Макс Коллинз - No One Will Hear You

“Those last two may be day jobs,” Harrow said, “for wannabe actresses. Let’s find out.”

Jenny said, “I’d like access to the e-mail accounts of the victims.”

“I think,” Harrow said, “we can arrange that.”

Midmorning, Harrow met briefly in his office with Amari, Polk, and the FBI agent Rousch. Everybody quickly got on board the theory that Don Juan and Billie Shears were a single serial-killer team.

Anna looked casually great in an LAPD T-shirt and jeans. Polk was casual, too, or anyway his idea of it, black cargo pants and a black T-shirt. The FBI guy wore a suit.

“I’m fine with giving Jenny Blake access to the appropriate e-mail records,” Anna said. “Anything else?”

Harrow leaned back in his swivel desk chair. “We know they’re using roofies, right?” “Right.”

“Any chance you could track where they’re getting the stuff?”

“No shortage of street sources,” Polk said. “We can start there.”

“One trackable source of Rohypnol,” Anna said, sitting forward, “is veterinarians’ offices. We’ll check for any reported thefts.”

“I can put some people on it,” Rousch said, nodding at these good ideas. “We can check over a larger area.”

“Great,” Harrow said. “That kind of thing is beyond my team’s resources.”

Rousch offered up a lopsided smile. “Your people have done outstanding work. I apologize for suggesting you’d do better on the sidelines, the other day.”

“No problem. Uh, Mark — are you still thinking you’d like to see Crime Seen go on hiatus till this thing is over?”

“I am.”

“Well, now’s your chance to make your pitch. When I knew you were heading over, I called the network president. He’s in his office right now. Want to meet with him?”

“Burnside himself?”

“Dennis Byrnes himself.”

“Well, uh... please.”

Anna and Polk slipped out to work with the Killer TV team, and within five minutes Byrnes had joined Harrow and the FBI agent, taking the seat Anna had vacated.

The exec was in a pink polo shirt and black shorts, sockless in white deck shoes. He did not look his most intimidating.

On the other hand, another guest — unexpected by Harrow much less Rousch — seemed plenty intimidating.

Bald, black Lucian Richards entered and positioned himself in his folded-arms, living-statue, harem-guard way just beside the seated Harrow.

The attorney must have come directly from church or anyway had taken time to change — his sharply tailored, plum-colored suit sent two messages: I am not here to screw around; and I am on the clock ...

Harrow made the introductions. The handshakes between the FBI man and the network prez were perfunctory, and all Rousch got from Richards was a grave nod.

Rousch said, “Obviously, Mr. Byrnes, J.C. has informed you of what we would like done.”

“Yes.”

“Our top profilers are of the opinion that these perpetrators may back off, without the promise of celebrity that Crime Seen affords them.”

Byrnes’s shrug indicated an easygoing attitude that his unblinking gaze didn’t back up. “We discussed temporarily pulling the show, after receiving the first Don Juan video.”

“Yes, J.C. said as much.”

“And we have never caved to this madman’s demands that we air his sick handiwork.”

“I know. And the Bureau appreciates that.”

“But early on, Special Agent Rousch, we at UBC came to the decision that we cannot hide from our responsibility as communicators.”

“Meaning...?”

“Meaning the show will stay on the air.”

Rousch’s throat was reddening. “You would risk more lives? For what, more money ?”

Harrow expected Richards to wade in, but the attorney remained a big, looming, silent presence. For now.

Byrnes said, “Can you guarantee that no one else will die if we yank the show?”

“Of course I can’t!”

“Of course you can’t. We have a top profiler, too, Special Agent Rousch... J.C., what does Mr. Pall say?”

Harrow kept his voice soft, even. “His opinion — and mine — is that pulling the show plays into the hands of these egotistical maniacs. Makes them bigger, more powerful celebrities. And may well incite them to kill more, perhaps at an accelerated rate.”

“The profiler you have on staff,” Rousch said rather acidly, “took a handful of classes under our profilers, at the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico... where profiling was invented? And they don’t agree with him.”

“Nonetheless,” Richards said, his basso profundo rumbling the room as he suddenly entered the debate, “UBC has decided to keep Crime Seen on the air.”

“Mr. Richards—”

“Unless you’re ready to meet us in court, and try to shut the show down on legal grounds — and I can’t imagine what those grounds might be — this meeting is over.”

The red had risen from Rousch’s throat to his face now. “A judge might put the public welfare over UBC’s need to ‘communicate’ or make money, whichever is the real motivation. And have any of you people even heard of the FCC?”

Harrow raised a hand. “Special Agent Rousch, this argument becomes moot if we catch the killers before next Friday. Maybe we should concentrate on that.”

Rousch, outnumbered and facing home-court advantage, let out the heaviest of sighs... then nodded.

Richards stepped forward and held out his hand; the FBI agent shook it without thinking.

“Whatever our differences, Special Agent Rousch,” Richards said, “please know that UBC and Crime Seen want these killers off the streets every bit as much as the FBI. We’ll do whatever can to help... short of taking the show off the air.”

Rousch managed, “Thank you for that much.”

Richards nodded to Byrnes, and then the white guy in shorts and the black guy from a GQ ad were gone.

The FBI man stared across the desk at Harrow. “What just hit me?”

“You’ve heard of good cop, bad cop?”

“I’ve lived it.”

“Well, you just met Lucian Richards’s good-cop side. You don’t ever want to meet the bad-cop side.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Well, that’s out of the way.” Harrow smiled at his guest. “Shall we go figure out how to catch two killers, keep my show on the air, and get you back to Quantico?”

Rousch’s eyebrows went up, came down. He sighed again, but nothing earth-shattering. “Sounds good,” he said.

The lovemaking was over.

This woman, Erica Thornton, the teller from Newport Beach with ambitions to act, had been an enthusiastic sex partner — very giving, as well as voracious (despite the drugs), and if he had been the sort of man who was really into sex, he might have been devastated knowing she would have to die.

Instead, those first postcoital moments were merely bittersweet.

The character Don Juan loved sex, but once the mechanics of the act were over, he — the actor — ceased being that character, the performance over. Much as his costar’s life would be.

Costar wasn’t right, though was it? She was more a day player, in movie parlance. His real costar was working behind the scenes, handling the stagecraft, though her time to come on stage drew near.

Funny, while he was playing Don Juan, he liked the sex, liked it well enough anyway, while the man behind the performance really only cared about the end result — how this video would further the plan and his career. Their career, his real costar and he...