Play Dirty

CHAPTER 32

THE HOUSE WAS STILL ABLAZE, LIGHTS ON IN EVERY ROOM. Through windows where the drapes were open, Laura could see uniformed policemen searching the rooms for her and Griff.

She was halfway across the motor court when her elbow was hooked from behind. “This way,” Griff said.

She tried to throw off his hand, but his hold was tenacious and she had to run to keep up with him. “Griff, this is insanity. Turn yourself in. Talk to Rodarte. Tell him what you told me about Manuelo.”

By now they were on the far side of the garage, out of sight of the house, away from the landscape lighting, running pell-mell through the darkness. They went around the pond and then plunged down a natural berm. She lost her footing and would have fallen if he hadn’t kept his tight grip on her. She stumbled along after him.

The ground leveled off at the estate wall. It didn’t appear this tall from a distance. Now its twelve feet seemed awfully high. The vines and shrubbery covering it were dense but well maintained. Incongruously, there was a cold drink can standing upright at the twisted root system of a wisteria that was in full leaf and completely covering a section of the wall.

“Griff!” She pulled hard on his hand.

He turned to her. “Listen and believe, Laura. Rodarte is convinced that I killed Bill Bandy five years ago. Now he’s convinced that I killed your husband. If I turn myself in, I’ll be at the mercy of a legal system I no longer trust. Especially since Rodarte’s on the case.”

“Then turn yourself in to someone else.”

He shook his head stubbornly. “Not until I can take Manuelo Ruiz in with me, ready and willing to corroborate my story. I’ve got to find him.”

“Okay, I can see that,” she said, breathless from their run. “But let me go back. Let me tell your side of it and explain why you’re reluctant to surrender.”

“No.”

“If I say-”

“Why did Rodarte have you under lock and key?”

“To protect me from you.”

“Right. So if I get backed into a corner, as long as I’ve got you as my hostage, I’ve got something to bargain with.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me.”

“You know that. Rodarte doesn’t. Now come on.” He dragged her forward, toward the wisteria.

“Do you expect me to climb that?”

“Don’t have to.” Still keeping hold of her with one hand, he used the other to clear away some offshoots of the vine, revealing a metal grate at the base of the wall. He shoved it aside with the toe of his shoe. “Drainage,” he said.

“How did you find this?”

“I came looking.” He put his hand on her shoulder, forced her down. “Crawl through. I’m right behind you.”

Lying down on her stomach, she wiggled through the opening. The ground was damp, but because of the drought, it wasn’t muddy. The wall was about a foot thick. On the other side was a twenty-acre greenbelt that served as a buffer between the elite private properties that backed up to it, like the Speakmans’, and the commercial district on the far side.

By the time she was on her feet, Griff had pushed the duffel bag through the opening. It was a squeeze to get his shoulders through, but he did and sprang up on the other side. Taking her hand, he guided her across a rough and rocky creek bed. It was dry now, but when it rained, the runoff from the Speakman property would drain into it through the grate by which they’d made their escape.

Once across the creek bed, Griff took off running through the greenbelt. But as they approached the boulevard on the far side, he slowed to a walk. Across the wide street was a row of boutique shops and two popular restaurants. The shops were closed, but the restaurants were busy with the dinner crowd.

Pausing in the shadows of the park, he released her hand long enough to take off the uniform shirt, leaving him in a white T-shirt. He removed the pistol from the policeman’s holster, then tossed the gun belt, shirt, hat, and cold drink can into the nearest trash receptacle. He zipped the pistol into Manuelo Ruiz’s duffel bag.

Taking her hand again, he waited until the traffic thinned, then struck off across the divided street. He didn’t run, which would have attracted attention, but walked swiftly toward the parking lot of the Indian restaurant. He wove them through the rows of cars until they reached the back of the lot, where it was dark.

He fished a remote key from his pants pocket and used it to unlock a car. He opened the passenger door and motioned her in. He walked around and got behind the wheel, closed the door, and tossed the duffel bag onto the backseat. The dome light dimmed and then went out, leaving them in darkness.

They sat still and silent, trying to catch their breath.

Not until now that they’d stopped did Laura realize how breathless she was, and how fast her heart was pounding, as much from adrenaline as from physical exertion. The palms of her hands were dirty. The front of her tracksuit was streaked with loose soil.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, when he noticed her palms.

“I’m a fugitive, too. I’m not worried about a little dirt.”

“You’re not the fugitive, I am. You’re my hostage, remember.”

She smiled ruefully. “You asked why Rodarte had placed me under lock and key? He claimed it was for my protection.”

“But?”

“He was afraid I would help you escape.” His gaze remained steady, but she could read the unasked questions in it. “He never said that, but I sensed that was why he put me in the hotel, under guard. And I suppose I have helped you escape, haven’t I?”

“Does that mean you believe I’m innocent?”

Before she could answer, a police car screamed down the boulevard, its lights a wild kaleidoscope. Griff turned on the car’s ignition. Grinning, he said, “Rough neighborhood. We’d better move to a safer one.”

He had to wait for another oncoming police car to roar past before pulling out into the street. “You’re thumbing your nose at them,” she remarked.

“Nothing that brave. They won’t be looking for this car.”

“Whose is it?”

He drove, saying nothing.

“The visit to your lawyer’s house made the news.”

“Yeah, I saw. The media failed to mention what an untrustworthy son of a bitch my former attorney is.”

“He said by turning you in he was trying to help.”

“Bullshit. He was trying to cover his own ass.”

“They searched for you for hours.”

“I got lucky.”

“How did you get away?”

He gave her a wry grin. “It wasn’t easy. Sometime, when you’ve got a lot of time, maybe I’ll tell you all the adventures I encountered that night.”

She gave his clothing a once-over. “The police were looking for a man in running shorts and sneakers.”

“Which were barely holding together by daylight the next day. I was traveling light, but luckily, before going to Turner’s house, I’d put some cash in my sock. I used it the next day to buy some clothes at a big flea market.” He glanced down at the T-shirt and work pants. “Selection was limited. I’m sure some of the goods were hot, so no one questioned the customer who looked like he’d been dunked in a polluted river and then run through a shredder.”

“Were you recognized?”

“Doubtful. The market draws a large Hispanic crowd. Typically they follow soccer, not American football. I tried to be inconspicuous.”

Her eyes shifted up to his blond hair. “That couldn’t have been easy.”

“Especially not when I started asking around about Manuelo Ruiz, looking for someone who might know him. Those inquiries aroused more suspicion than my ragtag appearance. I didn’t stay long.”

“Where have you been hiding?”

He didn’t reply.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“The less you know, the better. Rodarte can never accuse you of collaborating with me. You’re my hostage. Got that?”

“I’ve got it. I don’t think Rodarte will be convinced. When he introduced himself, I recognized his name immediately. Before, when you warned me about him, you didn’t say he was a policeman. You made him sound like a criminal. You said he’d beat up a friend of yours.”

“He did. And sodomized her. Ruined her face. Broke-”

“A woman?”

“Yeah, and Rodarte nearly killed her.”

Laura had assumed Griff was referring to a male friend. Learning that Rodarte had assaulted a woman filled her with repugnance and fear. “He attacked her because of you?”

“Because she wouldn’t give him any information.”

“What kind of information?”

“About my past and present business dealings. Not that she knew anything, but it did her no good to tell Rodarte that.”

“He must have thought she knew something. Is she a close friend?”

“I guess you could call it a friendship. Actually, I’m her client. She’s a prostitute.”

That piece of news took her aback. Had he been using the hundred thousand she and Foster had paid him to buy the services of a prostitute? Of course the money was his to spend, it was just that she had never known anyone, of either sex, who admitted going to a prostitute. Maybe that was why it was so startling to her that he had in such a matter-of-fact way.

Curiosity compelled her. “What’s her name?”

“Marcia. She’s not a street hooker. She has a penthouse. She’s clean, classy, very expensive, beautiful. Or was. It’s been months since the assault, and she’s still recovering, going through a series of reconstructive surgeries on her face. She won’t even talk to me about the other. Rodarte has a badge, but he uses it as a free pass to hurt people and get away with it.” He shot her a glance. “You’ve been with him. Did he ever touch you?”

“Last night he stroked my arm. It made me shudder. I think he knew that, and that’s why he did it. Behind everything he said was a sexual innuendo.”

Griff’s long fingers were flexing and contracting around the steering wheel as though preparing to pull it out of the dashboard. “It was only a matter of time before he hurt you. Which was another reason I wanted to get you out of there. Anything he did to you, he would have felt you had coming because of your affair with me.”

She remembered Rodarte coming up close behind her, promising in an insinuating whisper to be her protector-or not-when her affair with Griff was exposed. Griff may indeed have rescued her. But there was still much he had to answer for. “So you had a car, and a hiding place, and you’ve been following Rodarte.”

“You were my connection to Manuelo. I knew you’d be essential to finding him. But I also knew Rodarte would be keeping close watch on you, expecting me to turn up sooner or later.

“Yesterday evening, after the funeral and reception, I was parked on Preston Road, near where I left the car tonight. When I saw this caravan of police cars coming from the direction of the estate, I pulled out into traffic. So I was actually ahead of your police escort. I slowed, let you drive past, then followed you to the hotel.”

“How’d you get the room number?”

“I didn’t, but it was a logical guess that you’d be on the top floor.”

“I had the floor to myself.”

“I figured that, too. When I got up there tonight, I had a nanosecond to look down the hall and see which door the cop was guarding before throwing an armload of empty boxes at his buddy.

“Anyway, last night, once I knew where you would be when I needed you, I went back to the estate to try to find a way in. The guard never left the front gate, but the ones that had been patrolling the grounds were pulled off. No need for them since you were no longer there.

“I knew that the park behind the property was the only possible access. I combed every inch of that side of the estate wall, practically on hands and knees. In the dark, mind you. I was looking for a rear gate. Something. Took hours before I found the grate. I loosened it, crawled through.”

“And left that drink can there so you could find it again from the inside.”

“In a hurry. Just in case cops were in hot pursuit. The rest you more or less know.” After a beat, he said, “Except this.”

He turned in to the parking lot of a multiscreen movie theater and found an open slot between a van with a Garfield clinging to the rear window with suction cups on his paws and a pickup truck with tires taller than their car.

He cut the ignition and turned toward her. “The night I got out of prison, I was desperate to get laid. I went to Marcia. Just that once. There’s been nobody since.”

She took a breath, held it for several seconds before letting it out. “I wondered.”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“I didn’t have the right.”

He moved suddenly, stretching his arm across the space separating them, curving his hand around the back of her neck and pulling her toward him. He kissed her hard, stamping his lips firmly against hers, pressing his tongue deep into her mouth. Then he pushed her away as suddenly as he’d grabbed her.

Hoarsely, he said, “You had every right.”

He let go of the back of her neck and returned to his place behind the wheel. For several moments they sat in silence, hearing only the soft popping sounds made by the car’s motor as it began to cool.

Finally he turned to her. “He called me. Foster. The day the pregnancy was confirmed. He invited me to your house the next night so he could thank me and pay me in person. Did you know any of this?”

“No.”

“He also said he’d figured out how I would be paid if I outlived you both. Remember that hitch?”

She nodded.

“He said he’d worked out a solution. He used that and the promise of the half million to get me there. And while I was there, Manuelo tried to kill me.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why?”

“Because Foster ordered it.”

She inclined away from him until she was pressed against the passenger door. “You’re lying!”

“No, I’m not. And you know I’m not, Laura, or you’d have put up a bigger fight before leaving that hotel with me. You’re not a pushover and you’re no coward. If you’d wanted to get away from me, you’d have been screaming bloody murder every step of the way, because, as you said, you know I wouldn’t carry out any threat to hurt you. You’re here because you want to be. You want to hear the truth of what happened. In any case, you’re going to listen.”

He paused for breath and to organize his thoughts. Also to see if she would, after all, open the car door and run screaming across the parking lot. She didn’t, so he began.

“Over the last several days, I’ve spent the daylight hours, and a lot of the nighttime, thinking. Thinking. And remembering. In my mind I’ve replayed every word, every small detail, from the first meeting till those last horrendous moments of Foster’s life, and I can see now how well he planned it. It was a masterful game plan.

“It even occurred to me that he’d lied when he called to tell me you were pregnant. I hadn’t heard it from you. I thought maybe that was the juiciest piece of bait for the trap he laid. That’s why I asked you earlier if you were really pregnant.”

“It was confirmed the day before he died.”

“So that much was true. Once Foster knew he had his child and heir, he wasted no time setting me up to be silenced forever. Only his plan backfired, and he died instead.”

“How? How, Griff? What happened when you got to the house?”

“Manuelo let me in like before. Poured me a drink, then left Foster and me alone in the library, behind closed doors. We toasted our success. He started talking…well, bullshit. About how delighted the two of you were over the pregnancy.”

“That wasn’t bullshit.”

“Yeah, but…but it was the way he was telling it. He got choked up, or pretended to. He told me you’d never looked so beautiful as when you said, ‘We have a baby,’ and how meaningful that word we was to a man in his condition.

“He told me your breasts were tender, that you wouldn’t let him touch them and how embarrassed you’d be to know he’d told me that. He talked about the baby. Could I guess what it would be? Had I thought about what it might be when we were making it? He reminded me that I’d have to read in the newspaper whether it was a boy or girl. I wouldn’t know its name until I read about it.”

Griff gave a bitter laugh. “Looking back, I can see that he was goading me. He was saying things he knew would get under my skin. At the time I just wanted him to shut up about you and the baby. I didn’t want to hear what a happy little family the three of you would be.”

He gave her a significant look, wondering if she could read between the lines. He guessed she could. She lowered her gaze to her hands, which were clasped tightly in her lap.

“He showed me my payoff money. The sight of it made me sick. Sick at my stomach, sick at myself. Marcia claims she never feels like a whore, but when I looked down into that box of money, I did. Our deal wasn’t illegal, but I felt a lot guiltier taking Foster’s money than I did taking the two million from Vista, and that’s the God’s truth, Laura.

“I didn’t even want to touch it, and he sensed that. He said he was surprised by my restraint. I mumbled some excuse for it. Then he started laughing and said, ‘Oh dear, you don’t want it to end, do you?’”

Laura looked at him sharply. “What?”

“Something like that. He began gibing me about developing a taste for you like I had the gambling. He said I must have really enjoyed ‘doing’ you, and that’s a quote. He was giving me this gloating smile. Thinking about it now makes me angry all over again.”

At the risk of casting doubt on his innocence, he reined in his anger and stuck to the facts. “I called him a sick fuck. He wouldn’t shut up about it and started saying over and over, ‘Poor Griff.’

“The taunting made me irate, Laura. I admit that. I felt myself about to lose it. Wheelchair or not, I wanted to deck him. I wanted to so bad I had to turn away. When I did, I looked down at the desktop. Swear to God I didn’t see the letter opener. Or if I did, it didn’t register. What I noticed was this sheet of paper with official-looking writing on it.

“Foster backed down then. He stopped that hideous chanting. I don’t know if he sensed how close I was to knocking him across the room, or if he saw what had caught my eye. But in any case, he said, ‘Oh, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? That’s my proposal for what should happen if both Laura and I die before you. Read it.’

“At that point, I just wanted to conclude our business and get the hell out of there before I did something I would regret. So I picked up the sheet of paper and began to read. Or tried.”

“It was gibberish.”

Surprised, he said, “You’ve seen it?”

“Rodarte gave it to me, asked if I knew what it meant.”

“Okay, so you know it was a ruse. I’d belted the strong bourbon. And I was still seeing red over the things he’d said. I thought that was why I wasn’t understanding what I was reading. I went back to the beginning and started over. And that’s when I sensed movement behind me.”

“Behind you?”

“Manuelo. I hadn’t heard him return. Foster was probably doing that ‘poor Griff’ bit so I wouldn’t. I caught a glimpse of Manuelo just in time.”

Reflexes, honed by years of dodging tacklers, had kicked in. He’d moved sideways only a fraction of a foot, but it was enough to neutralize Manuelo’s lunge toward him.

“Unfortunately, his reflexes were almost as quick as mine, and he was able to wrap his arms around me, one at my throat, the other around my rib cage. You know how wiry and strong he is.”

She nodded.

“He began to squeeze. He felt like a python around me.” Griff remembered struggling, clawing at the man’s arms. He broke Manuelo’s skin with his fingernails but achieved nothing else. For a man so short in stature, the aide had astonishing strength. His muscles had been conditioned to place pressure where pressure was desired, and to do so with absolute control.

They’d engaged in a macabre dance, going round and round, knocking over the end table, sending objects to the floor, breaking a lamp. “I tried like hell to break his stranglehold,” Griff went on, “if only for a millisecond, long enough for me to take a breath. Nothing worked.

“Soon, I felt myself growing weaker. Black dots appeared in my field of vision. I’d had the wind knocked out of me and lost consciousness on the football field, so I recognized the signs and knew I was on my way under. But I could still see Foster sitting in his wheelchair, slapping the arms of it in sequences of three, muttering ‘Do it, do it, do it,’ also in sequences of three.”

Laura pressed her fingertips against her lips.

“Are you believing any of this, or am I wasting my breath?” he asked.

“Go on.”

“You’re not gonna like what I’m about to say. I was on the brink of blacking out when I realized what I think I knew from the moment I met him. He was a lunatic.”

“Don’t-”

“No, Laura. You’re going to hear this. He was insane. At least on some level. What man in his right mind, married to you, would ask another man to have sex with you? Pay him to. For any reason.”

She didn’t produce an answer, and Griff hadn’t expected one. “I’m convinced now that doing away with me was his intention all along.” She was about to protest, but he spoke before she could. “Think about it. He was fanatical about keeping our agreement a secret. In order to guarantee that, I had to die. Leaving me alive was untidy. For a compulsive cleaner, I was an unacceptable wrinkle in the bar towel, a water spot on the granite. He insisted on perfection, and for his plan to be perfect, I had to be eliminated.” He paused, then said, “Him I could understand. But I wondered about you.”

“Me?”

“Were you in on it, Laura? Was this your plan, too?”

“I’m not even going to honor that with a response.”

“Why’d you go to Austin that day?”

He listened as she explained the circumstances. “Whatever happened that night, I wasn’t a part of it,” she said with heat. “I didn’t even know you’d been to the mansion until Rodarte told me your fingerprints were on the murder weapon.”

He dragged his hand down his face. “I didn’t think you would plot my death, but when my lights were going out, the question did flash through my mind. Were you conveniently in Austin so you wouldn’t have to witness my murder?”

“You truly thought that?”

“Uncanny how clearly you see things when you think you’re about to die. You’d refused to talk to me after our last afternoon together.”

“You know why I didn’t, why I couldn’t, talk to you, Griff.”

“Guilt.”

“Yes.”

“So maybe the only way to rid yourself of your guilt was to do away with me.”

She looked at him, her gaze unflinching.

He sighed. “Okay, I know better. But that’s what went through my mind. But then, just as I was about to lose consciousness, a worse thought occurred to me. You were in on Foster’s secret, too.”

She looked at him without reaction for several seconds, then recoiled. “What are you saying?”

“After you gave birth to the child, what if he decided that you were a threat to his secrecy, too?”

“Foster loved me. I know that. He adored me.”

“I don’t doubt it, Laura. But his mind was more twisted than his body. What if he began seeing you as a flaw to his perfect plan? If you were out of the picture, he would be the only one on earth who knew the truth about his heir’s parentage. You would be a living threat and, as such, would have to go.”

“He would never!”

“Maybe,” Griff said without conviction. “But it was the fear he would that saved my life. It gave me renewed strength. I started fighting that Salvadoran son of a bitch like something just let out of hell. I bucked. I kicked. I clawed. Even tried to bite him.

“But I was starved for oxygen. My coordination was for shit. I could barely think. All I accomplished was to use up my reserves. It was then I realized that the only way I’d survive was to pretend to succumb. I went limp.

“‘Good, good, good,’ I heard Foster say. Manuelo let go. I had the presence of mind to fall facefirst onto the rug so I could hide that I was breathing. Foster said, ‘Muy bien, Manuelo. Muy bien. Muy bien.’

“I could hear Manuelo gasping for breath. He was standing close to me. I partially opened one eye and saw his right shoe inches from my head. I grabbed him around the ankle and yanked his foot out from under him. Gravity did the tough part.”

Manuelo went down hard, landing on his back. Griff lunged on top of him and drove his fist into the man’s nose, felt cartilage give way to the thrust, felt blood on his knuckles. But Manuelo wasn’t dispatched. He placed the heel of his hand beneath Griff’s chin and gave a push that could have snapped his neck if he hadn’t averted his head in time.

Manuelo used that instant to throw Griff off. He sprang to his feet with the agility of a cat and kicked the side of Griff’s head with his heel. Griff cried out as pain splintered through his skull. He felt a surge of nausea in the back of his throat but swallowed it as he staggered to his feet.

He managed to stand, but unsteadily. The room was spinning. To stave off the unconsciousness that threatened, he blinked rapidly and brought Manuelo into focus. The man’s vacant smile had been replaced by a snarl.

“He had the letter opener in his hand,” Griff told Laura. “Foster was saying, ‘No blood, no blood, no blood.’ But I don’t think Manuelo heard him. He was past listening, past caring. The fight had become a matter of personal honor. He’d been ordered to kill me. To save face, that’s what he was going to do.”

Laura’s eyes were wide. She hadn’t moved or spoken in several minutes.

“When Manuelo sprang, I dodged.” Griff had relied on his timing, the innate talent that had enabled him to throw a pass with a precision that defied physics a split second before he was tackled. He’d waited until Manuelo moved, then ducked, fallen to the floor, and rolled. “Manuelo couldn’t stop his momentum. He broke his fall against Foster’s wheelchair, landing hard.”

“And the letter opener…”

“Yeah.” It had been buried to the hilt in the side of Speakman’s neck. “When Manuelo scrambled back and saw what he’d done, he screamed. Long as I live, I’ll never forget that sound.” Another sound Griff would never forget was the gurgling noise coming out of Speakman’s mouth, which was opening and closing like that of a dying fish. But Laura didn’t need to know the grisly details of how her husband had suffered before he died.

“It was a dreadful accident,” he said to her now. “But to Rodarte it looks like the act of a jealous jilted lover.”

For a long time, they sat in silence. Finally Laura took a deep breath, as though rousing herself from a sound sleep or a bad dream. “You’re right. To Rodarte it looks exactly like that.”

“What does it look like to you?”