James Grippando - Last to die

“Who?”

“The phony name you passed along to Sally Fenning over the Internet.”

“I swear to God, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really? Then why’d you videotape her?”

“What videotape?”

“I saw your little library, all those tapes in your closet. Didn’t see one for Sally, but I’m sure we’ll find it here some-”

“That’s not-”

“Shut up!” Theo shouted. “What did I say about interrupting me?”

“I’m sorry, okay? But-”

“Don’t give me no lip, asshole. I’ll bet you weren’t even her bodyguard. You probably didn’t even work for her, did you? What were you, her self-appointed bodyguard? Bodyguard is a nice way of saying you were her stalker?”

Javier was turning ash white.

Theo flicked his cigarette lighter, then adjusted the flame upward until it was shooting a six-inch tongue of fire. “Show me your tape of Sally.”

“There is no-”

“I’ll turn you to toast, man.”

“I’m telling you, there is no tape.”

“Don’t lie to me!”

“I’m not lying! Please, don’t burn me, man. Just don’t burn me!”

Theo extinguished the lighter, then ripped the “Pauline” tape from inside his coat and threw it at him. “Play it. Let’s see your work.”

“This isn’t my work.”

“Play it!” he shouted.

“Okay, okay.” Javier took the tape, rose slowly, and walked to the television. Theo kept his gun trained on his head with every step. He inserted the tape into the VCR and adjusted the television. The screen flickered, then turned blue. Theo waited anxiously, expecting to see a crude surveillance tape of an unsuspecting woman sleeping in her bed or sitting on her toilet-a woman named Pauline whom this pervert had stalked with a hidden camera, just as he’d stalked Sally.

But it was something else entirely. Theo heard a woman moaning, then a man grunting as the image on screen came into focus. A gorgeous blonde was lying on her back, floating naked atop a waterbed, her legs pointing up to the ceiling in the shape of a V with stiletto heels. Some guy with incredibly strong hips was directly underneath her, doing the absolute best he could in one of those painful front-to-back positions that made sense only if sex was intended to be fun strictly for viewers and not participants.

“That’s Pauline Preston,” said Theo.

“You know her?”

“She’s one of my favorites.”

“I got four of hers. Buddy of mine copies the tapes for me over at the video store. I keep them alphabetical by actress. Titles never mean anything to me.”

“Are you telling me that every tape on those shelves in your bedroom closet is bootleg porn?”

“It’s kind of a hobby of mine.”

“A hobby? There must be a hundred tapes in there.”

“Okay, it gets a little out of control sometimes. I admit it. I even told your buddy Jack when we met over at Club Vertigo. I think I’m-”

Theo waited for him to finish, but Javier was suddenly glued to the set. It seemed that Pauline needed a shower, but somehow she’d lost her way and managed to wander straight into the locker room of a men’s rugby team.

“You think you’re what?” asked Theo.

“I’m addicted,” he said in a weak voice, unable to tear his gaze away from the screen. “I’m totally addicted to this shit.”

Theo gave a little shrug and said, “Isn’t everybody?”

You threatened to burn him alive?” said Jack. He was stopped in his car at a traffic light, one hand on his cellular, the other pressed between his eyes as if to stave off a migraine.

Theo said, “It’s not like I doused him with gasoline or anything. I used vodka. It’s like that game you play as a kid where you squirt lighter fluid on your hand and then start it on fire.”

“I think I missed that game,” said Jack.

“The fuel burns, but your arm doesn’t. Anyway, worst that would have happened to lover boy was like a bad sunburn. But he was too stupid to know that, so he told me everything.”

Jack wasn’t so sure that the stunt was as harmless as Theo thought it was. “Theo, no more tricks like that, okay?”

“No need for it now. Turns out that the videotapes weren’t surveillance tapes after all. They’re all just bootleg porn.”

“What?”

“Lover boy is quite the pervert, but he’s no stalker. At least he wasn’t Sally’s stalker. I’m telling you, there’s nothing like the threat of fire to drag the truth out of someone. He’s definitely not Alan Sirap.”

A misty rain was starting to fall, hard enough for little beads to gather on Jack’s windshield and then zigzag their way down to the wipers. Crazy Miami weather, sunny one minute, raining the next. “He could still be Tatum’s partner,” said Jack.

“No way. Tatum wouldn’t have a partner this stupid.”

“You may be right. To tell you the truth, I’m starting to get a gut feeling about Miguel.”

“How do you mean?”

The light changed, and he was about to pull into the intersection, but an ambulance was cruising toward him from the opposite direction. Jack stayed put, catching sight of the backward painted letters on the front hood of the emergency vehicle as it flew past him.

And that was when it suddenly came clear in his mind.

“Holy shit,” he said.

“What?” asked Theo.

“I’m going back to Miguel’s house.”

“Jack, what’s going on?”

“There’s something I want to check out.”

“You want me to help?”

“That’s okay. If I need a fire, I’ll rub two sticks together.”

“That was harsh.”

“I’ll call you.” Jack ended the call and pulled a U-turn. In less than five minutes he was back on Miguel’s front step. He had to knock three times before Miguel answered.

“Back so soon?” he said as he opened the door.

“I think I left my sunglasses here.”

“I didn’t see them, but I’ll take a look.”

“Mind if I wait inside? It’s starting to rain out here.”

He hesitated, as if more than a little suspicious, then acquiesced.

“Sure. Wait right here.”

Jack stepped inside and closed the door. Like many Florida houses built in the sixties, Miguel’s house had no true foyer. The front door opened to what was originally a screened-in porch, but Miguel had enclosed it and converted it into a small home office space.

Out of the corner of his eye Jack could see Miguel in the living room as he checked for sunglasses behind the couch cushions, on the table, in the general area where Jack was seated. Jack had only a few seconds, which was more than sufficient. The computer was nearby, and all he needed was to get a look at the screen from the right angle. He took two steps forward, stole a quick glance, and froze.

The computer was turned off, and Jack had approached it in the same way Miguel had undoubtedly approached it day after day, before switching it on. The screen was black, but there was a reflection on the glass. Directly behind the computer was a typical work of framed commercial art that was sold at places like Z-Gallery, a huge replica of an Art Nouveau poster for the 1900 World’s Fair-Exposition Universelle. Across the top in big arching letters was the name of the host city, which reflected backward on the screen: S-I-R-A-P. Paris.

In a flash, Jack envisioned Miguel at his computer late one night, posing as the stalker and communicating in an Internet chat room with his ex-wife Sally in Africa. She suddenly asked for his name. Of course he couldn’t give his real name. He conjured up a bogus name, any old name that popped into his head. Without even realizing it, he typed in the name he’d seen in the reflection of his computer screen day after day, week after week, month after month, every time he approached that black screen and switched on the power. The name had been planted in his unconscious mind, just as it had been planted in Jack’s mind a few minutes earlier, the first time Jack had passed through Miguel’s Florida room on his way out the door, though it hadn’t really registered until he spotted that passing emergency vehicle with the backward letters-Y-C-N-E-G-R-E-M-E-painted across the hood.