30

IT WAS SUNDAY NIGHT, and Winkie was having a hard time breathing. Whenever he sucked in air, he got a terrible burning sensation at the back of his Adam’s apple . . . (which Wink thought of as “the Apple”).

That dirty son of a bitch, the new guy . . . Bobby Hopps had just about smashed “the Apple,” and now it was all swollen inside. Wink, as his pals called him, made horrific hacking noises all day and night, irritating everyone at the Valentine Club.

Timmy had told him to get the fuck out of his office a couple of times in the past few days. Which made Wink sore as hell. He would just love another crack at Mr. Bobby Hopps.

Even worse, Timmy seemed to be in love with the guy, telling him stories and laughing with him . . . hanging around with him in the office, like The Winkster himself used to do.

Winkie now sat on a hard-backed chair outside of the office, his throat burning and his heart half-broken.

Man-oh-man, if ever he hated a guy, it was that Mr. Bobby Hopps.

He was so angry, he had invented a new name for Mr. Bobby. It was one people had called him when he was a kid. One that royally pissed him off .

Junior! How he hated being called that. So that’s what he’d do to Hopps.

Call Mr. Bobby Hopps “Junior”!

Yeah, when he could talk without hacking up blood and pus he would spring that one on Mr. Bobby, for sure.

He’d say:

“Oh, look who it is. Mr. Bobby Hopps . . . Junior!”

That would really bug Hopps — he was sure of it.

’Cause nobody but nobody liked to be called Junior!

And if it pissed Hopps off enough to come after him with the Finger Trick, Wink would be ready this time. He’d reach out and grab Hopps’s forefinger, and snap it off like a freakin’ No. 2 pencil.

He could already see Hopps falling to the ground in excruciating pain. Once down there Winkie would kick him in his testicles until they looked like chipped beef.

Winkie started to laugh, amused at his own witty mind, but the laugh caught in his throat . . . literally. He began to gag and cough, and felt “the Apple” bulging out of the right side of his neck . . . man, that Hopps asshole had pushed “the Apple” all sideways!

The asshole! He’d kill him the next time. No doubt about it. He was about to dream up another sadisto fantasy concerning what punishment he would lay on Hopps when his attention was diverted by the sound of footsteps down the hall.

He jumped off his chair and put his mammoth hand on his .44 millimeter cannon, which was cradled in his brand-new Spanish leather holster, a present from none other than his boss, Mr. Tim Andreen.

Back two months ago, when Timmy still valued his friendship.

But he couldn’t worry about that now. There was somebody coming down the hall on a Sunday night. Somebody was inside the Valentine Club, and this was all wrong.

People weren’t supposed to be “in the structure” during off hours. Nobody but Timmy and Winkie himself were supposed to be here. That was a solid fast rule!

Wink adjusted his eye patch, unbuttoned his holster with a flick of his finger, and waited . . . to see who it was.

He hoped it would be Mr. Bobby Hopps and he would have a reason to smash him in the gonads with a swift kick . . . would that not be a great thing?

Oh, yes . . . Yes . . . indeed.

But no . . . no . . . it wasn’t Hopps. Instead it was that new singer . . . the Chink chick, Michelle Wu, and she was dressed in this unbelievable midnight blue gown, with a plunging neckline . . . a neckline that revealed big ice-cream scoops of her fabulous breasts.

Winkie felt dizzy. Girls did weird stuff to him.

He tried to assume an angry posture but she was smiling at him (at him!) and he felt kind of swoony.

He managed to croak out a couple of words as he sat back down in his chair.

“Hey, Michelle. Just what the heck are you doing here?”

“I came to use the piano in the dining room, Wink. Need to practice my tunes. Think you could come in and help me?”

“Me?” Wink said. His lizard heart fluttered like a butterfly’s wings inside his massive chest.

“You,” Michelle said. “Come on, Wink. I heard you’re musical.”

Wink felt really funny now. She was standing oh so close to him, and she had on this perfume that just seemed to smother him . . . but it was a good kind of smother. Really good.

But still . . . He had a job to do.

“I’m afraid I can’t, uh, do that,” he said, immediately feeling like a dork. He’d hoped it was going to come out suave, like maybe James Bond might say it. Instead, he sounded like a constipated bullfrog.

“Why not?” Michelle said. “I just need you to turn the pages of my sheet music. Let me show you. It’s easy.”

“I’m sure it is,” Winky croaked. “But, see, you are not supposed to be in the structure on Sunday nights. That’s a hard- and-fast rule.”

“Yes, well, I’ve already talked to Tim about it. He gave me the key.”

She dangled the key in her right hand, and Wink looked up at her, astonished.

“But I don’t get it,” he said. “Tim has always said that no one but no one can be —”

But it was kind of hard to finish. After all, she did have the key, which meant that Tim must have given it to her. And she was leaning in so close to him, he could see her breasts right there in front of him . . .

And the thought of sitting there, right next to her at the piano seat, and turning the pages . . . oh, my gosh . . .

Winkie began to feel a red flame torch his cheeks.

He was blushing, for God’s sake, and he was worried about standing up. She might see his . . . erection popping up against his pants.

But then the way she was staring at him, and those breasts . . . scoops of coffee ice cream . . . And what if she liked the fact that he was getting a hard-on? Was that a possibility? Why not? When it came to women, Winkie was no fool. He knew he wasn’t much to look at. But it had happened to him before. Some women liked a man who had lots of muscles. Some of them liked the eye patch. And there were always the kind of girls who really went for the Beauty and the Beast routine.

The thought made him salivate a little. A bit of drool leaked out of the side of his mouth.

And then he stood up and reached out for her hand.

“Okay,” Wink said. “I’ll help you. Let’s go.”

“No problem,” Michelle Wu said. “But first I have to go to the little girls’ room. Just wait right here, Wink.”

She hurried down to the ladies’ room, while Winky sat back down, and felt his erection getting bigger and bigger. This was wild stuff ! He just hoped Mr. Tim wouldn’t find out.

On the back roof of the Valentine Club, Jack had just finished disarming the security system. The night was blue, and there were slashes of yellow crossing the Valley sky. Pollution was such a beautiful thing. He thought of Oscar off at Laura’s wedding. Good for his partner to have a night off . The case was beating them both down.

Now his cell phone rang.

“Jack?”

“Yeah, Michelle. We ready?”

“Of course, baby. Count to, say, 200, and then come in the back window. But be careful. We’re not that far away.”

“Got it,” Jack said. “Just keep playing that piano. And if for some reason he comes back there, call me. Remember, I won’t answer. I’ll just get out the way I came in.”

He hung up and started counting.

Jack found the back window of Andreen’s office unlocked, just as Michelle Wu had promised. He slid open the window and crawled inside.

Out in the club’s big dining and dancing room, he could hear Michelle singing the old Ray Noble song, “Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me.” She sounded pretty good; he could imagine her becoming the Asian Diana Krall. From whore to car thief to recording star to Hollywood actress . . . hey, it wouldn’t be the first time it had happened. Joan Crawford screwed her way to the top, and Marilyn Monroe slept with everybody she ever met. Jack had heard about a couple of other stars that were supposed to be hookers, too. Back in their early days, before they bought their dignity.

Jack took out a small flashlight and trained it at the desk.

Then he walked over to Tim Andreen’s computer, turned it on, and sat down in the comfortable leather chair.

Now he had to figure out Andreen’s password. He’d worried about this part of the break-in for two hours. In movies it was always easy. The secret agent sat down and turned the mouse pad over, and there it was, written on the other side, just in case the villain forgot it. If it was only that easy!

Just to make certain it wasn’t, Jack turned the mouse pad over. Nothing there but dust. He’d gone through a number of combinations last night. Now it was time to try them.

What the hell could it be?

From looking over his tax records, he knew Andreen’s birth- date: 10/27/63.

He punched in the numbers and hit Enter, but nothing happened.

Damn . . . maybe the same numbers backward.

He punched them in again.

Nothing.

What the hell!

Jack sat at the computer. Outside, the music stopped. Jack held his breath, listened for footsteps.

• • •

“You sound so great, Michelle,” Winkie said. “You have a really cool voice.”

Michelle smiled at the ogre, who sat uncomfortably close to her. She was acutely aware of his monstrous body odor — kind of like the smell of rotted bananas — and it was all she could do not to start gagging.

“I’m glad you liked it, Wink,” she said. “Well, I think I have that one down. Now let me try another song. We’ll do ‘The Lady Is a Tramp.’”

Winkie made a grumpy face and shook his huge head.

“You don’t like that song?” Michelle said. The idea that he would even know the song surprised her. She figured that Wink’s taste would run toward AC/DC or Slayer.

“No, it’s okay,” Winkie said. “I like Cole Porter, but he’s old- fashioned.”

Michelle was surprised by the intelligence in Wink’s voice. The monster had a human side after all!

“Well, what would you suggest?” she said.

“I’m thinking something much more current. Like one of my songs.”

Michelle’s mouth dropped open in surprise. The idea that the massive muscleman wasn’t a total idiot after all struck her as stupendous.

“Your songs?” she said. “You write music?”

“Oh, yeah,” Wink said. “You know, country stuff , mainly. I like country stuff ’cause it tells a story.”

“Right,” Michelle said. “Some country music is really good. Who do you like, Wink?”

“I like the old-timers most of all. Lots of the new guys don’t sing all that good, can’t write much, either. I like Townes Van Zandt. And Merle Haggard.”

“Really?” Michelle said.

“Yeah,” Winkie said. “Would you like to hear a couple of my songs, Michelle?”

“Sure I would,” she said. “You play the piano?”

“Not too well,” Winkie said. “A little. But I’m a heck of a lot better on the guitar.”

“I see,” Michelle said. She envisioned Mr. Winkie on the guitar, perhaps standing on the stage in gold spandex tights. The image made her start to giggle.

Winkie frowned with his one good eye.

“I’m serious,” he croaked. “You don’t believe me?”

“Sure, I do,” Michelle said. “There’s nothing that I’d rather do than hear you sing, but I have to practice now, Wink.”

Winkie snorted his disapproval, but settled in as she started “The Lady Is a Tramp.”

After ten tries, Jack finally figured out Tim Andreen’s password. It was simple, really. Andreen had a smug schoolboy contempt for people, the usual punk Valley irony factor. Use “Mister” in front of their names and you immediately marginalize them in your mind. Thus Bobby Hobbs was MISTER Bobby Hobbs, and Winkie was MISTER Wink. Now reverse the practice when thinking of yourself. That is, calling yourself Mister showed what a sport you were, that you weren’t afraid to be the butt of your own little joke. Thus MISTER TIM. And even though he was a miserable creep, a sadist, and, when duty called, a child molester, in his own mind playing a small joke on himself proved he could be one of the guys.

Anyway, it was a theory.

Jack punched in “Mister Tim,” using both capitals and lowercase letters, but alas he got nowhere.

He heard the piano begin again, and then tried another name, one that would surely prove to Timmy what a cool cat he was.

MISTER T. Just had to be.

He typed in the name of the old TV star, and instantly he was into Tim Andreen’s mainframe.

Looking through the raisin-headed criminal’s files, he quickly found a Payments Made column and began to search.

Jack went back a month, two months . . . looked through all the restaurant receipts, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

He searched again and found a file called Special Projects.

Once into that he began to search carefully in the double- entry ledger.

He could feel it coming. It had to be there. Sweat poured down his face, and he felt the vein throbbing again in his left temple. Blinking on and off like a stroke’s friendly warning.

It had to be here.

In the dining room, Winkie was getting antsy. Michelle was a good singer and her breasts swelled with every breath she took, which made him more than a little excited, but in the end she lacked . . . passion.

That was it. The girl lacked passion. No soul.

Winky suddenly felt just like Simon on American Idol.

He had to tell her the truth. Had to.

She needed his advice. She really did.

Ever helpful, when he wasn’t strangling, stabbing, or stomping people to death, Wink decided that what she needed wasn’t so much criticism . . . after all he had had a life of that and what had it ever done for him . . . but a positive example.

He remembered that he had stored his guitar in the back closet, right across from Mr. Tim’s office. His old Les Paul. Some nights when Mr. Tim and the customers had gone, the lonely behemoth would stand up on the little stage, where the band played four nights a week, and pretend that the guys were up there with him, lending him backing as he exhibited his serious lead-guitar chops.

Of course, if Mr. Tim had ever found him up there, he would have put Winkie’s head in a vise and squeezed until his eyeballs popped out. But he had to take the chance, because after all was said and done, he really would have rather made his mark as a crooner of country tunes than a leg breaker, eye gouger, and reluctant ball crusher.

After all, no one wants here lies a total hopeless violent asshole written on his tombstone.

And so, he thought, if he could just get to the closet and pull out the old electric guitar and play a few blistering quick country runs for dear Michelle, she might find her Asian soul and be ever so grateful. So grateful that she might fall upon her knees under the piano keys and fasten her sensuous lips on Wink’s bulging manpride.

And so Wink got up from the piano stool. And started his noble walk back toward the closet where he stored his ax.

“Where are you going?” Michelle seemed perturbed, saddened by his exit. This could only be a good omen.

“Be right back,” Winkie said. “Gotta surprise for you!”

“No, Winkie . . .” her eyes flashing with fear.

“What?” he said, suddenly growing suspicious. What was her problem?

“It’s just that . . . I need you here.” Her voice softened, her eyes quickly glowing again.

“Well,” Winkie said. “Don’t you worry. This will only take a minute.”

“But —”

He decided not to listen to her anymore. Sometimes a man knows his course and can’t be dissuaded from his mission. This was definitely one of those times.

He headed out of the main room, toward the darkened hallway where his trusty old ax lay in the closet behind brooms, mops, and pails.

It would be only a minute or so more, he thought, and he would show her not only his own brilliance, but also her true soul.

Things didn’t get much deeper than that.

There it was! Jack had found the item he was looking for.

Fifty thousand dollars paid from Timothy Andreen to a man named Jesse Lopez.

Jesse Lopez, the mechanic at Star Motors in the Palm Desert. Fifty thousand dollars — and not for a car, either. Fifty thousand dollars for “Services Rendered.”

Jack took out his BlackBerry and within seconds had looked up Jesse Lopez’s criminal records.

No surprise there. Lopez had done ten years for second- degree homicide in San Quentin.

Jesse Lopez, contract killer. Jesse Lopez, dope dealer. Jesse Lopez, master mechanic. The perfect guy to sever Zac Blakely’s brakes?

Jack hit the print button on Andreen’s printer, and waited. It was the first time he’d felt really good since Blakely and Hughes had died.

He finally had some hard evidence. What he had to do now was to get Timmy Andreen to roll over on his boss, whether it be Steinbach or Forrester.

And with this little receipt in hand, Jack didn’t imagine it would be all that hard.

But he still didn’t really know if Blakely and Hughes had been playing a double game. He ran through the accounts quickly and found something else. Something that made his heart sink.

A $100,000 payment to a corporation called Mason Security. Mason . . . as in Mason City, Iowa.

Zac Blakely’s birthplace. He remembered it because Blakely had always talked about what a wonderful childhood he’d had out in the Midwest, how things were so idyllic there, how it wasn’t anything like L.A., where all a man was judged by was how much money he had.

There it was, Jack thought.

Now it started to make sense.

Blakely had been forced into capturing Steinbach and probably was the reason he got out. But Steinbach didn’t trust him anymore, so he had both him and Hughes removed.

He had pretended that he was mad at Jack for busting him, but that was just an excuse for his real motive. Hughes and Blakely knew too much and had to go.

Think of the order in which Steinbach had killed them. First Blakely, then Hughes . . . not first Jack, then Oscar. But if he had been killing them in the order in which he’d made the threat . . . well, that would have been a different story altogether. After all, it was Jack who’d betrayed him, not Blakely or Hughes. It was Jack and Oscar to whom he’d dealt his blood diamonds, and it was them that he’d threatened. So, logically, they should have died first.

But it was Blakely and Hughes who could really put the finger on him for good. In a situation like this, it was only a matter of time before someone found out that two Feds were bent, and they would, of course, roll over on Steinbach.

So Jesse Lopez would be the one to knock them off .

Hell, Jack thought, maybe he and Oscar weren’t even on Steinbach’s hit list. It all made sense . . . and yet, even now, as Jack printed out the crucial records, he felt he was still missing something.

For example, if this were really about the crooked payments to Blakely and Hughes, why would Steinbach threaten to kill them all? Why not just do it?

The answer might be bravado. Steinbach had plenty of that.

But drawing attention to himself, defying them to catch him

. . . was that the way he had operated in the past?

Not really. Jack thought of the elaborate security measures, the secret airstrips, the bodyguards, and the cleverness of the pool balls . . . All of that bespoke a smart, secretive criminal. Yes, he did have another side, a loud, playboy side that liked expensive wines, beautiful women, and fancy German cars, but Jack had never known him to be quite so verbal about his plans.

It was true that he was angry, especially at Jack, who had become something like a brother or a son to him, and that could have accounted for his threat, which is what Jack had thought at first.

But now that Jack knew for sure that Blakely and Hughes were crooked, the threat seemed somewhat out of character.

There was something wrong with the way he was looking at the case.

Was there some other reason Steinbach had threatened them all? And what was the connection with Witness Protection? How did Forrester figure into all this, or did he?

Christ, would he ever untangle it all?

But no matter. What he had to do now was grab the printed material and get the hell out of there. Then grab Jesse Lopez and see what he could tell them. With a murder rap pinned on him, Jack guessed he might get to a whole new level of the case.

As Jack waited for the first paper to slide toward his hands, Winkie was about to open the closet and grab his old guitar. He was struck by a musical dilemma. Should he play “White Line Fever” for Michelle, or some newer tune? It hardly mattered, he guessed. She probably wasn’t a country fan in any case. So do the one he could deliver with the most feeling, the deepest soul. That was the point. He had to teach her how to reach down there and grab her own soul.

He was about to reach inside, past the cleaning fluids, when he heard an odd noise just behind him, across the hall, in Tim’s office.

The sound of . . . of . . . the printer going off .

Winkie forgot all about his mission to get Michelle up to American Idol status.

He had an important mission to perform.

Someone was breaking into Mr. Tim’s office, and it was up to him to stop them. Man, when he did that . . . He’d be back in Mr. Tim’s good graces, for sure!

He held his .44 Magnum in his right hand, while he stuck his key into Mr. Tim’s door with his left.

Then he turned and blasted through the door with all his weight.

Inside, a shaft of light from the hallway blinded Jack. He reached for his own gun, but never had a chance.

The gagging, cough-racked voice of Wink spoke volumes:

“Well, well, look who we have here! What are you up to, Junior?”

Junior? What the fuck was the great moron talking about?

Jack was about to come up with something clever, but he saw the barrel of the .44 in front of him, and Winkie’s enraged, snarling face. Jack glanced at the window to his left. But there was no way.

When he looked back at Winkie, the giant was already on top of him. He smashed Jack hard in the forehead with his gun butt.

Jack fell quickly and heavily to the floor. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was a sneering porcine face, leering down at him with obvious glee.