Artemis Falcone knocked on the frame of the open door. “Hey guys, my assistant told me you needed to see me.”
“Yeah, Arty,” Laslo answered. “C’mon in. Welcome to our palace.”
Benny and Laslo were working out of a small windowless storage room. After David Jepson’s direction that they be given a private workspace, the room was quickly cleared out and furnished with three chairs and an old “partners” desk so Benny and Laslo faced each other over the large surface. They positioned the third chair at the midpoint of the enormous desk, looking across it to the wall.
“Weird spot for the interview subject,” Laslo said as they set up.
“No, perfect,” Benny answered. “Really fucks with people that they can’t see both of us at the same time and gotta keep turning their head. And we intend to fuck with some of these mopes.”
Arty Falcone slid into the chair facing across the desk’s midline. “Never been down here before,” he said, turning his head from Laslo to Benny and back to Laslo, the strong scent of cologne beginning to fill the space. “Didn’t even know we had a basement.”
“Well, you do,” Benny said flatly. “So you like to fuck children, do I have that right?”
Arty’s head snapped quickly to look at Benny, his hair swinging out of place. He brushed it back. “What’d you say?”
Benny recognized the classic delaying tactic and so hit him again quickly.
“You heard me. Bad enough the shit you do to actual grown women around here—which we’ll get to—but fuckin’ adolescents in Bangkok? You kidding me?”
The normally smooth, lightly tanned Falcone was now red, a mixture of anger and panic playing out across his face. As planned, Benny now gave him a focus for that emotion.
“Helen was holdin’ all this shit over your head, wasn’t she?”
Falcone needed time to think, so Benny gave it to him, dropping one open palm loudly on the file folder in front of him. “This is Helen’s file on you. Pictures, reports, all the nasty bits. But we ain’t the cops. Right now we don’t give a shit what you were doin’ on your own time. We wanna know what Helen was up to. She jam you or not?”
Arty almost seemed relieved. “Yes, yes, she did. She came to me, all concerned-like. ‘Oh Arty, I’m worried about you and your family. You could put yourself in a position to be blackmailed, blah, blah, blah.’ I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about.”
He paused and gestured toward the file under Benny’s huge hand. “But she says, ‘Don’t bother,’ and tells me she has it all documented—photos, the whole nine yards.”
Arty turned his head to look at Laslo, his tone almost pleading. “And, look, I never did anything nonconsensual. Okay, maybe I didn’t exactly have verbal consent before some of the grabbing and shit at parties here, but everybody was drunk and it was only kissing and stuff and we were just having some fun. But overseas—where you gotta realize things are different than they are here—I never forced any of those girls. Never raised a hand.”
“I told you,” Benny said, pulling Arty’s attention back, “this ain’t about us investigating that shit. This is about us trying to understand what Helen did to you.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Arty said. “She said she was glad she was the one who knew about it all because she knew how to protect the company—and me. She said she needed to know I was on the Saugatuck team. I told her I was, I was.”
He turned to Laslo and added, “I am, you know,” before turning back to Benny. “She told me I would be okay so long as she didn’t hear about me doing anything again. I told her I wouldn’t. She said she’d be watching and there would be no second chance. She’d have no choice but to go to David, who would fucking fry me.”
He swiveled his head back to Laslo. “He would, by the way. You know that.”
When he turned back, Benny’s eyebrows were arched. “And so?”
“And so, what?” Arty asked.
“You keep your promise to Helen?”
“Oh, I did,” Arty said, moving his head back and forth quickly between the two men as he spoke. “I did. Kept it in my pants and my hands to myself since that moment, which was almost a year ago. Swear to God. She scared the shit out of me.”
“You know Helen was also trying to figure out who was front running Saugatuck, right?” Benny asked.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You know what front running is, of course?”
“I do,” Arty said.
“That another of your kinks?”
“How the hell would I front run? You need information about particular trades, before they happen. I never had that. They wouldn’t let me within a mile of our trades. I’m the client schmoozer.”
Benny paused and brought one hand to his chin, as if thinking, and then dropped the hand. “So forget the front running. But on the sex front, where you have major expertise, if Helen goes away, your problems go away. Amiright?”
“Look, I get why you say that, but I didn’t kill Helen. Sure I was pissed at first, but I actually think she saved me, in a way.”
“Where were you the night she was killed?” Benny asked.
“Home, with my wife. I didn’t go to the sunset party at Compo. After my little chat with Helen, I stopped going to company parties. Drinking and cute women are a bad combo for me. So I was home, probably watching TV. My wife can tell you.”
He paused before quietly adding, “Look, I’ve done stuff I shouldn’t have, but I’m not a killer.”
Benny looked at Laslo and nodded slightly. “Okay Arty,” Laslo said in a loud voice. “Thanks for coming down. We’ll be in touch.”
Arty put his hands on his thighs to push himself out of the chair but paused and inclined his head to look at the thick file, which was still covered by Benny’s hand. “Hey, any chance I can have that?”
“None,” Benny said softly.
Arty rose from the chair and moved toward the door before stopping to turn back and look at the ceiling. “Hey, you didn’t tape that, right?”
“Why you ask that?” Benny replied.
“I don’t know,” Arty said. “It felt personal and I didn’t give my consent to be recorded, is all.”
Benny laughed, “Yeah, good to be reminded just how much you care about consent. Go on, get outta here. We’re done with you, for now. And, Jesus man, can you take some of that cologne with you?”
“Thanks for coming down, Arty,” Laslo said again.