Playing God (29 page)

While he was on the subject of why the hell things happened, why the hell had he had sex with Alana Black? Why risk a career he hadn't given up after Kristin Marks, despite his rage and disillusionment, for a few minutes of fucking bliss?

Kyle came back with the food, moving fast, reaching over the seat to set the bags down. He fired up the engine and backed deftly out. The cold car filled with the mingled scents of Chinese food. "Stan's picking up some beer," he said. He rocketed out into the stream of traffic, managing the resulting skid with balletic grace. Only an asshole, and no cop, believed that SUVs didn't slip, slide and skid. Kyle drove with the same intensity he brought to everything. Close to the edge but very competent. People let his taciturnity fool them, thought he was calm and quiet. Burgess knew better. Kyle was as wired and edgy as he was, he just wore it more layers down.

"I can feel your black aura over here," Kyle said. "Keep it on your side, please. I'm driving."

Burgess growled like a rabid dog. "Aura? Fuckin' new age goo-goo types got auras. Maybe some left-over hippies and crunchy granola types got auras. Cops have tempers. And reasons to lose 'em. Tempers and moods. If I want to get into a bad fuckin' mood, which under the circumstances seems perfectly reasonable, what the hell do you propose to do about it?"

"That's better. Always better to get mad than to get down. That place you go, it's like a tar pit. It'll suck you down 'til me and Stan, together, can't get you out."

"Who made you my keeper?"

"It's a lousy job, but someone's got to do it." A sporty little Rav-4 darted out in front of them and began to fishtail. Kyle stomped on the brakes. The Explorer bucked liked a bronco but it slowed nicely. Another thing assholes believed—that SUVs could defy the laws of physics. "Jerk doesn't know how to drive, he should stay home!" They went on in silence, 'til Kyle said, "You wanna know who gave me the job? Your mother."

"What the hell?"

"Sorry, pal. It's a sacred trust. One day, I'm visiting and she says to me, 'My Joseph, he gets into these dark places and can't see the way out. Look after him, Terry.' Your mother, even aside from having to put up with you, was a saint. When we were getting divorced, and Wanda was trying to turn the kids against me, I was so mad I wanted to kill her. Your mother kept me straight. She told me to keep it to myself, see the kids as much as possible, and let them know I loved them. That I'd always be there. That I was steady and calm and wouldn't change."

Kyle stomped on the brake, spun around a car that had just popped out of a parking space in front of them, and back into his lane. "She said the kids were getting enough anger and hate at home and if I could keep my bad feelings out of my relationship with them, they'd see the truth, no matter what Wanda did. She was right. I've got a better relationship with them than Wanda does. So I've got no choice. Your mother wanted me to do something, I gotta do it. You don't like it, tough."

It had been Kyle, not the shrink, who'd gotten him through Kristin Marks. Knowing when to show up. When he needed to be alone and when he couldn't be. When his gun was looking tasty. Kyle who had organized his friends to baby-sit. All elaborately casual. All carefully choreographed. All extremely hard and dangerous, since he'd been like a ticking bomb. The rage and despair he'd felt then had been monumental. The reason he had so little furniture. He'd destroyed the rest. But Kyle had never told him this.

"Thank you."

Thank you and I'm sorry. Two phrases a lot of people weren't able to use. He tried to use them both. Another legacy from his mother. From a night he'd found her weeping in the kitchen, back before his father left, holding a dishcloth filled with ice against her bruised cheek. "There's something broken in that man, Joseph," she'd said. "Such a fear of being grateful or beholden. It pains him so much to think he ought to say he's sorry, or to be thankful, he just explodes. You're so like him in some ways. I'm hoping this won't be one of them."

It was, and it wasn't. He'd gotten the explosive temper and he'd learned to control it. He'd learned to say thank you and sorry. But he wasn't sure that there wasn't something broken in him, just like in his father, something that kept him from ever getting close to women. Maybe he was too afraid he'd hurt them. Too painfully aware of the seeds of it in himself, and too aware of the consequences.

Despite Kyle's instructions, he couldn't help his mood tonight. One of the downsides of getting overtired. All day he'd had flashes of Kristin's body lying in that dump. It had happened before. He was supposed to meditate, practice relaxation exercises, take a day off, and if all else failed, get some help. He was in the middle of a fucking murder investigation. He didn't have time. Burgess sighed deeply, feeling his gloom settle in around him like a black velvet shroud.

Chapter 23

They parked and went inside without speaking. Kyle set the food down, opened the cupboard, took out three plates. "Think we'll get through the evening without more hell breaking loose?" Burgess asked, shrugging off his coat.

"I wouldn't mind, but I wouldn't lay odds on it, either."

Burgess removed his shoes by stepping on the backs and wiggling his feet out. They were a loss anyway, ringed with grayish-white salt marks. His wet socks left footprints on the floor. He dumped some ice in a glass and poured the bourbon. An able one-handed drinker. "Want some, Ter?"

"Sure."

Perry carried in two six packs, set them on the table, popped the top on his first.

"We're predicting the future here," Kyle said. "The immediate future. What comes next, you think?"

Perry buried his fingers in his blond curls and closed his eyes, producing a great imitation of ecstatic wonder. "I see fire. I see gorgeous babes cavorting with men in bandanas while mongrel dogs frisk and whine. I see fat-cat doctors counting their loot and tipsy rich men smirking." He tipped up the can and drank. "Seriously? How about O'Leary dead."

"That's a good guess." Burgess poured a second bourbon and handed it to Kyle. "When and where?"

"What about by whom?" Kyle said. "Let's eat, okay? Cold Chinese sucks."

They carried everything to the living room, filling plates as Kyle knelt by the VCR, slipped on gloves, and started the first tape.

Burgess ate shrimp fried rice and General Gau's chicken and watched a naked girl cavort athletically atop a fat, red-faced man. Black haired, fresh-faced. One of O'Leary's girls. Alana had called her Lulu. At first, the man lay like a beached whale, doing little more than puffing and watching the girl's lithe body. Gradually, his hips began to move, then his hands rose and started kneading the pert, bouncing breasts. Finally, braying like a donkey, his wobbling thighs jouncing, he grabbed her waist and climaxed with a series of violent groans, collapsing back against the pillows with closed eyes.

Lulu brushed the man's chest with her nipples, his lips with hers. "Oh, Mr. O'Sullivan, that was good!" The video faded to crackling black and white.

"Oh, Mr. O'Sullivan," Perry mimicked. "It's like screwing your high school principal. That do anything for you, Joe?"

"I'm not sitting here with my hat over my lap. Are there any more spare ribs?"

"Looking for something with a little bone in it?"

"Stan, you're sick, you know that?"

"Me? Guy on the screen is the sick fuck. Cheerleader's skirt? Pink cotton panties. An undershirt? She's a c-cup if she's an inch. C-cup girls don't wear undershirts."

"Where've you been, Stan?" Burgess asked. "All that staring and drooling you do and you haven't noticed. These days, D-cup girls wear skinny little tank tops with no bras at all. My fourteen-year-old niece looks more like a hooker than Lulu does. Never mind pink cotton. I think she wears thongs." He shook his head. "I don't get thongs. Seem like a permanent wedgie to me."

"But when you slide your hand over her ass, it's pure ass," Stan Perry said. " That's why the boys wear those baggy pants. To hide their chronic hard-ons." He leaned forward eagerly. "I'm ready for the next one."

"So yours isn't chronic, it's intermittent?" Kyle suggested. "Better call your girlfriend. Maybe she can see you later." Kyle fanned himself with his hand.

"Anybody recognize that guy?" Burgess interrupted.

"Identifying characteristics," Perry said, "two hundred and fifty pounds of pink blubber. Blue eyes. Blue? Yeah. Gray hair. Graying mustache. Prominent yellow teeth. Big nose with broken veins. Fat fingers. Gold signet ring. Prop it upright and dress it in a suit, and what've we got? William O'Sullivan, president of NorEast Bank. Right?"

"Give the boy a stuffed bear," Kyle said. "We've got another winner."

"No shit!" Perry took another beer from the six-pack beside his chair. It was his third. "This would be the moment for someone to chuck a bomb through the window, wouldn't it? Can we see the next one? Please?"

"Nobody wants to critique the cinematography?" Burgess asked.

"No, Joe. Stanley here wants to play 'pecker, pecker, who's got the pecker.'"

"Screw you, Kyle."

"I don't think so."

Burgess got the Jack Daniels. Refilled his glass and Kyle's. Settled into his chair as Kyle carefully removed the first tape and inserted another. The second was much like the first, except the man was older and skinnier and Lulu looked completely bored. No one recognized the man. "Skip the rest," Stan suggested. They went on to number three.

This time, Lulu actually seemed a little interested in the proceedings. Her client was a nicely made man in his mid-thirties with a handsome, familiar-looking face. He was tied to the bedposts with what looked like golden silk ropes. "Curtain ties," Burgess said. "Dr. Lee said that was probably what was used on Pleasant. Too bad we didn't find them."

"Why?" Kyle asked. "You wanted to try them out?"

"Channel 13," Perry said. "Newscaster. Oh, shit!"

"Watch your language, Stan," Kyle said. "You're going to start doing that on the job, and you know how the Chief feels."

"Thought I
was
on the job."

At that moment, as he writhed and grunted, the man's toupee popped off and landed on the pillow, looking like some small, furry animal. Lulu screamed and the man tried to grab it, but was restrained by the ropes on his hands. "America's funniest home videos, here we come!" Perry crowed. "Vince would love this. Should we call him?"

"Right now, Vince is reading
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
to the twins. Little does he know," Burgess said. "Anyway, it's the Captain who'd love it."

"Cote would soil his nappy," Perry said. "Let's see number four."

Lulu again. It confirmed his impression from the autopsy that Pleasant had been a well-built man. Well-built, energetic, greedy and demanding. A man who took his sex seriously and meant to get his money's worth. Unlike the other men, who'd been content to be serviced, he directed Lulu's attentions with brief, curt instructions. Despite the sustained and vigorous sex, including a variety of positions challenging the participants' dexterity, Burgess's reaction wasn't vicarious titillation, but distaste. He couldn't help substituting Jen Kelly for Lulu, her small, delicate body being rammed so violently, her sad blue eyes searching that cold face for signs that she was pleasing him, her long blonde hair pooling over his thighs as she performed.

This wasn't the video he'd hoped for. He'd wanted the one made the night Pleasant died, so he could get a look at the mystery girl, Karen. This must be a tape from an earlier time. He'd now seen Lulu from every angle imaginable, felt as depleted as if he'd had her himself. Kyle had become so bored he'd picked up the letters and was reading through them. Only Perry was still watching.

"Let's take a quick look at the other two and call it a night," Burgess suggested.

"Kinda like that giant ice cream sundae they dare you to try and eat, isn't it?" Kyle said. "Halfway through, you've had so much damned sugar and syrup you're sick of it."

"I don't know. I wouldn't mind one of those sundaes. Long as she kept her mouth shut," Perry said.

"She keeps her mouth shut and you miss half the fun," Burgess said.

"Long as she didn't talk," Perry amended.

Kyle set the letters on the floor, crossed the room, and put in another tape. This time he stayed by the machine, assuming, as Burgess did, that they were only going to take a peek at these next two. Once again there was the shabby room, the great big bed with the black satin bedspread, the heap of leopard print pillows. This time the girl was wearing matching leopard print panties and bra, her back to the camera, a man's big hand on her shoulder, slowly pulling down one strap, then the other. But the girl wasn't Lulu and Burgess felt a visceral shock twinge through him as he realized what he was seeing.