“They’ll never know.” I showed him Alison’s picture again. “The reason this is in plastic, it’s a rub off . You give me the name of your guard, I’ll make sure he sneaks you the pictures a few at a time. The way it works, you rub the picture with your finger. Th ere’s a totally naked photograph of Alison under this coating.”
“Bullshit.”
I held the photo at an angle so he could see the raised portion above her clothing.
“How long they been doing that?” he said.
“The technology is new, but the idea goes back to Leonardo Da Vinci. If you take an x-ray of the Mona Lisa, you’ll find two other paintings beneath it. Back in those days canvasses were hard to come by. If you wanted to paint something new, you painted over a used canvass.”
“I look like I want a history lesson?”
“Rub the picture with your thumb or index finger just hard enough to make some heat. That’s what melts the coating. I’ll get you a hundred photos of Alison with clothes on. You can enjoy her that way or rub the pictures and make her nude, it’s up to you.”
“What kind of girl poses for a hundred naked pictures?”
“The kind who wants to live.”
“She know about the hundred pictures yet?”
“Nope. She’s only done this one.”
“You seen it?”
“I have.”
His face was flushed. He licked his lips. It was enough to make you sick. He said, “You’re gonna bribe the guard, just give him the naked pictures in the first place.”
“If I give him naked pictures, you think he’ll pass them along to you?”
“Hell, no! Not that degenerate bastard.”
“That’s why I’m printing pictures on top of the naked ones.”
I could see it in his pitted face: he was intrigued.
“She shaved?” he said.
“You want her shaved?”
“I want her shaved.”
“Okay, well she’s not shaved in this one, but I’ll make that happen next time.”
We worked out the logistics for getting him the money, and he gave me the name of his guard.
“How did it go?” Alison said.
We were in my rental car, heading to our motel room at the Quality Inn.
“For now you should be safe. That’ll change in a few days or weeks when he loses the power to decide.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Kill him.”
She’d been looking out the window, but when I said that, her head spun back to face me.
“Why? How?”
“Why? Because it’ll send a message to whoever takes his place in the gang. How?” I smiled. “I’ll tell you later.”
“We still going back to Dallas tonight?”
“Soon as I fi nish talking to Wolf ’s guard.”
“What time’s the meeting?”
“The guards get off at eight, so I’m hoping around eight-thirty. Wolf says his guard likes to have a few drinks at the titty bar on Euclid before going home to beat his wife.”
She looked at her watch. “That’s like, six hours. What are we going to do till then?”
“Nap. It’s a long drive back to Dallas, and neither of us got any sleep last night.”
“You only got the one room today.”
“One room, two beds.”
“What, you think I’ll run away if I have my own room?”
“I think it would be harder for me to protect you.”
“But I’m safe for now. You said so yourself.”
“I said you
Chapter 34
For five hundred dollars and the promise of more to come, the guard was glad to smuggle Alison’s photo into Wolf Williams’ cell. I gave him the picture and cash in the parking lot behind the titty bar, and Alison and I were finally flying back down the highway to Dallas.
“I didn’t pose for any nude photo,” Alison said.
“It’s only important that Wolf thinks you did,” I said.
“I still don’t understand. He’s going to get the picture, he’s going to rub it with his finger, then what?”
“The reason the picture is in the plastic baggie, there’s a coating on it, made out of snake venom. There are hundreds of microscopic glass shards imbedded in the coating. When Wolf starts rubbing the photo, he’ll cut his finger and create an entry for the venom.”
“You’re insane,” she said.
“Probably.”
She gave me a look of exasperation. “I’m supposed to hang my life on that ridiculous plan?”
“Trust me, he’ll be dead fifteen minutes after getting the picture.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“I have.”
“What kind of person imbeds broken glass and snake venom onto a photograph in two hours’ time?”
“Say it.”
“What.”
“You’re glad you’re on my side.”
She shook her head. “You are seriously fucked up, Creed.”
“And you’re noisy in bed.”
She looked at me. “Are you talking about last night? For your information, that was an act.”
I didn’t say anything.
“What, you think I actually
I didn’t respond.
“Someone sure has a high opinion of himself,” she said.
I sighed.
“Touching you last night gave me the creeps,” she said, and she was just getting started.
It was a long ride back to Dallas.
Chapter 35
I’ve lived my entire adult life by what I call the phone call theory.
The way my theory goes, you can be good, bad, or somewhere in between. You can be rich, poor, or middle class. A winner or loser, a builder or breaker, a giver or taker, makes no difference: we’re all just a phone call away from a life-changing event.
