Watch Them Die

“Great Lakes Investigations?” he said. “Yes, I’m calling in regard to one of your detectives, Ronald Craig, now deceased. I need to get in touch with the client who hired him, a Mr. Kenneth Woodley. I believe he’s in Seattle at the moment…. Hello? Hello? Are you talking to me? Excuse me…. No, I can’t hold. Let me give you an e-mail address where Mr. Woodley can contact me…. No, I’m sorry, I need to hang up soon. Believe me, Mr. Woodley will want to contact me. The e-mail address is—Well, I don’t care. Scratch it in your arm if you have to. It’s Ralph-at- eight-oh-nine-oh-three-dot-net.”

Ben repeated the e-mail address, then hung up without saying good-bye. “Damn, that was weird,” he said. “The receptionist was trying to stall. I could hear someone on the other end whispering at her to keep me talking. They were probably trying to trace the call.”

Wiping his forehead, Ben put the scrap of paper away. Then he pulled out his sunglasses and put them on.

“So—whose e-mail address is Ralph-at-eight-oh-nine-oh-three-dot-net?” Hannah asked.

He glanced down at the pavement and shuffled his feet. “Well, I set that up this morning with Jennifer.”

Hannah stared at him. “You mean, your wife Jennifer?”

“Yes. She knows computers. I couldn’t think of anyone else.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I explained the situation to her. She set it up so they can’t trace us through the e-mail address. In fact, by tonight, that e-mail address will no longer exist. In the meantime, your husband has a way of contacting us. We have a line of communication, but he won’t be able to track us down.”

Hannah squinted at him. “When did you do all this?”

“Early this morning, after I stepped out,” Ben explained. “I called her from a coffee shop. Jennifer was at work. The East Coast is three hours ahead of us.”

Hannah nodded. “Yes, I’m aware of the time difference. What I don’t understand is how you could call up your wife and ask her for a favor this morning when you slept with me just last night.”

Ben frowned. “Like I told you, she’s the only person I know with computer smarts.”

“My God,” Hannah murmured, shaking her head. “Ben, how can you cheat on her, then turn around and expect her to do you a favor? In fact, you’re having her do something for me, the woman you just had sex with. Christ, that’s even worse. Did you tell her about us?”

“No, Hannah,” he sighed. “Though I probably will—eventually.”

“Well, I don’t understand you. What, is it okay for you to call her now and act like everything is fine, because you evened the score last night? Is that it? She cheated on you, and now that you’ve had sex with me, everything’s copacetic?”

He shook his head. “It’s not like that. What happened with us last night has nothing to do with my marriage. Jennifer and I are separated, but we’re still talking. We’re still trying to work things out.”

“Oh, and did you think sleeping with me would help?” Hannah asked pointedly.

“Like I said, last night had nothing to do with my marriage. It was about you and me, Hannah. It was about us.”

“Well, how much of an ‘us’ is there when you’re trying to work things out with your wife?”

He sadly shook his head, then shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re the one who wants a head start running away to another city. My guess is you don’t see any future for an ‘us.’”

Biting her lip, Hannah took a step back. She couldn’t look at him. He was right, of course.

“How’s this e-mail thing supposed to work, anyway?” she asked finally. “Do we just wait to hear from Kenneth, or what?”

“Yeah, we wait,” Ben said, nodding. “Jennifer will keep checking for a response. I gave her your numbers at work and home. She’ll call when Kenneth sends an e-mail.”

“Your wife’s calling me? What if she asks about—us?”

“Well, she didn’t ask me this morning,” Ben said. “But if she tries to put you on the spot, tell her to talk to me.”

“Let me get this straight,” Hannah said. “She’s our link in communicating with my vindictive-as-hell husband. And you’ve given her my work and home phone numbers. What makes you so certain she won’t totally screw us here?”

“I trust her,” Ben replied.

“You trust her? Wasn’t she fucking this guy behind your back for three or four months? And you trust her? Are you nuts?”

He smiled a little. “It might seem that way. But I know Jennifer would never do anything to betray me again.”

Hannah frowned. “Yeah, just wait until she figures out about us last night.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “I’ll be late for work,” she muttered. “We’d better get going.”

They crossed the street together. Ben took her arm, and Hannah awkwardly pulled away.

He didn’t say anything. Neither did she. They both kept walking.

“Hannah, I looked it up in the computer, and I couldn’t find anything,” Seth said. He was working on the register alongside her. “Maybe you know. I have this lady on hold right now. She was asking for inspirational videos by Mr. T.”

“As in I pity the fool?” Hannah asked. “That Mr. T?”

“Yeah, believe it or not. She says he has a series of inspirational videos, and she’s looking for them. Do you think it’s a joke?”

“Or a cry for help,” Hannah replied. Then she shrugged. “Either way, we don’t carry them.”

Hannah watched him handle the woman on the phone with a polite, professional air.

She’d been working with Seth for about three hours now, since he’d started at eleven. So far, Hannah was impressed. He knew movies, and the customers seemed to like him. With his black V-neck, the designer glasses, and his wild hair, he was very avant-garde handsome. Some of the gay clientele clearly noticed, and Hannah watched Seth tactfully dodge a couple of overt passes. “Same thing happened yesterday,” he’d muttered to her, after weathering the second flirtatious overture. “Five different guys came on to me. Maybe I ought to wear a sign: I AM STRAIGHT.”

“We’ll fix you up one,” Hannah had offered. “Like one of those vanity plates, I-M-S-T-R-and the number eight.”

He had a decent sense of humor, and he seemed to master the job very quickly. Hannah couldn’t find anything wrong with him.

Tish was pleased with him too; so she’d told Hannah when she phoned the store this morning. “Talk about a fast learner,” she’d said. “This kid caught on to the layout of the place like you wouldn’t believe. I’m serious, he was in the door only two hours on his first day, and already he was telling customers where to find such and such a video.”

“Maybe he’s been in the store before,” Hannah had offered. “And we just didn’t notice.”

“Well, something about him is a little familiar,” Tish had allowed. “Maybe that’s it. Whatever, I’m glad you recommended this kid, Han. Unless he suddenly turns out to be a total psycho, he’s a keeper.”

After hanging up with her manager, Hannah had looked up Stroud, Seth in the computer. She’d figured he might have been a customer at one time. He was in the system; only he’d just opened up a new account two days ago.

Seth chose a video to play in the store: Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt. Hannah used the movie as a segue into a line of questioning.

“Hey, speaking of Hitchcock,” she said as she Windexed the countertops. “We’re seeing The Birds in class tomorrow night. I ran into Paul at the college the other night. He mentioned something, and it reminded me of a conversation you and I had earlier.”

“Oh, yeah?” Seth replied, checking in returned videos.

“Yes. He said that for discussion period we were going to talk about a director’s power over his leading actress, like Hitchcock putting Tippi Hedren through the paces. The courtship, the molding and controlling. It made me think about what you said.” Hannah kept wiping off the counters. She peeked up at Seth. “You know, the way Otto Preminger picked on Jean Seberg while making Bonjour Tristesse. Svengali and