“Maybe we should find out.”
“Maybe we should. How do you know about the affair?”
“On her desktop there’s a hand sanitizer and a colorful foam coaster that appears to have been painted by a child.”
“Wow, you’re truly amazing!”
“I know. It’s called deductive reasoning.”
“Uh huh. So you opened her computer, read her emails, and found out about her affair.”
“Sounds so trivial when you put it that way. But yeah, lots of emails. Mostly sexual.”
“Read me one.”
“They’re not impressive.”
“Read one anyway. It’s so intrusive! Makes me feel like we’re doing something wrong.”
“Unlike breaking and entering.”
“You broke and entered. I’m just sitting here, living vicariously.”
I click open her email account. “Okay, this one from last week is from Lucky. It says, ‘I wish you’d come to Jamaica with me. I’d love to see you in a grass skirt.’ And she says, ‘they wear grass skirts in Hawaii, not Jamaica.’ They argue about that a bit, then he says, “We could hit that famous nude beach. I bet the natives have never seen an orange beaver before.’ And she says, ‘especially with your initials on it!’”
Callie says, “Okay, I’ve heard enough.”
“I tried to warn you.”
We’re silent a minute.
“I can’t get it out of my mind,” she says. “Orange beaver? His initials?”
“Me either.”
“She’s supposed to be a doctor.”
“I know.”
“I keep picturing it,” she says.
“Me too.”
“You think she put all three initials, or just the two?” Callie says. “And if it’s two, would it be JP or LP? And are the initials in hair? Or shaved out of it?”
“I’ll ask her, if I get the chance.”
“Please do,” Callie says.
“I also found a small gift-wrapped box on her kitchen counter.”
“Please tell me you opened it.”
“Of course.”
“Let me guess: a present for Lucky?”
“Cufflinks. An L and a P.”
“Lucky Peters!” Callie says.
“Think about it,” I say.
She’s quiet a few seconds, then says, “Ah! Clever! Lucky and Phyllis!”
“He could wear them and his wife would never know.”
“And is there a note?”
I smile. “There is.”
“Please read it with passion in your voice.”
“Your turn to get lucky!”
Callie laughs. “This is fun. Which tells you how sad my life is.”
“Glad I could cheer you up.”
“Is she cute?”
“Who, Phyllis? She’s average.” I think about it a few seconds, then say, “Above average.”
“You think she went to Jamaica with him?”
“No. She sent an email telling him she hopes he’s feeling better, and saying how awful to feel badly on vacation.”
“What else have you learned?”
“You really want to know?”
“My choices are yes, or watch Celebrity Apprentice.”
“Phyllis works all the time and she’s lonely.”
“Lonely? How do you know?”
“On her desktop there’s a hand sanitizer and—”
“Move along, Donovan. It’s getting old.”
“She has only a couple of photographs on display. One is with her sister, the other with her parents. No messages on her answering machine.”
“What’s on her walls?”
“Art, mostly silk-screen.”
“Of?”
“Faces.”
“Famous ones?”
“Sad ones.”
“You’re breaking my heart,” Callie says.
“What heart?”
“Good point. Don’t forget to check her closet.”
“Yes, Sensei.”
“Women love to hide things in their closets.”
“Right.”
“And also in their underwear drawer.”
“I’ll be sure to check that one carefully.”
“I’ve no doubt.”
I end the call, walk down the hallway, enter the master bedroom. Phyllis’s king-size platform bed sits low and has a single mattress on a wood base, with no box spring. The bed is unmade on the right side, which tells me she slept alone last night. On the night stand are two prescription bottles: a statin drug and sleeping pills. After checking the date, I dump them out on the nightstand and count nineteen of each. If she started taking them on the fill date, there should be twenty. It’s a fair assumption she’s not coming home tonight, which works for me, since I need a place to stay.
According to her website, Phyllis’s office opens at nine. I’ll sleep on the left side of her bed tonight, shower, get up early, and break into her office at dawn. That’ll give me time to search the place for anything that looks like a lethal, brain-melting device. Ideally, Phyllis will be the first to arrive, and we can settle this business without involving her staff.
In the nightstand drawer, behind a stack of People and US magazines, I find two boxes of condoms. One has been opened, and there are two packets missing, which tells me Lucky appears to have gotten lucky at least twice.
The bedroom also has a chest of drawers and a small sitting area that faces a stucco fireplace that’s never been used. The chest has five drawers, including a narrow one at the top, where she keeps her jewelry. I look through it and find nothing of significant value. I move from there to the bottom. The fifth drawer is pajamas, all bright colors, all cotton. Fourth drawer is socks in every size and color, and stockings. Third drawer is bras only. I count an even dozen, in various colors. Five are Ibex, Body by Victoria, 34-B, padded. She’s also got a couple of jog bras in there.
Second drawer is filled with panties. I remove a few, and note they’re all medium. Most are basic, but one is downright obscene. It has a circular hole cut out of the crotch. With red lips around it! I toss them back in the drawer, then think, no one has this many panties. I move my hands through them until I feel something.
It’s my opinion that all women hide something special beneath their panties. But Dr. Phyllis Willis is hiding something lethal beneath hers.
4.
Phyllis keeps a single-action Smith and Wesson .22 automatic with three ten-round clips in her panty drawer, next to a small sex toy called a Pocket Rocket. I wouldn’t pin high hopes on killing an intruder with a .22, but she’s probably comfortable with the recoil and figures the sound would be enough to scare a guy away. Once he’s gone, she probably breaks out the Pocket Rocket to celebrate.
I look at it a moment, then flip the switch and feel it buzz in my hand. Noting briefly that the buzz is more pleasant than the one in my head, I think about where the device has been. I toss it back in the drawer, march into her bathroom, and thoroughly wash my hands before getting back to business.
The clothes hanging in Phyllis’s closet tell me she’s a size eight. She has an abundance of cocktail dresses and business suits, which makes sense for a plastic surgeon who has to attend fund raisers and cocktail parties and hobnob with the rich and famous. For the most part, her clothes, shoes and handbags are basic, tasteful, and functional, and I find nothing extravagant here. I check through the sweaters, the hat boxes and other items on her shelves. I stand there, looking around the closet, wondering if I’m missing anything. I think about the Pocket Rocket again, and call Doc Howard.
“What about a Pocket Rocket?”
“Donovan, check your watch.”
I do. “So?”
“So I’m in Virginia. Remember?”
“Well, I’ve never met Virginia. But if you’re in her, I’m sure she’s special.”
“Funny.”
“This controller thing you mentioned. Would it fit in a Pocket Rocket?”
“What’s a pocket rocket?”
“A woman’s vibrator. A sex toy.”
“Donovan, I’m an old man. Maybe you should just shoot me and get it over with.”
“Maybe I will.”
He sighs. “I don’t know the dimensions of your sex toy or the controller device. I don’t even know if there is a controller device. Why don’t you take the thing apart and see?”
“I’ve got sort of a germ thing if I don’t know the person.”
“Can I go back to bed now?”
I hang up. Five minutes later, the Pocket Rocket is in pieces on Phyllis’s bathroom counter. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but there doesn’t seem to be anything on the counter that could liquefy my brains. After three attempts, I give up trying to put it back together. I take the pieces back to her pajama drawer and toss them in. Then I go to Phyllis’s computer, call Lou Kelly, and give him access to Phyllis’s computer so his geeks can make a remote copy of everything that’s on it. That done, I tell Lou to run an exhaustive search on Jim “Lucky” Peters. Then I remove the hard drive and put it on the kitchen counter so I won’t forget to take it with me in the morning.
After inspecting Phyllis’s house and garage from top to bottom, I check her refrigerator and pantry for something to cook. She’s poorly stocked, but I find some Kalamata olive halves, walnuts, bow tie pasta, and parmesan cheese. While the salted water for the pasta heats up, I stir-fry the olives and walnuts in olive oil, grind some pepper into it, and let it simmer on low. When the water reaches a boil, I pour in the pasta, stir it, then put a lid on the pan and remove it from the heat for 11 minutes, like the package says. Then I drain it, put it back in the pan, and stir in the olive mixture, and grate some parmesan cheese over it.
I could have done something fancier, but this hit the spot, and anyway, I’ve got an early day tomorrow.
Just before falling asleep in Phyllis’s bed, I think about everything I’ve seen and found in her house. And that gives me an idea. I don’t know why this seems like a good idea, but something in my head tells me what I’m about to do could come in handy.
I get up and remove a single condom from Phyllis’s condom drawer, and put it in the little box with the cufflinks she planned to give Lucky. Then I re-wrap the present, and put it on the kitchen counter next to the hard drive.
5.
Monday morning, seven-thirty.
I’ve been at PhySpa, Phyllis’s day spa and plastic surgery center for more than two hours, but couldn’t find the device. I’m disappointed Phyllis hasn’t arrived yet. I hear someone unlock the front door, so I sneak out the back and head for the nearest coffee shop. I don’t know who entered, but it wasn’t Phyllis, because her name is on the only parking space behind the building, and she would have used that entrance.
After a coffee and bathroom stop, it’s eight a.m., and I’m surprised to see several cars parked in front of PhySpa. When I enter the waiting room, the receptionist asks if she can help me.
The sign on the front desk tells me her name.
“Hi Shelby.”
“Hello,” she says, brightly.
I lean in close and say, “I wonder if I could speak to Dr. Willis for a quick minute about something personal.”
She frowns. He doesn’t look like a salesman, Shelby’s thinking. But she’s not sure.
“Your name, please?”
“Connor Payne.”
“I’ll check.”
When she does, something in Shelby’s facial expression gives me the distinct impression Phyllis Willis is less than thrilled I’m in her lobby. Shelby says, “Yes, certainly,” and places the phone carefully in its cradle before saying, “I’m sorry, Mr. Payne, but Dr. Willis is in the middle of a procedure.”
I smile sweetly and say, “Shelby.”
“Yes sir?”
“Call her again. Tell her if she’s not out here in two minutes, I’m coming for her.”
She looks like she’s about to say something, but changes her mind and repeats my message to Phyllis. I wait a minute, then feel a buzzing in my brain that tells me someone in the office—probably Phyllis—is trying to enter the kill code. The buzzing hurts ten times worse than the one I felt on Saturday night.
Son of a bitch!
I grab both sides of my head and stagger backward.
Shelby jumps to her feet. “Sir! Are you okay?”
The buzzing stops. I shake my head.
“Sir?”
“I’m okay, thanks.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
And I am, until—Shit!
She’s doing it again!
When the buzzing stops I take a few seconds to regain my equilibrium. Then I paralyze Shelby with a throat strike before killing her quickly. I kiss her forehead before lowering her carefully to the floor.
I know what you’re thinking: Shelby would rather be alive than kissed by her killer. I agree. She doesn’t deserve this, and it sucks. But I’m under attack, and she controls the phones and can identify me.
I lock the front door, then move through Phyllis’s office like clap through a whorehouse.
I open one door after another. Most of the rooms are empty, but I manage to find and kill a spa attendant, a masseuse, and the face-down woman he’s working on. I didn’t catch any of their names. I don’t enjoy killing innocent people, but my situation is critical. I had hoped to meet with Phyllis in private, but she tried to kill me, instead. And might still accomplish it, since I don’t know how the device works. If I had the luxury of time, these people would still be alive.
But when Phyllis made her move, I had to make mine.
Within a minute, it’s just me and Phyllis, who I find cowering on the floor of her bathroom.
She’d been on her cell phone.
“Who were you talking to, Phyllis?”
“N-No one,” she says.
I slap the right side of her face with the palm of my hand, and then the left side with the back of my hand, hard enough to open a small gash on both corners of her mouth. The way the blood trickles out makes her mouth look like the Joker in Batman. Except she’s not smiling.
I grab her cell phone and tap the button marked “Recent.” The name “Lucky” appears. I slip her phone into my pocket, figuring to check her caller list later.
“Who’s Lucky?”
“N-No one.”
She sees me looking at the controller in her lap, the one that looks like a fancy wrist watch. The one she used to punch in the code a few minutes ago. The code she thought would kill me.
“Looosy?” I say in my best Ricky Ricardo voice. “You’ve got some s’plainin’ to do!”
6.
“There’s some sort of device that can reprogram the chip in my brain,” I say.
Phyllis’s face takes on a look of extreme sadness. She knows I’m a stone killer, and knows I’m aware she tried to kill me moments ago. She moves her lips, trying to form words. The effort makes her mouth look like that of a small bird, straining upward, waiting for its mother to drop a bit of worm down its throat.
“Phyllis, I need you to focus. I’m not talking about the unit you used to try to kill me just now. I’m talking about a master device that can override these wrist units.”
“Y-yes. There is one.”
“And what does it look like?”
“It’s v-very small.”
