Herbert Decker hated parties almost as much as he hated the watery Tom Collins he was sipping. He stood in the massive atrium of a rented mansion on Habersham Road, surrounded by a cast of characters who regularly appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s society pages and trendy “Peach Buzz” column. The party was being given by a Belize diplomat with whom Decker was negotiating to supply raw materials for the country’s public works projects. Before the deal was concluded, Decker was sure a bribe would have to be arranged. It was already factored into his company’s internal budget, just as such payments were in the books of many firms dealing with foreign governments.
“Herbert, we’ve been talking about you behind your back,” Governor Walter Holden said with the dazzling smile that got him elected. His popularity had never been lower, and with the next election only months away, he was almost certainly in his final year in office. Tonight the governor was sticking close to the party’s host, Marco Vincent.
Decker handed his glass to a passing waiter. “It can’t be worse than what you guys say to my face.” He laughed, and the two men responded with polite chuckles. He hated cocktail chatter.
The governor stood close to Decker. “Mr. Vincent has expressed some concerns about your company.”
“ ‘Concerns’ is a tad harsh,” Vincent said with only the slightest trace of an accent. He was a handsome man with dark skin. “ ‘Musings’ is more like it.”
Decker spoke through his frozen smile. “And what were you musing?”
“I was telling Governor Holden that as much as I wish to do business with your firm, I still must sell the idea to my country’s public works ministry.”
“Of course.”
“That, I’m afraid, will be more difficult with the negative publicity your company is receiving.”
Holden spoke quietly. “He’s afraid the embezzlement case may scare off some of his country’s decision makers.”
Decker felt his face getting flushed. He knew it would appear that he was embarrassed, but he was enraged. He looked up at the ceiling. “I see.”
“Please don’t misunderstand me,” Vincent said. “I have the utmost respect for you and your company. But as you know, perception is important. And to some people, the perception is that Vikkers Industries cannot control its own employees. My government needs assurances that you will be a reliable supplier of the materials we need.”
“The actions of one man—?”
“I’m sure it will not be a problem, but it is something we must be aware of. Those who favor other alliances may try to use this as ammunition against you. That’s all I’m saying.” Vincent caught someone’s eye on the other side of the room. “Excuse me.” He walked away, leaving the governor with Decker.
“When does the trial begin?” Holden asked.
“In less than a month.” Decker was still fuming.
“I know this Belize contract is relatively small, but there’s no way to assess the total damage done. Perception is everything.”
“You should know, Holden.”
Holden ignored the comment. “I’d hate to see you suffer any more than you have already.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Decker snapped.
“Get your house in order.” He patted Decker on the arm and walked away.
“That’s my plan,” Decker said under his breath.
Four minutes past nine P.M.
Ken had never been alone in his office building before, and it wasn’t a sensation he particularly enjoyed. There were sounds he never heard during the day. The creaks. The water rushing through rusty pipes. The air whistling through dusty vents. And finally, two sets of footsteps echoing in the hallway.
Ken’s body ached as he rose and stepped toward the door. His face had stopped throbbing in the past few hours, but his stomach and ribs still hurt. He looked outside and saw Myth and Sabini.
“What happened?” Myth asked, her hand lightly caressing his bruised face.
“Just another satisfied customer.”
“That looks bad,” Sabini said. “You want to do this some other time?”
“No. We need to get started. Are you ready?”
Sabini nodded and stepped into the office. Myth started to follow, but Ken blocked the doorway with his arm. “Where are you going?” he said.
“I thought I’d watch.”
“I can’t allow that.”
“Why not?”
“Every variable can affect the outcome. As his attorney, you might give him a feeling of security he wouldn’t have otherwise. When the D.A.’s examiner tests him, nobody else will be in the room. I need to do it the same way. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave.”
She stared at him, then finally nodded. “Fine. Call me tonight after you finish.”
She said it like an order, Ken thought. Making it clear she was still in charge. But she wasn’t in charge anymore, at least not in his office, and it was driving her nuts.
Good.
He smiled. “Sure. Good night.” He closed the door and turned back to Sabini.
“How are you this evening, Mr. Sabini?”
“Fine, thank you.”
“Glad to hear it. Have a seat.”
Ken went over the ten-question test with his interviewee, making sure he understood it all. Sabini was polite, but not too polite. He was agreeable, and the only questions he asked were to clarify some of the test’s finer points.
So far, so good.
Ken hooked him up to the polygraph. He turned on the machine and thumped the top panel, unsticking the pulse needle. He elected to forgo the card trick. A D.A.-appointed examiner probably wouldn’t do it, though Ken thought it helped reinforce the notion of the machine’s accuracy.
If they believe this stuff works, maybe it really will…
Ken asked the first question. “Did you attend school at Rockport College?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be completely truthful to me regarding the Vikkers Industries embezzlement case?”
“Yes.”
Ken always wondered how he would react if he ever got a no in response to this question. He never had.
“Do you understand I will inquire only about issues we have discussed?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever stolen anything from an employer of yours?”
“No.”
“In your capacity of chief financial officer of Vikkers Industries, did you misdirect company funds so as to derive personal financial gain?”
“No.”
“Have you ever lied to keep from getting into trouble at work?”
“No.”
“Between February and November of last year, did you arrange electronic fund transfers between your company and personal bank accounts in Zurich, Switzerland?”
“No.”
“Is your full name Burton Charles Sabini?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever violated any laws in the preparation of business or personal tax documents?”
“No.”
“Do you presently have access, either directly or indirectly, to the funds illegally transferred from your company’s accounts?”
“No.”
Ken looked at Sabini’s readings as the paper spooled over the polygraph stand’s edge. The responses were strong and distinct. Not much gray area here.
He unhooked Sabini from the polygraph, ignoring his client’s questioning look.
“Well?” Sabini asked.
Ken tore off the graph and held it in front of Sabini’s face. “You know what this is? It’s Illustration 1-4 in the polygraph textbooks—the classic liar. Every reading points to that: breathing, skin perspiration, pulse rate. This is bad.”
Sabini slumped. “Shit. I was afraid of that. Is there any hope?”
Ken studied the graph in his hands. This was going to be harder than he thought.
He stood and walked to his desk. “First of all, forget every bullshit story you’ve ever heard about what it takes to beat a polygraph. You’re not going to be biting your tongue, pressing your foot against a tack, or anything like that.”
“Okay, so I know what I’m not going to do.”
Ken picked up a pack of cigarettes. “Do you smoke?”
“No.”
“Start. It’ll draw oxygen from your skin, make your perspiration levels less volatile. You had a tough time with that.”
He slipped the cigarette pack into Sabini’s shirt pocket.
“Great. I’ll pass the test but die of lung cancer.”
“That’s the breaks.”
“What else?”
“Can you…pucker?”
Sabini shifted uneasily. “Look, I’m not going to kiss you.”
“I don’t want you to pucker with your mouth.”
“Then what with?”
“Your asshole.”
Sabini stared at him, then abruptly stood up. “I don’t know what you have in mind here—”
Ken pushed him back into the seat. “Sit down, you’re not my type. Now, try it. Pull your asshole in. The old anal pucker.”
Sabini was obviously still uneasy, but he concentrated, sucking it in. His eyes darted from side to side.
“Yeah…yeah!” he said excitedly.
“I knew you were a tight-ass. Good. That sends your blood pressure north. You’ll be in good shape if you can do that on all the nonrelevant questions.”
“What?”
Ken wired him to the polygraph. “There are a couple of basic kinds of questions: There’s the nonrelevant control questions and the relevant questions.”
He tried to think of a way to explain it simply. “Basically, nonrelevant questions are things they think they already know the answer to. Some will be harmless, Is this your name?—type questions. They figure you’ll be straight with them on those. Other nonrelevant questions will be mildly threatening. On those, they’re counting on you to lie.”
“They want me to lie?”
“Yeah. They’ll ask you things like, Have you ever stolen anything from your employer? They think that everybody has taken at least some pens or paper clips home with them. If they can see what your responses are when you lie about this, they think your readings will be even more extreme if you lie about something related to this specific case.”
Sabini nodded. “The relevant questions.”
“Right. What we have to do is level out your responses on everything. Then, depending on how well you do, we might try to give ’em some slightly higher readings for those mildly threatening questions. They would expect that.”
“Just tell me when to pucker.”
Ken smiled as he thumped the needles. He shook a can of WD-40 lubricant and sprayed the indicator mechanism. There. That took care of the sticky respiration needle.
He started the graph paper rolling again. “The first question is always a harmless irrelevant. Always.”
“Okay.”
“Did you graduate from Rockport College?”
“Yes.”
“Are you puckering?”
Sabini nodded.
“Don’t do it so much. Loosen up just a little…a little less…”
Ken watched the graph as the blood pressure readings dropped lower, lower, lower…
“There! Try and pucker just like that on the nonrelevant questions. Okay?”
“Got it.”
“And don’t hold your breath. You can pucker and breathe at the same time.”
Sabini tried to take slow, normal breaths, but he clearly still felt awkward.
Ken went to the next question. “Will you be completely truthful with me regarding the Vikkers Industries embezzlement case?”
“Yes.”
The blood pressure needle dropped.
Ken smiled. “Relevant question. You stopped puckering. Good. Okay, stay calm, breathe easy…. Now, do you understand that I will inquire only about issues we have discussed?”
“Yes.”
The readings were stable.
Ken explained, “This is just to assure you there will be no questions out of left field. In the pre-interview, the examiner will go over the test to make sure you understand it. They don’t want you worrying about any outside issues that might throw off the readings for the questions they are asking.”
Sabini snorted. “Like anything could worry me more than being accused of stealing twelve million dollars.”
“Still, you can count on it being there. Probably the third question. Okay. Have you ever lied to keep from getting into trouble at work?”
“No.”
“Okay, this is one they expect you to lie on. Just relax, keep your breathing regular….”
Ken nodded as the readings leveled off.
“Now…In your capacity as account financial manager, did you misdirect company funds so as to derive personal gain?”
“No.”
The needles jumped sharply across the graph.
“You took a sharp breath, and your other responses went up too.”
Sabini glared at the machine. “I just need some practice,” he mumbled.
“You’ll get it. But you have to stop being afraid of this thing. It will catch you only if you think it will.”
Ken picked up his deck of playing cards. “There’s a trick we do to convince people that polygraphs really work. If they believe in the machine, they’re more likely to have strong nervous responses to the relevant questions.”
He fanned out the deck. “Take a card.”
Sabini selected a card, looked at it, and held it close to his chest.
Ken put the rest of the deck down. “Normally, I’d go through this whole bullshit routine about asking you to lie to me about the card. I’d ask you about the number, color, suit, and so on. And then, thanks to my wonderfully perceptive lie detector, I’d be able to tell you that you have the queen of hearts.”
Sabini looked up in surprise. “That’s right!” He turned his card around.
Ken picked up his deck and fanned it out faceup.
They were all the queen of hearts.
“The polygraph works only if you believe it does. Ready to try again?”
Sabini smiled as he threw his card down. “Yeah.”
The next few days were a blur to Ken. He spent his mornings and afternoons exploring different methods of beating polygraphs, his nights training Sabini on the machine.
He taught Sabini breathing exercises calculated to smooth out the jagged respiration readings. As Ken had expected, this proved to be the easiest response to control. Sabini had almost mastered it by the end of the second day.
More problematic were the skin perspiration readings. Sabini would have to smoke for a week or so to deprive his skin of enough oxygen to make a difference. That alone, however, wouldn’t be enough. Ken would have to think of something else.
For the pulse rate, he turned to the methods of biofeedback, the seventies-era relaxation technique in which subjects monitor their own heartbeats and even brain waves to bring them under control. He showed Sabini his indicators on the rolling graph paper and designed several exercises that allowed his student to consciously manipulate the readings.
Since the training sessions didn’t begin until after ten every night, Ken and Sabini always worked until two, sometimes three, in the morning. It was a punishing schedule, made worse for Ken by the lingering soreness from his beating. And as hard as he tried, he could never get past how wrong it all was. It gnawed at him every minute of the day.
He couldn’t wait to be finished.
It was a slow night on the streets.
Hound Dog revved her Harley, cruising up and down the city’s major thoroughfares as her belt scanner crackled through the headphones. The scanner wasn’t picking up anything interesting—some minor fender-benders, a robbery, a bar fight, all of which were decidedly unphotogenic after the fact.
For the past couple of days she had racked her brain trying to remember where she had seen the woman in that newspaper photo. Maybe it was in a shot taken by another scanner geek.
She checked her watch. One forty-five A.M. It was a bit early for “lunch,” but since she was using more gasoline than film, it would probably be good to knock off for a while. At that hour, the best prospect was the Varsity, a cavernous fast-food restaurant located near the Georgia Tech campus. An Atlanta institution for over half a century, the establishment was geared toward high-volume traffic. The counter personnel always barked quickly, “What d’ya have, what d’ya have?!” and slammed the counter impatiently if the customers so much as hesitated to place their orders. This, of course, was nothing compared to the treatment in store if the patrons didn’t have their money out and ready to give. This was true if the restaurant was packed with over a thousand or just a scattered half dozen. The Varsity’s brand of customer relations reduced some to tears, but it added character to the place, and the food was delicious in its own greasy, artery-clogging way.
Hound Dog rolled up the ramp to the restaurant’s parking structure, cut the engine, and dismounted. She could already smell those onion rings.
After getting her food, she held the red tray, glancing around for a place to sit. There were several large rooms, each of which had a TV blaring. She spotted a group of five scanner geeks sitting in the newer wing. Normally this would have prompted her to walk the other way. Tonight, however, was different. She headed toward them and took a seat at their table.
“You must really be bored if you’re hanging out with us,” said Vince, a thin, spike-haired young man with wire-rimmed glasses.
Hound Dog shrugged. “Just as long as I don’t have to listen to you guys whine about how little sex you’re getting.”
Freddy, a portly man in his early forties, snickered. “What makes you think we’re not getting our share?”
“If you guys were getting laid, you wouldn’t be out doing this every night.”
Freddy leered at her. “So I guess that means you’re hard up.”
She shook her head. “No, I get plenty, and I still do this. Which means I’m sicker than any of you.”
She took a sip from her Frosted Orange as she pulled the newspaper photo of Myth from her camera bag. She tossed it onto the table in the center of the group.
“Any of you guys shoot her before?”
The men passed the picture around, making various “hubba-hubba” and panting noises, reminding Hound Dog why they were called scanner geeks rather than scanner enthusiasts.
“Where did you get this?” the smallest of the guys asked. His name was Laszlo, and his preppy appearance contrasted with the others’ grunge look.
“Sunday paper. She looks familiar to me. I thought one of you guys may have shown me her picture in your book.”
Freddy tossed a worn pocket-sized photo album on the table. “Speaking of which, I have something to show you guys.”
“You have her picture?” Hound Dog asked.
“No,” Freddy said. “But I have some awesome shots of that ambulance accident in Roswell the other night.”
Vince leaned excitedly toward Freddy. “That was a pile-up!” He turned toward the others. “Some guy had a fender-bender, minor injuries, and the ambulance was taking him to the emergency room. But then it jumps the median on Holcomb Bridge Road, and wham!” He clapped his hands for emphasis. “It hits the pole of a Burger King sign. Everybody’s okay except the patient—he gets a broken back!”
Laszlo shook his head. “By the time he’s through with the ambulance company, he’ll be a millionaire.”
“What good is it if he can’t move?” Freddy asked.
“Please,” Hound Dog persisted, trying to get back to the original subject. “I know I’ve seen this woman somewhere before. None of you have shot her?”
“Even if it were fifty million dollars, it wouldn’t be worth it to you?” Laszlo asked.
“To be paralyzed for the rest of my life?” Freddy grimaced.
“Guys…” Hound Dog implored.
“Okay. What if it were just the waist down?”
“That’s the best part!”
It was no use. Hound Dog took the photo back, picked up her tray, and moved to another room.
“Idiots,” she muttered.
Carlos Valez slumped against a brick wall facing the Inman Park apartment complex. He’d been there only a few days before, the night he kicked the shit out of that lie detector guy. Now he was back, sitting next to the Dumpster, smoking a joint he had found in his buddy Jesus’s bathroom. He had been hiding out with Jesus since being thrown out of his father’s house.
It had been a nasty scene between him and his father. When the lie detector test came back and he lost his job, his father yelled and slapped him around. Alicia and the baby can stay, the old man said, but you’re outta here.
Carlos got him back. He beat the hell out of him.
Stupid old man reported him to the police.
Maybe Ms. Benton had reported him too. She was the manager who fired him from the custodial staff at the Packard Hills Shopping Center. Carlos exploded when she gave him the news. Didn’t that bitch see what she was doing to him? He pushed her desk over, pulled the phone cord between his hands, and advanced on her. Scared her shitless. But after she cried and begged him to leave her alone, he ran out of the office. She wasn’t worth the trouble.
Carlos glanced around the parking lot. He didn’t think he would come back here. One visit had accomplished all he set out to do. He wanted to scare the lie detector guy, make him hurt, and keep him looking over his shoulder for a few days. But now Carlos wanted more. This guy had screwed him over, and he should pay. How? Carlos wrestled with that one for a while, but at about two in the morning he decided Ken Parker should die.
He played with his long razor, flipping it open and closed. He would take one clean swipe at Parker’s throat, and if he was lucky, his victim wouldn’t make a sound.
Carlos had never killed a man before, but there was a tightness in his chest, a burning, and it would go away only when this guy was dead. He had to make it stop.
Afterward, he would detour to his father’s house, where he’d pick up his son. He knew it was risky, since his wife would report him. Maybe he would tie her up to buy himself some time. Or maybe he would waste her too. She deserved it for believing that lie detector over his word.
He sat still as a young couple stepped outside one of the buildings. The girl was going home, and they stood next to her car, kissing and tonguing each other for a while. Carlos didn’t have a watch, but he figured it must be almost three A.M. Maybe Parker was staying with a girlfriend that night.
Carlos considered giving it up, until he heard the distinctive roar of an MG as it turned into the lot. It was him! Carlos watched as the examiner pulled into his space and killed the engine. But the couple was still out there. He couldn’t risk it. Not yet.
Parker bounded quickly up his stairs, climbing toward his apartment.
Apartment 332, Carlos remembered. It was in the phone book.
He waited another few minutes until the couple finally surrendered their lip lock. The girl drove away, and her boyfriend ambled to his apartment.
Carlos squinted into the darkness. He thought he saw someone several yards away, slinking in the shadows. He struggled to focus. It was no one.
He wished he hadn’t smoked the whole joint.
He moved quietly toward the stairs and started the long climb. Only a couple of the landings actually had bulbs lit, so most of the journey was cloaked in darkness. He stopped.
There was a sound.
A footstep.
A rustling.
He couldn’t tell if it was above or below him. He climbed a few more steps and listened. Nothing.
He continued up to the third floor, stepping on each stair on tiptoe. Once he reached the top, he glanced over the railing at the parking lot below. It was deserted. He walked toward Ken’s apartment, swinging open the blade on his razor.
His face was hot and his mouth went dry.
He didn’t want to do this anymore, but he knew he’d hate himself later if he wimped out.
He could break the door open by throwing his weight against it, but he’d have to work fast. Parker would probably be in his bedroom.
If only he had been able to nail him in the parking lot…
Carlos stood still, letting his body adjust to the sudden surge of adrenaline. His head was pounding in time with his heart.
He heard the rustling again.
It was behind him.
He turned just in time to see a glint of steel and the sight of his own blood spurting on his killer’s face.
Carlos was dead before he hit the ground.