Something about him had felt wrong. The way he had kissed her hand when Paul had introduced her to Martin. Something lecherous in the smile-a flatness in his eyes. He had stared at her all evening, and the stare had put ice in her blood. She tensed as she remembered the meeting in the DEA parking lot in Arlington two weeks or so after that party. She had been sitting in her car near the front door at DEA headquarters reading a novel. It had been a beautiful day, and the car window had been down. She had felt a hand on her face, initially thought it was Paul, but she had been startled to find Martin Fletcher leaning against the side of the vehicle smiling in at her. Leering.
“You want to take up where we left off the other night? I presume you’ve been thinking about me. What I could give you?”
“You presume completely wrong,” she had snapped.
He had reached in and gripped her upper leg where the shorts were cuffed. He had pushed his fingers up her leg and into the crease in her panties. She had recoiled but was belted into her seat. “Laura, let me tell you something. I would give this little pussy the fucking of its life, and you’d have to keep bringing it back for more. In fact, you’d leave that faggot you’re married to and follow me around on your hands and knees.”
She hadn’t been able to budge his hand no matter how she tried. She’d tried to slap him, but he’d caught her hand in midswing and kissed it, pressing his wet tongue between her fingers. Then he had turned and laughed-a laugh she would never forget. It had taken her ten minutes to stop crying.
She had never mentioned the incident to Paul because she feared the consequences to him. Paul wasn’t a physical person, and this Martin Fletcher was. A few months later Martin had been arrested, tried, and sentenced to federal prison.
Martin Fletcher had said at the trial that he had been framed by Paul and his team. He was even more dangerous than she had imagined. Eight innocent people. Children and wives. The thought of waking up looking into those cold, dead eyes honestly terrified her. Just the idea of violence made her ill. How could she fight him? He was a monster.
She climbed out of bed, put on an old cotton button-down that had been Paul’s. The tail covered her almost to the knees. She rolled up the sleeves and went downstairs, with Wolf close at her heels. She had a lot of work to do to get ready for the German show. She had assured the gallery twenty large paintings, and only sixteen were completed. She would have to work on four at one time to meet the deadline.
Lily had insisted on bringing potential clients into the studio to visit and see the work in progress, but Laura had refused, saying the visits would intrude on her concentration. That was before she had federal agents in the trees, ears taking in every conversation in the house, Paul off the mountain, and the constant fear of Martin Fletcher running free. She turned on the studio lights and studied the three paintings that were hanging on the work-in- progress wall. She was amazed at how much better they seemed to be. Maybe the pressure would work to her advantage, she thought to herself. Wolf dropped to the floor by the table, then seemed to remember something, got up, and went ambling down the hall toward the kitchen. The sounds of his lapping at his bowl of water filtered down the hall.
Laura sat on her stool and began mixing a flesh tone on the pallet. She was planning to work on the canvas on which she had sketched a woman standing at the edge of a cliff, wrapped mummylike in barbed wire. The skin between the strands was protruding in fleshy pink bands. She began painting in the skin between the strands of wire. It was a self-portrait.
As she painted, she tried to lose herself in memories so she could dredge up intense moments from her past. That was easy. She simply tried to remember the last full day and night she had spent with Paul.
John Ramsey Miller
The Last Family
22
Lallo Estevez was sound asleep. He was normally a heavy sleeper, but the gentle chirping of his personal cellular phone, tucked beneath his pillow, awakened him as a shotgun blast fired over the bed might have awakened another man. His wife, unaware, was lying flat on her back with her head aimed at the ceiling, snoring loudly beside him. Her eyes were covered with a white blindfold trimmed with burgundy lace, and her face shone from a coating of moisturizing cream. There were clear wax plugs in her ears to insure uninterrupted sleep. Lallo opened the telephone and put it to his ear.
“Yes?” he said, trying to sound alert.
“This is Spivey. Your office. Now. Alone.”
“Now?”
“Well, take twenty minutes.”
Lallo tossed the covers back and stepped into his room-sized closet. He dressed hurriedly, brushed his silver hair carefully, and put on his overcoat. He opened a drawer and removed a small automatic. He contemplated the handgun, started to slip it into his waistband, and then decided not to. If Spivey or any of his CIA dark-operations pros wanted to kill him, the gun would be useless.
Lallo slipped on his dark topcoat and went out to the garage. He opened the door to his wife’s Mercedes wagon, climbed inside, and was about to close the door when the overhead fluorescent went dead and a man moved toward the car with a flashlight pointed at Lallo’s eyes. He caught the door before Lallo could close it. Lallo looked up, then winced. The man’s face was hidden behind the light, and he didn’t try to look. To see the face, whether it belonged to friend or foe, could be dangerous.
“Mr. Estevez. Nice to see you again.”
“Mr. Spivey,” Lallo answered. “A surprise.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that Fletcher had contacted you?”
“I was… I haven’t had time… Tomorrow I…” Lallo realized that his hands were trembling.
“Then he has. When?”
Lallo could hear the smile in the man’s voice and cursed himself for not contacting Spivey as he had been instructed-warned. He tricked me. He didn’t know! “Today,” he lied. “Earlier this evening. He called in saying that he was someone else, but I recognized his voice.”
“You were supposed to call me.”
“I got sidetracked.”
“The meeting-when?”
“He wants the money that’s owed to him. See, you people will get me killed yet.”
“We hoped he’d want the debt settled. So I do know what I’m talking about, after all.”
“Holding back the money I owed him was dangerous. He might have gone to Perez, who had already paid it to me. Then what do you imagine would have happened to me? My intestines would be on the carpeting. Perez pays me and I do not pay Martin… either of them could kill me. I am lucky he called me. He could just as easily have appeared in my bedroom.” Lallo knew it wasn’t the money that Fletcher measured, but the apparent disrespect that holding the money back represented. Martin’s ego would be his downfall. Lallo knew that Martin had paid the doctor in Spain a fortune for the face alteration and had then killed the man after he had banked the cash. Lallo would have killed him before he’d paid him. That would have been a prudent business maneuver.
“Look, Lallo. You like doing business in this country? You don’t want to end up out of our favor, do you? Be out of favor and into Marion or Fort Leavenworth for enough years so you’d be over one hundred when you got out. We don’t want that, do we?”
“You don’t know this man like I do. Martin is like a viper. He might not bite this time, but the next time he might, or the time after.”
“When do you meet him?”
“Tomorrow night. Eleven P.M. at my pier. Beside the Vasquez, which is presently at the dock to unload.”
“Meet with him. We have someone to go along with you. Ramon Chavez. You know him.”
“Ramon?” He shrugged, wrinkling his brow, remembering the fierce Indian. “A good man. But, between us, he makes me very uneasy.” Lallo crossed himself. Lallo had made use of Ramon to cover meetings and to instill a healthy fear in his business associates. That had been years before. He was aware that Ramon had left the cartel
