and Clark was crazy hammered, taking hard turns at high speeds, driving up on the shoulder of the road. It was at the end of the day in a remote rural area.
“Clark said, ‘Get out the map, Fluffy. Can’t you do anything?’ I got the map out of the glove box and started to read him the directions back to the freeway-and that gave him a big idea. He told me to give him the directions in the electronic voice of the GPS. To do an imitation.”
I nodded, told Jinx to go on.
“There was a sign for Whiskeytown Lake. Clark said, ‘Whiskeytown. Sounds like my kind of place.’ I started talking like the GPS. ‘Turn right. In one. Mile. Turn right. In one half. Mile.’”
Jinx turned to me, looking small and young and vulnerable.
“I’ve never told this much of the story to anyone before. I’m sorry, Jack. I think I’ve made a mistake.”
I thought she had made a mistake, but now I was with her on that twisting road and I couldn’t see around the corner.
Had Jinx stabbed her husband?
Had she strangled him with a wire garrote?
“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re safe with me.”
That was when I realized that my point of view had shifted.
I wanted to hear Jinx’s story.
And I wanted her to be okay.
CHAPTER 88
Jinx looked haunted as she told me about Clark Langston’s life and death, still afraid of her dead husband. Maybe she still loved him too.
“We were on a dirt road that circled the lake,” she said. “Boaters were packing up their gear. The road turned into a rut, overgrown with grass and weeds, and in every way deserted.
“I was still doing my GPS voice,” Jinx continued. She smiled, but it was a nervous smile. “This laughable pretense of control over my husband was inspiring me, Jack. We were now locked in a crazy game of chicken. And he was goading me, saying, ‘You think I don’t know what you’re up to?’
“I don’t know how he knew it, but an idea had occurred to me-that maybe I could get him to crash his Maserati. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted him to die, and if I died too, it was all right.
“I said, ‘Take the next left.’ That was the road to the national recreation area.”
I sat back in my seat and watched her face. I imagined this power struggle twenty years before, the tyrannical older man and his bride who fantasized about getting even. Emotionally, Jinx was still back there.
“It was still light enough to see,” she said to me. “I told him to take the next turn, which was onto a boat ramp. He did it, and we took the ramp going forty.
“I lost my nerve. I screamed, but Clark was having a high time scaring me, making me sorry that I’d dared him. He laughed at me, Jack. He pressed his foot down even harder on the gas.”
“Did he realize where he was?”
“I’ll never know. He might have thought he could stop the car in time and misjudged the distance. Maybe he thought that his quarter-million-dollar car would fly. All I know for sure is that he never braked.
“I undid my seat belt,” Jinx told me. Her head was lowered. She was rushing now, trying to get the story over with.
“I had the door open, and I jumped before the car hit the water. I went numb for a while after that. I heard nothing, saw nothing, thought only of reaching the shore, which wasn’t far away.
“I didn’t look back. I walked for a while, got a ride, told the police that my husband had lost control of his car.
“When they pulled the car out of the lake, Clark was still wearing his seat belt. His blood alcohol was three times the legal limit, and his death was ruled accidental. No questions.
“I went to the funeral. I cried. Then I moved to LA. I took back my maiden name, and I got my degree.”
“You bought a hotel.”
Jinx said, “Yes. Right after I graduated. I bought a hotel with the two million dollars stipulated in my prenuptial agreement. I borrowed a lot more. I renovated the whole place, reopened it as the Beverly Hills Sun, and then I bought the other two. I was in a frenzy. I needed to work, to prove to myself that my life was worth something. That I didn’t need Clark’s love-or his disdain.
“Jack, what I did at Whiskeytown Lake-I wanted him to die, then I made my wish come true.”
She had started to tear up, but she wouldn’t let herself go. She said, “I’ve been feeling that the killings in my hotels are payback for Clark’s death, for the money I got from him.”
“Jinx, did you make your husband a drunk, an abuser, a rapist? Did you make him drive off that ramp?”
I was continuing in this vein, but she stopped me. She put her hand on my chest. She was struggling to get something out.
“I’m afraid…to trust myself again…to be with a man.”
She was leaning against me.
“I feel like I want to hold you,” I said.
She looked up at me, her eyes full of tears. “I need to be held.”
I took her into my arms, and at last she cried.
I hadn’t expected to feel close to her. I didn’t even welcome the feeling, but it was undeniable. I liked Jinx a lot.
CHAPTER 89
It was just after midnight. Except for a plastic bag blowing around the street and the odd car lost in the wrong neighborhood, absolutely nothing was happening on Anderson and Artemus.
The Private fleet car was a gray 2007 Chevy sedan, parked on Anderson, just south of Artemus, where the guys had a view of the entrance to the Red Cat Pottery, as well as the loading docks on Artemus.
Del Rio was at the wheel, Cruz riding shotgun, Scotty in the backseat. Everyone was very quiet.
Cruz said, “Call Jack.”
Del Rio got Jack on the line and told him where they were. They exchanged thoughts on how to steal a fortune in illegal pharmaceuticals on behalf of the Vegas Mob without getting caught, without getting thrown in the clink for twenty years, with no help from Carmine Noccia.
Del Rio said, “It’s getting late, Jack. That Oxy is going to leave the warehouse one box at a time. In another few weeks there’s going to be an empty van in there and Noccia is going to break heads. He’s going to start with yours.”
Jack gave Del Rio the go-ahead, and Del Rio hung up.
Cruz started the car and drove to Boyd, a dead-end street parallel to Artemus, where he found a space among the delivery trucks and panel vans parked all along the length of it, both sides of the street walled in by cement-block warehouses colorfully tagged with spray-painted graffiti.
Del Rio twisted around in his seat. “Scotty. You’re up. Let’s rock ’n’ roll.”
Scotty took a slug off his water bottle and said, “I’m liking the window below the stairs.”
“Make it quick,” Del Rio said.
Scotty pulled on a pair of work gloves, turned the dome light to the “off” position, and opened the back door.
Del Rio said, “Wait a second.”
When the taxi had passed on Anderson, Del Rio told Scotty to go. Scotty was wearing black from neck to toe and was almost invisible except for the shine coming off his blond hair. Del Rio and Cruz watched as he reached the top of the alley and crossed the street, still in view of the Chevy.
