Authors: Robert Ellis
Frank got rid of the cigarette, his face flushed with anger and frustration.
“Woody felt the same way,” the kid said in a shaky voice. “He wanted to see for himself, so I took him along.”
Frank turned to Mario. “We were partners. Friends. Why didn’t he say anything to me?”
“Let him finish, Frank.”
Mario’s eyes were burning. Frank turned back to Eddie, bracing himself.
“We were in the front yard,” the kid said after a moment. “We heard shouting and a door slam. Then a guy ran out from the back. That guy in the papers you beat up in the last election with the porno spot.”
“Ozzie Olson?” Frank asked.
Eddie nodded. “He must have taken pictures of Merdock screwing the girl.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Olson had a camera. Your client was chasing him. He didn’t have any clothes on.”
Frank shook his head. “Did Merdock get to Olson?”
“He never saw him,” Eddie said. “He saw us. Olson was already down the street. Your client looked right at us. We jumped in the car and took off.”
The news felt like a knockout punch, yet everything was becoming clearer. Merdock had been caught. But he hadn’t seen Olson. He’d seen Woody. He’d made him.
“Where’s the girl?” Frank asked.
“She does TV commercials for a used car dealer in Dallas. She spends two weeks here, two weeks there. Sorry I had to be the one to tell you this. Woody was afraid that the campaign would blow up in your face. He told me that you wouldn’t believe him unless we had the pictures. He said that you’d need proof. He was trying to reach Olson, but wound up dead.”
Frank gave him a long look. Eddie shifted his weight, nervously diverting his eyes. Then Mario stepped forward.
“You see where this is going, don’t you?”
Frank nodded, connecting the dots as Mario said the words out loud.
“Olson wanted to pay you back for that spot so he starts following your client. He stumbles onto the affair and gets pictures, Frank. He thinks he’s hit the jackpot. He thinks he’s lucky. He sends your rich clients a sample photo for their album, looking for a pay day to keep quiet even though he’s never gonna keep quiet. The trouble is your clients don’t know anything about Olson.”
“They think it’s Woody,” Frank said, staring into the void. “They murder Woody trying to cover up the affair.”
It settled in like poison gas. Tourists were skipping up the steps to the memorial with smiles on their faces. Somewhere in the background, a child could be heard whining. After they passed, Frank turned back to Eddie.
“What did you tell Olson?”
The kid shrugged and seemed surprised. “Nothing.”
Frank turned away and started moving, one step after the next until he was running toward his car. He’d been as far off track as the police, but he could see it now. Olson making an anonymous play to the Merdocks with his pictures. The Merdocks thinking that it was Woody. Instead of taking the hit in the polls and riding it out, instead of making a payoff or even backing out of the race—his clients had chosen the dark way out and brought in the man with spiked gray hair.
It took his breath away. Woody trying to be helpful. Frank’s psycho client taking him down.
“Where are you going?” Mario called after him.
“Olson made the papers,” he shouted back. “They know about him now.”
Olson had managed to stay in the background until his arrest. When the story broke, the Merdocks would have been aware of their blunder. Olson hated Frank and was out for revenge. His motive for trying to destroy Merdock couldn’t be more obvious. Frank had to find him, talk to him, warn him.
He saw the Chevy ahead and sprinted toward it. As he ripped open the door, he pulled Olson’s business card out of his pocket and punched the number into his cell phone. He was thinking about Juliana. How she lied to him, deceived him, played the innocent wife while planning the murder of his partner and friend. And then his meeting with Olson by the river—the words Olson had used just before he drove off.
It’s the wrong time to be alone. If I were you, Frank, I’d be more careful. It’s dangerous now.
Chapter 43
Olson’s pickup was gone. Carrying a bottle of cheap whisky in a paper bag, Raymond walked down the steps to his office and examined the lock. It was a Citizen Bulldog, made in China. No deadbolt here. He leaned the bag against the door jam and glanced at the empty street as he reached into his jacket for his tools. The cheap lock released as soon as he inserted the first pick. Anyone watching would have thought that he’d used a key.
He opened the door, grabbed the whisky and stepped inside. A musty smell hit him before he even swung the door closed. There was sweat and dust in the air, the unmistakable scent of mildew.
Olson lived like an animal.
Raymond checked his latex gloves, wiggling his fingers and stretching them tighter across his hands. The bacteria count in this hole was probably off the charts. Raymond kept a bottle of vitamin C in his shaving kit. As he took in Olson’s lobby, he made a mental note to increase his dosage by 500 milligrams as soon as he returned to his motel room.
Raymond had been watching Olson ever since that story appeared in
The Post
. Olson was an unknown factor in the mix. Someone he had never heard of. Getting acquainted with the man’s history had been as easy as watching TV. According to Fox News, Olson had been defeated by Frank Miles and still held a grudge. Raymond understood why when he saw the political ad in its entirety. Olson had been caught walking out of a porno theater with his fly down. Branded as a pervert, he lost the election in a landslide. Fox News played the ad every fifteen minutes, making it impossible to miss.
Raymond cringed at the thought of his client giving him bad information. It was so typical. He should have foreseen the problem weeks ago. After shooting Woody dead, he’d searched every inch of his office and not found the photos. He’d even driven over to Woody’s house and wasted three hours going through the place room by room.
The body count was rising and he needed to be sure this time. Maybe it was Olson, but maybe it wasn’t. As late as this morning, he was still wrestling with it when he saw Olson leave the office with a camera slung over his shoulder. Now his thoughts were confirmed as he moved down the passageway and looked in Olson’s darkroom.
The man liked to take pictures.
The phone rang. Raymond followed the sound further down the passageway until he reached Olson’s office. Resting the whisky bottle on the desk, he noticed that the answering machine was turned off. Olson probably did it himself after getting too many press calls. The phone rang four times past the usual eight and finally stopped.
In the silence, Raymond glanced at the computer. A window was blinking on and off indicating that files had been deleted successfully. What was that about? Sliding the wastebasket out from beneath the desk, he dumped the contents on the floor and got started. He’d search the office and work his way into the darkroom. It would be a long night. When Olson got back, they’d party.
Chapter 44
Frank ripped through the automatic shift, wheeling the Chevy down Constitution Avenue as if he were hitting the Beltway. He needed to reach Olson but no one had picked up. He dug Olson’s card out of his pocket, checking the number with the one he’d entered into his cell phone. They were the same and he decided to try again in five minutes.
Frank made a right at the light, then a left and saw Linda’s Explorer parked at the curb outside Vintage Video. He pulled into the alley, jumped out and raced down the sidewalk.
When he pushed open the door to Edit 1, he found Linda and Kip in the middle of cutting a new spot. Linda was dressed in a gray skirt, navy tights, and a sweater Frank had always liked. From the look on her face, he could tell that he was interrupting.
“Linda’s finished for the night,” he said, grabbing her by the arm.
“What’s wrong with you?” she shouted.
There wasn’t time to explain that even though he knew she hadn’t committed murder, she had been talking to Olson and betrayed him. He yanked her out of the chair and pushed her through the door. Once they were in the elevator, he flipped open his cell phone and hit the redial button. He wouldn’t hang up until Olson answered or the battery went dead.
“What is it, Frank? What’s wrong?”
The elevator opened. He pulled her through the lobby and ran her down the sidewalk, pushing her into the Chevy. After the car was rolling, he finally spoke.
“Olson’s got pictures of Merdock in bed with someone.”
“A man or a woman?”
Frank gave her a look, weaving through traffic with the phone to his ear. Her green eyes were bright with anger. They were picking up speed and she reached for her seatbelt.
“With a woman,” he said. “Stop acting like you don’t know what’s going on.”
“I don’t know what’s going on.”
She braced herself against the door and seemed frightened by the way he was driving. Frank turned and looked at the traffic ahead. The signal lights between here and the bridge were out again.
“I want to know why you were talking to Olson,” he said. “I need to know what we’re walking into.”
Her skin flushed. “But I wasn’t talking to him.”
He grimaced, angrily jumping the curb and flooring it through the intersection as he jammed the horn.
“You’re lying,” he said. “I hit Olson’s redial button. Your machine picked up.”
She looked confused. “Someone’s been calling,” she said. “I’ve been getting hang-ups ever since Woody died. I thought it was you.”
“You’re saying that you’ve never talked to Olson?”
She nodded, wiping her cheeks. Frank turned back to the road.
Chapter 45
Olson dug into the bag, searching the bottom for leftover onion rings and more salt.
He’d gone over it so many times. His plan had been so simple. Once he presented Merdock with sample photos of his sexual exploits, it should have been nothing more than a business decision. If Merdock wanted to buy the series, Olson would have sent the pictures to him after they agreed on a price. If a deal couldn’t have been reached, then the pictures would have been leaked to the press and Merdock would have faced the consequences on his own. Privately, of course, Olson had always planned on releasing the pictures no matter what Merdock decided. He’d made the decision a long time ago. It was his turn to stick the knife in Frank Miles’s back.
But he hadn’t anticipated their violent reaction. It had never even entered his mind.
Olson finished off his Coke and got out of the pickup. As he walked down the steps to his office, he heard the phone ringing and dumped everything in the trash. Then he unlocked the door and hurried inside. He hoped that it was his wife calling. They’d spoken earlier in the day and it had gone well. He wanted to say good-bye to her. He’d make an excuse and tell her that he was going away on business for a week or two. By then, he hoped, it would all blow over.
He hurried down the hall into his office. As he reached for the phone, he noticed his night-vision goggles on the desk. He didn’t remember taking them out and wondered why they weren’t in their case with his camera collection in the darkroom.
He brought the phone to his ear and said hello.
“Jesus, Olson, where the fuck have you been?”
It was Frank Miles on a cell phone. He was shouting at him and he sounded freaked. Sensing movement from the hall, Olson turned to the door and nearly jumped out of his skin. A strange-looking man was staring at him from the darkroom. Olson flinched as the man raised a gun and pointed it at him, stepping into the light and moving toward him slowly.
“Are you there?” Frank screamed through the static.
Olson stammered. “At the post office,” he said finally. “I was at the post office.”
“They’re on to you. They know you’ve got the pictures. We need to talk. You’ve gotta get out of there.”
Olson felt the muzzle of the gun press against his forehead and closed his eyes. His body began to shake as he realized the terrible mistake he’d made. He should have gone to Frank as soon as he figured out what really happened to Woody. He should have told Frank the whole thing. Eaten his pride and laid it out to him. But Olson couldn’t see it like he was seeing it now. He couldn’t get past the hate.
“We can figure this out,” Frank was saying. “But you need to get out of there.”
“Yeah,” he whispered. “Sure.”
“Jesus, is he there?” Frank said. “Gray hair? A long crew? Spiked?”
Olson opened his eyes and gazed at the man’s hair. He felt the phone being taken away from him and watched the man hang it up. Frank’s voice disappeared and the room suddenly quieted. Before the man turned back, Olson noticed his script on the desk. The one that he’d thrown in the trash.
Meet Mel Merdock
. It was over, he realized, his fate sealed. He hoped that it wouldn’t hurt.