Authors: Faye Kellerman
“Oh my
God
! Did he—”
“No, no. He didn’t pimp her. She hadn’t been with him long enough. He had picked up Shayndie over the weekend… before I got
to him. But he didn’t tell me right away. We had to play this little cat-and-mouse game first. That’s how it’s always been
between us—head games. Later on, he told me he had her. He said he told me as a favor so I wouldn’t worry about her and I
could concentrate on Ephraim’s murder. At the time, I thought he was being truthful, but you can’t tell with psychos. The
man is a stone-cold killer and a pathological liar. You work with whatever you can get.”
Jonathan nodded. “Of course.”
Decker ran his hand over his face. “I would have sworn it was the truth, Jonathan, because I
saw
her. We arranged a meeting place, and he brought her to me… to show me that she was okay. Terrified but unharmed.”
“I imagine she was terrified, being with him.”
“She wasn’t afraid of
him
, Jon; she was afraid of
me
! She was in dread that I was going to take her back with me—back to her parents. She was pleading with him not to send her
back to her family, begged him to send me away. All she wanted to do was get back to where he had her stashed. She wouldn’t
let go of him. She was clinging to him like ivy suckers on a brick wall. When he wanted to talk with me privately, he had
to
peel
her off him so we could talk alone.”
“It could have been an act.”
“No, it
wasn’t
an act. When I asked her questions, she could barely answer me; she was shaking so hard with fright. She
whispered
her answers in his ear and
he
told me what she said.”
“What did you ask her about?”
“The murder, of course. What she saw.”
“And?”
“She said that Chasids took him—Ephraim.”
“Good God, what’s this world coming—”
“Or—” Decker broke in. “Or people dressed up as Chasids. Because they didn’t resemble any Chasidic sect that I’m aware of.
They wore
shtreimels
. Would you know anything about that? A sect that wears
shtreimels
on weekdays?”
“No.” Jonathan shook his head. “But there may be one.”
“Or it could be that someone was playing masquerade but didn’t have it down perfectly. Like certain Israeli Mafia drug dealers
who are wanted in Florida for ecstasy dealing, but rabbited before the Miami Police could make the arrests. Just
maybe
they’re hiding in Quinton.”
“What on earth would they want with Ephraim?”
“He might have known something, especially if Chaim was importing.”
“Akiva, Quinton knows every single member of its community. Fugitives couldn’t hide there, much less integrate.”
“Unless they have prior connections in the community,” Decker retorted. “Maybe someone is hiding them. Like I said before,
if Chaim was involved in ecstasy importing—”
“Akiva, you have absolutely no reason to connect Chaim to such activities!” Jonathan was shouting. “Where is any evidence
for such outlandish accusations?”
Decker buried his head in his hands. “No evidence.”
Jonathan covered his mouth, then dropped his voice to a whisper. “Even if Chaim was doing something illegal…I can’t believe
he’d set up his own brother! I refuse to believe that!”
“Maybe it wasn’t meant to be murder, Jon. Maybe he was trying to scare Ephraim off. Maybe it just got away from him. Maybe
I’m totally full of shit! I’m doing the best I can. Obviously, that’s not enough. Otherwise, Shayndie would have been alive
today.”
Jonathan put his hand on Decker’s shoulder. “Are you certain that Donatti didn’t kill her?”
“No, I’m not certain of anything. But it doesn’t make sense for
him to do it. He knew that if something were to happen to her, I’d be all over his ass. Which was
exactly
what happened. He seemed genuinely shocked when I told him about the murder.”
“Could
that
have been an act?”
“Sure, he could have been snowing me blind, except she did seem so dependent on him. He even said that he’d return her to
me intact when things cooled down. I guess I just decided to believe him because it was my only option.”
“What do you mean ‘intact’?”
“He screws the kids he pimps. I think he does the boys as well as the girls. He said he wouldn’t do it with her.” Decker waved
him away. “I don’t know…I should have made a grab for her when I had the chance.”
“He would have killed both of you.”
“Probably. You don’t want him on your bad side. Although I’ve certainly pissed him off and he’s never done anything to my
family or me. I don’t know. Psychos like him… they’re like these half wolf/half dogs that people adopt for pets. They’re okay
for a while. Then they just
turn
on you when the mood hits. Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe he just turned. Maybe he considered it biblical revenge against
me—eye for an eye, a girl for a girl. He thinks I screwed up his relationship with this girl. This could have been his big
revenge.”
“What girl was that?”
“That’s irrelevant. It was one of my cases, about eight years ago. When Donatti lived in L.A.”
“He lived in L.A.?”
“For about a year.”
Jonathan sat back in his seat. “That’s not what the Bible means when it states ‘eye for an eye.’”
Once a rabbi…
Decker said, “I know. Rina explained it to me. It means monetary compensation. Can you dispense with the nit-picking right
now? And let’s get off the expressway. It wouldn’t be good to make two women widows in one day.”
Jonathan started up the motor and carefully merged into speeding traffic. “You’re angry at me.”
“I’m angry at myself. I screwed up royally. I keep thinking to myself… what
should
I have done? Should I have gotten a gun and shot him? Should I have bribed him? Should I have gone to the police? All this
Monday-morning quarterbacking. But at the time, I thought I was handling it pretty well.”
“You did the best you could.”
“So did you,” Decker answered back. “Make you feel any better?”
“No. I feel that God was punishing me for breaking my word. Ridiculous, of course, but tell that to my conscience. Also, I
can’t help but feel that I set her up somehow. I should have gone to the police. Like you said, at the very least, they could
have traced the call to a source. They might have sent out troops to look for her.”
They rode without speaking for several minutes.
Jonathan said, “You honestly don’t think that Donatti killed her?”
“Honestly, no. Because why would he do it?”
“What did he say after you told him that Shayndie had been murdered?”
“First I went into a rage. Then he went into a rage.” Decker pointed to his eye.
“Aha.” Jonathan nodded. “That makes much more sense than the ridiculous excuse you gave me. Go on. What happened after he
punched you?”
“He calmed down. We talked. He claimed that he last saw her around six that morning. She was just like she had been that night—
clingy. He was hell-bent on revenge, Jon. I managed to convince him to hold off until I did all that I could do. Last thing
I wanted was a professional mob cleaner sweeping around, especially if Chaim’s not looking so clean.”
“Akiva, you have no proof!”
“I
know
I have no proof. But if Chaim’s involved, it’s better that I get to him before Donatti does, agreed?”
Having no comeback, Jonathan maintained silence.
Decker said, “So this is the deal, bro. You poke around Quinton and find out if there are any new and secretive people being
hosted in the community. I go to the Quinton Police and try to find out if
Shayndie was hanging out with the wrong crowd. Remember, Randy told me that there were some local Quinton boys arrested for
ecstasy possession down in Miami. If they bought it down South, they most certainly bought it in their hometown. Maybe I can
get the name of the distributor. Also, I might go back to Tattlers, find out if any of the girls were ever asked to be couriers.”
“And they’d admit it to you? Just like that?”
“Well, no, of course not. That’s why it takes a professional lieutenant detective with a genuine gold shield!” He smiled sadly,
thinking of a sheltered fifteen-year-old who never stood a chance.
“Stop it, Akiva,” Jonathan chastised. “You’re a good man and I respect you immensely. I hope you feel the same way about me.”
“Of course I do.”
“So let’s both stop the flagellation.”
“Deal.”
Jonathan said, “Am I correct in assuming that you want me to help you?”
“Yes.”
“What you are asking me to do is to go behind my relatives’ backs and play spy for you. Even if it means setting up my wife’s
remaining brother.”
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
Jonathan was thoughtful. “I will find out what I can. But I will not serve you Chaim on a silver platter. All right?”
Decker threw up his hands. “Sure.”
Jonathan glanced at him, then focused on his driving. “I agreed more readily than you expected.”
“Yes, you did.”
The van fell quiet.
“How far are we?” Decker asked.
“Half hour away.”
“Not so bad,” Decker said. “Time goes quickly when you’re having fun.”
“Indeed,” Jonathan said. “I hope that I’m a better partner for you than Donatti.”
“I’m sure you will be for the most part.”
“For the
most
part?”
“Chris has his benefits.”
“Such as?”
“If things get tight, the psycho’s familiar with a gun.”
C
oupling, by its very nature,
meant somewhere down the line there would be an uncoupling, and when the inevitable happened, he’d always slip into a deep
black funk, knowing that the only person in this entire world who gave a rat’s ass about whether he lived and breathed was
gone. He knew it was about money—he wasn’t stupid—but she faked it well enough so that he could delude himself that some fraction
of her heart
cared
even if she didn’t love him.
Today was a perfect case in point, because it was good.
Too
good, and that made the loss that much harder, the void that much bigger. His mood was foul, and his dispirited body ached
with profound deprivation.
As he lay in bed in a room devoid of any light, courtesy of blackout drapes, he stared at nothing, random thoughts drifting
through his brain, a stupor made possible by booze and painkillers.
Yeah, today had been real good.
As measured by her orgasms because that was how he judged the sex.
It hadn’t always been like that. She had started out like all the others. For him, sex had always been a one-way street because
he didn’t give a shit how the girls felt, and 99 percent of them were unable to climax anyway, so why even bother with a pretense.
He assumed that Terry was like the rest. He did her like he did all of them, mounting
her from behind because it was his favorite position—terrific view, good penetration, and minimum body contact. He abhorred
being touched because physical contact in his youth always implied pain. Even the first time Terry had brushed against him,
he had stiffened with revulsion. So he did it doggy style, even though almost all the girls he had ever fucked preferred being
on top, probably because they felt more in control.
And that was okay for a few minutes. But then they started touching him as they rode him—an instant turnoff—and when it became
too much, he’d flip them on their stomachs, pick up their asses, and shove it in from the back. So it was karma when he discovered
that on-all-fours was Terry’s favorite position, too; marveling at his luck, he believed he had finally found his soul mate
in every respect. Then he got to thinking. Maybe she was
too
much of a soul mate, that she probably wanted it from the back for the same reason he had liked it—minimal body contact.
Perversely, that threw him in the opposite direction, where he now
had
to touch her when they made love. He’d lay her on her back, blanketing her skin with his own, smothering her mouth and face
with kisses, his hands all over that marvelous bod of hers. At first, she squirmed, clearly hating every minute of it, but
eventually she calmed down, allowing him to do whatever he wanted—a small price to pay for all the cash he was feeding her.
Then one day, about a year ago, it happened. He was pumping away, looking at her face as he always did because it was so drop-dead
gorgeous. Her eyes were closed, and she held a serene expression, yet her body underneath his was keeping time to his rhythm.
Then, abruptly, he felt something—a quickening in her movements. In one silken movement, her legs swung about his waist, the
heels of her feet digging into his ass as she pushed him deeper inside. Within moments, her breathing had intensified and
heightened. Then she came, her face hot and moist as he felt her muscles contract around his cock. The sensation was so electrifying
that he exploded instantly, probably not riding out her orgasm as long as he should have. It didn’t matter, though, because
now he knew what she was capable of.
From that point on, he became obsessed with her climaxing, rating
every encounter not by his satisfaction, not even by their mutual satisfaction, but by hers alone. When it was good—like today—the
high would last him for months. When it wasn’t good, he became angry and sullen, berating her and himself for what had gone
wrong, analyzing it ad nauseam. No amount of reassurance would change his brooding state. He had failed, and though she was
quick to take the blame, it didn’t help. He’d castigate himself, causing nothing but misery for both of them.
Once she tried to fake it just to please him, and that had made him even angrier, the fire so encompassing that he had lashed
out at her in a blinding rage, a heartbeat short of hitting her. But he was better than his old man was because he knew how
to control it, although she didn’t know that. The pure fear on her face had haunted him for weeks. Still, in the end, it was
worth it. She had learned her lesson and had never tried to deceive him again.