The Last Whisper in the Dark: A Novel (22 page)

Nox was actually fawning. He lumbered over, pushed his way through the guys, and smiled kindly at her. He was eager to help. “I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you. Are you here for the sorority house possession scene?”

“My,” Darla said. “No, I don’t think so.”

She ran a hand through the back doortpher shag. It was hot and muggy in the studio thanks to the rain and the intense lighting. She put the rest of the cast to shame. She grinned in my direction and my chest loosened.

Darla glanced over at the current scene being shot. She swayed her hips and clasped my hand.

“So this is Hollywood?”

“This is Islip. But I’m guessing things are essentially the same here as there.”

Her eyes were bright, enthusiastic, and a touch anxious. “And how exactly does a professional thief steal an entire horror film company?”

“More like I inherited it.”

“From who?”

“My uncle and my grandfather. They’ve fallen on hard times and came to rely on its profit margin more and more. They let a meth dealer named Blake run it and I blackmailed Blake into sort of turning it over to me. Then I blackmailed my grandfather into letting me keep it.”

“Why?”

“Because I hate the old prick.”

“Ah.” She glanced about. “Well. It looks very … profitable,” she said.

“Maybe. Who knows. There’s a lot of drugs around. And Blake was skimming and stealing digital masters and selling them to another company. It’s kind of a big mess, but I expect it’ll be a while
before the roof caves in. If you wanted to pursue an acting career, this might be your way in. If you want it.”

“I’m not sure that I do.”

“Think about it.”

She held me and kissed me. It was passionate and made me start to burn.

“You are different,” she said. “Yes, you are.”

“We’ve pretty much established that already, haven’t we?”

“We have.”

I pressed her back step by step into the office. A couple of secretaries or assistants or who-the-hell-knew-what-their-jobs-were-people were at a few of the desks. I liked wielding power. I liked not giving a shit if this place made millions or burned to the ground. I wasn’t here to make money. I didn’t like making money. If I couldn’t steal it I didn’t want it.

“Take an early lunch,” I told them.

“We just got back from lunch.”

“Take an early dinner then. Get out.”

They skedaddled. I pushed Darla down into Blake’s chair. My chair.

I hooked my arms beneath her knees and pulled her legs apart. She unbuttoned her blouse for my easy access. She undid my pants. I slid her panties aside and entered her. I kept my lips on hers, seeking closeness. We made an abrupt love. My resolve was focused. I hoped if things with Endicott went bad tonight she would mourn me.

Afterward I lay on top of her panting hard and drawing in her breath. I hid my face against the side of her neck, nipping, trying not to speak and ruin everything. She clasped me tightly to her. I felt strong and fast again. I wondered if I’d be strong and fast enough to stop Endicott, assuming he showed tonight. Assuming he hadn’t already aced Chub. Assuming Danny hadn’t already sent him after me
just have to think about it. at the Q because I’d pissed him off last night. I was a little surprised and amazed at how many assumptions I needed to make just to get through the day.

We still didn’t move. We were precariously balanced on the chair and each other. I stared into her eyes and wondered if I could love her and if she might actually want my love. She kissed my brow. Her lips worked down my face. They sought mine. She put her hands against my shoulders and pushed me off gently. I stood and we straightened our clothes.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’re worried about something.”

“I’m always worried about something. I’m a very uptight person. You haven’t picked up on that yet?”

“In fact, I have. But there’s something specific right now, isn’t there?”

She always made me want to talk. It was a dangerous but perhaps necessary thing. I’d been bottled todent" aid="10D

At seven, Haggert’s Caddy was parked in front
of the Fifth Amendment. Danny and Haggert were eating, drinking, and smoking together. Wes hung close at a nearby table but appeared busy with paperwork. Things seemed calm. Maybe Danny had bowed out of the meeting. Maybe I’d misinterpreted the code. I drove over to the restaurant to see whatever I could see.

It was a seafood place on the South Shore, fancy but not pure ritz. I sat in the parking lot weighing whether I should pack the Sig Sauer or leave it under the dashboard. I imagined a wild ricochet pinging some kid. My throat got thick. I left the gun in the Challenger and stepped inside Chez Hilliker’s.

I was underdressed, but so was a large percentage of patrons. It looked like a lot of late season Fire Island tourists had taken the final ferry home and stopped in just to get out of the rain.

There were three exits. The front door, the back kitchen door, and another one that led to the large closed deck on the water. Some of the sections of the restaurant offered a simple escape strategy to one or two exits. Only the far back section to the right lent itself to all three. I figured Endicott would be in there.

The hostess was a buxom redhead with a gracious smile, wearing a red dress that was nearly an evening gown. Bee-stung lips and a perceptive glance. She looked up warmly and pegged me instantly as potential trouble. My poker face was for shit lately.

“I’m Daniel Thompson,” I said. “Dining with Mr. Endicott.">“Why not?”tp”

I expected her to direct me to follow her. I planned to make an excuse that I wanted to stop at the bar first and just have her point out
Endicott’s table. I wanted to circumnavigate the area and decide on the best approach.

Instead she threw me a curve. “I don’t have a Mr. Thompson listed tonight. Mr. Endicott is currently waiting for a Mr. Terrier Rand to dine with.”

I’d been sloppy. Danny knew I’d picked his pocket. I’d been too edgy, I’d dropped my cool. I should’ve kept the wallet and kept him guessing. I’d underestimated him again. It was the kind of mistake that got you killed. I had to stop making it.

He’d figured out one other thing too. He knew I’d gotten Endicott’s name from Wes. There was no other way for him to add up the info.

Endicott would be watching and waiting. If he wanted me dead I’d already have a needle in my ear. So we were going to be friends, at least for a while.

I stepped away and phoned Wes.

He answered by saying, “Not the best time.”

“I think Danny figured out that you gave me Endicott’s name. Will that cause trouble for you?”

“The fact that Mr. Thompson’s hired Endicott isn’t a secret. He’s proud of the fact. He spreads the news around himself. If he’s got a problem with me telling you specifically, he hasn’t shown it yet. He seems to be in a really good mood.”

“That’s because he knows I’m here at Chez Hilliker’s about to meet with Endicott.”

Wes took a three count and said, very slowly, enunciating very carefully, “Why in the fuck are you doing that?”

“I’ll tell you at your place later tonight.”

“Unless you get a syringe of poison stabbed into your heart.”

“I’m going to try to avoid it.”

“Jesus Christ, get the hell out of there. Stay away from him. Run.”

I disconnected and returned to the hostess, who continued to eye
me like bad news. I said, “Sorry about that. A little mix-up. Alzheimer’s runs in my family. I forgot who I was for a minute. I’m Terrier Rand.”

“Follow me, Mr. Rand.”

She led me to the back area I suspected Endicott would be seated at. Eyes averted, she found the table, laid a menu across an empty plate, tried to smile and failed, and muttered, “Enjoy.”

Walton Endicott glanced up at me, smiled, and said, “Hi.”

He looked like the lead in every sixties surfer movie from
The Endless Summer
on. Blond, tan, handsome, pleased, with the world in his hip pocket. He had high cheekbones and cheerful blue eyes.

He sat at the far side of a large half-moon table with his back to the wall, facing a large window that offered a view of the deck and the bay beyond, eating filet mignon loudly, rapturously.

It was hard to get a read on his height since he was sitting, but I could tell he was lean, tall, trim, fit, maybe six feet one. He wore a charcoal suit, gray shirt, and bright yellow power tie. I checked for a tiepin, thinking maybe that was his needle the back doortp, but there wasn’t one. The wrists that broke from his cuffs were abnormally thick, knotted with veins.

I didn’t see any hardware on him. His jacket was open. He didn’t wear a holster on his belt or his shoulder. There were no blade sheaths anywhere on his person. My gaze skittered over him.

He looked me up and down and took me in entirely. He said, “Please, join me, grab a seat.” There was a hint of laughter in his voice, but no derision. It was genuine amusement, interest. He took a sip of red wine. He glanced back down at his meal and took another bite with the same eagerness and enjoyment.

Endicott continued with his meal even as my shadow fell across him. He swallowed, hummed enthusiastically, laid his silverware in an X across his plate, and looked up again.

I stood before him and said, “You know who I am.”

“Yes, I do,” he said. “I know who you are and just why you’re here, Mr. Rand. And you know my name as well. Please, sit. Relax.”

I sat. I didn’t relax.

“Would you like something to drink? Or may I order you some dinner? The late menu is first-rate. Don’t be shy. For a restaurant known for its seafood their steaks are out of sight.”

So much for introductions. “No, thank you,” I said.

“Do you mind if I finish while we talk?”

“Not at all.”

“I appreciate that.”

A young and oblivious waitress came to take my order. I declined. Endicott asked for a second bottle of wine. She brought it and poured a small amount into a clean glass. He tasted it, grinned, and found it acceptable. He thanked her and kept on with his meal.

I used the time to study him more carefully. He either shaved very closely, perhaps twice a day, or he could only grow peach fuzz and rarely had to shave at all. His cheeks, chin, and upper lip were smooth, unlined without stubble.

He’d never been a brawler. His face and hands were unscarred and unmarked, nails perfectly manicured.

When he finished his food he wiped his mouth with the linen napkin, pushed his plate away from him with both hands, and sighed contentedly. He appraised me and smiled beatifically.

“That was perfect,” he said.

Endicott laid his left hand on the table, palm up. It was a gesture with a touch of romance to it. It’s what you did when you reached over on a date in an effort to hold hands with your girl. It’s what I’d done when asking Kimmy to marry me. He waited. I thought, Holy shit. I still didn’t want to make him mad. I also didn’t want to give him any peculiar ideas. He waited. He didn’t insist but we apparently weren’t going to get anywhere unless I placed my hand in his. I wondered if this was the beginning of the thing that hit the switch.

I cocked my head and met his intense gaze and tried to prepare for the worst, even though there wasn’t much I could do. I reached forward and took his hand.

There was nothing homoerotic about it. Or maybe there was. He was a pretty man. I wondered if he was purposefully trying to unsettle me, if this was a tactic he used on his hits. But his touch was warm, gentle, accessible. Nothing sexual or particularly sensual about it. It was simply the touch of a friend sh have to think about it. at the Qowing concern.

He beamed like a child.

“You’ve come to argue on your friend’s behalf,” he said. “That’s admirable. Really. You don’t see that much. You’ve got guts. You’re loyal. There’s a great deal of value in that.” He searched my eyes. “But you’ve got to realize there’s no point in it. It’s already done. You can’t do a damn thing about it. Like everybody, Chub Wright made his own choices. He called the tune, he brought the consequences to his own door. We’re all in charge of our own fate. He and his colleagues adopted this one for themselves. We can’t deny them that.”

“Deny them?”

“That’s right. We can’t deny them. It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be just. And I believe in justice, Mr. Rand. It’s the only abstraction I do believe in.”

“You’re hunting him because you were paid to do it. Not because you believe it’s justified.”

He tightened his grip somewhat. There was a fire and a violence to it, a strength and passion, like he really cared what I thought. As though making contact with me, physically and emotionally, mattered greatly to him. “Wrong. In this case, I was paid but I do believe that he took his course in order to meet me.”

“Meet you?”

“That’s right. Otherwise, why would I be here? I’d be looking for someone else.”

I had nothing to say to that and so we sat there, clenching hands,
feeling the depths of our own beliefs. His eyes were still gleeful, but they blazed.

“I took a contract and can’t break it. This is what I do. This is all I do. I find virtue and worth in it.”

I watched his other hand. It didn’t stray toward any of his pockets. If it did, I wondered if I’d have the time and fortitude to grab his steak knife and stuff it between his ribs.

“Chub is only an addendum to the contract,” I said. “I’m guessing you were hired to chase down the crew who knocked over the bank and killed the guards. Chub didn’t. He made bad choices, but he wasn’t there.”

“How do you know?”

“I know him. He helps plan. He sells cars. He doesn’t go on the jobs. The choices made on that day had nothing to do with him.”

“He helped to found those decisions,” Endicott said. “He offered advice, guidance, direction, and aid. More practically, he has as much to lose as any of the members of this particular crew. He has as much to gain in turning over evidence if the FBI capture him. He is equally guilty. My employer and many others will be betrayed and proffered for leniency. More and more men will be drawn into this fiasco. I’m stanching the flow of blood. I’m saving lives. Can you see that? Do you understand that, Terrier? Pardon me. May I call you Terrier?”