Castle of Sorrows Read online

  Ben opened his mouth to say something, but Brooks told him to wait a minute and set off toward his car. Ben watched the small man’s spry gait and remembered how fit Eddie Blaze had been before they’d ventured to the island, before they’d stayed in Castle Blackwood, Eddie striving to rid Ben of his writer’s block because their deadline had been approaching. That prick of a director Lee Stanley—now that dead prick, Ben amended—railing at them to deliver the score for his horror film House of Skin, Eddie desperate to kickstart Ben’s creative juices, juices that had dried up when Ben’s ex-wife had left him for the handsome pilot named Ryan. Ryan who was also now dead. Like everyone but Ben and Claire and Joshua, everyone else murdered on that godforsaken island. On the Sorrows.

  Brooks was opening his passenger door and bending to retrieve something from the glove box, and as he did Ben thought of Chris Blackwood, son of the woman who was paying Teddy Brooks to find out what had happened on the island last summer. Chris Blackwood had been deep in debt to some very scary gangsters and had needed money, which was how Ben and Eddie and Claire and Eva had gotten to the island in the first place.

  Brooks was making his way back toward Ben now, a manila envelope tucked between his elbow and his side. Brooks had a bottle of water in one hand and his diminishing cigarette in the other. Ben eyed the manila envelope and tried to convince himself the nightmare would be over soon.

  Brooks caught the look on Ben’s face. “Don’t worry, hoss, this isn’t a good news, bad news kind of thing.”

  “You haven’t told me anything yet,” Ben said, “except my sidewalk looks like a three-year-old did it.”

  Brooks tilted his head. “I thought he was four.”

  “You’re slipping. Joshua doesn’t turn four until Wednesday.”

  Brooks snapped his fingers. “That’s right. July sixth.”

  “What’s in the envelope?”

  Brooks began the job of opening it. “The good news is that I haven’t seen any of Marvin’s thugs around here lately. And since you haven’t either, I’m assuming they’ve lost interest in you.”

  Ben faced Brooks, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. “You sure?”

  “Course I’m not sure,” Brooks said. “How could I be? But I’ve driven your road every day for the past month, and I haven’t seen one hint of Marvin’s men. Not a black Escalade, not any other of the vehicles those assholes drive. And since you haven’t seen them either, the logical conclusion is that the assholes have turned their attention elsewhere.”

  “Toward Christina Blackwood?”

  Brooks smiled ruefully. “Their attention’s never wavered from Christina. Hell, Marvin Irvin’s like the Eye of Sauron where Christina’s concerned. He’d no more forget about her than he’d forget that damned cane he totes wherever he goes.”

  “He have some disability?”

  “Yeah,” Brooks said. “He enjoys torturing people.”

  Ben’s mouth went dry.

  “Anyhow,” Brooks went on, “Marvin’s men are always near Mrs. Blackwood’s estate. Whenever she goes into Frisco, Malibu, anywhere, they’re skulking in the background. Like a cloud of gnats.”

  “Why doesn’t she just pay them off?”

  Brooks gave him a look that suggested he was helplessly naïve. “The mob doesn’t work like that. You don’t sign a contract, agree to a set amount. One minute Chris Blackwood was in the hole nearly half a million, and the next thing he knew, that number doubled.”

  “I take it Marvin still wants his million.”

  “Million? Hell, Marvin’s askin’ for ten.”

  Ben barely caught that last bit because his attention had been diverted to the photographs Brooks had fished out of the manila envelope. There were three of them, glossy eight-by-tens that Brooks clutched like playing cards. The one in front was a handsome guy with a blond crew cut.

  “This is Troy Castillo,” Brooks said by way of explanation. “White guy, Hispanic name. He’s one of the new feds assigned to your case.”

  Ben frowned. “My case?”

  “Don’t be coy now. You didn’t think the authorities were just gonna walk away after you stonewalled the first pair they threw at you?”

  Ben kicked at a thick weed. “I didn’t stonewall anybody. If I’d told them the truth, they’d have had me committed.”

  Brooks laughed. “So you’re tellin’ me I should feel special. That right? Since I’m the only one you trusted with your goat-man tale?”

  “I never should’ve told you.”

  Brooks flapped the eight-by-tens. “Well, you better come up with a better story, you’re gonna try to outsmart these three. A guy I know from my days at the LAPD, he says the one named Morton always finishes the job.”

  “That supposed to scare me?”

  “Why should it scare you? How much you benchin’ these days?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Estimate for me.”

  Ben shrugged. “Three-fifty, three-seventy-five?”

  Brooks whistled. “You’ll match up well with Castillo then.” Brooks handed him the picture of the blond FBI agent. “He’s a musclehead like yourself. Former collegiate wrestler. Hear he’s got a short fuse.”

  Ben studied the square jaw, the no-nonsense expression. The photo looked to have been taken in a parking lot. “He military?”

  “Uh-uh,” Brooks said, waggling the second eight-by-ten. “But Morton was.”

  Ben accepted the second eight-by-ten, a mugshot that could have been lifted straight out of a high school yearbook. But this was no teenager staring at Ben. This man was sober-looking, conservative. He had short dark hair and sharp features. He was older than Castillo, perhaps Brooks’s age.

  “Sean Morton,” Brooks explained. “He’s head of their cadre. Cool, clinical. Very smart. He’s been on Marvin now for several weeks. Now he’s on you too.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” Ben asked. “What do I have to do with the mob?”

  “You were there, man. Chris Blackwood and his dad are both dead, along with a hell of a lot of other people. And since you’re alive, everybody thinks you’ve got the answers.”

  “I gave you the answers,” Ben said, “and look how you reacted.”

  Brooks laughed. “Sure you gave me answers. ‘Once upon a time back in the 1800s, there was this composer who found a naked child in the woods…’”

  Ben felt the anger melt out of him, in its place a resigned lethargy. “I’ve got to check on the kids.”

  “We’re almost done,” Brooks said. He handed Ben the last photograph, this one taken in what appeared to be the foyer of a large office building. “Jessica Gary. Goes by Jessie. She’s a rising young star. First in her class, aced every exam she ever had. She’ll be accompanying Morton and Castillo.”

  Ben examined the portrait more closely. The hair was a striking scarlet hue. She was gorgeous, which wouldn’t help. Claire would probably hate her right away.

  Brooks was beside him. “Hottie, right?”

  Ben continued to study the photo. Jessie Gary had a dimple in her chin, but rather than making her look boyish, this only added an impish good humor to her otherwise solemn expression. Yes, Ben reflected. She was indeed attractive. He only hoped Claire would avoid picking a fight. Despite his wife’s beauty and despite Ben’s devotion to her, Claire was still ruled by an insecurity where Ben and other women were concerned. She often joked—not really joking at all—that Ben would someday leave her for a skinnier girl.

  “So you see,” Brooks said, “it would be wise of you to tell me what you know before these three professionals get ahold of you.”

  “And what, waterboard me?”

  “That’s not their style,” Brooks said, returning the eight-by-tens to their folder. “But they will subpoena you. They will make you testify. And they’ll indict you if you perjure yoursel
f.”

  “I suppose that’s why you’re telling me this, right? Because you’re worried about me? Worried my family won’t be able to cope if I’m in prison?”

  Brooks glanced up at him. “I wouldn’t like to see that, no, you want the truth. But that’s not why we’re talking.”

  “How much?”

  Teddy grinned. “You were supposed to let me spring it on you. You know, let me surprise you with it?”

  Ben waited.

  “Two hundred,” Teddy said. “One each for Chris Blackwood and his dad.”

  “Two hundred thousand dollars,” Ben said.

  “Tell Christina what really happened and you’ll get the money within a week.”

  Ben studied Brooks a moment. “You’re not telling me everything.”

  “It’s a simple transaction.”

  “You’re holding something back. Why the urgency now? This thing happened last summer, and all of a sudden Christina Blackwood is willing to pay me two hundred grand?”

  Teddy held his gaze, but only for a moment. Then he patted his shirt pocket, began to draw out the pack of cigarettes again.

  “No more of that,” Ben said.

  Brooks looked around the yard. “We’re outside, man.”

  “It still stinks. It gets in my clothes, I go in and pick Julia up, her mouth and nose press right against the shoulder of my shirt, which smells like an ashtray.”

  Brooks rolled his eyes, but he let the pack slide back into his shirt pocket. “Sensitive,” he muttered.

  “What happened to your boss?”

  Brooks brushed his shirt pocket absently, as if hoping Ben would change his mind about the smoking. Then, after a long moment’s deliberation, he said, “Christina has three bodyguards. Or had. One of them disappeared a few days ago.”

  “Maybe he quit.”

  Brooks scuffed the toe of a loafer on the walk. “Tyler Funkhouser is the guy’s name. He’s always been a flake.” Brooks shook his head. “Have no idea why Christina hired him. The two she’s got are fine. But she hired Funkhouser a few months ago for extra security. He was a piss-poor bodyguard. Unobservant, totally unreliable. Funkhouser didn’t show up for work a few days ago, and no one’s been able to get ahold of him.”

  “You said he was a flake.”

  “He is.”

  “So why the concern now?”

  Brooks looked askance at Ben as though he was feebleminded. “Christina Blackwood is worth billions, which makes her a target for a lot of people. Especially if a guy like Marvin feels she owes him restitution.”

  “Marvin threaten her?”

  Brooks laughed. “Get this. Christmas Eve, Christina’s out shopping. No idea why, her son and her husband are both dead. But one of Marvin’s goons walks right up to her—guy by the name of Ray Rubio, big Italian guy, face like a dark moon—he stands beside her near a rack of dresses at Saks Fifth Avenue? Says he figured she wouldn’t see him at her mansion so why don’t they just talk here?”

  Ben pictured Rubio, who in his mind looked like one of the henchmen in The Godfather. “What’d she say?”

  “Didn’t have time to say anything. Jorge stepped between them—”

  “Who’s Jorge?”

  “Navarro. Tough Hispanic bodyguard. Jorge steps between them and tells Rubio he’s gonna regret it if he doesn’t leave Christina alone.”

  “What happened?”

  “Rubio just says, ‘Ten million. It’ll be more if you don’t pay up,’ and leaves.”

  Ben thought it over. “And now the other bodyguard is missing?”

  Brooks made a pained face. “I don’t know we want to say ‘missing’ yet. Let’s just say Christina’s concerned about what it could mean if Funkhouser doesn’t turn up soon.”

  Ben heard a muffled cry from the house. “That’s Julia,” he said, and moved away.

  “So we got a deal?” Brooks called after him.

  “I’m not going to lie for money,” Ben said.

  “You already lied for free, why not tell me the truth and get paid?”

  Chapter Two

  Griffin Toomey knew he’d made a mistake when he snitched on the guy cheating at blackjack. Knew it was wrong to tell on a guy for no other reason than the guy had stolen his girl. The girl in question, of course, had been a hooker—all of Griffin’s dates, it seemed, were with hookers—so Griffin supposed the guy hadn’t actually stolen anything. But he was still incensed when the other guy—twenty years older and sporting a toupee that looked like an inexpertly skinned prairie dog pelt—stole the leggy blonde.

  Prairie Dog had sauntered up to the table and began beating the house. Within five minutes Griffin’s stack of chips looked like some midget’s stubby pecker. The fact that Prairie Dog was counting cards didn’t even occur to Griffin until the crowd had swollen to maybe twenty people. Griffin was too busy eyeing the blonde’s long pink fingernails as they settled on the sleeve of Prairie Dog’s polyester sports jacket and then began to caress that sleeve. Soon she was leaning in close to him, whispering words of encouragement and once even giving his grizzled cheek a good-luck peck. The crowd soon became so boisterous that Griffin and the blonde with the endless brown legs became separated, which was just as well, Griffin figured, because that was what permitted him to concentrate on Prairie Dog’s eyes as the dealer dealt.

  Griffin made his way over to the red-vested security guard, a surly-looking guy who was watching the crowd celebrate around the blackjack table.

  “What?” the surly guy had growled.

  “That guy with the toupee,” Griffin said.

  “What about him?”

  “He’s counting cards.”

  The guard turned to Griffin, as if noticing him for the first time. Griffin thought the man would go over and collar Prairie Dog then. Instead, the guard crossed silently to a wall phone, punched a couple numbers, and said something into the receiver. He neither thanked Griffin nor gave him another glance.

  Which was why Griffin was so shaken when the man he eventually learned to be Ray Rubio loomed up beside him later that evening at the hotel bar. Rubio and his round, masklike face, which was runneled with scars and the color of ravaged leather. Rubio saying, “You the bird who told on the cardsharper?”

  Griffin had downed several shots by this time and had no idea what a cardsharper was. Nor did he have any idea why this scary man with the slicked-back hair was calling him a bird. But he heard himself saying yes, he was the bird who told on the cardsharper.

  Rubio, his grip on Griffin’s arm like an overinflated blood pressure band, practically carried him over to a dim but expansive corner table, where sat a short man and two scantily dressed women who made Griffin’s leggy blonde look like a dog. At Rubio’s appearance, both women rose and scooted hurriedly around the table to allow him ingress. Griffin scooted toward the short man and was pleasantly surprised to feel the bare arm of one of the scantily clad hotties settle against him. The hottie—this one had dark brown hair and so much cleavage her chest looked like a butt—was smiling broadly, but her eyes were on the short man. Griffin smiled happily back at her, took one more satisfied gander at her bulging boobs, then turned to the short man.

  Who was staring at him.

  Griffin felt his euphoria slip away.

  “You’re perceptive,” the short man said.

  As if to give lie to this sentiment, Griffin stared blankly back at the man, unable to formulate a coherent thought.

  “He’s drunk,” Ray Rubio muttered.

  “I can see that,” the short man said without irritation. His charcoal-colored eyes swept Griffin appraisingly. “You noticed what my man on the floor didn’t.”

  “He stole my girl,” Griffin replied. Or at least had tried to reply. The words came out in a monosyllabic slur, like an old-fashioned cartoon character who’d become comicall
y drunk. Only, Griffin realized, there was nothing comical about the short man’s black eyes. Or about the way the supermodels at the table suddenly looked worried. Mother of God, Griffin had time to think. Am I going to die?

  But the small man’s intense expression gave way to an easy grin. He turned to another man, who at some point had sat down across the table from Griffin. “Hey, Nicky, what do you think of this guy?”

  Nicky didn’t even turn to look at Griffin. A toothpick poking out of his thin lips, Nicky said, “He looks like a baby eagle.”

  Griffin chuckled and hooked a thumb at Rubio. “He called me a bird earlier.”

  “Your hair is very fine,” the small man commented. “Does it always stick up like that?”

  “It’s always been like this,” he said. “I try to make it lay down, but it always springs back up.” Griffin patted his hair to demonstrate.

  The one named Nicky was watching him now, one eyebrow raised. “He’s a goddamned moron.”

  Griffin knew he should have been offended, but all at once he was mesmerized by Nicky’s toothpick, the way it rolled from one corner of his mouth to the other.

  “He’s certainly inebriated,” the small man allowed, “but he’s not an idiot. I think our bird here notices far more than the average individual.” The small man clapped a hand on the nape of Griffin’s neck. The touch was not overly rough, but Griffin sensed immense strength in the man’s stumpy fingers. He leaned close to Griffin’s ear and said, “You’re a perceptive young man. Aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Griffin said.

  “What’s your name, my young bird?”

  Griffin told him.

  “Toomey,” Rubio said, chuckling. “Reminds me of cancer.”

  There was something unsettling about Rubio’s laughter. The sound reminded Griffin of madness. Unconsciously, he scooted closer to the small man, whose arm was around his shoulders now.

  The small man gave him an oddly paternal squeeze. “You wanna work for me, Birdman? I think you’d like working for me.”

  Griffin looked deep into those black, unblinking eyes and thought, If I say no, he’ll kill me. He’ll kill me if I say no…