First Class Killing

Chapter 26

THE WAY HARVEY FLUSHED WAS LIKE NO ONE I’d ever seen. The crimson started at points below each ear, then worked its way like twin flames up the sides of his face and joined at the bridge of his nose. He was in full bloom thirty seconds into Monica’s video. The fact that his monitor was old and the picture wasn’t as sharp as mine might have prevented a stroke.

What we were looking at was a man’s penis. Actually, it was a man in naked repose on a bed of garish, fringed pillows, but all I saw was his penis, because it was the biggest one I’d ever seen. Granted, my sample universe was not vast, but this thing was a redwood. It towered majestically above his pubic briar patch, just one more of the mighty muscles this man had on casual display.

Harvey reached for his mouse and froze the image. “What are you showing me?”

I reached past him and restarted it. “That’s Arthur Margolies, one of the hookers’ clients, and you need to see this.”

“I cannot imagine why.”

Into the frame crawled Monica, also naked, with breasts so large and heavy I was concerned about rug burn as she moved across the floor on all fours toward her prey. I hadn’t remembered them being that large-each bulbous mass was roughly the size of her head-but I had been concerned with other things at our last meeting.

“Is that Monica?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And this man is Arthur Margolies?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Felix confirmed it. He trolled around in the guy’s computer and found photos of him, mostly with his kids.”

“Your friend Felix? You showed this to him?”

“He sent it to me. I asked him to check out Margolies’s computer, so he hacked in. The guy apparently tried to erase everything connected with Monica, e-mails included. Felix only found this because it was buried in some obscure download file. Margolies probably doesn’t even know he has it.”

With her head poised at the man’s pelvis, Monica waited a teasing moment before moving in. The participants joined as promised-her lipstick around his redwood, his fingers in her hair-and commenced the dance. It was a slow, slippery rhythm at first, which built within seconds to a theatrical crescendo of bucking and flopping and twisting and grinding, all accompanied by a sound track of amazingly loud closed-mouth moaning (hers) and wild, spasmodic grunting (his). I had already seen it a couple of times…well, maybe more than a couple…so I didn’t find it that titillating anymore. But Harvey ’s blood pressure seemed to be rising as he watched the display.

“Is there,” he wanted to know, “a point to this?”

“It’s coming up.” When the image was right, I froze the pair in sticky postfellatio glow. “There.” I pointed to a tiny row of type at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. “See this?”

He leaned in. “Barely.”

“It’s a series of numbers and letters that Felix thinks is some kind of filing tag or catalogue code. That’s what it looks like.”

“Implying there are more videos like this?”

“Of other men. It could be. The code has part of this man’s last name in it.”

“Meaning what?”

“I’m not sure. One thought is that this extortion gig is a cottage industry for Monica, and she does this to lots of clients. I really, really want to talk to her.”

“Why?”

“If it’s true, she’s putting Angel’s whole empire at risk. It’s great leverage for us. Monica has been in this game for a while. I think there is a lot we can learn from her.”

He blinked at the screen.

“I mean, in terms of Angel’s operation. Felix is trying to track back and get into Monica’s computer to see what he can learn. We might find a whole catalogue of these videos.”

“Have you had any luck finding her?”

“No. She doesn’t answer any phones. OrangeAir claims they don’t know where she is. She’s on leave is all they’ll say. Tristan could probably find her using his union connections, but we don’t seem to be speaking to each other at the moment. I’m still working on this one.”

“And Angel?”

“I’m headed that way now. We’re supposed to meet at four o’clock.”

He inspected my outfit-T-shirt, sweatpants, and running shoes. “Where are you meeting?”

“Apparently, I’ve wandered into some kind of endurance test. Party all night and work all day. We’re meeting at the LA Sports Club. She wants to work out.”