Chapter 64
Roger Teal watched the investigator walk across the parking lot to where Berrien stood waiting.
He saw Berrien glance up at his window as Parker drew nearer, which caused Teal to take a step back, though he knew he couldn’t be seen from outside.
Did Berrien suspect he might be standing there?
She was in no hurry to hide that she was conspiring with Parker against him.
Just the opposite: She wanted Teal to know.
She was rubbing his face in it, nasty pussy-eating bitch that she was.
Teal so wanted to teach her a lesson, the kind of lesson Nola Maddick learned at the very end, a lesson only a man could teach a woman.
Berrien was no looker, but Teal could work up an appetite for her if he had to.
He would hurt her, humiliate her, and finally, choke the life from her, and he’d do it in front of a mirror, from behind, so she could witness her own dying. He’d laugh her into the next world.
Unfortunately, that would mean stepping outside the Game, unless he could persuade the Saint or Kenney to make Berrien a target.
Under ordinary circumstances, there’d be little hope, but if he were to advise the Saint that Berrien was being sly, and had the bit between her teeth when it came to Spero, to the extent that she was willing to assist a private investigator, then Teal could see the Saint coming around to his way of thinking; Kenney, not so much, but the Saint was a practical man, and he really did enjoy hurting women.
Teal thought the Saint might be even more open to despoiling a woman who was in a position to damage him, and there remained the not-insignificant question of the whereabouts of Mallory Norton, the girl missing up in The Plains.
If, as Kenney feared, the Saint was responsible for her death, he had another reason for silencing anyone who could aid an investigation into Spero.
The more Teal thought about it, the more he wanted to skin Berrien alive and dump what was left of her in a hole in the ground.
But if she was to be taken, it would have to be by hands other than his own.
He’d need a sound alibi, because he could see the private investigator returning after her disappearance, this time with the police in tow.
Teal would have to go away for a day or two while Berrien was being lifted, taking his wife and daughter with him.
He could frame it as a reset, a chance for them to see if a change in environment might lead to an improvement in family spirit.
Even if they were skeptical, they’d agree if he picked somewhere they wanted to go, with a promise of luxury thrown in for good measure.
He could use some of the Spero cash he still had squirreled away, his personal rainy day fund, and when he got back, the Saint would have Berrien waiting for him, and they could play with her together.
Teal walked away from the window, leaving Berrien and Parker to their conflab.
He was no longer alarmed by the investigator, but he didn’t dismiss him either.
If worse came to worst, they could deal with Parker as well.
They’d grown practised at making bodies vanish, and whatever his reputation, Parker was no longer a young man.
That was the thing about reputations: they were always predicated on the past, and in due course the present gave the lie to them.
Teal was flicking through his cell phone contacts to find the Saint when a text message came through. The message looked like spam and read: VEHICLE TO SELL? WE BUY ALL MODELS FOR $$$$$ NOT ￠￠￠￠￠ INC. WRECKS, INSPECTION FAILURES, AND MORE!!!!! CALL NOW WITHOUT OBLIGATION!!!!! OPEN 24/7!!!!!
Teal had received similar messages only twice before, each time when an urgent problem had arisen with the Game.
The message, he knew, came from a burner phone, one that would not be used again, and the sender was Edward Kenney, because only Kenney used car spam as an alert.
(The Saint’s alert asked for clothing donations, while Teal’s referenced antiques.) Teal had a couple of burners of his own, but was reluctant to activate them without good reason because burners cost money, and Teal was careful with his pennies so the dollars would look after themselves.
He was also rightly paranoid about cell phones, burners or otherwise, and where possible preferred to use pay phones.
In a notebook, he kept an updated list of pay phones between Kittery and Houlton, a list that, to his sorrow, grew shorter every year.
Teal set aside any thoughts of calling the Saint for the time being, packed his briefcase, and left the building. Berrien and the private investigator were nowhere to be seen. Teal got in his car and drove to the CITGO gas station on State Street, where he used its pay phone to call Edward Kenney.
“We have to meet,” said Kenney.
“When?” asked Teal.
“Now.”