“What I think is that you’re a piece of shit.”
Before Trapper took a swing at Wilcox, which he seemed on the verge of doing, Kerra nudged him aside and faced Wilcox across the desk. “Why was the attempt made on our lives so soon after the interview?”
“I think you’ve figured that out,” he said, dividing a look between them.
“They’re afraid of my memory?” she asked.
“Should they be?”
Trapper said, “Don’t answer that.”
“He’s right, Kerra,” Wilcox said. “Until these men are arrested, whatever you remember of that day, you should keep to yourself.” He looked between them again, but landed on Trapper. “I want to see the people who killed my daughter brought to justice.”
“Then why didn’t you sic the police on them when it happened? Why sweep it under the rug? Oh, wait. I know. You couldn’t expose them without your own crimes coming to light.”
“Not entirely.”
“Then enlighten me.”
“If I’d implicated them, the backlash would have been unmerciful.”
“You would have been knocked off next? Or your wife?”
“Oh, no. They would’ve punished me on a much grander scale. A school bus full of children would’ve been disintegrated. A nursing home’s heating system would’ve malfunctioned, and everyone in it would’ve been asphyxiated. Those were only two of the possibilities suggested to me.”
“Jesus.”
“Are you serious?”
Kerra and Trapper had spoken at the same time. Wilcox said, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. They’re ruthless. They’ll stop at nothing.”
“They learned from a damn good high priest,” Trapper said.
The other man lowered his head for a moment and exhaled, but he didn’t own up to it.
Trapper tilted his head in puzzlement. “One thing I don’t get. Why haven’t they just popped you?”
Wilcox’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Because I have an assassination-proof life insurance policy.”
“Bulletproof vest?” Trapper said. “Life preserver? Food taster?”
“Something much surer.”
“What?”
Wilcox smiled. “Not until we’ve made our deal, Mr. Trapper.” Wilcox checked his wristwatch again and stood. “This has gone on too long. You don’t have to give me an answer tonight. But until you do, your life is in jeopardy, along with Kerra’s and The Major’s. You’ve made clear what you think of me. But balance their lives against your enmity toward me, and your decision should become clear. The sooner we strike our deal, the better for all concerned.” He extended his hand. “May I have my pistol back, please? You may keep the bullets, but the gun is a valuable artifact.”
Trapper regarded him closely, then reached around to the small of his back, pulled the revolver from his waistband, and handed it over. Wilcox thanked him and dropped the pistol into the pocket of his overcoat.
“I’ll leave first,” he told them. As he moved past Kerra, he paused and looked at her as though he would say something more, then he went out without further comment, the broken door glass crunching beneath his shoes.
They heard the whirr of the elevator. “Isn’t the entrance kept locked?” Kerra asked. “How will he get out?”
“If he managed to get in…” Trapper said. He went over to the window and peered through the blinds.
“Is he leaving?”
“With the musketeers flanking him.” He continued watching for a time, then whispered, “Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“There was a fifth. He just came out of the building across the street, carrying a rifle case. They’re going, him and his armed escorts.” When he came back around to her, he said, “Or those guys could be his Tuesday night poker group, and he’s just telling us bogeyman stories to throw us off.”
“He might have lied about everything else, but I don’t believe he lied about his daughter and how she died.”
“Me either.”
“And the rest of it?”
“I tend to believe that, too,” Trapper said grimly. “He’s spooked, or he wouldn’t have been here. And those guys were too good to be poker buddies. I didn’t know they were there.”
“Will you intercede on his behalf?”
“With the feds, you mean?” He huffed a laugh. “He’s got a whole lot more faith in my influence than I do.”
She looked down at the wall outlet. “What was hidden in there?”
“Wilcox made a lucky guess.”
“You’d put everything on a flash drive?”
“Yep. Copies of every scrap of information, names, dates, transcripts of interviews with people who survived the Pegasus, and a recording of Berkley Johnson spilling his guts to me.”
“On video?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want Wilcox to know about that. Not yet.”
“Did you ever show it to anyone?”
“My immediate supervisor. He debunked it, believed it to be an elaborate lie Johnson concocted because of a grudge against his employer. He was a recovered alcoholic and in his youth had served time for committing a series of burglaries. They were penny-ante crimes, but his record brought his credibility into question.
“I suggested we depose him, where he’d be under oath—plus under pain of death from me if he was lying. But before that came about, he was killed.” He moved behind the desk, crouched in front of the hole in the wall, and stuck his arm inside up to his elbow, feeling around. When he stood up, he dusted his hands.
Kerra deflated. “They got it?”
“They got one of them.”
“One of them?”
A slow smile spread across Trapper’s face.
“Where’d you find it?”
Jenks replied, “Behind a wall outlet. Last place I looked.”
The other man pushed the flash drive into the computer port. “Where you find something is always the last place you look.”
The deputy chuckled. “Before I got to that outlet, I had the pleasure of turning the place inside out. Trapper won’t recognize it. Or his apartment, either.” He raised his glass of whiskey and saluted his own success.
“Let’s see what we have.”
Jenks scooted his chair closer so that he could see the computer monitor. The files on the drive were numbered, but not named. “May as well start at the top,” Jenks said.
The file opened onto a video screen. The play arrow was clicked on. For several seconds the screen remained black, but audio began playing. It was a percussion beat.
Then the video fade-in showed three naked people on an unmade bed, two women and a man, in flagrante delicto. A ménage à trois to the accompaniment of a monotonous thump, thump, thump.
Chapter 21
Kerra sputtered and then laughed out loud when Trapper told her what the vandal would find on the flash drive. “How many such videos did you put on there?”
“Ten or twelve. But after the first file is opened, he’ll know he’s been had.”
They’d left his office within minutes of Wilcox’s departure and were back in the ugly car borrowed from Carson’s brother-in-law. Trapper was driving.