Sandra Brown - Play Dirty

When he heard the single word she whispered, he jerked his head up and looked down into the single eye she could hold open. She closed it for several seconds, letting him know that he’d heard correctly.

“This was about me?”

She nodded.

Rage surged through him. His veins swelled and pulsed with it. But his voice remained remarkably calm. “He’s going to die.” He said it as a fact, meaning it unequivocally, telling her that she could bank on it. “Stanley Rodarte is going to die.”

Now he understood why she had refused to call the police. Rodarte would have made it understood that accusing him would bring on a reprisal even worse than the beating he’d already given her.

Most sickening was knowing that the only reason Rodarte had victimized Marcia was to send a message to Griff. In that, he’d succeeded. Griff read the message loud and clear. Rodarte wasn’t finished with him yet.

Well, guess what, cocksucker, Griff thought. I’ve only begun with you.

“I’ll make him pay for this,” he vowed to Marcia in a whisper. “I swear to you.”

She pressed his hand. He bent down to her lips again. The garbled sounds came from the back of her throat, but she managed to make her warning understood. “Be careful of him.”

THE CALL CAME EARLY ON A MONDAY MORNING, JUST AS HE was waking up, but before he’d got out of bed. He rolled over, sleepily groped for his new cell phone on the nightstand, and flipped it open. “Hello?”

“Mr. Burkett?”

That woke him up. “Yeah. Here.”

She didn’t identify herself. She didn’t have to. “Would one o’clock today be convenient for you?”

“One o’clock?” Like he had to think about it. Like he might have a conflict. Like he had something else to do. “One o’clock’s fine.”

“Here’s the address.” She gave him a number on Windsor Street. “Got it?”

“Got it.”

She hung up. Griff snapped his phone shut, then lay there clutching it, clutching the fact that they were really going through with it. Then he sat bolt upright. The hitch in his back protested loudly enough to cause him to catch his breath. He threw off the sheet, got out of bed, and, buck naked, went clambering through his apartment until he found a pen and paper to write down the address. He was certain he’d committed it to memory, but he was taking no chances.

He went into the bathroom. Standing at the toilet, he looked down at himself and muttered, “Don’t even think about getting stage fright.”

As expected, he’d passed the physical exam with flying colors. The nurse had come through for him in only two days. The report showed his EKG to be normal, his lungs clear. He had low blood pressure, low cholesterol, and a low PSA-he thought that had something to do with his prostate. His sperm count, by contrast, was high. Excellent.

He’d put the report, along with his cell phone number, in the addressed and stamped envelope Speakman had given him for this purpose, and dropped it into the nearest mailbox.

That had been two weeks ago. Since then, he’d moved to another apartment and acquired a tan.

Using his newfound cash, he had abandoned the roach-infested place and moved into a duplex. Living strictly on a cash basis presented the expected problems. Eyebrows were raised when he signed his lease, but the management of the complex took the cash without asking too many questions. His new place wasn’t in the ritziest of neighborhoods, which would have required letters of recommendation and closer scrutiny, but it was worlds above where he’d been.

The complex had a security gate, well-kept grounds, a gym, and a pool-which accounted for his tan. After moving in his new furniture and setting up a sound system and plasma-screen, high-definition TV (the best invention ever), he didn’t have much else to do except work out-it had been during a moment of pique that he had considered getting fat-and lounge by the pool.

He also went to the hospital nearly every day to visit Marcia, and he always took something with him. He’d taken flowers until the nursing staff complained that the room was becoming a greenhouse. Dwight, who’d proved to be a steadfast and attentive friend to her, chided Griff for not being more creative. So one day he took her a teddy bear. The next day he carried in a goofy hat. “To wear until you can get out of here and have your hair done,” he told her as he gently placed it on her head.

She still couldn’t speak, but she communicated her gratitude for his visits with her expressive eyes. By now she could take short strolls down the corridor. Dwight had referred a plastic surgeon who, according to Dwight’s affluent and well-preserved clientele, was a genius. After examining Marcia, the surgeon promised to do great things but said he couldn’t even begin until she had completely healed.

She still sipped her meals through a straw, and every time Griff witnessed that, his fury resurfaced. What he conjectured was that Rodarte had gone up to Marcia’s penthouse immediately after their encounter in the garage. Expecting her client, she’d opened the door to him. He’d pumped her for information about Griff, and when she didn’t-actually couldn’t-divulge any, he’d tried beating it out of her.

From Rodarte’s standpoint, it was a failed mission only insofar as he still didn’t know what Griff’s future plans were. But he’d had the satisfaction of terrorizing and disfiguring a beautiful woman who was an acquaintance of Griff’s. Knowing he could get away with it because of her profession was a bonus. Rodarte was a lowlife, a bully who would enjoy inflicting pain just for the hell of it. Gratifying his mean streak was really all the motivation he needed.

Griff couldn’t think about it without becoming enraged. On one of his visits to the hospital, he again broached the subject of reporting Rodarte to the police, but the fear and anguish that filled Marcia’s eyes dissuaded him.

“He won’t get away with it,” he told her. “I promise you.”

There had been no sign of Rodarte since the assault. Griff knew where to find him, but he didn’t dare go looking. Rodarte would love for him to come crashing down doors threatening bloodshed. No doubt that was the kind of reckless reaction he had hoped to provoke.

Griff wouldn’t give Rodarte the satisfaction of getting his butt thrown in jail again, nor did he wish to make matters worse for his suffering friend. So for the time being, he honored Marcia’s silent pleas and didn’t seek retribution.

Today thoughts of Rodarte were obscured by Laura Speakman’s call. Having had two weeks to prepare for it mentally, he was surprised by how nervous he was. To distract himself until the appointed time, he went for a five-mile run, then worked out with weights in the gym. His goal wasn’t to build himself back up to his football playing size but to maintain the lean, strong form he had now.

He followed the weights session with laps in the pool. But when it occurred to him that too much exertion might be detrimental to his sexual performance, he immediately got out.

He flossed before he brushed. He clipped his fingernails. He put on his new Armani sports jacket. He left his apartment at twelve-thirty. He arrived at the address at twelve thirty-seven. He had twenty-three minutes to kill.

The house was in an established area that had a Neighborhood Crime Watch, where residents were on the alert for people who lurked about and looked suspicious. He decided it would be better not to wait parked on the tree-lined street where he would fit that description to a tee.

Instead, he pulled into the narrow driveway and followed it around to the rear of the house, where there was a sheltered parking area and a neat backyard, made shady by two venerable sycamore trees. A privacy fence separated the property from the houses on either side.