The Blackmail Club by David Bishop

me from nobody so I followed on foot.
    “They got off the elevator at the twelfth floor and the doll goes in one of the rooms. Donny returned to the elevator alone and took it down. By then I’m all curious so I hunkered down in the lounge area outside the elevators on twelve. I called my relief guy and told him I’d broken off the tail. I told him to hustle over to Donny’s house to see if he went home.”
    “Had he?” Jack asked.
    “Nope. My guy found him parked back in a reserved spot at his club.”
    “So what happened at the hotel?” Nora asked.
    “Two hours passed with nothing going on. Then the door opens and a man comes out. He had to have been in the room when we got there. The doll followed him into the hall wearing nothing but her blazer. The little lass put her arms behind his neck and hopped up and wrapped her legs around his waist. He planted a two-handed grip on her butt. Then he put her down and walked backwards for a bit so he could watch her lean forward and jiggle in her single-breasted; that’s the blazer, not the doll.”
    Max winked. “She wagged a crooked finger beckoning the guy back, but he shook his head. She went back inside, and he started walking toward me.”
    “Did you get a picture?”
    “Sure. Took the picture through a hole in the newspaper I was holding because, this time, I knew the bloke.”
    “I’ve never heard a more colorful report on a stakeout, Max,” Nora said, “but who the hell was he?”
    After a final pause for drama, Max said, “You’ve met him, boss. The Honorable Patrick Molloy, Mayor of the great District of Columbia.” Max slid the picture across the table.

Chapter 14
     
    After a quick Monday morning stop at a chiropractor to get his neck jerked into alignment, Jack called an old friend. “Hello, Carol. It’s Jack McCall. I need a favor.”
    “Well, Jack. What’s it been, a couple of years? How’s it hanging?”
    Carol had always talked more like one of the guys than one of the guys.
    Jack and Carol Sebring had dated about five years ago. After going out several times they’d agreed to end their relationship and remain friends.
    “Congratulations on your promotion to Special Deputy Assistant to the Director. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day you become America’s first female FBI director.”
    “The promotion was nearly three years ago, Jack. I got the flowers you sent then. They were beautiful and thoughtful. Now cut to the chase.”
    Carol had also always been a bottom-line person.
    “A few days ago the body of one of your old fugitives, Benjamin Haviland, showed up in the dumpster behind my building. I’d like a look at his file.”
    “The identification of Haviland’s body came up briefly in one of my meetings yesterday. Don’t expect much. Until we identified the prints sent over by Metro, his file had been in the Bureau’s equivalent of the post office dead letter section.”
    “Would four work for you?”
    “I’ll clear you with security. Ask for me.”
    A black Cadillac Escalade with heavily tinted windows followed Jack around a second corner. The car seemed sinister, but DC had many black Escalades. He parked on D Street and walked down Tenth toward the FBI entrance near Pennsylvania Avenue. After stepping inside he looked through the window as the Escalade drove by, its dark windows denying a view of the driver. He wondered if this had been a coincidence, or his imagination on overdrive. He thought not. Just a feeling, but he had come to trust those feelings.
    Carol Sebring still hadn’t gotten her nose straightened from taking a punch from a suspect. With the broken beak she had knocked out the perp with a left-right combination. The slightly crooked nose gave her face character and added an invisible message: Don’t fuck with me; I’m tougher than I look. Carol was a sexual powder keg. Jack had not met her husband, but he smiled in a moment of compassion and envy.
    She escorted Jack to a small private room. “These