The Flaming Motel

XXII


You can’t kill everyone.

If you had a conspiracy and you needed to kill the central players, you had to leave it at that. If you really wanted to get away, when it came to tangential people, you had to resort to threats and hope no one talked and that enough time passed for the trail to get cold. If you kept killing people, they only kept looking harder, and eventually they would find you.

Any cop knew that. Which is why I believed the guy who had threatened Liz and me, who had beaten a young girl and done God knows what else to her, was really a cop. He was being careful. Leaving nothing behind but stories about police brutality that would do the victim no good to report. Cops don’t investigate other cops. If you were a cop and you understood that rule, you knew what you could and couldn’t get away with. As long as you operated inside the invisible lines, didn’t go overboard, you were safe.

And who was going to talk when they were threatening to frame you? I was a lawyer. I knew just how easy that would be. Juries always believed cops, and allegations of planted evidence just sounded like the ravings of a lunatic. If they really wanted to frame you, there wasn’t a damned thing you could do about it.

That was the part that had terrified Liz the most. That was what had kept her up half the night, outraged, yelling about the death of civil rights and everything that was wrong with America. I hesitated to tell her what else I’d learned. I was hesitant to do much thinking about it myself.

But I couldn’t not think about it. As I sat in the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the ten freeway, inching my way west with a million other people, I tried to distract myself. The radio failed to do the trick. Watching the sun sinking low on the horizon failed too. Not even the pulsating taillights in front of me—stopping and going, over and over—could do it.

Finally, I dialed Liz at her office.

She answered on the first ring with a cautious and controlled, “Hello?”

I tried to keep it light. I said, “I don’t get paid enough to do what I do.”

“Jesus Christ,” she said. “I’ve been worried sick about you all day. I’ve left like four messages on your voicemail.”

I glanced at my phone. Sure enough, four messages. “I must have had the ringer off,” I said. “What did you need?”

“I just wanted to know where you were.” She sounded worried. “I’m exhausted from thinking about last night. I’ve just been sitting here all day, making myself angry just thinking about it.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“No.” She laughed a little. “Jesus, you’d think I would. But there was something about it. I couldn’t say anything. God, I feel like a woman who’s been abused and can’t talk about it. It’s really bothering me.”

She sounded tired, worried, afraid. I wondered how I sounded. I didn’t want to tell her where I’d just been, what I’d just seen and heard. I wanted the dark stain on that mattress to stay where it was. I wanted to offer her some words of encouragement, to reassure her but all I could think of to say was:

“Jendrek and I talked about it this morning. I met with Detective Wilson too. Both of them were pretty concerned about the fact that he might not have been a cop. I don’t know. I’m pretty convinced he was.”

It felt better to talk about it in the abstract, as if it wasn’t a real problem, as if this wasn’t a real person making real threats, as if those threats hadn’t been aimed at us. She didn’t say anything. After a few seconds, I added, “Wilson’s going to try to get his hands on the file of the cop who shot Vargas.”

Liz huffed on the other end of the line and said, “Did it ever occur to you that you could just stop what you’re doing? Just stop looking?”

“And give him what he wants?”

“Is that so bad?”

“Liz,” I said, incredulous, “I can’t believe you’d just go along with it. After what he did?” I was thinking of the girl in the cottage more than the roadside assault. “This is a bad guy. Whoever he is. He has to be stopped.”

“But how is it your job to stop him?”

“What if everyone said that? What kind of world would we live in?”

“Jesus, Ollie, this isn’t a childhood homily. This isn’t a f*cking intellectual problem. This guy threatened us. What if he makes good on the threats? People have been killed, Ollie.”

I knew she was right. If I just stopped working on it, the problem might go away. He might never come back. We could give Ed Vargas his retainer back and go on with our lives. It could be that easy. But we weren’t going to do that. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t just going to walk away from it. This was abusive, outrageous; it had to be stopped.

“Liz, it’s not that simple. There’s no way to be sure he’ll go away. He thinks I know something. What’s to stop him from coming back in six months or a year and making good on his threats, just to be safe?”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she said.

“And just live in fear?”

“It’s better than not living at all,” she was getting angry. I told myself she was just mad at the situation, not me. But I really wasn’t sure. “Ollie,” she went on, “it’s not about you. He threatened both of us. I just don’t care enough about Vargas and whoever the hell else is involved to risk my life for them.”

“Is that what you tell your clients?” I said, and regretted it as soon as it was out. But I’d said it so I had to stick with it. “Do you tell them not to worry about their abusive landlord, about the credit company that’s going to take their home? Do you tell them it’s just not worth the fight?”

“F*ck you, Ollie. That’s completely different and you know it. No one is threatening to kill these people, and most important, no one is threatening to ruin my life. I’m not out there trying to change the world, Ollie. I’m just trying to help people. You don’t have to prove to everyone that you’re not afraid, that you can outsmart whoever the hell this is. What’s the point?”

“That’s not what this is about.” I was insistent, but I knew she didn’t believe me. I wondered for an instant if I believed it myself.

She said, “You’ve had a chip on your shoulder your whole life, Ollie.” Now she was angry. Now she was attacking me. I could hear her restraining her voice. “You can’t stand letting someone get the better of you. You’ve been pissed at yourself ever since you left Kolhberg & Crowley. Don’t give me that shit. You want to get even with the world because you were born into a family of—”

I dropped the phone because I damned near hit the car in front of me when it locked up its brakes. I didn’t hear the rest of what she was saying. I didn’t need to or want to. I knew it all anyway. When I finally managed to pick up the phone again, she was saying: “Hello? Hello?”

“I almost killed myself on the f*cking freeway.”

“Are you on your way home?”

“No,” I said, although I wasn’t sure where I was going.

“Where are you?” Her voice was calmer, more controlled. The interruption had caused her to restrain her attack.

“I’m on the ten. Traffic is shit. I need to see if I can catch Jendrek. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

There was silence on the line. I listened to it for a few seconds and then added, “Okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, “I’ll see you there.”

I got off the freeway and inched my way north through West LA to the office on Santa Monica Boulevard. But Jendrek was nowhere to be found. Ellen’s desk sat empty. I checked my watch and realized it was nearly six. I wondered what I’d been thinking trying to find Jendrek there. Perhaps it was merely that I wanted to decompress, regardless of whether Jendrek was there or not. I needed to lock myself in a dim room and think about things. Or not think about things. Either way. I needed quiet. Dim light. Stillness.

I sat in my dark office with nothing but the glow of the computer screen for light. I went through my usual websites—CNN, the New York Times, the LA Weekly, a few other things—nothing new had happened in the world, it seemed, other than the events of my own life. The lack of distractions only intensified my anxiety and stress.

I started running through the connections. Started following the chains of people. Who stood out? Who didn’t make sense? It had been tempting all along to conclude that Tiffany Vargas, the only person who stood to gain in any real way by Don Vargas’s death, was somehow behind it. But there was no evidence to conclude that she even knew Don was going to transfer the companies to his son. And now that her own brother had been murdered, she seemed to be off the list.

But what about David Daniels? Had her younger brother and Pete Stick hatched some kind of plan? Pete was a known fraudster and scam artist. He seemed likely. That felt like a good angle, but both of them were dead. That meant someone else was involved. The cop? But what was the connection? Just a dirty cop Pete knew somehow? Didn’t seem to work. What was there to gain?

Who did that leave? Colette Vargas gave no indication of anything suspicious. Ed Vargas wouldn’t have killed his own father without waiting for the ownership to be transferred, and after that, he would have had little reason to kill him—if he ever had a reason at all.

Who did that leave? There was still my theory about the police chief. Wilson wasn’t buying any of that, but it was his job not to buy it. I couldn’t give too much credence to Wilson’s opinion on that subject. But still, as Jendrek suggested, it was far-fetched, too elaborate, too many moving parts.

There was really only one other person: Brianna Jones. Could she be involved? What did she have to gain? What did I really know about her? She didn’t seem to have a motive, but I’d never really inquired about her, I’d never asked any real questions about her. Vargas had made her a star, given her a place to live, kept her out of trouble. Brianna had even referred to him as a father figure of sorts.

She said it to me herself the night of the wake, in the downstairs office where Vargas had been shot. I thought about being in there with her, the way she’d sat on the desk with her feet dangling above the floor. The way she’d stood so close to me I could smell her hair and skin.

Then it occurred to me. I sat up in my chair as if I suddenly had something to do, frozen in a moment of realization. When we’d entered the downstairs office, Brianna went in first and I followed. Naturally, she was on the other side of the room turning back to face me when I entered. I stood with my back to the door, right where Vargas had been when he was shot. I even checked the floor for remnants of the chalk outline.

But that was the opposite of what had happened with Pete Stick. If I remembered it right, Pete was talking to Brianna out in the hallway and Don went into the room first. Then Pete followed and the shot occurred only a minute or two later. It would have been natural for Don Vargas to cross the room, as Brianna had, to wait for Pete. It would have been natural for Pete Stick to be standing where I had been standing, talking to Don Vargas, waiting for the bullet to find him. But he wasn’t. Somehow he and Don had switched places.

Had that bullet been intended for Pete Stick?

Had a mistake been made that was remedied only later the next day, when Pete Stick turned up dead?

I felt a charge come over me. I stared off through my office doorway, into the darkness of the reception area, trying to see it unfolding, turning the case on its head. Don Vargas going into the room, Pete Stick following, something happening inside to reverse the natural order of where they should have been standing. Then the shot fired at the man facing the window, the man with the prop gun in his hand.

What did it mean if Pete Stick was the intended target? What had Pete Stick done? Why would David Daniels have called the police? It would have had to mean some coordination between the police and David. It would require some reason for both of them to want Pete dead. David had been bringing home bundles of cash during the preceding months. The cash would surely have been a part of it. Was it payment from someone else who wanted Pete dead?

But that still didn’t make sense. Why go through an elaborate setup to kill Pete Stick when you could just as easily fake his suicide by hanging him in his warehouse? There were just enough facts to make a possible suspect of everyone, and yet no one made any sense. It all led back to Jendrek’s suspicion that there might have been something going on, but that the shooting was a mistake, and honest to God accident that fouled everything up. But even that held less appeal now that a guy dressed like a cop was running around threatening anyone who might know something about it.

My suspicions were leading me nowhere, and they were doing a damned good job of keeping me from relaxing. I turned my attention back to the computer, trying to shake it off. I thought of Brianna in that room again and found myself surfing my way over to her website. Perhaps she could take my mind off things.

Her topless, airbrushed form appeared on the screen, replete with her trademark torrid look of unvanquished desire. It was a typical pornographic pose, but made intimate because I’d nearly seen that same expression on the veranda off her bedroom, with the lights of the city sparkling in the background and the raucous noise of the partygoers rumbling up from the floor below.

There was a flashing banner across the top of the website. “Join Brianna’s Private Chat Now!!” it said. “The Session Just Started. Only One Spot Left!!” I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes after six. I remembered Ed Vargas describing the weekly sessions. $250 dollars and limited to twenty-five participants. It sounded like a typical advertising scam. A very exclusive club where they always managed to squeeze in just one more paying customer.

At $250, I figured I could just bill Ed for an extra hour of time. He would never question it. After all, Brianna was still on my seemingly endless list of potential suspects. I could call it research.

I got out a credit card and went through the login procedures. It was all very simple, like buying a book or anything else over the Internet. Then a screen came up assuring me of my privacy and asking for a screen name to be used during the chat session. I thought about various names I could use for a few seconds and then smiled as I typed in “Manuel Castells.”

When the screen refreshed, it was divided into a main window and a narrow column down the side where the text messages appeared. In the window was a softly lit room, like a sitting room, with a daybed full of brightly colored cushions and pillows. Brianna sat on the bed in a blue lace teddy with her legs tucked under her. She was smiling into the camera and talking.

Through the speakers beside my monitor, she was saying, “God, it’s so great to see everyone here. I’ve been thinking about this all day. It’s been making me so f*cking wet.”

When my screen name appeared in the chat box, she said, “Oh, it looks like someone new just joined us.” I could see her glance to the side of the camera, as if reading a monitor. She hesitated for a second, before saying, “If it isn’t Mr. Castells, or should I say, Professor Castells. Welcome, Professor.”

I typed, “It’s nice to be here.” It seemed an oddly polite thing to say, given the situation.

Then she asked, “Who’s got their cock out? Which one of you is stroking a big, hard cock right now?”

Five or six people responded with variations on the biggest one you’ve ever seen or can’t you feel it?

She chuckled and said, “I wish you were here right now. All of you. I’d f*ck and suck you all like you’ve never seen. Just thinking of all of you watching me right now. All the attention turns me on.” Then she glanced off screen and motioned with her head for someone to come closer. Then a man appeared at the edge of the screen. He stood bare-chested in tight blue jeans. If it weren’t for the flame tattoo on his upper chest and shoulder, I never would have recognized him, but I did. It was the man who met us in the hallway at the party on Sunday night. I stared at him, thinking about his strange comments, his ugly tone, his crudeness. I was nearly repulsed when Brianna reached out and rubbed the bulge in his jeans.

She said to her cyber-peepers, “Luckily, I’ve got Todd here. He’s only got one cock, and I’m sure it’s not nearly as big as any of yours, but it’ll have to do.” She smiled and glanced downward with a sheepish, almost embarrassed grin. Then she asked, “Does anyone want to watch me suck this dick? I just love to suck a hot, throbbing cock. I can’t stand to be in the same room with one without having it in my mouth.”

There was a whole chorus of responses now. The chat board lit up with delighted comments like Smoke that pole! and Gobble like a turkey, baby!

Then she looked into the camera and said, “What about you, Professor?”

I felt heat flush through me. I squirmed in my chair. I wasn’t sure what to say. I thought briefly about just shutting the computer off, but instead, I typed, “That’s my first homework assignment for you.”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Well then,” she said, “I’d better get to work if I want to get an A.”

She unzipped his pants and reached into the hole with three of her fingers, then she undid the button at the waist. The jeans fell loose to Todd’s knees and his absurdly thick, flaccid penis flopped forward from his shaved groin. She grabbed it at the base and four or five slack inches still dangled loose from her fist. She took it in her mouth and cupped his shorn balls with her other hand.

It was almost too much to watch. I was growing aroused and repulsed at the same time. She worked her head back and forth in smooth, rhythmic strokes. Each time she pulled back Todd was longer and harder. The chat board was filled with virtual hoots and catcalls, replete with misspellings and abbreviations and acronyms I didn’t understand. After a minute, when Todd was fully erect, she would take her mouth off the tip of it and moan one her customers’ names.

“Oh Stiffy,” “Oh * Licker,” she’d say, or “Christ, Mr. Rogers, you can come in my neighborhood anytime.” She managed to make direct references to everyone, personalizing her performance. One guy called himself Jack Kennedy, another simply, The Pope. She said something to them all. She was an absolute, consummate professional. In every way. Playing to the audience. Working the virtual room.

Soon she’d stopped and removed the teddy. Now she was naked and her loose breasts were almost breathtaking. She was on all fours, with Todd behind her, rubbing her between the legs. I watched with repulsed fascination. I imagined the two of us on her veranda, in her room, her firm, tan flesh straddling me in her Eames chair. What if I had stayed, I kept asking myself. What if I had stayed?

I had scooted my chair back and was sitting with my pants to my ankles when Brianna turned to the camera again and said, as if she were sitting right there in the room with me, “How did I do, Professor? Did I get an A?”

I found that my hands were shaking so that I could barely type. “An A+,” I responded, and then added, “but you can earn extra credit.”

“Oh!” she gasped, obviously pleased with me playing along. “I’d do anything for extra credit.” Then she added, in a hushed, little girl voice, “Anything at all, for the Professor.”

It was crude. It was repugnant. I couldn’t believe I was going along. Why not log off? Just get up and go home. See Liz. Have dinner. Be normal. But I couldn’t. I had to see what she would do, what else she would say, where it was going to lead. I let go of myself long enough to type, “A smart girl like you knows what ‘A’ stand for.”

“What a naughty Professor,” she said. But she knew what I meant and voiced no complaints.

The others were chiming in, delirious with approval. Yeah! Take it! they said. BriASSna Jones, I love you!, another wrote. Still another simply said, Todd, you are one lucky sumbitch.

Brianna looked back over her shoulder and said, “Get it wet first, Todd.”

And he did. He f*cked her for a few minutes while he plunged his thumb into her ass, loosening the muscles. A virtual frenzy continued on the chat board. The camera moved in for a close up of Todd’s huge prick stretching Brianna’s vagina. It was unbelievably large and several of the comments on the board wondered if there were any way it would really go into her other hole.

But only moments later it did. The board fell silent as we all watched Todd work it into her. Brianna gave a guttural moan as he entered her. Her hand seemed to clench the fabric on the bed with genuine tension. But within moments her body eased, relaxed into it, and she moaned and screamed for him to f*ck her hard while we all watched, gaping, slack jawed, as he slid in and out of her at a steady, pounding pace, building and building, faster and faster and faster.

And that was all I could take. I clutched myself for an instant, nearly losing my breath, before my prostate contracted with an overwhelming, almost painful, explosion—and then again, and then a third time. Hot liquid seemed to be everywhere in the darkness as I closed my eyes and saw her there, across from me at the restaurant, facing me on the balcony, her hard nipples against my chest, begging me to release them from that thin black dress.

And then I was alone in my office, my whole body pulsating to the rhythm of my own racing heartbeat. The room was dark. Brianna was still on the monitor, still moaning to Todd’s quick thrusts. The chat room was still erupting with delighted, orgasmic glee. But I felt a sickness now, deep in my stomach, deep in my groin. I was disgusted with myself and what I was watching. With more than that even.

I closed my eyes again and saw the sickly green and black bruises on the Mexican girl’s body. The black, unnamable stain on the mattress. I could see her tied to it, gagged and wide-eyed with terror and pain. A nightstick up her ass. The cop beating her and jerking off all over her tits. Her face horrified and turned toward the wall as he spit on her and laughed. Blood and shit pouring or squirting from her body.

Jesus F*cking Christ.

I stood up, needing to do something, anything to stop the pictures in my head, to quell the sick feeling inside me. Then the phone rang. It startled me to a cold stillness. I watched it light up as it rang again. I checked my watch: 6:45. I answered it without thinking.

“Hello?”

“Ollie?” It was Liz.

My heart seized as I glanced down at the computer to see Todd pulling out of Brianna as she turned quickly so he could ejaculate on her face. I covered the mouthpiece and clamored to turn down the sound on the computer.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound normal, casual.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You sound out of breath, like you’re in a hurry or something.”

“Oh,” I laughed, forcing it out as I tried to think of something. “I was just moving some boxes in the storage room, looking for a file. I had to run in here to grab the phone. I thought it might be you.”

“Well, you need to quit f*cking around,” she said. Her voice was suddenly cold with fear.

“Liz, what is it?”

“Jendrek just called. He’s been arrested for drug possession. Heroin. He said some cops pulled him over and made him get out of the car. Said they were acting on an anonymous tip that Jendrek was dealing. They found something like a pound of the stuff in his glove compartment.”

“Are you kidding?” I knew she wasn’t.

“Do I sound like I’m kidding?” She waited for a second and added, “Ollie? I’m scared. What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know,” I said, staring at the computer screen, feeling the sticky moisture on my hands. “This is all crazy, and I don’t have a f*cking clue.”