John Lutz - Torch

The door marked VINCENT WALTON opened noiselessly and Walton stepped out.

He looked tired and resigned, rather than surprised to see Carver. Today he was wearing designer jeans, baggy and tapered tight at the ankles, and a silky white shirt that was unbuttoned halfway down to reveal his hairy chest and a gold chain with a carved ivory charm on it. With his handsome, weary features and pencil-thin mustache, he reminded Carver of an aged Errol Flynn trying without success to play the swashbuckling leading man one last time.

He said, “I was afraid I’d see you here, Carver. You’re the kind of dog that keeps digging till it finds the bone.”

“I know why Donna Winship committed suicide, and why Mark Winship and Gretch were killed.”

“Well, that’s the bone.”

“The modeling agency is a front for a much more lucrative business. When someone wants a divorce but knows the price in money or child custody is going to be high, they come to you. You help them.”

“Only if they’ve heard of us and understand our unique service. And if they’ve been referred to us by a former client. We advertise by word of mouth only and cater to a select clientele, and our price is high because our specialty is in demand.” Walton’s tone of voice had taken on the quality of a salesman making his pitch, believing in his product.

“You provide someone to seduce the spouse who’s going to be served divorce papers but doesn’t know it yet,” Carver said. “The seduction isn’t difficult, considering that your employees are experienced, attractive, and expert seducers, and they have intimate information provided by your clients about their spouses.”

“You’d be surprised how easy it is, Carver, when you know everything about a person, from their taste in food and music to their sexual preferences and weaknesses.”

“Your employees, like Carl Gretch or Mandy Jamison, accomplish the seduction, then in the course of the affair they arrange to be photographed or videotaped with the victim in a compromising position.”

“Preferably one involving sexual deviance,” Walton said. “Even a straight arrow like Donna Winship had desires she wasn’t aware of until they were awakened in her by Carl. He was good at his work.”

Carver felt his anger rise, a pressure pumping through his veins. “The victim usually agrees to any divorce conditions, knowing that if there’s a court fight the affair and the tape or photographs will be made public and they’ll lose big anyway, as well as suffer loss of reputation. The illicit lover has disappeared by then, run out on them the way Maggie did on Charlie Post. But that only makes the affair seem more tawdry and increases the likelihood of the victim losing even more money, property, or child custody in the divorce.”

“You’ve got it,” Walton said, as if Carver were a struggling student who’d finally grasped the lesson.

“But Donna Winship figured something was wrong and hired me to follow her-because she thought someone else might be following her.”

“Our private detective and photographer. But he wasn’t following her constantly. He’s a busy man and spread too thin. You can understand why there’s such a need for our services. The world’s full of people-male and female-who need the best possible terms of divorce when they want to terminate a bad marriage. I mean, to me, marriage is a valuable institution. Reverend Devine and I agree on that one. He was easy, by the way. Cindy Sue Devine knew about his addiction to sex, so Mandy Jamison became a devout churchgoer and volunteer. It only took a month. She had to wait in line. So now he knows how it feels, huh?” He raised his arms and tilted his head to one side in a parody of the Crucifixion. “It looks now like Cindy Sue is going to control the good reverend’s church and the flock that gets shorn regularly.”

“In a way, she and you are in the same business,” Carver said. “You both prey on people’s misery, offer them paradise, then make your killing.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Walton said, “but praise the Lord, you’re right.”

“Speaking of killing,” said a voice Carver knew. The other door behind the reception desk had opened and Beni Ho stepped out and leaned on his cane.

“You’ve placed us in a compromising position of our own, Carver,” Walton said. “We’re going to have to close shop here, it appears. Make ourselves impossible to find. It’s a real shame.”

“You’d still be in business if you hadn’t gotten greedy,” Carver said. “Which of the Winships approached you first?”

“Mark. He wanted the divorce and he wanted the child. So I assigned Enrico Thomas-Carl Gretch-to Donna. Gretch knew she was weak and he could get her to do almost anything with enough time, so he stretched things out. She got kinkier and kinkier, loving every second of it and loving him. Couldn’t help herself any more than a woman drowning in the middle of the ocean. One night she told Gretch she’d decided she was going to divorce Mark, and she was worried someone might know about their affair and she might lose child custody.” Walton grinned. “Gretch got my okay, then he told her how to avoid that.”

“So you accepted both spouses as clients.”

“It was the first time we’d done that,” Walton said. “It opened a whole new world of opportunity.”

“But Donna wasn’t as blinded by love and lust as you and Gretch thought. She suspected what was going on and suffered so much guilt that she killed herself, and Beni Ho murdered a remorseful Mark to keep him quiet and made it look like suicide. Then he killed Gretch, after you’d talked him into moving back into his apartment to deflect suspicion after he’d panicked and run. Maggie would have been next. She started out by faking alcoholism, then found it wasn’t all an act. Her drinking, and what she knew, posed a problem, even after you left her that dismembered doll as a warning.”

“Donna’s death was something Mark hadn’t figured on,” Walton said. “It hit him hard, made him feel responsible. Maggie had managed through Charlie Post to get a position at Burnair and Crosley so she could get next to him after Donna hired us, so she was in a good position to keep an eye on him almost on an hourly basis. And she knew how to get him to talk in bed. She told us he was considering committing suicide and leaving a note explaining why. So we had to prevent that. We simply moved his schedule up and persuaded him to write a note that met with our approval. That zipped everything up neatly. Then you came along,” Walton said bitterly, “and it was a matter of time before Gretch would break and talk. So I gave him to Beni.”

“And now,” Beni Ho said through his ever-present smile, “I get you.” He stood up straighter and tossed away his cane. It clattered off the far wall and dropped onto the carpet. “We’re not alike anymore, Carver, except on the inside, where it counts most. You understand why I need to kill you.”

“And you understand it works in both directions.”

“We’re more alike than different.”

Walton said, “I’ll finish packing what we need from here,” and went into his office, closing the door with his name on it. In his mind, Carver was finished business.

Beni Ho moved toward Carver in a slight crouch, still favoring the leg Carver had shot. There was intense and glossy concentration in his eyes and anticipation in his smile. Carver could see his tiny, lithe body readying itself, like a cat gathering energy for its spring. The cold fear in Carver’s gut was like novocaine, partially paralyzing him, slowing reaction and movement. Ho knew about that and winked at him.

Then he screamed and came at Carver with what martial arts practitioners call a crescent kick, wheeling his body and leg sideways, his foot arcing with bullet speed toward Carver’s head.