24

“so you're not an accountant,” I said when Trixie sat down across from me at the kitchen table. She had slipped on a robe, but every time she shifted in her chair, or leaned forward to get some cream for her coffee, or got up to put something in the fridge, I could hear the erotic creak of leather, the swish of nylon rubbing up against nylon.

“Yes, I'm an accountant,” Trixie, slightly indignant, said. “I've got my degree and everything, worked for one of the big firms downtown. I was very good at it, still am. I can still do your taxes if you want. But I'm making a lot more now than then, and ever since Enron and Andersen and all that, I think I moved into a profession with more respect and dignity.” She blew on her coffee and took a sip, leaving lipstick marks on the edge of the cup.

“I'm really sorry,” I said. “About barging in.”

“Whatever. It's just as well you showed up when you did.”

As it turned out, she'd done up the chest strap on her client a little too tightly, and had asked me to come down to the basement to help her undo it.

It was not your typical rec room. The walls were painted black, and the red bulbs screwed into the sockets cast a sensuous, eerie glow. One wall was covered in pegboard, with hooks, the kind of thing you see in a well-organized workshop for hanging tools of every description. But these hooks were draped with ropes and straps and handcuffs and bungee-cord-type thingies with bright chrome buckles that looked like they would do a terrific job of strapping your luggage to a roof rack if you were taking a long vacation with the kids. But that, clearly, was not their intended use, as evidenced by George, the man strapped to a huge X made of timbers that was leaned up against the back wall. George, pasty, overweight, and extraordinarily white, was wearing nothing more than a black leather jockstrap arrangement, and a red ball in his mouth held in place with straps that went around the back of his head.

A broad leather strap around his chest helped secure him to the crossed timbers, and when Trixie had tried to release him, she couldn't pull far enough back on the buckle. That was when she called me down.

“Zack, this is George,” Trixie said. “George, Zack.” George, still gagged, nodded. “George, I did this thing a bit too tight, but let's not forget who asked for it that way. Now, I don't quite have the strength to pull this back, and I could cut it, but I hate to do that, so I'm going to get Zack here to help me out.”

I obliged, pulling the belt back far enough that it was cutting pretty deeply into his flabby bosoms. “There,” I said.

Trixie went about untying his wrists and ankles, and removed the ball. “I'm really sorry about this, George. I know it's very unprofessional, sending you on your way early, but something's come up.”

“That's okay,” George said meekly. “Nice to meet you,” he said, extending his hand to me. We shook.

George slipped into a downstairs bathroom, where he changed back into his regular clothes. Through the door, Trixie said to him, “No charge tonight, George.”

“Are you sure?” he said from behind the door. “I still got half a session, so I'm not complaining.”

“No, it wouldn't be right. I tell you what, we can just let this one go, or you can pay me, and next time it's on the house. I'll even do the thing with the cream cheese, no extra charge.”

That sounded fair to George, who, once he'd emerged from the bathroom in a pair of dress pants, a crisp white shirt without a tie, and a sports jacket, discreetly slipped Trixie a wad of bills.

“Have you been coming to Trixie long?” George asked me as we went up the stairs together.

“Uh, no,” I said.

“Well, you won't be disappointed. She's the best. I can't recommend her too highly.”

“Really.”

Trixie saw him off at the door. “Say hi to Mildred for me,” she said, giving George a peck on the cheek and sending him on his way. I watched through the glass as he got in his car and backed out of the driveway.

“Mildred?” I asked.

“His wife. She's not really into this. It's been a real load-off for her ever since she started sending George to me.”

“She sends him?”

“She saw my ad. First time she sent him, it was for his birthday. Now it's a semi-regular thing, every month or so. Some people are very open-minded.” She grabbed a silk robe hanging on a hook just inside the door to the basement, slipped it on, and went into the kitchen. “Did you get yourself some coffee?”

“I was about to, and you called me downstairs to help free George.”

“That was so embarrassing. I could have cut him out of it, but that strap alone was three hundred bucks.” She shook her head. “Now, what's got you so wound up you're busting in here in the middle of the night?” She smiled. “Did you see my ad, too?”

“No, I didn't,” I said. “I'm in a bit of a mess, Trixie.”

“Grab a chair.”

It was after that that I asked whether she was really an accountant, and offered my apologies about busting in.

“What is it?” Trixie asked. “Another backpack incident?”

“Worse, although it started out in a similar way. But things have sort of spiraled out of control. There are men, at least one, trying to find me and, I think it's fair to say, kill me.”

Trixie's eyebrows shot up a notch. “Why would there be men trying to kill you?”

“Well, for one thing, this.” I slid the ledger book across the table at her.

“What's this?” she asked.

“Well, you're the accountant. Maybe you can tell me.”

She opened the book. Her nails were long and bloodred, and I found that I felt just a bit feverish. Where her robe opened I could see the swell of her breasts, pushed up and out, courtesy of the spectacularly engineered corset.

“Let's have a look. List of payments, money coming in, some names here. Wow, I think I recognize this guy. He's a building inspector, comes here sometimes, likes to play doctor.”

“Okay.”

“So he's getting paid five hundred every, it looks like, every week or so. And here's another name I recognize. Carpington?”

“Roger. He's a client, too?”

“No, I just recognize the name. From the paper.”

“He's a town councilman. How much is he getting?”

“Well, right here he's getting five thou.” She thumbed the pages. “His name pops up a lot, but it's just one of dozens. Zack, where did you get this?”

“It's a long story.”

“I've got time,” she said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her booted legs.

“Sarah and I were shopping,” I said, and went through the whole thing. Taking the wrong purse, trying to return it, finding Stefanie Knight's body, getting tracked down by Rick, the meeting with Carpington, the episode at the construction site. Trixie said barely a word, taking it all in, nodding slowly.

I finished with finding the ledger in Stefanie's car, and Rick's destruction of mine out front of McDonald's.

“You're in some kind of deep shit,” Trixie said, running her tongue across her top teeth.

“Yes,” I said. “That's a fairly good assessment of the situation. Thank you.”

“Listen, don't get snippy with me. Did I tell you to take Sarah's purse to teach her a lesson?”

“No. Did I mention that, in addition to everything else that's happened tonight, she thinks I'm impotent?”

“No, I think you left that part out. Are you? I could check.”

“She wanted to, you know, spend some time with me tonight, before she went to work, but it's a bit hard to concentrate when you think the police might be looking for you and charging you with murder. I think maybe it's time to go to the police.”

Trixie thought about that. “How did you get here, if your car's blown up?”

“Stefanie's car. Her Beetle. I parked it one block over.”

“So you not only stole her purse, but now you have her car? That'll look good to the police. You're not wearing her underwear, too, are you?”

I hadn't thought about the incriminating aspect of driving Stefanie's car all around town. I did not, it occurred to me, have the makings of a master criminal.

“But if I don't go to the police,” I said, “how'm I going to protect myself from this Rick guy? He's a total nutjob. He killed that Spender guy down in the creek, probably killed Stefanie, and he's wandering around town with a python in his trunk.”

Trixie blinked. “Does Sarah know anything about any of this?”

I shook my head. “She's noticed me acting kind of weird, but no. And she won't be coming home from work until morning, she's doing the night shift, and I farmed the kids out to friends' houses.”

“You need some kind of backup,” she said. “You have a gun or anything?”

“Are you kidding? Do I look like someone who owns a gun? I don't even know anyone who owns a—” I stopped.

“What?” Trixie said.

“I do know one person. Who owns a gun. Someone who owes me a favor. Someone who might let me borrow it.”

 

“do you know what time it is?” Earl said when he opened his front door to me and Trixie. She'd changed out of her work clothes and into some jeans and a T-shirt, and had gone out of her house first, making sure there was no sign of Rick or anyone else at my house two doors down, then waved for me to join her. I ran across the street in a flash, ducked into some bushes as Trixie rang Earl's bell.

“Let us in,” Trixie said. “Zack needs your help.”

“Where's Zack?”

“He's the one here, in the bushes. Turn off your front light.”

Earl was dressed in checkered boxers and a sweatshirt. He padded barefoot into the kitchen, where he found a pack of cigarettes and lit up.

“What the fuck's going on?” he said, running his hand over his shaved head. He looked nervous. “You told, didn't you?” he said, looking at me. “You told the cops about my business. How long before they get here?”

“I didn't do anything like that,” I said.

“Did you tell that wife of yours? Did she call them?”

“That would be Sarah,” I said. “And no. I didn't tell her. I'm here to ask a favor.”

Earl squinted. “A favor?”

“I need a gun,” I said. “I want to borrow your gun.”

“Forget it.”

“Earl, I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. There are people looking for me tonight, and until I sort a few things out, I need some protection.”

Earl glowered at me. “You ever owned a gun?”

“No.”

“You ever fired a gun?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“Zack, you ever even held a gun?”

I tried to think. Did toy guns count? And what about the G.I. Joe figures and accessories I'd had as a kid? Did that count for something?

“I guess, technically, no. All my shooting has been with a camera.”

“And what the hell do you need a gun for anyway? How many enemies does a guy make writing space stories?”

“Come on, Earl. Don't you owe me one? Did I make a call to Detective Flint after I left here the other day?”

Earl shook his head. “Look, I appreciate that. But what you're asking, I don't know.”

“Maybe you're going to have to explain,” Trixie said.

And so I started in all over again, for the second time in the last hour and a half, although I gave him the Reader's Digest version. For example, I didn't tell him about trying to instruct Sarah in the fine points of purse safety. I said I'd found a purse.

“So I wanted to return it, and check the driver's license, and it was a woman named Stefanie Knight, who works over at Valley Forest Estates.”

Earl turned away, shaking his head, and reached for a beer from the fridge.

“So I was trying to track her down, and left my name and e-mail address at her mother's place, and then this psycho named Rick comes looking for me, wanting what's in this purse, which at first I thought was all this money, but that turned out to be counterfeit, and then I figured it was this film—”

“Film?”

“A roll of film. Of Stefanie Knight and this councilman in the sack.”

“What councilman?”

I told him. “But it turns out Rick and his boss, Greenway, wanted something more than just the film, they were after this ledger.” I indicated it, on the table, as if I was pointing to Exhibit #1.

“So they're after you for this ledger?”

“Yeah, that, and I sort of pissed off Rick, hitting him in the head.”

Earl sat down, alternating puffs of cigarette and swigs of beer. “You hit him in the head.”

“When he came to my house, and Angie came home. It was a kind of self-defense thing, although I think, under other circumstances, he might have liked me. He read my book and really liked it.”

“That must have made you feel good. You never know when you're going to run into a fan. I've been meaning to read it someday myself.”

“You kind of left out the most important part,” Trixie said.

“Huh?”

“This Stefanie Knight chick, she's dead,” said Trixie.

“I was getting to that,” I said. “I'm having a hard time keeping it all straight. Maybe hanging off the roof of that house has made me forgetful.” Earl took a long drag on his cigarette, blew the smoke over our heads, and I continued. “That's kind of why I've been on the run all night. She was murdered, and I've got her purse, well, I had her purse, and I've still got her car, and I think it's going to take a long time to explain all this to the authorities. But I'm thinking maybe it's time to go see them anyway.”

Earl said nothing for a moment. He was thinking. Trixie looked at me and shrugged. Finally, Earl said, “You need more than a gun, my friend. You need muscle.”

I smiled. “You have someone in mind?”

He returned the smile. “I might. Seems to me you need to pay another visit to this Greenway guy and Carpington and find out just what happened. We might have ways of getting the information out of them that the police aren't really supposed to use. And if this Rick character shows up, we'll have to deal with him as well.”

I felt a renewed sense of confidence.

“You know what might come in handy?” I said. “Some handcuffs.”

Trixie brightened. “How many pairs you need?”

I held up three fingers.

“I'll get you two regular sets,” Trixie said, “and one fur-lined. Don Greenway always liked the soft kind.”

Earl and I looked at each other and then at Trixie.

“So he was a client.” She shrugged. “But he was a lousy tipper. Fuck him.”