Play Dirty

CHAPTER 21

THE MONTH WAS LONGER EVEN THAN ANY HE’D SPENT IN prison. Compared with this, those months had whizzed past like comets.

He’d held out for three days before doing the forbidden. He’d called the SunSouth offices. After listening to a seemingly endless menu of confusing options that required pushing a series of digits, he finally reached a human being who told him in a polite but busy-sounding voice that he had reached Ms. Speakman’s office. “Kay Stafford speaking, how can I help you?”

“I need to talk to Ms. Speakman.”

“In regard to what?”

He wondered what the cool, well-trained Kay Stafford would say if he told her the unmitigated truth. Instead, he replied, “Foster is a former college buddy of mine. I met with the two of them a few months back.”

“Your name?”

“Ms. Speakman will remember.”

She put him on hold and was gone for an interminable time. When she finally came back on the line, she said, “I’m sorry, Ms. Speakman isn’t available to take your call. Would you care to leave a message?”

She asked by rote. If Laura had refused his call, chances were good that her assistant would deep-six any message he left. Besides, what could he say?

Leave your rich husband and be with me.

Or don’t leave him and be with me.

I don’t care what the hell you do, just be with me.

“No message,” he said brusquely and hung up.

He charted her menstrual cycle even more diligently than before, marking the days off on his calendar.

He got hooked on a soap opera.

He watched senior tour golf tournaments and chess matches on the sports networks, and they moved even more slowly than his days.

He perused the classified ads daily, but unless he wanted to be a telemarketer, he found nothing he could do anonymously, and he knew before trying that no one would hire the infamous Griff Burkett.

Desperately lonely one afternoon, he called Marcia and invited himself for dinner. “I’ll bring the dinner and the wine. How can you pass up a deal like that?”

“I appreciate the offer. But give me a bit more time, Griff.”

Time. It had become his enemy.

By way of consolation, Marcia offered to set him up with one of her girls. He declined, which brought on her husky, sexy laugh. It was good to hear her laughing again, a sign that the old Marcia was emerging from the bandages and the trauma. “You don’t want a date with one of my talented girls? That’s interesting. Are you seeing someone?”

He experienced a vivid flashback to Laura, moving beneath him, purring that low, sexy sound that he now heard in his dreams. “Yeah. I’m seeing someone.”

He spent most of his time restlessly pacing the rooms of his condo, wondering when he would hear from her, if he would hear from her, what he would hear.

Rodarte didn’t reappear. Griff could only hope the Vista boys had strongly advised him against hassling Griff further. But that was naïvely optimistic. Contrary to what Rodarte had implied, he wasn’t in league with Vista or answerable to them. And even if he had been, they would have supported any bad ending he had planned for Griff Burkett.

He considered warning Bolly and Jason of an ugly man in an ugly car, but he was afraid that would spook Bolly and he would scotch the coaching sessions, and that one hour each day was the only hour during which Griff was marginally distracted.

He called Laura twice more at her office, without success. After the second time, he brazenly called her cell phone. Knowing that she would recognize his number on caller ID, he was surprised but elated when she answered. But all she said before hanging up was “Stop calling me. You can’t call me.”

He tried to exhaust himself by swimming laps. On the days he didn’t swim, he ran miles. He worked out in the gym as though he were still in training. He went to multiscreen cinemas and saw every movie on the marquee.

He killed time.

Finally, while waiting inside a fruit smoothie store for his yogurt-and-berry blend, the call came. He almost dropped his cell phone as he snapped it off his belt and flipped up the cover. “Hello?”

“Griff, Foster Speakman. Congratulations.”

His field of vision shrank to a pinpoint, consumed by onrushing blackness. The clerk behind the counter signaled to him that his drink was ready. Griff looked at him with misapprehension. He turned and left the store. Out on the sidewalk, he stood in the shade, but heat had been trapped beneath the canvas awning. It was like being inside an oven. He was suffocating.

“Griff? Did you hear me?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m just…” His hand had grown slippery with sweat. He switched his phone to the other. “I guess ‘congratulations’ means you’ve got good news for me.”

“We’ve been successful.” The millionaire didn’t even try to contain his jubilation. “Laura’s pregnant.”

The disgruntled clerk came out of the store, bringing Griff’s smoothie with him. He had a silver bar piercing his eyebrow and yellow teeth that needed orthodontia. “You can’t just order something and then walk out.”

Ignoring him, Griff asked, “Are you sure?”

“Three home pregnancy tests this morning were all positive. That’s pretty much indisputable.”

“Hey, I’m talking to you,” the clerk said. “You’re gonna pay for this.” He thrust the drink at Griff.

“Hold on a minute,” he said to Speakman. Covering the phone, he grabbed the drink, which looked nauseatingly frothy and rich, and hurled it into the nearby trash can. He stuffed a five-dollar bill into the pocket of the clerk’s shirt. “Now get the fuck out of my face before I rip that thing out of your eyebrow.”

“They should’ve left you in prison to rot.” Sneering, the clerk shot Griff the finger and went back inside the store.

Griff took several deep breaths, and all that did was inflate his lungs with scorching air.

“Apparently I caught you at a bad time,” Speakman said.

“Not really. I was paying out at a store. I apologize. How reliable are those home pregnancy tests?”

“I shared your skepticism. Laura, too. She was reluctant to take the tests in the first place, afraid that doing so might jinx it.” He laughed. “But once the third one came out positive, she began to believe it was true. A test at the doctor’s office confirmed it.”

“She’s already gone to a doctor?”

“This morning. She pleaded with her gynecologist’s office to work her in. They did a blood test. They just called her with the happy news that her hormone level indicates that she’s pregnant.”

“Is she there with you?” Griff imagined them hugging each other, laughing, crying with joy.

“She was at the office, but she’s on her way home now. I’ve iced down the champagne. Well, I’ll have champagne. Laura, of course, can no longer drink, so I’ve got club soda on ice for her.” Speakman laughed. Griff forced himself to join in. “I wanted to share the news with you immediately. You’ve just become a very rich man.”

“Yeah. It’s kinda hard to take in.”

“Would it be convenient for you to come to the house tomorrow evening? I’ve worked out the details of that hitch.”

“Hitch?”

“How you would continue to be paid in the event that neither Laura nor I outlived you.”

“Oh, that.”

It seemed like a long time ago since he had been in the library of the mansion, sipping Coke from cut crystal, talking about deal points, hammering out the details of this bizarre arrangement. Now that he thought back on it, it seemed like a dream. And only now did he realize that he’d never thought it would actually work out as planned. He hadn’t counted on it ending to everyone’s satisfaction. But it had. The Speakmans were going to have the child they wanted. He was going to be a millionaire again. He was set for life.

He felt like he’d been hit with a sack of shit.

“It’s an unlikely scenario,” Speakman was saying, “but I’ve worked out a contingency for it. Also, we’d like to pay you your half million in person.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to ever see each other again.”

“Just this once. This is a special occasion, and I want to give it the ceremony it deserves. A gesture of our eternal gratitude. Will you come?”

“Sure,” Griff heard himself say. “What time?”

He arrived at eight-thirty on the dot. He dialed the house from the gate, identified himself to Manuelo, and the gate swung open. The aide opened the door even before Griff rang the bell. He was wearing his customary black, his smile as vacuous as before. He didn’t say a word before ushering Griff through the vaulted entry and into the familiar library, where Foster was waiting. Alone.

“Griff!” he exclaimed happily. He did a funny thing with his chair before wheeling it forward. Smiling ear to ear, he clasped Griff’s right hand between both of his and pumped it enthusiastically. “I’m so glad you could come.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it.”

“Worth the errand, huh? Five hundred thousand in cash. Do you have an armored truck to go home in?”

Griff laughed as expected.

“What would you like to drink?”

He nodded at the highball glass sitting on the end table at Speakman’s elbow. “One of those will be fine.”

“Uno más,” Speakman told Manuelo, who went immediately to the bar and poured Griff a drink from a decanter. As soon as he delivered it, Speakman motioned that the aide could leave. Manuelo pulled the double doors closed behind him.

Speakman retrieved his drink from the table. “I drank an entire bottle of champagne last night and woke up with a terrible headache this morning. But you can toast with good bourbon, too, can’t you?” He raised his glass. “To our success.”

“To our success,” Griff echoed. He took a hefty swig of the whiskey, which burned all the way down. “Mrs. Speakman isn’t joining us?”

“Unfortunately, no. A matter has been brewing in Austin for several months. A baggage handling problem that needed her attention. Or so she thought. I tried to talk her out of going, but she insisted that one of us needed to see to the resolution, and she thought the quick round-trip would be too much for me.”

Griff figured that was the excuse she’d given her husband. The truth of it was that she had hightailed it to Austin because she didn’t want to see him. Her absence sent a clear message that caused him to waver somewhere between longing to lay eyes on her again and anger over her cowardice about meeting him face-to-face after that last afternoon together.

“I won’t let her take on that extra work for much longer,” Speakman said. “From now until the baby is born, my hardest job will be getting her to delegate responsibility. She’s stubborn when it comes to turning a chore over to someone else.” He chuckled with self-deprecation. “Of course, so am I. But we both want to be full-time parents. When the baby arrives, I have no doubt she’ll devote herself to mothering.”

Of course, that was what this had been about, wasn’t it? Laura wanted a baby. She wanted to give her husband a baby. A few orgasms had been a bonus, but they sure as hell hadn’t changed her agenda, and he’d been a damn fool to think they might.

He was no different than a sperm bank, except that he had party favors-a hard dick, fingers, a tongue. He’d got her off a few times. So? So, nothing. She belonged to Foster Speakman, and so did the baby she would have. Bingo. Mission accomplished. Time to pop corks.

So long, Griff Burkett. It was nice knowing you. Nice fucking you. Nice fucking you over.

And if he had any doubt of that, he had only to listen to her husband’s gushing monologue. “You should have seen her this morning when that third test was positive.” He placed his fist over his mouth to contain his rising emotion. “Her face…I’ve never seen her look more beautiful than when she smiled at me and said, ‘We have a baby.’ We. That two-letter word was extremely meaningful to a man in my condition.”

“I’ll bet.”

Speakman didn’t seem to pick up on Griff’s snideness. He was too caught up in his euphoria. “Even before she took the test, I knew she was pregnant. Her breasts are already fuller. So tender she won’t let me touch them.” He laughed. “It would embarrass her, my telling you this. Forgive me for going on and on. I can’t help it. My heart is full to overflowing. And I’m still a bit drunk, I think.”

That reminded him to offer Griff another drink. Griff declined with a shake of his head. At the mention of Laura’s breasts, he’d shot the remainder of his whiskey. It had made his ears ring and his heart beat fast. He felt clammy and a little nauseated.

“Do you have any inclinations toward what it is?” Foster asked.

“What what is?”

“The baby. Did you feel particularly abundant in X’s or Y’s the day it was conceived?”

On the day it was conceived, what he’d felt was Laura. Her skin. Her heat. Her passion. The whiskey had caused his throat to sting, but he managed to say, “No. I never thought about it one way or the other.”

“I think about it constantly,” Speakman admitted sheepishly. “Our child’s sex-in fact, all its characteristics-were determined the instant the egg was fertilized. Isn’t that amazing?”

“Amazing.” Amazing how many times I came inside her.

“I can’t wait to know whether it’s a boy or a girl, but we can’t find out till the fifth month.”

Amazing how many times we came together.

Speakman chuckled. “Five months from now you’ll probably be lying on the beach of some Caribbean island with a cold drink in one hand and a hot chick in the other.”

Griff forced a smile. “Sounds good.”

“I guess you’ll eventually know about the baby. What it is. What we named it. You’ll probably read the announcement in the newspaper.”

“If that Caribbean island gets newspapers.”

Speakman grinned. “You’re sure you won’t have another drink?”

“No thanks.”

Speakman reached for Griff’s glass and carried it with him to the bar. As before, he went through a ritual of placing their glasses in the rack beneath the sink, wiping the spotless countertop, and folding the towel until all the edges were even. After he’d hung it in the towel ring, he adjusted the hem again. When it finally met with his satisfaction, he washed his hands with sanitizer.

Then he lightly slapped the arms of his wheelchair three times. “Now, down to business.” He did that weird back-and-forth thing with his chair, then rolled over to the desk. On top was what appeared to be a box of stationery. Indicating it, he said, “Your money.”

Griff made no move toward it.

Speakman, misreading his hesitancy, laughed. “Go ahead. It’s yours. Look in the box.”

Griff approached the desk and indifferently lifted the lid off the box. Inside it were stacks of hundred-dollar bills, neatly banded with paper strips.

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

Griff gnawed the inside of his cheek, saying nothing. He was afraid of what he would say if he spoke, afraid he would tell Speakman the low opinion he had of a man who would pay another to have sex with his wife, no matter how lofty the reason.

Out of curiosity, he’d looked up that Bible story. It was the wife, Sarah, who had sent another woman to her husband, but basically the situation was the same. It hadn’t worked out too well in Genesis. In fact, things had got real mucked up. And all because this Sarah had wanted a baby, and wanted it her way.

You could tell yourself it was only biology, but it was still sex. It was still a man and woman lying down together and using equipment that was functional but also pleasure giving. Nobody had yet invented anything more intimate.

What he wanted to know was: How could any man ask that of his wife? Contempt for Foster Speakman roiled inside his gut along with the whiskey, along with his jealousy.

Of course, he was no prince of virtue. He was taking the man’s cash. He would deal with his disgust for himself later. But right now, he was revolted by Speakman, who was smiling at him like he’d won a jackpot, smiling without giving a thought to the emotional turmoil Griff and Laura had suffered for the sake of his foolish, selfish, stubborn demand.

“I won’t be insulted if you want to count it.”

Griff shook his head.

Speakman looked at him curiously. “Frankly, I’m surprised.”

“By?”

“Your reserve. Have you gone shy on me?”

“What did you expect?”

“More…” He made a rolling motion with his hands. “Reaction. Exuberance. You act almost reluctant to take your pay, like you’re sorry-” He broke off and studied Griff for a moment, then began to laugh. “Oh, dear.”

“What?”

“You don’t want it to end, do you? That’s it, isn’t it? You’re sorry those afternoon interludes with Laura are at an end.”

“That’s nuts.”

Speakman shook his index finger at him. “I don’t think so.”

“Let’s just settle our business so I can get outta here.” Even to his own pounding ears, his voice sounded like a growl.

“Ah, Griff, don’t be embarrassed. Making love to my wife is no hardship duty. Well I know. How could you help but get a crush on her? Like your gambling, you developed a taste for her, didn’t you? The more you had, the more you wanted. Now it’s hard to give her up. I understand. Truly I do.”

Griff clenched his fists.

Speakman chuckled again, then held up both hands, palms out. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I apologize for laughing at you, but it’s just so damn amusing. Your job is over and you’ve earned your money, but you’re heartbroken about it. Can’t you appreciate the irony?” Speakman winked up at him. “You’re so downcast, I think you must have really enjoyed doing her.”

That clipped the last tenuous thread of Griff’s restraint. He gave vent to his disgust. “You sick fuck.”

“Possibly,” Speakman said affably. “But at least I’m not horny for another man’s wife, for a woman I can never, ever have again. Poor Griff, poor Griff, poor Griff.”

Griff glared down at him through a red mist of rage, then turned his head away and searched the desktop, looking for something, anything, that would silence that maddening, taunting chant.

“Mrs. Speakman?”

Laura had been staring through the airplane window as the jet made its final approach into Dallas. She’d been addressed by a flight attendant leaning across the empty aisle seat.

“When we get to the gate, I’ll be escorting you off ahead of the other passengers.”

“Oh, no, please don’t.” She disliked being given any special treatment when on a SunSouth flight.

The young woman smiled. “Sorry, orders from the cockpit.”

“Why?”

“The tower informed the pilot that you were being met immediately upon arrival.”

“Met? By whom?”

The attendant lowered her voice to a whisper. “Maybe by that handsome husband of yours. I remember that time on your birthday when he set up a string orchestra in baggage claim. Such a romantic surprise. Anyway, you’re to obey captain’s orders and disembark first.”

She hoped that Foster didn’t have an elaborate homecoming planned for her tonight. It had been an exhausting day, starting early and ending much later than it should have. All she wanted to do was go home, take a quick shower, and then have a long night’s sleep.

The pilots made a perfect landing, right on time. She made a mental note to report that to Foster.

After a short taxi to the gate, a flight attendant got on the PA and asked the other passengers to remain seated. Laura felt self-conscious as she was ushered up the aisle. She smiled an apology to passengers with whom she made eye contact.

When she reached the cockpit door, the captain was standing there. He doffed the bill of his hat. “Mrs. Speakman.”

“Flawless flight, Captain Morris,” she said, reading his name tag with peripheral vision, a knack she’d developed over the years.

“Thank you.”

But his expression was grave, and because he didn’t engage her in conversation, she felt a prickle of apprehension. “Is something the matter?”

“Please.” He gestured toward the open aircraft door. She stepped into the Jetway and was surprised that the pilot accompanied her. Even more surprising, he placed his hand beneath her elbow. Before she could react to that, she noticed two men coming toward them.

They were wearing the dress uniforms of senior police officers. Upon seeing her, they respectfully removed their hats.

Her footsteps faltered. The pilot’s hand tightened around her elbow.

“What’s happened?” The words came out drily, scratchily, barely audible. Then she cried out, “What’s happened?”

The homicide detective stared down at the corpse and blew out a gust of air. “Jesus Christ.”

His partner, a man of few words, grunted assent.

A member of the Crime Scene Response team, who for the past hour had been collecting evidence, agreed with a sad shake of his head. “Bad, huh? Bad as I’ve ever seen. Maybe not as gruesome as some murders, but…well, only a real cold-blooded bastard could do this.”

“Or a real hot-blooded one,” the first detective remarked.

“Crime of passion, you think?”

“Maybe. Whatever, the son of a bitch deserves to get the needle.”

His partner harrumphed again.

“Excuse me, Detectives?” A uniformed officer appeared in the open double doors of the library. “You said to let you know as soon as Mrs. Speakman got here. They’re taking her into the living room now. That way.” He motioned in the general direction.

When the pair of investigators entered the room, Laura Speakman was standing between two police chaplains. One gave them a surreptitious nod, letting them know that she’d been told, but that was obvious. She was as pale as the dead body.

The taciturn detective took up a position against the wall. The other advanced into the room. “Mrs. Speakman?”

“My husband’s dead? There’s no mistake?”

“No mistake. I’m sorry.”

Her knees buckled. The chaplains guided her down onto a sofa. One sat near her, placing his arm protectively along the back of the seat. The other asked a uniformed officer to get her a glass of water.

As the detective approached, he withdrew his card from the breast pocket of his jacket and extended it to her. “Stanley Rodarte, ma’am. Homicide detective, Dallas PD.”