A Spill of Blood

First, I apologize for the delay on Chapter 3. If you read the update on my bio, we had a medical situation in the house that moved a lot of time-consuming things my way. And just when that one seemed stabilized, another occurred. Hopefully, I have a handle on it now, and while I will still have less time to write over the next two months, I hope I've got things arranged so that I can continue this story without long breaks between chapters. Again, my apologies.

This story started during the "Hammered: an Ode to Mickey Spillane" event. If you've ever read a Mickey Spillane story like

My Gun is Quick

, you know that Mike Hammer comes in contact with a lot of people during a case. By about midway through the story, Hammer is ricocheting between people (sleeping with the pretty ones along the way) with Spillane trusting the reader to keep up with who is who.

I've kept that trait, but if you need a quick refresher of where we were because the previous chapters were a while ago:

Sydney (a.k.a. professional name Gia Alessandra) moved into Harry's office to avoid the dirty cop, Officer Carson Brady, who is hunting her ... presumably to kill her, just as her co-escort Emerald (a.k.a. real name Cara) was killed. Sydney's scared, and what better way to distract one's fears than to join Harry for some adult nocturnal activities? Harry spoke with Detective Murray, the police officer who interviewed him when someone tried to drive him off the case with a beating, to try to get a handle on Brady.

Harry went to prod Anders Lindqvist, a suspect in the pursuit of Jordan Regan's stolen bonds. While there, Harry spotted Detective Gibson, the police officer who found Harry in the midst of Harry finding Emerald's body. Harry realized that Gibson had connected Emerald to Lindqvist, one of the men most anxious to enjoy her company at Regan's party, but he doesn't know how.

Meanwhile, Harry had Sydney set up a meeting with Charlie Everett, another of the suspects.

—C

CHAPTER 3

The rich lead different lives from you and me.

It's not that they have more or better toys. It's not that they don't have to worry about the rent. It's that they assume the world operates at their convenience.

Charlie Everett kept me waiting thirty-seven minutes before he deigned to join me in the snug room at the front of his brownstone in the East Village.

"May I offer you something to drink?" he asked. "You look like you might use one."

"I was mugged by a guy," I explained. It didn't hurt to sound vulnerable. "I wouldn't say no to a rye if you have it."

"I'm afraid not. I do have an excellent bourbon. Blanton's Single Barrel. Would that do?"

Bourbon's a too sweet for my taste. I like my whiskey to have some bite. But I didn't want to get his back up. "That would be fine."

Pressing cut glassware into my hand, he settled in the leather chair opposite where I'd been placed by the guy who pretended to be the valet. Forget the polite treatment my coat had gotten when I arrived. Valets are septuagenarians who dodder along before you, uttering phrases like "This way, sir. I'll see if he's free." They aren't guys who took an executive protection course because they didn't make it in the NFL draft.

I'd spent the drive over deciding how I was going to work this one. With Lindqvist, I'd decided to pop out of the shadows and see if he jumped. He hadn't. At least, not yet ... I'd learned that sometimes you needed to be patient when fishing.

But a place like a heliport is one thing. I had an idea I'd find myself out on the street in a New York minute if I tried that here in Everett's castle. I'd do this one soft.

"Well, Mr. Morgan? I agreed to give you a few minutes. Frankly, I wasn't expecting you to be alone."

"Miss Alessandra is a little shaken up after she heard some disturbing news."

"News?"

"There was going to be another person with us tonight. But she found out that person died. That person was the other woman you were with at Jordan Regan's party. The redhead."

I could swear his expression showed a flicker of surprise to go along with guarded at the reference to the sex party. It appeared that Everett's face was an open book. The problem was, were those pages real? Or was he an actor who'd had a day to prepare?

"I'm sorry to hear that. Are you implying she thinks I had something to do with that death?"

I shrugged. "I'm not implying anything. I'm just telling you like it is. She's shaken up. It doesn't mean she isn't still interested in a deal."

"And what deal is that?"

"First, she wanted some idea of what your relationship with Regan and Bertram is." Sydney hadn't asked for anything of the kind. Jess's question of what a silk merchant, a gravel guy, and a shipping magnate had in common was one I wouldn't mind an answer to.

Now Everett's face turned uneasy. I decided he was no Jack Nicholson. Or even Anders Lindqvist. That one had been as bland as hospital food at the news of someone's murder. Even a threat from someone like Regan brought only the smallest of tics, one I'd have missed if I hadn't been watching closely.

The silence dragged. People want to fill silence. Everett was no exception.

"I've known Regan for years. Choate, you know." I hadn't. "Bertram, well, he's a bit rough. Self-made and all. We meet on business but mostly I deal with Regan."

This guy was a snob. Snobs make it easier, just feed their ego. I was glad I'd worn the charcoal-gray suit I kept for the fancy moments. A white button-down, polished cordovan oxfords, and a repp tie in a slightly out-of-fashion width say a lot without saying anything. I looked around the dim study that had once been a parlor. I held up the glass of amber that was so fancy they had to put a statue of a racehorse on the bottle stopper.

"The silk business has done well. Family firm, I believe."

He didn't ask how I knew. Of course not. The world revolved around the rich, and all of us who were part of the Great Unwashed would know of them, right? The comment pleased him.

"My grandfather started it in 1917. I like to think I've given it some tiny bit of growth during my tenure at the helm."

I bet granddaddy was a self-made man. How quickly new money likes to think of itself as old money.

I kept those thoughts off my face, however, along with an eyebrow about "tiny bit of growth." That was equivalent to failure during the last decades even factoring in the 2008 blip. The genes that made the money don't always make it down two generations; ask the Vanderbilts.

"I imagine there's a great sense of satisfaction in a legacy like that." He preened while I considered my own legacy: a pistol and a few avuncular acquaintances. "So anyway, you're school chums," I said, putting some regret in my voice. I sighed and made as if to set my drink down. "Well, perhaps this was a mistake then. She was hoping that your relationship with Regan was purely business. Thank you for the drink. It was excellent."

It was an act. I knew I had him. There was too much inquisitiveness in his expression. There's nothing quite like being made to feel left out to outrage a spoiled scion of privilege. I let him cut my departure short.

"They provide labor-relations consulting for us. I knew Regan as someone a couple of grades behind me twenty-five years ago. We're sociable and business acquaintances, not close friends."

"Ah." I wondered whether "labor relations" was pure bullshit or held some granule of truth.

He decided it was time to demonstrate the decisiveness that good breeding brought. "Mr. Morgan, you're here somewhat under false pretenses. I was led to believe this evening had a certain agenda, business and personal. Now, no part of that seems to be quite true. I doubt you came here to cadge a free drink, so do you have a point? Or perhaps I should speak with Gia again instead of with you."

That "you" meant "speak with the help." I pretended to consider then yielded.

"During that party where you met Gia, something was taken from Regan's house."

"What?"

"A pair of bond certificates that seemed too small to be consequential." That got me a blink.

"Gia has them?"

I smiled. "Let's just keep it that she has information about them, and she thought that might be of value to you."

"Oh? And what is it she is proposing?"

"She doesn't have the means to deal with this or, between you and me, the moxie. You, however, do. She wants you to approach Regan in return for a cut."

The flattery pleased him, but he wasn't biting. That was okay. The idea of an approach to Regan was bullshit because we didn't know anything. The point was his reaction. This could have gone any number of ways, all of them useful.

If Everett had been the one to steal the bonds, he wouldn't shut this down. He'd take a stab at ferreting out what Emerald ... and now Gia ... knew. He'd want to know who else was in on it. He'd want that before he took more direct action, probably involving that valet. It was why I'd had my suit made with British-style double vents on the jacket: I could reach the holster just behind my right hip easily.

On the other hand, if he tried to get me to tell him what I meant while pretending it was just idle interest, then he probably was out of it. His only value was what he saw that night. I'd have jollied him along using his need to be on the inside, perhaps with some just-between-us-guys commentary about his evening, to see what I could extract.

Neither of those happened. The closed expression said he knew something about what those documents meant. The uncertainty said he didn't have them. I could see calculation going on behind those eyes like a slot machine coming up jackpot. He was trying to figure out where his advantage lay in this.

My advantage lay in letting him make his move. Regan wasn't the only one who could watch who scurried where. I finished playing out my role.

"I'm just the facilitator. It's what I do. I'm not privy to the info or, frankly, we might be having a different conversation."

Let him assume I was another with an eye for the main chance.

"She'll share it with you once there's money in hand and if you provide certain guarantees. And, Mr. Everett, she told me she's open to negotiation, and also to make sure you knew she'd be very grateful." I let a little leer creep in. "They both would have been, but as I said, Emerald had an unfortunate accident and that made Gia temporarily nervous. There'll be other opportunities for her to express that gratitude in person." I didn't feel bad implying the form gratitude might take. Sydney had used the same lever to make this appointment.

I saw the glitter as he contemplated the word "grateful" in conjunction with those two. I almost couldn't blame him. It was a heady image if you were a straight guy. On the other hand, it was "almost." One of those women was dead because of this and, even if he didn't know it, the other had come close. Some of "the help" buying it was inconsequential ... prestige, money, his dick were the important things.

"I'm sure you can reach some sort of agreement on a fair percentage," I said, "and, well, she has other friends you met that evening."

The locker-room playboy won out over the Penn sophisticate—I'd noticed the beer mug on one shelf with the red, white, and blue seal. Even from here, I could read the center two words of the motto on the banderole below it:

sine moribus

. I sneered inside at the irony: without morals. Then I stopped because the two words in the wings of the scroll made all the difference—

leges sine moribus vanae

—laws without morals are useless. A credo to live by.

I pushed away the past and focused on the dirty smirk growing on Everett's face.

"I wouldn't have minded a chance with that one Regan monopolized," he said, "the blonde, not the Mexican. The others though ..." He made a little grimace of distaste. "Especially that one Beck's smitten with. No, not them."

Oho! A dyed-in-the-wool racist to go along with a snob and lech. "That one" couldn't have been more code if it had come out of the CIA, and he couldn't even hear Luiza's pure New York tones because her skin got in the way—of course everyone with that skin was Mexican.

"How do I get in touch with Gia?" he asked.

Oh no you don't, buddy. "She'll reach out." I rose. Now to see if I was going to be allowed to leave easily.

I was. I was also followed. They might teach firearms and evasion in an executive protection course, but they didn't teach "unobtrusive, buzz-cut, two-hundred-fifty-pound guy in the subway." It was a piece of cake to ride too far and lose him in the mill of the Times Square station. I slipped into an R train that would take me over toward the East Side, moved a car, then ducked back out while he got on and caught the A back downtown without him noticing.

I gave the three-two-three knock on the office door I'd agreed upon before going in. Sydney had had time to poke through the office. There were guns to be found and she was nervous.

"He's got the hook in his mouth," I told her. "I'm not sure which way he'll run with it."

"Did you promise I'd sleep with him if he helped out?" She had a smile on her face. I could see where it was held in place with tape and baling wire, but she was trying to present a brave face.

"Well, more like implied, just like you did. He's interested in Sasha coming along for the fun too."

Her eyebrows went up. "Oh? Together? Men!" She laughed. Like I said, she was trying. "Is that something you'd like? It could probably be arranged."

"No." My tone wasn't "being PC here but will let you talk me into it." It shut the door.

She regarded me for a long, appraising moment. "No, you wouldn't, would you? She'd turn you off no matter what she looked like. You're not quite what you seem, Harry."

"How do I seem?"

"Like a ... I don't know ... like an Ivy League thug."

"What the hell is that?"

"I don't know. It's—" She gestured. "That suit says something, and you can carry it off really well. If I met you at a corporate retreat, I wouldn't even blink. But there're flashes, like, little moments when something about you tells a different story." She set a hand on my thigh. "One that makes me feel safe when you're here, and that means a lot."

That touch was a message, one I didn't need to be sent twice. I met her lean halfway. There was nothing coy or passive about the way she plundered my mouth, nor what her hand was doing with my belt. I stood, drawing her up with me. I stepped back and shrugged off my jacket. I unclipped the holster from my waistband.

Her eyes riveted on it as I set it on Jess's desk. Then, not taking her eyes off the black chunk of metal and death, she leaned forward and placed her hands on either side of it. She spread her feet shoulder width, maybe a bit more. Her back arched slightly.

"Beside the cot," she said. Nothing more. She didn't turn to look at me, waiting motionless in silent invitation.

I went into the former storeroom that was her current home and found the strip of condoms where she'd placed them. I finished what her hands had started, and naked as the day I was born, I returned to the front room.

I grasped the waistband of her sweatpants with both hands and drew them down, exposing the ass I'd first seen in a photograph. It was just as fantastic in ordinary panties as it had been in a thong. I drew them off too. I dropped to my knees and buried my face between her legs. I tasted the heat of her with my lips and tongue. Her breathing grew heavier as she fought the squirms I evoked. The taste changed. Her folds grew slick with more than my saliva.

"Now," she whispered. "Fuck me and don't be gentle."

I rose to my feet again. She gave a small gasp as she felt the first touch of my cock. Then a louder one as I pushed my hips forward, burying myself. She dropped down to her forearms, her back parallel to the floor, braced.

"Don't be gentle," she repeated.

• • •

"Hey," I said to the cloud of dark hair on my shoulder. I needed to get up. My bladder said so. The time demands of the case said so. Jess's usual arrival time said so.

One eye opened, studied me for a second, then the other opened, and she rolled onto her side, exposing one incredible breast in the process. My eyes dropped involuntarily.

"Down boy," she said. "You left me a little tender."

"You told me to."

"Yes," she agreed. "Just sayin' you're not getting any this morning. If you're desperate, the best you can hope for is a blowjob, and that will require promises of an extravagant breakfast."

I smiled. "Temping ... but we really do need to get a move on. Jess will be here and that's a ... a ... a just no."

For a second, I thought the sheer perversity of women would make her dawdle just so I'd be caught, but she grinned and rolled so she wasn't pinning me. "You shower first. You can be all set when she arrives while I'm in there. I'm still requiring breakfast, though."

The three of us sat around Jess's desk with breakfast sandwiches, coffees, and Krispy Kremes. "This isn't extravagant," Sydney had said when Jess plopped it down. She'd barely avoided cracking a smile at Jess's mystified expression. I pretended not to hear.

"Today's agenda." The two women turned attentively. "Jess, you're on Lindqvist first. We need to know more about these guys. I got a sticky on that helicopter. Get on the site and see where it went."

"What does that mean?" Sydney asked.

"He stuck a magnetic tracking device on the helicopter. Basically, an AirTag on steroids," Jess told her. At Sydney's surprised expression, Jess laughed. It wasn't an entirely not-superior sort of laugh. "You can buy them on Amazon for thirty bucks."

I went on before that got any deeper. "Then keep digging to see what you can find about his company. We all know we're not looking for two grand of bonds. So, what are we looking for that all those guys would be interested in? I originally thought blackmail, but that's not sounding like the best bet to me now."

"Why?" Jess asked.

"Because more than one person knows what those things are. Regan doesn't want us talking to Bertram. That tells me Bertram knows. I'm pretty damn sure Everett knew when I talked to him last night, but I also got the feeling their loss was news to him. Blackmail works when two people know—the blackmailer and the target—not when everyone knows. And trust me, Everett's not someone you casually let in on a secret. It's tenuous, but I've got to make some simplifying assumptions."

Their heads nodded.

"Plus, Lindqvist had his panties in a twist that I was poking into his business. I'm thinking those pieces of paper have something to do with why these guys are business associates. So ... after you dig up what you can on Lindqvist, revisit Beck. Crushed rock and cement sound awfully like construction and trash hauling to me."

Three sets of eyes met in understanding. We were New Yorkers and everyone in the tri-state area knew who controlled those businesses. A thought struck me.

"And see if you can get me a meeting with Walter Sullivan. He'll probably refuse, but if there's a chance of getting some insider view into the one percent, I have to try."

Jess's mouth looked like she'd swallowed lemons. "You know there's someone else who could do that."

"Answers might be slow after I put a bullet between her eyes."

Jess hadn't understood the "extravagant" byplay; now it was Sydney's turn to be in the dark. She looked nervous, both at the words and the expression on my face. I didn't explain.

Jess did. "His former partner. Who happens to also be his former wife." Once again, Jess's tone said, "You're an outsider," to Sydney. Once again, I ignored it. I turned to Sydney.