibly.”
“You know anything about that missing surveillance tape?”
Hayley didn’t answer immediately. While she considered what to tell Vasquez, she followed his gaze. He was watching Mr. Clean again, who was delicately holding his glass in a napkin, sipping his drink, oblivious to them.
Vasquez sat up, suddenly alert, which clued her in something was amiss. “Listen, since you got this envelope, have you felt threatened? Been followed or watched?”
“No. Why?” She could see nothing out of place in the bar and wondered if he was merely being paranoid or if there truly was something to worry about. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” His tone was abrupt. Something had changed.
“So far, I’ve been doing all the talking,” she said. “I still have no idea if you can help me. If you have anything to show me, I’m willing to put what I have on the table. But I need to know I’ll get something in exchange. This is your chance to show them you haven’t been crazy all this time and mine to come up with the story I’ve been waiting for.” She waited for some acknowledgement from Vasquez, who seemed entirely preoccupied with Clean Guy now.
“Yeah, yeah. I get you. Go on.”
“I’m in a very sensitive position, and honestly I’m glad you’re no longer with the police,” she continued, “because this could put me in a compromising position. Before I reveal what I have, I need to know that won’t happen.”
Vasquez turned to her. “
Vámanos
.”
“Where to?”
“Where we’re not being followed.” He threw a few bills on the table, finished his drink with one swallow, and motioned her to precede him out the door.