Show of Evil

The phone rang.

'Oh sweet Jesus,' he moaned.

He tried to ignore it, but after five rings he knew Stenner was not to be denied. The man knew he was home and why.

'Shit, shit, shit,' he growled, and finally snatched up the receiver. 'Major, I'm not home at this time. If you'll leave a - '

'John Farrell Delaney.'

A pause. 'What about him?'

'He's lying in the middle of a penthouse on Lake View Drive wearing two .38-calibre slugs and nothing else. Either shot would have killed him.'

'You son of a bitch.'

'Ten minutes? Or do you need to take a shower?'

Vail thought he heard a snicker in Stenner's voice. He ignored the remark.

'Been over there yet?'

'Shock called me. What I just told you is all I know.'

'Ten minutes,' Vail said in surrender.

'I'm down front waiting.'

'I should've known.'

He hung up. She stared at him, still admiring his naked body as he starred to dress. 'You don't have to go home,' she purred. 'Why don't you spend the night?'

'Very funny,' he muttered. 'It's a homicide.'

'Not very flattering.'

'What?'

'Screwing my brains out and then leaving me for a corpse.'

He pulled up his pants and angrily jerked up the zipper. 'Midnight forays in the human jungle.'

'As I recall, there were about two thousand homicides last year. Did you get out of bed for all of them?'

'They didn't all happen at night,' he said, looking for one of his shoes.

She sat up and groped for a cigarette.

'Shall I wait up for you?' she asked, flapping her eyelids at him like a silent-screen vamp.

'Didn't this ever happen when you were a prosecutor?' he asked.

She shook her head very slowly. 'I only had one phone and I unplugged it.'

'Suppose it was something big?' he said, putting on his socks and loafers.

She blew out a slow stream of smoke. Curiosity crept into her voice. 'How big?'

'Veeery, veeeery big.'

'Where are you going?' she asked suspiciously.

He waved her off. 'It was a rhetorical question, Janie.'

'No, no, you're not getting away with that, Vail. What happened? Where are you going at…' she looked at the clock - 'eleven-thirty at night?'

'John Farrell Delaney pique your interest?'

She straightened up when he said the name, surprise rounding her eyes. 'What about him?'

He looked at her, smiled, and held a finger over his lips.

'He did something! Did he do… No! Something was done to him.'

A brief vision from the past flashed through Vail's mind. The Judge and Vail, facing each other across his big desk, fingers on silver dollars, as they played mind games.

'It's classified at this point, Jane. You know I can't - '

'Don't give me that shit, Martin Vail. Ever hear of date rape? Speak up or I'll start screaming.'