Stripped (46 page)

“Things?” Serena asked.

“Such as your sleeping with my daughter, Detective. In the middle of an investigation? It wouldn’t look good.”

Serena didn’t bother asking how he knew that. “You wouldn’t do that to Claire,” she said.

“Like I said, difficult choices. There’s more. You’d lose your jobs. Probably go to prison, too. Obstruction of justice.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Stride asked.

“I imagine the Minnesota police would be interested in how you resolved your last case. The murder of Rachel Deese and what really happened to her. So you wouldn’t be the only one to suffer, would you, Detective?”

Stride couldn’t help it. His mouth fell open in disbelief.
How did he know
? Then it was obvious. Boni had bugged their town home. He had been listening in on everything. Their secrets. Their sex. The investigation.

“So really, it would be better for all of us if this just remained a story that the four of us know about and no one else. Okay? Because that would just be the beginning. That would be just the things that are
true
. Once the media sinks its teeth into you, they’ll believe anything, won’t they? You know how it works.” Boni spread his hands.

The governor was smiling as he stood by the window. The lights illuminated half his face and left the rest in shadow.

Stride’s mind was working furiously, wondering if they had talked about their plans inside the town home in the last day. Had they exposed their hole card? He couldn’t remember, but it didn’t matter. He had to play it and hope for the best.

Stride looked at Serena, and she nodded.

“Leo Rucci wanted it to stay a secret, too,” Stride said.

Boni didn’t say anything. He simply arched a curious eyebrow.

“But he wrote it down,” Stride said. “He wrote down what really happened to Amira.”

Boni laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Really, Detective, that’s a weak gambit. Leo Rucci was as loyal to me as anyone in my life.”

“We searched his home this morning,” Stride said. “You know that, though. You already had people there to clean it out. Make sure there was nothing incriminating. His office, too. They had already been rolled.”

Boni shrugged, not bothering to deny it.

“The trouble is, they missed something. A safe deposit box. The key was on the key chain in his pocket when he was killed. Not in his home. Not in his office.”

Stride thought he saw a glimmer of unease in Boni’s face.

“We opened it today. There was an envelope addressed to his son inside—but of course, Gino’s dead.” He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and held it casually in his hand, enough so that Boni could see the one word written on the outside.
Gino
.

“Leo would never do this to me,” Boni said.

“He didn’t. He just wanted an insurance policy for his boy. In case something happened to him. Leo knew that Gino was the kind of kid that might need a Get Out of Jail Free card down the line. Literally.”

“Give it to me,” Boni said.

Stride extended a hand, and Boni snatched it away. He stuthed the envelope, which was yellowed and looked to be more than a decade old. It bore the logo from Rucci’s quicklube business. Boni yanked the letter out from inside and unfolded it.

“This is a copy,” he said.

“The original is in a lawyer’s office outside the city,” Stride said. “Just in case.”

Boni started reading it. Stride knew how it began.

Gino
,
If you’re reading this, it means Yve croaked. Hope it was quick, you know? Bullet to the brain, that’s the way to go. Or maybe a heart attack while I was doing some blonde. Listen, kid, Yve got a few secrets from the old days. When me and Boni were on top of the world. You share any of this to anybody, so help me God, I’llcome back from the grave and kick your ass. If you get into trouble, call Boni. He’ll help you, no questions asked. But if Boni’s not around, there’s somebody else to call. His name’s Mickey
…

They waited while Boni finished the letter. Stride saw his hand was trembling. The rosy flush in his old face drained away until he looked fragile and pale. When he was done, he looked up, his eyes vacant, his mind hard at work. Looking for a way out. An escape. A way to turn it back.

“This won’t ever stand up in court,” he said. “You can’t touch either of us.”

Stride nodded. “True enough. But it’s plenty for the press. And the voters.”

Boni chewed on this thought. He knew they were right.

“You’ll go down, too,” Boni said. “The information about Rachel Deese will come out. It will be war. You’ll be destroyed.”

“We’ll take thatrisk,”Serena said.

“We’re a lot closer to the ground, so it doesn’t hurt as much when we fall,” Stride added.

He watched Boni taking their measure, assessing the steel in their eyes. It was a game of poker, and both of them stared back without blinking, daring him to call. This was the moment where it all rose or fell, Stride knew. He knew Boni couldn’t believe that he had been outsmarted, that he might actually play and lose. He had built his empire for half a century, and just like that, in the space of a few seconds, it would be gone.

Stride realized he was holding his breath. Waiting.

There was only one thing Boni could do. Fight. That was the nuclear option. Destroy all of them on the way down. Stride hoped the old man was too shrewd for mutual annihilation.

“What do you want?” Boni asked quietly.

Stride kept the relief off his face. His expression was stone. “The governor resigns. You give up control of your company.”

“Give up control? To who?”

“To Claire,” Serena said.

Stride hoped that Serena was right and Claire would agree to take over.

“The empire stays in the family,” Stride explained. “You’re out, Claire’s in.”

“This is
bullshit
,” Durand burst out from across the room. “Kill them, Boni. They disappear, this goes away.”

Stride shook his head. “If we disappear, this letter goes to the press.”

Boni had a look of admiration on his face, as if he appreciated how they had played the game. “Nicely done, Detectives. It’s a good plan. You’re not suggesting I go in the Black Book, are you?”

“No, not at all. This is clean and simple. You’re giving up the Orient project to someone younger, who can see it all the way through. Someone you trust. It may not be justice, but it’s closer than we’d get in court. And if you live long enough, you still get to see your last dream realized.” He hoped Boni didn’t realize that the whole point was
not
to make any of this public. To get it all done in private. Before questions started getting asked.

To get Durand out of office. That was the main thing.

Durand saw it, too. “Boni, you’re not buying this, are you? These two are nothing. We can beat them.”

“Shut up, Mickey.”

Durand’s tan face grew red with rage. “Don’t you talk to me like that, old man. I could have brought you down any time I wanted. We are
not
going to give in to these fucking cops.”

“You’ve forgotten who’s really got the power, Mickey. I pull the strings. You dance.”

“No, we
both
dance. I’m not resigning.”

“The only reason you stay alive is because I want you where you are. Think about that.”

“You need me,” Durand shouted. “You’re nothing without me.”

“Tomorrow you’ll release a statement,” Boni replied calmly. “You’re resigning immediately and quitting the campaign because of a serious knee injury. It’s left you incapacitated and unable to perform your duties.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Durand said. “What knee injury?”

Boni reached into the right-hand pocket of his coat and extracted a gun barely larger than his hand. In one smooth motion, he aimed and fired perfectly, not flinching at the explosion, drilling a bullet through the ball of Durand’s kneecap. “That one,” he said.

Durand screeched in agony and lurched forward, toppling to the ground.

Boni held up his hand and stopped Stride, who was reaching for his own gun. “It’s over, Detective.” He slid the gun back into his pocket. “That was for Claire and Amira.”

Stride and Serena both recoiled as Durand wailed, rolling on the floor, grabbing his leg and crying like a baby animal caught in the claws of a crow. Blood seeped through his fingers. The pain was monstrous, and the horrible look in the man’s eyes begged for unconsciousness. For death. For any-thing that would make it stop.

Stride felt frozen, as if he should do something to intervene. He looked for a phone to dial 911 but realized there was no phone in the room. He glanced at Serena, who was looking back at him. The seconds stretched out. Their hearts hardened. He realized he had no sympathy at all for Mickey Durand.

Violence was part of the city, Stride realized. Part of the immoral world.

Boni didn’t even look at Durand. “Don’t worry, I’ll get my doctor here in a few minutes. He’ll live.”

He reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper and scribbled something on it. He handed the paper to Serena. “This is Claire’s number in St. Thomas. You can tell her she’s in charge if she wants it. I won’t go to the ceremony next week, but I figure you won’t mind if I watch from up here as she blows up my hotel.”

When they visited Nicholas Humphrey the next morning, the retired detective was in a deck chair on his lawn, still wearing his green terrycloth robe. He had furry slippers lying near him in the grass. His decades-long lover, Harvey Washington, was in a matching chair next to him. The two men were holding hands. It was strangely sweet.

Their little Westie was a blur of white motion, running around the chairs and stopping long enough to roll over to be petted. Humphrey and Washington took turns rubbing the dog’s belly with their feet. The noon sun made the shabby neighborhood around them look bright. A small airplane whined overhead, floatingthrough the blue sky.

Humphrey waved as Stride and Serena climbed the driveway. The sour detective looked happy this morning, as if a long-overdue debt had been paid.

“Heard it on the radio,” he called to them. “I can’t believe you actually pulled it off.”

Stride nodded. “It may not be prison, but for Boni, it may even be worse not to be calling the shots anymore.”

“And our governor? How did he take the news?”

“He wasn’t kidding about a knee injury.” Stride explained what had happened in Boni’s suite, and both older men winced, hearing how Boni had calmly shot Durand.

“Ouch,” Harvey said. “Man, that must be like getting your balls in a vise.”

“Worse,” Humphrey said. “I’ve seen guys who’ve been through it. They say that’s the most excruciating pain you can inflict on someone. Well, too bad, so sad. Payback’s a bitch.”

He was tossing his Willie Mays autographed baseball from hand to hand. Finally, he tossed it to Stride, who caught it and smiled.

“Harvey and I, we thought you should have this,” Humphrey said.

“Just don’t go selling it on eBay,” Harvey added, with a crinkle of his brown lips.

Stride looked at the signature on the ball. If it had been genuine, it would have been worth a lot of money.

Of course, it was a fake, courtesy of Harvey Washington’s magic hands. Like everything else in Humphrey’s celebrity archives. Like his note from Dean Martin. Like his photo of Marilyn Monroe and her sexy message.

Like the letter from Leo Rucci to his son.

Fake.

“I was nervous when Boni pulled the letter out,” Serena told them. “I was sure he was going to realize we were conning him.”

“You have to have faith in me,” Harvey said, as if the very idea that one of his forgeries would be detected was an insult. “’Course, you hunted down that old envelope from Leo’s office. That helps. If the package is authentic, people just assume that what’s inside is genuine, too.” He pronounced it
gen-yoo-ine
.

“It would have fooled me,” Stride said.

“But Boni knew Leo,” Serena added.

“So did I,” Humphrey retorted. “That was how the son of a bitch talked. No, we had those bastards nailed. They were going down. Thanks for letting me and Harvey be a part of it. Feels good to make up for what I did all those years ago, you know?”

The Westie jumped in his lap. Humphrey scratched its head and let it kiss him all over his face.

“We couldn’t have done it without you,” Stride told them. “Boni had all the cards.”

Harvey laughed. The dog scampered from one chair to the other and nestled in his lap. “Well, hell, this is Vegas, baby. When you don’t have the cards, you bluff.”

It was later the same day. Stride had dropped Serena back at the station.

He hated hospitals. The antiseptic smell reminded him of the days he had spent in the Duluth hospital in January a handful of years earlier, holding Cindy’s hand as she grew weaker and weaker, until finally she slipped away. Dying in front of his eyes in the warm room, as the snow hissed and whipped outside. He tried to force the memories away.

He saw patients stretched out on beds in their rooms as he passed through the maze of corridors. Nurses tending to them. Anxious family members sitting beside them. As he had done.

He got lost and had to ask for directions, and the nurse was pleasant and patient, pointing him to where he had to go. When he found it, the door was closed, and Stride hovered outside nervously, not sure if he should knock or go in or wait in the corridor. He wasn’t used to being indecisive, but places like this sapped his strength.

The door opened suddenly, and a man appeared in the doorway, almost filling it.

“I’m sorry,” Stride said, feeling stupid, holding flowers. “I was looking for Amanda Gillen.”

The man nodded. He was at least six-foot-five, and Stride had to confess he was one of the most strikingly handsome men he had ever seen, as if he had come to life from the pages of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. Early thirties. Perfect features. Clothes that fit as if they had been sewn for him.