The Killer Sex Game (A Frank Boff Mystery) (17 page)

When Boff and Steven walked into their apartment, Jenny and the cleaning lady had just finished straightening it up. Boff handed the cleaning lady some money.

“Thanks for coming, Ramona,” he said.

“
De nada
, Mr. Boff.”

After
Ramona had left, he turned to his wife. “Anything broken?”

“A couple lamps and a vase. No big deal.”

“We’re lucky they didn’t rip up the cushions and the beds,” he said. “I guess they figured they wouldn’t have much time before one of us returned.”

“Why’d this happen, Frank?” Jenny asked. “Does it have to do with your case?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

Hearing this and ignoring his apology, Jenny turned her back and stormed off toward the kitchen. Father and son followed her. They stood there a moment watching her stir a big pot on the stove.

“Smells heavenly,” Boff said. “What is it?”

Still without looking at her husband, she shot back, “Irish stew with Guinness stout and apple cider.”

“Can’t wait to taste it.” He paused and cleared his throat. “Honey, we need to talk.”

Jenny whipped around. “Oh, for God’s sake, what’s wrong
now
?”

“Come into the living room,” he said with as much patience as he could pull together, “and I’ll tell you.” He pointed at his son. “You, too, Steven.”

Steven made a face. “But, Dad, I wanted to play this new game I got on my Xbox. What’s so important, Dad?”

Hearing Steven call her husband Dad not once but twice, Jenny’s eyebrows shot up. She gave Boff a silent look that said
Did he really just call you
Dad?

“Let’s go back into the living room,” Boff repeated.

Still frowning, Jenny lowered the heat under the pot and followed her husband into the living room, Steven close behind. Once they were seated, Boff said, “I was thinking now would be a great time for you two to visit Sharon at UCLA.”

“Why?” Jenny’s voice could not have been frostier.

“Well, I’m a bit worried that the people I’m up against might pay you and Steven another visit.”

Jenny shook her head. “Absolutely not! If you’re in danger, Frank, I’m not leaving.”

Steven looked up. “Hey, Dad, I’ll go to California! School’s been a real drag lately.”

Jenny looked sharply at her son. “You’re not going, either,” she said. “What happens if your father gets hurt? He’ll need us to be here for him.”

Boff sighed. “Honey, any chance of me talking you into going?”

“None whatsoever.”

Knowing it was useless to try any further and convince her, he went into damage control mode. Taking a business card from his wallet, he picked up the telephone and dialed.

“Teddy, Frank Boff. How’s business?

Could be worse
.

“Well, it’s about to get better. I need a LaserShield security system put in at my apartment. How soon can you be here?”

Let me get my son to watch the store. I’ll be over in about forty-five minutes. What’s up?

“I’ll tell you when you get here.” He hung up.

“Can I go back to my Xbox now?” Steven asked.

“In a minute,” his father
said.

Steven glanced at his wrist watch. “But I’ve got a pickup game in forty minutes.”

“I want you to skip that.”

“Why? We’ve got these dudes coming down from
Harlem. They play for a nationally-ranked school. I’m, like, totally psyched for the challenge.”

“Well get un-psyched. I don’t want you out walking the streets for a while.”

“You think somebody might try to
whack
me?”

“No. But just to be on the safe side, I’m giving you a sizable bump in your allowance
to be used
only
on cabs to and from school.”

“Aw, come on, Boff—I mean Dad. School’s just eight blocks away. The guys’re gonna think I’m a nerd if they see me arriving in a cab.”

“Be that as it may,” Boff said, “you’re going to use taxis.” He turned to his wife. “Honey, I’d like you to limit the number of times you go out shopping. Try to hit more than one store in the same day.”

“Oh, no!” she said. “I will not, repeat, I will
not
be a prisoner in my own home.”

“Then go to UCLA.”

“Listen to me, Frank Boff,” she said. “If this case is so dangerous, maybe you should hand it over to somebody else.”

“You know I can’t do that. So don’t even get started.”

“No, I don’t know! Give me a reason why.”

“Because if I let someone intimidate me by attacking my family, word will spread and encourage more episodes like this in the future. That’s why.” He waited for his wife to say something. When she didn’t, he continued. “I’m going to give both of you pepper spray and a gadget that emits a siren. Carry them on you whenever you’re out of the house.”

Jenny poked him in the chest with a finger. “And who’s going to protect
you,
Mr. Macho? At least carry a gun, for God’s sake.”

“You know I haven’t worn one since the DEA.”

Steven touched his mother’s arm. “Mom, why won’t Dad carry a gun?”

She looked at Boff, apparently to see if it was all right to tell Steven. He nodded.

“When your father was in the agency,” she said, “he was once part of drug raid in which he accidentally shot a little girl who was about the same age as your sister. It was not a life-threatening wound, but your father was very shaken up and stayed at the hospital until the girl was released. He told me that night he’d never wear a gun again once he left the DEA.”

Before she could continue, Boff changed the subject. “Hey, honey, how about a sneak preview of that stew?”

Jenny shook her head. “Not before it’s ready,” she said. “Meanwhile, when will this case be over so our lives can return to normal?”

“I’m not sure,” he
said. “But I can tell you this. I’m going to find the people responsible as quickly as possible so there won’t be any more incidents involving my family.”

“And then you’ll let Damiano arrest them, right?” When
Boff remained silent, she exploded. “Dammit, Frank! If you keep practicing frontier justice, I’ll never get you into heaven.”

“What’s frontier justice, Mom?” Steven asked.

Jenny turned to her son. “You can go back to your Xbox now.”

She waited until the boy was gone before saying anything else. “Promise me, Frank. Promise me that you won’t take matters into your own hands again.”

When he just looked away, Jenny shot him her dirtiest look and went back to the kitchen.

Before Boff got into his car the next morning, he turned his bomb detector on and off three times to reassure himself that he was getting an accurate reading. He was halfway to the gym when Kate called.

I don’t know if this will help your investigation, but Gina’s been crying a lot. She
told me it was because a friend of hers had been killed. That’s all she would tell me.

Boff recalled Gina’s numerous phone calls to Mantilla. “Did she mention the friend’s name? Or how he was killed?”

No.

“When Gina calms down, try and get her to tell you more.”

Does it have to do with Rafael’s murder?

“It’s very possible.”

Then I’ll see what I can do.

Having set up a meeting with Damiano for later in the day, Boff killed time in the gym watching Cullen train. When he got a break, he walked over to Boff.

“Is your son alright?”
he asked.

“He’s fine. Just got a concussion.”

Cullen lowered his voice. “So what are you going to do to Mantilla for this?”

“There’s nothing I can do to him now.”

“Why not?”

“He’s dead.”

Bellucci walked up. “Who’s dead?”

“Mantilla,” Cullen
said.

“No shit! What happened?”

“Someone planted a bomb under his car,” Boff said.

Cullen whistled. “I guess I was wrong about him being the bad guy.”

“Not necessarily,” Boff said. “Maybe there’s more than one bad actor here, and the other person wanted Mantilla out of the picture for some reason.”

As Boff pushed off the wall to leave the gym, Cullen said, “I want to tell you something. And don’t laugh…. I took a class in investigation and got my certificate.”

Boff grinned. “Great! How soon will you be hanging out your shingle?”

Cullen sneered. “I
knew
you wouldn’t take me seriously. And by the way, hotshot,
modern
investigators don’t refer to themselves as private anymore. They prefer to be called
professional
investigators.”

Boff looked amused. “And why’s that?”

“My instructor said it was in response to the negative and seedy image that people attribute to the profession.”

“Oh? Am I seedy?”

“No, but your morals are certainly questionable.”

“Indeed. What was this instructor’s name?”

“Herman J. Minto.”

Boff grinned again.
“And did Herman ever tell you what the J. stands for?”

“No.”

“It’s for Jerkoff. Herman J. worked for the D.A. for a few years. But after I crushed his work so many times in court, the D.A. canned him.” As he headed for the door, he tossed back over his shoulder, “Anything Herman J. taught you, forget it. Stick to boxing.”

“Thanks for the encouragement.”

“You’re welcome.”

Damiano was waiting for Boff on a bench in Brower Park near the cage-enclosed basketball courts. He took a seat beside her.

“I showed photos of our two hero cops to the doorman,” she
said.

“Same guys that trashed Marla’s pad, right?”

“Yup. I reported what I’d found out about them to IA.”

“My own apartment was tossed yesterday. My son was clocked with a gun.”

“Really? Is he all right?”

“It was just a minor concussion.”

“Maybe these cops did that, too,” she said. “One thing’s for sure. Whoever sent these clowns, it wasn’t Mantilla. I assume you heard about him.”

Boff nodded. “So the question is what did Mantilla do to get himself killed?”

“If he was involved in the escort service, maybe they no longer had any use for him.”

“Or, they could’ve blamed him for Oquendo beating up the service’s biggest earner.”

Damiano looked puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

“Before I get to that,” he began, “let me say I have reason to believe Rafael recruited most of the girls for the escort service from
Miami’s Cuban community.”

“Oh, yeah? Why do you think that?”

“Remember those trips Rafael took to Miami? And how he always bought two extra one-way tickets back to New York?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, keeping those trips in mind, consider this: the bartender at a nightclub called Devil’s Own told me when the boxer came to the club, he always had a beautiful woman with him. Including Marla. He also came in with the escort service’s most expensive girl, Laurie. Her fee was four grand an hour.” He paused to let the detective digest that. “Then, almost two weeks ago, Laurie disappeared from the website. And about the same time she vanished, Rafael showed up at the gym with cuts on his hand. Cuts, McAlary’s assistant told me, that couldn’t have happened in the gym.”

Damiano nodded. “Okay. I see where you’re going with this.”

Boff nodded back at her. “I talked to the bartender again and asked him if Rafael ever tried to get touchy-feely with Laurie. He said he did, but she always pushed him away. The bartender also recalled that one time Rafael and Laurie got into a heated argument about that.”

Damiano thought all this through. “So…given that he had a bad temper and hit his own wife—”

“—it wouldn’t be a big stretch of the imagination to think he tried to have free sex with Laurie. When she refused, he lost his temper and punched her in the face. Given his strength, he probably messed her up pretty good. Bad enough to where she might’ve needed cosmetic surgery. If so, she won’t be earning money for the service anytime soon.”

“And your theory is whoever owns the site put a contract out on Rafael and Mantilla in retaliation for all the lost revenue?”

“That’s certainly a plausible scenario,” he replied. “However, in the case of Mantilla, I think it’s also possible his girlfriend had him whacked.”

“Girlfriend? Now what’re you talking about?”

Boff recounted how the raging-mad Alicia had interrupted his meeting with Mantilla because she suspected he was cheating on her. “She was in a murderous mood,” he concluded.

“I dunno, Boff. I mean, as you well know,
wanting
to kill someone you’re angry with and actually
doing
it are different things.”

“Of course. But if Mantilla
was
cheating on her, and she found proof of it, she struck me as the type who might make him pay. Say, with his life.”

“Do you know her last name?”

“Not yet. But I’m going to find out.”

The detective looked off a minute while she processed everything he had told her. Then she looked back at him. “As far what happened to your apartment and your son, if only two people outside our little group knew you had the address book, and one of them is dead…well, you know, that leaves Benvenuti’s son.”

Boff spread his hands. “Yes and no. Mantilla could’ve easily told somebody else I had the address book. Like, for example, the owner of the service. Or Judge Morant. But that being said, there, unfortunately, are other things that point to Emilio.”

Boff ran down his meeting with Benvenuti’s son and how the banker couldn’t remember how much he paid in cash to his escorts.

Damiano didn’t look impressed. “Hell, Boff, maybe the guy just has a bad memory.”

“No way. The only people I’ve ever known with memories
that
bad were potheads and senior citizens with dementia. As much as I don’t want to, I’m going to have to look more closely at Emilio’s possible role in this mess. In the meantime, I want you to find out from your bomb squad what kind of device it was that killed Mantilla.”

“Why?”

“Because, of course, the material used might’ve been specific to a known bomber or explosives dealer.” He stood up. “Let’s head back.”

“I wish I could get more involved in this,” Damiano said as they walked. “But they shifted me to working full-time on a priority homicide. The son of a state assemblyman from
Brooklyn was shot and killed in an apparent mugging. The politico used his influence to bump the case to top priority.”

“Well,
detective, I value any help you can give me.”

She made a face. “Are you being sarcastic?”

“Not at all.”

“You never compliment me.”

“I’m just feeling especially good today because my son called me Dad.”

“So?”

“Steven and his sister have been calling me Boff instead of Dad since they were little. It looks like I made a breakthrough with my son.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“Yes.”