The Offer, page 1
THE OFFER
By Robert J. Randisi
Digital edition published by Crossroad Press
Copyright 2013 / Robert J. Randisi
Cover design by: David Dodd
LICENSE NOTES
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Meet the Author
Robert J. Randisi has been called by Booklist “. . . the last of the pulp writers.” He has published in the western, mystery, private eye, horror, science fiction and men’s action/adventure genres. All told, he is the author of over 602 books, 50+ short stories, one screenplay and the editor of 30 anthologies. He has also edited a Writer’s Digest book, WRITING THE PRIVATE EYE NOVEL, and for seven years was the mystery reviewer for the Orlando Sentinel. In 1982 he founded the Private Eye Writers of America, and created the Shamus Award. In 1985 he co-founded Mystery Scene Magazine and the short-lived American Mystery Award; a couple of years later he was co-founder of the American Crime Writer’s League. In 1993 he was awarded a Life Achievement Award at the Southwest Mystery Convention. In 2009 he received the Life Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America.
Randisi was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. After 41 years in N.Y, he now resides in Clarksville, Mo., an Artisan community of 500 people located right on the Mississippi. He lives and works with writer Marthayn Pelegrimas in a small house that overlooks the Mississippi.
Partial Book List
The Joe Keough Series
Alone With the Dead
In the Shadow of the Arch
Blood on the Arch
East of the Arch
Arch Angles
The Detective McQueen Series
The Turner Journals
Cold Blooded
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PROLOGUE
The tattoo artist, whose name was Ned—jeans, Doc Martens and a sleeveless T-shirt revealing flesh almost completely covered with tattoos—was regarding Amy Wheaton’s perfect butt the way an artist studies a blank canvas. He’d just asked how far down she wanted her tattoo to go.
“That’s an interesting question,” Amy said. She had her head turned to the left to speak to Ned and now turned it to the right toward her husband. “What do you think, Sweetie?”
Vince stepped forward and Ned looked up at him expectantly.
“Look here,” the artist explained. “The rose itself will rest right in the dimple, but the stem will disappear into her butt cleavage so it looks like the rose is growing out—”
“I get it,” Vince said.
“I need to know how far to go with the stem.” Ned stood back to await their decision.
Amy was not a large woman, and she had a body that was almost devoid of fat. Taut breasts, slender hips, smooth creamy skin and the neatest, tightest behind you ever saw. Vince felt his breath coming faster, as it always did when he looked at his wife.
“I want thorns,” Amy said. “Don’t forget the thorns.”
“I can do thorns.”
“Vince, honey?” Amy said.
“It’s your ass, babe,” Vince said.
He smiled as Amy craned her neck to look at him. She knew him better than anyone ever had or ever would. In those four words she could hear his excitement.
“But what do you think?”
“I think it would be sexy as hell.”
“Damn right,” Ned said.
“Let’s go for it,” Amy said.
“It’s done.”
Ned stood up and stared down at his handiwork.
“How does it look Vince?”
“Baby,” Vince said, sincerely, “it’s a work of art—just like you.”
“Is it red?” she asked.
“Blood red,” Vince said.
“And it’s got thorns?”
“They look so real I don’t know how they’re not pricking your skin,” Vince told her.”
“Can I see?” she asked, craning her neck.
“Relax,” Ned said. He moved a mirror that was suspended above her on a metal arm, tilting it so she could have a look.
“See?”
“Oh, wow!” she said, impressed. “Ned, you are an artist.”
“It’s true,” Ned said. He scratched his gray, scraggly beard which was itching from all the sweat that had flowed into it during the job. “I gotta go wash up, kids. It’s been real.”
“Plastic okay?” Vince asked.
“Fine.”
Vince handed over his Amex card and Ned went to prepare the bill.
“It’s beautiful, Vince,” Amy said, still admiring the artwork in the mirror. “Thanks for letting me get it.”
“Letting you?” he asked. “I told you, it’s your body.”
“No, baby,” she said, her voice a sexy purr, “it’s yours—all yours when we get home.”
He put his hand on her gently, careful not to touch the tattoo, which had to be sore, and said, “I can’t wait!”
Later Amy lay beside him in their bed, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. She was lying on her side because her rear end was still sore.
“That was great,” she said.
“Better than great.”
“But…”
He looked down at her.
“But what?”
She looked up at him and said, “I think it’s time to make the offer, don’t you?”
“Let’s not go too fast,” he said, after a moment. “After all, we don’t want to frighten this one away.”
She sighed and said, “You’re right. I’m just… impatient.”
“Well,” he said, “that’s why I’m here. I’m the patient one.”
“I know,” she said, snuggling up against him, “you keep me in check, don’t you?”
“We’re a team,” he said. “We keep each other in check.”
“We are a good team, aren’t we?”
“Uh-huh.”
She closed her eyes and, just before drifting off to sleep, she said, “I just hope nothing bad happens… like last time.”
CHAPTER ONE
Jack Jones stared across the desk at Doctor Fabian. What a name. Fabian. And the doctor didn’t look anything like the 50s singer. Jones had orders to report to the shrink—first, it had been once a week, then every two weeks, and now it was once a month.
“Still playing sex games?” Fabian asked.
“Sure.”
“And enjoying them?”
“Yep.”
“And you still don’t see anything wrong with them?”
“Nope.”
Fabian’s pen tapped on the desk, something that used to annoy Jones. However, once he decided that Fabian was doing it on purpose, it suddenly didn’t annoy him anymore.
What still annoyed him, though, was Fabian’s superior attitude. It wasn’t because Jones had been battling depression for a couple of years, and it wasn’t because of the three partners he’d lost. It was because of Katy, and the fact that she was a stripper—and young.
He wondered if his being married to a stripper would have been such an issue if Fabian was a man.
The psychiatrist stopped tapping her pen and ran her hand over her hair, to be sure it was still in place. She was a handsome woman in her forties, her blonde hair still worn long rather than cut short like most middle-aged women. Jones could never understand that practice. He was amazed women didn’t know that cutting their hair short when they reached a certain age just made them seem older. At least, to him.
Fabian opened Jones’s file folder and made a show of looking it over. She raised her eyebrows when she did this, and pursed her lips in what Jones thought was a very un-doctor but feminine gesture. Jones liked that, because there were times when he could easily forget the doctor was a woman. He liked a reminder every once in a while, like a swish of nylon from beneath her desk to remind him of how long and attractive her legs were.
“Why don’t we do a recap here, Detective?”
“Fine.”
Fabian lowered her file and looked at Jones.
“Do you intend to answer all my questions with one word?”
Jones smiled and said, “Or less.”
Fabian sighed. Another very feminine gesture, the long, suffering sigh.
“It was two years ago that your partner of five years, Teddy Lenders, was killed in a shootout on the street.”
Jones invoked his “or less” remark and remained silent. “You were there, and managed to kill the, uh, perp. You were subsequently investigated, as it was felt by some that you might have actually, uh, executed the man on the spot.”
“Exonerated,” Jones said.
“Yes,” Fabian said, “well… seven months later your new partner, a woman named Leslie Daniels, was also shot and killed in the line of duty.” The doctor looked at Jones over the top of the folder. “You were training her at the time.”
“Yes.”
“The, uh, perp is in prison at th
“Right.”
“You didn’t kill that one.” She didn’t ask it as a question, but was stating a fact.
“No.”
“Learned your lesson, hmm?”
No answer.
“Then ten months ago your third partner, a man named Ralph Mollica—after working with you for only a few months—took his own life,” Fabian looked at Jones again. “That was rather traumatic for you, for reasons we have gone into before.”
Many times before, Jones thought, and closed his eyes…
This was his third dead partner in sixteen months.
That is, if this one was dead, but he had a real bad feeling. Not that they were great friends or anything, but they were partners.
“Find that sonofabitch and drag him to work!” his boss had ordered. “And he’d better have a good goddamned reason for why he’s been missing for three days… like he’s dead.”
It was supposed to be a joke, but it wasn’t a joke to him, not after losing two partners so close together.
As he tried the doorknob he couldn’t shake the bad feeling he had. The house just seemed too still. In fact, his partner had been telling him that ever since his wife had left with the two kids—after asking for a divorce—the house had seemed too quiet, too damned still.
He circled the house, tried the other two doors, found them locked as well. He went to the garage and looked in the window. The car was there, and it wasn’t running. At least that was something.
Okay, so now he felt justified in breaking in, all he had to do was choose which door looked the easiest to pop. He picked the kitchen door. He put his shoulder against it, exerted some pressure and the lock popped like a doll house door. Cop’s house, he thought, crappy lock. Go figure.
He walked in and the smell hit him right away. Jesus… his vision started to blur and he felt the tears roll down his face.
Jesus, not again…
He paused in the hall, used the heels of his hands to try to clear his eyes. Out of habit he removed his gun from his holster as he started moving again. The house was all on one floor and while he had never been there, his partner had talked about his home life enough over the last three months that he knew the layout. To the left would be the den the man used as his refuge. Straight back and to the right were the bedrooms.
He knew he’d find him in either the den or the master bedroom.
It was the den.
He was seated at the desk. He must have settled his left cheek against the desk top and then put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Didn’t want to fall out of the chair. The gun was there in the right hand, trapped in a death grip. The top of the desk was soaked with blood.
He holstered his own gun, started to reach for the phone but his right hand was shaking. He tried to stop it with the left, but that one was shaking, too. Then his legs went and suddenly he was on the floor, his back against the desk, hugging himself. His whole body was shaking, his eyes were streaming, and he couldn’t help but think, “Not again, not another one…”
Three in sixteen months.
He’d wait for the tears to go away and the shakes to stop before he called it in. After all, the dead man wasn’t going anywhere…
“We determined,” Fabian droned, as if speaking to a child, “that since you didn’t even know him that well, the incident was a reminder that you yourself had once thought about doing the same thing, oh, more than two years ago.”
Jones scratched his eyebrow and looked away.
“That was back when your depression first started,” Fabian went on. “You told no one about that, though… except me.” The woman seemed smug. In point of fact, she had browbeat the admission out of Jones, which had not endeared her to the detective.
“After the death of your third partner you met and married your wife, the former Katy Foucet… um, who is a, uh, stripper.”
Fabian always said “uh” before she uttered a word she thought to be beneath her, such as “perp” or “stripper.” Jones actually liked the habit, as it pointed out what a tight-ass the woman was.
“Now, some of your colleagues,” Fabian went on, “as well as myself, consider your marriage to a stripper half your age to be a result of the trauma and depression you’ve suffered.”
“That’s their problem—and yours,” Jones said.
“You, however,” she went on, ignoring the comment, “have said on many occasions that she has kept you sane, and has quite possibly saved your life.”
Fabian set the file down.
“Which is where we are now,” she said. “Detective, you realize that when this marriage fails—and it will, it has to—it might just be the final straw that drives you over the edge.”
Jones didn’t answer.
“You must realize,” Fabian went on, “that unless it is you who calls an end to the relationship, it will be devastating to you.”
“That’s not going to happen!” Jones snapped, and immediately became angry.
Fabian sat back and looked satisfied with herself. She’d managed to pull more than one word out of Jones, and she considered that to be a triumph.
“I have to go to work,” Jones said, standing up. He’d lost this time, and he hated both himself and Fabian for it. He wasn’t going to ask her to call his C.O. At this point that would be a major point loss, and he was too many points behind, as it was.
“Same day and time next month, then, Detective?” Fabian asked. “Hmm?”
She penciled in the appointment on her calendar even though Jones left without confirming it.
CHAPTER TWO
Earlier in the day, Detective Jack Jones had entered the office of his boss, Captain Phillips.
“Got a minute, Cap?”
“Just about one,” the man said, sourly.
Jones actually hated going into the C.O.’s office because he usually came out of it smelling like cigar smoke. But before leaving the house that morning he’d promised Katy he’d talk to him…
“I’m not one of those wives who pushes her husband, Jack,” she’d said over breakfast, “but you deserve better than this. Don’t you agree?”
“There was a time I wouldn’t have,” he said, taking her hand, “but being with you has changed all that.”
She lifted his hand to her lips and said, “Then do it, baby—not for me, but for you.”
“I’ve got to go see Dr. Fabian first,” he said, “but when I get to the office I’ll do it… I’ll do it for both of us.”
“What is it, Jack?” Phillips asked, breaking into Jones’s thoughts.
“I need something to do, Cap.”
“Do your job.”
“These days my job consists of clerical work,” Jones complained. “I’m not a clerical man, Cap, I’m a detective. I need to get back into the rotation.”
Phillips passed a hand across his forehead wearily.
“You were a good detective for a very long time, Jack,” he said. “Lately…”
“Lately nothing, Cap,” Jones said. “My problems are behind me. I’m ready to start catching cases again.”
“You still seeing the department shrink?”
Now it was Jones’s turn to respond sourly.
“Yeah. In fact, I just saw her this morning.”
“See what she says,” Phillips suggested. “If she thinks you’re ready to catch some cases have her call me.”
Fat chance of that, Jones thought.
“I think I’m ready, Joe,” Jones said, using the Captain’s first name. They’d known each other a long time, but Jones rarely used his superior’s first name.
Phillips frowned. “All right, Jack. Let me think about it. Maybe something will come up, something I can use to ease you back in slowly…”
“Okay, Cap,” Jones said, moving towards the door. “That’s all I ask. Give it some thought. Thanks.”
“Sure, Jack,” Phillips said, “sure.”
CHAPTER THREE
Robin Lobianco parked in the spot marked Assistant Curator, which was okay since that was her job at the St. Louis Art Museum. Located in sprawling Forest Park, the position at the Art Museum had been one she’d been seeking for a long time and, one short year ago, she’d gotten it. Of course, a lot of other things had happened during that year. For one, she and her husband, Frank, had recently separated. Also, she’d made new friends with a couple who had turned out to be—well, strangely interesting. Her friendship with the Wheatons was just one of many bones of contention between her and Frank. He’d been against becoming friends with them, which, of course, in the midst of their marital problems, was reason enough for her to pursue the friendship. Lately, however, she was beginning to think that—on that subject, anyway—Frank may have been right.
