Room number ten was located on the ground floor of the motel, the second to last along the left wing. Beyond the floodlit corner of the motel, I could see a line of commercial rigs parked parallel to one another across the truck stop parking lot.
I inserted the key in the door lock, stepped inside, and shut the door behind me. The room gave off the lingering smell of stale tobacco smoke and forty years of every manner of bodily excretion.
The back window looked down a refuse-littered slope to the nearest pavilion of diesel fuel tanks. An eighteen-wheeler slowed to a stop with the loud hooting of hydraulic brakes next to one of the pumps. I closed the front and back curtains and turned on the bedside floor lamp.
The room decor consisted of mirrored walls, stained indoor-outdoor carpeting, a sagging queen-sized bed, and two vinyl chairs. A fake Tiffany chandelier hung over a Formica side table.
An empty ice bucket and two plastic cups enclosed in cellophane sat on the table. There was a framed poster of a stock car driver with oversized aviator sunglasses above the headboard of the bed. The poster was bolted to the wall.
I stepped into the tiny bathroom. Another mirror hung over the cracked sink. To the left was a white plastic tub-shower enclosure screened by a red plastic curtain. I took a leak in the toilet before heading back into the bedroom.
The wind was gusting outside, but I could also hear the sounds of a woman moaning in apparent ecstasy through the wall of the room next door. The incredible adventure of it all—the theater—was the way Jordan Langford had explained it to me. It was a long way from Broadway.
I tried to visualize where the camera might have been placed during the video recording of Jordan and the girl. My eyes went to the corner of the room where the Formica table sat under the fake chandelier. The action had to have been shot from that direction. I pulled the chandelier toward me. No one seemed to have tampered with it.
Next door, the woman’s moans were joined by a series of loud grunts, as if a wild boar had begun rooting for ants in the forest. Then it was quiet again except for the wind.
I knelt at the edge of the table. When I tried to move it, it wouldn’t budge, and I saw that it was anchored to the floor. I slowly ran my hand down the shaft of the vertical metal stand that supported the top.
I found the convex lens of the camera about halfway down. Someone had drilled a hole the size of an M&M in the shaft before cementing the lens into position. The camera lens was facing the bed.
Using my pocket knife, I pried the transmitter out of the setting and held it up to the light. It looked like a German wireless transmitting device used by European intelligence agencies. Obsolete by current standards, it was configured to send a wireless signal to a nearby recording device.
I wondered if the rig had been set up just to record Jordan’s adventures or if it was a specialty of the Wonderland. I had no way of knowing if it was still being monitored.
I unscrewed the back of the transmitter and had just removed its tiny battery when there was a soft knock on the door. Tucking the transmitter into my jeans pocket, I walked over and opened the door.
A young woman was standing in the entryway. I could hear the rustling of rain in the tree leaves behind her, beyond the parking lot. It was probably the beginning of the first rainband.
She was holding a black leather briefcase at her side. In the light of the coach lamp next to the door, I saw that her face was Eurasian. She wore a long tan raincoat that covered her slim body down to the ankles and was smiling.
The smile disappeared when she saw that I wasn’t Jordan Langford.
“So sorry,” she said in a lilting voice. “Wrong room.”
She was much lovelier in person than she had appeared in the video, with large almond-shaped eyes and thick black hair that was exquisitely coiled around her head. She was beautiful.
“You’ve got the right room, Leila,” I said, taking her free hand and firmly drawing her inside.
“No Leila,” she protested as she came in.
“I’m Alicia’s sister,” I said, closing the door behind her.
There was something Central Asian about her, a definite hint of Mongol blood in the delicate half-caste face. I had seen Eurasian women with similar features in the melting pots of Jalalabad and Tashkent.
“How is the weather in Samarkand this time of year?” I asked, leaning against the closed door when she was inside.
“What? You . . . crazy . . . I want to go,” she said.
She offered no resistance when I took the briefcase out of her hand, unlocked the fasteners, and spread it open. Inside the case was an assortment of lingerie; a small, powerful vibrator; several tubes of scented massage oil; and a bottle of spring water.
Wedged in the crease of one of the slatted leather dividers was the spine of a book. Letting it slide out, I saw it was a soft-cover textbook. The title was Male Ecology: Social Development from Infancy through Adulthood.
I glanced back at the girl. Her seemingly bewildered eyes suggested that its presence alongside the tools of her trade was one of life’s great mysteries. The backflap of the book had a label that read, “Green Storm: Used Text.” Green Storm was the St. Andrews College athletic symbol. It was also the name of the college bookstore.
“Why don’t you drop the pidgin English act?” I said, still blocking the door. “It needs work.”
“Pliss,” she said, her eyes darting to the window and then back to me. “I want to go,” she repeated.
Considering there was no public transportation within twenty miles, I went through the rest of the briefcase looking for her driver’s license. Aside from an assortment of ribbed condoms and three fifty-dollar bills, there was nothing else inside it. She had probably left her purse and identification in the car. Replacing the book and her money, I closed the briefcase and refastened the locks.
“So how did you get into blackmail, Leila?” I asked, handing it back to her.
“Just pleasure girl,” she said in the same singsong voice.
“I’m an undercover police officer,” I came back with a ferocious stare, hauling out my wallet and flashing my cheesy campus security badge. “You can drop this act and talk to me here, or I’ll arrest you now and take you down to headquarters.”
I had always wanted to use a line like that.
“I would never attempt to blackmail President Langford,” she replied in Oxford-accented English.
It was my turn to be impressed.
“How did you know who he was?” I demanded.
“I’m a junior at St. Andrews,” she said. “I recognized him as soon as he came to meet me the first time.”
“Miram Shakirov.”
“Where are you from?”
“Uzbekistan. Tashkent. I’m here on a full government scholarship.”
I held out one of the vinyl chairs for her. She opened the buttons of her raincoat before sitting. Her low-cut silk blouse displayed unusual cleavage for an Uzbek woman.
“Are you half Russian?” I asked her in Uzbek Arabic.
Her eyes widened in surprise for a moment before she nodded.
“What kind of policeman are you?” she asked.
“I handle all the Uzbek cases in the New York Finger Lakes,” I said. “So why did you use the fake accent, Miram?”
“I . . . didn’t want him to be embarrassed,” she answered. “I think he’s an amazing man.”
“Right,” I said. “You think he’s amazing. So when did you decide to let the blackmailers know who he was?”
“What blackmailers? I didn’t . . . I never told anyone.”
“Come on, Miram. We both know blackmail pays a lot better than selling yourself.”
“I’m not selling myself,” she said hotly. “I do this because I’m studying to go into the hospitality industry.”
“The hospitality industry,” I repeated.
“I’m raising the seed capital to create a franchised network of legalized sexual service centers,” she said. “My company is called Please Release Me. You can learn all about it on my website.”
When I continued to stare at her skeptically, she said, “It’s true . . . I’ve already received contingent commitment letters from two venture capital firms that have read my business plan.”
The story sounded too ridiculous to believe she was making it all up. The way the world was going, she would probably make a fortune with it. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t also figured out a way to make Jordan pay a share of her capitalization costs.
“Did you ever see anyone else when you were with him in this room?” I asked. “Someone who might have planted a camera to record what you were doing here?”
Her eyes seemed shocked.
“No,” she said firmly. “Never.”
Checking my watch, I saw that it was already seven twenty. Not wanting to shell out another fifty dollars, I decided to walk her back to her car to check her identification and ask about the call-girl service. Maybe she had passed along Jordan’s identity to someone working there.
“All right, let’s go,” I said, standing up.
From the look on her face, I saw that she thought I was arresting her.
“Now that we are both here,” she said, looking up at me with those lovely almond eyes, “might I possibly please you in some way?”
It’s funny, getting older. Your knees might be swollen with arthritis and there might be enough crow’s feet around your eyes to inspire Edgar Allan Poe, but part of you wants to believe you’ve still got it. The old magic.
“You’re a very good-looking man,” she said, her eyes posed invitingly.
“Yeah,” I said, grinning back. I could imagine her saying exactly the same thing to the two senior citizen cowboys I had seen in the reception area.
“No . . . you are,” she insisted as I tried to remember the name of the call-girl service she worked with. Friends with All the Benefits . . . that was the name the woman used when I had called to set up the appointment. The girl had to know where they were located, and I doubted it was very far away. That would be my next stop. I decided to take her with me.
“Please don’t arrest me,” she said, her voice going soft.
“Not if you cooperate, Miram.”
I was about to ask her the address of Friends with All the Benefits when there was another knock at the door. She appeared startled at the interruption as I went to open it, expecting Buntid to be there, looking for his next fifty and asking how I was enjoying the view.
A man in a flowered Hawaiian shirt was standing in the sheltered walkway that connected the ground-floor rooms. Behind him, the sky was filled with rain. I could hear its steady rapping on the slanted roof.
“So who are you, man?” he asked with a cocky grin.
He was in his late twenties, short and stocky, with simian arms that nearly reached his knees. His body-builder’s physique was undercut a little by an almost girlish pretty face. He had long dark eyelashes and a button nose. His thick brown hair was tied off in a ponytail.
“You don’t know?” I came back.
“I know you got something of mine,” he said.
In the faint gleam of the headlights passing by on the thruway, I saw a hint of movement in the darkness behind him and realized he wasn’t alone. The second man was standing out in the rain beyond the sheltered walkway.
“I paid for this fabulous room,” I said. “You can both have it when I’m finished.”
“You got something that belongs to me,” he repeated, no longer grinning. “I want it.”
“Really? What’s that?” I asked.
“You know what it is. We saw you take it.”
“So you’re the movie maker . . . you need the camera to go to Hollywood, right?”
“Keep it up, wiseass,” he said.
“I think I’ll just hold onto it until I find out why you put it there, Beauty.”
“What did you say, asshole?”
His right hand slowly dipped into the hip pocket of his pants.
I could feel my heart pumping against my chest and took a deep breath. In my mind’s eye, I saw the Colt .45 tucked in its hiding place next to the chimney in the cabin and silently cursed myself.
“You’re as pretty as a girl,” I said. “But I guess all the guys tell you that.”
His right hand swung back into the light holding a butterfly knife. With a flick of his wrist, the flashing blade whipped toward me.
“You can get hurt with one of those, Beauty.”
As I slipped my hand into my jeans pocket, I remembered that I had left my own knife on the table inside the room. Instead, I found the few coins I had taken in change after buying the sandwich and coffee.
“You’ll find out soon enough, asshole,” he said, taking a step toward the open doorway.
Big Jim Dickey had told me I was going to seed, and he was probably right. I wondered whether I still had anything left as he bent forward into a low wrestler’s stance and moved toward me, the knife extended in his right hand.
Beyond the walkway, I heard the light crunch of the other man’s shoes on the gravel parking lot as he headed toward the room. A moment later, the coach lamp that illuminated the doorway went out.
“Stay out of it, Angie . . . this prick’s mine,” said Beauty.
“Angie?” I asked. “You brought your girlfriend along to help?”
“I’m gonna cut your balls off,” he rasped.
He moved slowly toward me, keeping his left foot in front of the right just as I would have done. When he was three feet away, he feinted to the right and then lunged at me, thrusting the blade in a short upward arc and slitting the loose fold of my shirt as I stepped back and to the side.
I felt a sharp sting and then a warm stream of blood running down my chest. Palming the coins from my pocket in my right hand, I backed across the motel room. With his apelike arms, his reach was well beyond mine.
As he closed the distance again, I hurled the coins into his face and launched a kick with my right boot that caught his hand in midswing. The butterfly knife flew across the room.
Hearing sudden movement behind me, I remembered that Leila was still there and could be part of their action. Turning quickly, I saw she had pried open the back window. Already half-through, she looked back at me with terror-stricken eyes.
For a body builder, Beauty moved fast. A moment later, he was riding my back, his left elbow cutting off the air to my windpipe and the fingers of his right hand clawing for my eyes. When I tried to throw him off, he wrapped his legs around my thighs.
Knowing that the other man was still out there, I lugged him close enough to kick the door shut. It was the type that locked automatically. Two seconds later, a body slammed into it.
Angie wasn’t his girlfriend or kid sister. Thankfully, the door held.
Shielding my eyes with my right hand, I swung around in a full circle and then drove Beauty into the nearest wall, smashing the plate glass mirror. It didn’t loosen his hold. While I struggled to breathe, he kept clawing at me with his fingernails, his head just behind mine, his gnashing teeth trying to reach my left ear.
I was able to reach the side of his jaw with my right hand. Curling my index and middle finger into the rigid shape of a fishhook, I thrust them inside his cheek and ripped at his mouth with all my strength.
“Angie!” he screamed as the corner of his mouth split open and tore along the jawline.
In response, there was another booming slam against the door. It began to splinter as Beauty’s legs came free from my thighs. Pulling my fingers loose from his ruined mouth, I dipped my shoulder to the left and heaved him across my back. He landed on the bed and was back on his feet a moment later.
He was trying to scrabble back into a wrestler’s clinch when I grabbed his left wrist, levered his arm over my knee, and snapped it downward, dislocating his elbow.
He screamed again as the door shattered behind us. I chopped down hard on the back of Beauty’s neck and the screaming stopped.
As the second man came through the door, I saw that he was close to my own height but twenty pounds heavier. Maybe forty-five years old, he was wearing a sleeveless tank top that revealed a blacksmith’s arms and big knobby hands. His left eye was milky white.
He came toward me in a fighter’s crouch, both fists protecting his face above the slab of his chest. From the flattened nose and scar tissue around his eyes, he had probably been a professional, but not a very good one. Moving counterclockwise, I began throwing quick jabs at his head to keep him away from me, hoping to throw a straight right as soon as he dropped his hands.
Blood was still running into my eyes from one of the gouges Beauty had carved in me. The guy ducked left and threw a solid hook that caught me on the temple, backing me toward the front window. Quickly following up, he threw a straight left with most of his weight behind it. The punch landed flush on my jaw, and I went down hard, instinctively rolling over as the toe of his boot glanced off my upper thigh.
It was Beauty who saved me, choosing that moment to try to shove himself up from the floor. As the old fighter stepped back to launch a kick at my groin, he tripped over Beauty, going down to one knee.
Even as I scrambled to my feet, I knew I had to end it or they would soon be filleting me with the butterfly knife. The big guy was smiling as he came on, sensing I was almost done. Flicking a hard jab in my face, he followed it with a left-right combination, driving me back toward the Formica table. I grabbed the chandelier to stay on my feet, and it swung me around far enough that his next roundhouse punch missed me completely. As he lunged past, I delivered a solid right hook to his Adam’s apple.
His good eye went blank for a moment, and he stumbled before turning to come back at me. He was moving slower now and having trouble breathing. Pivoting around to his blind side, I drove a hard punch to his kidneys, and he grunted out loud. It was the first noise he had made since battering his way into the room. He swung back wildly at me, but the punch missed as I ducked away.
Head down, he charged me, and I kicked him in the right knee. As he buckled toward me, I straightened him with an uppercut to the jaw, feeling the shock of it all the way up my shoulder. He reeled back several feet before dropping heavily to the floor. He was struggling to get up again when I kicked him in the head and he lay still.
For several seconds I stood there swaying back and forth, my left shoulder numb, both legs trembling. I felt a wave of gray nausea, but at least my head was still on my shoulders. That was a start. Glancing across the room, I saw that Beauty was trying to crawl across the floor. He was advancing a few inches at a time, whimpering softly as he tried to cradle the dislocated elbow in his right hand.
The splintered motel room door swung open, and I looked up to see a woman standing in the shattered doorframe. It was one of the Korean women from the reception area.
She was holding a fresh set of towels and two clean sheets in her arms. Apparently she did double duty on the maid staff. Her fathomless black eyes took in the wreckage of the room without any noticeable reaction.
“We’re still tidying up here . . . just a few more minutes,” I said, attempting to smile.