The Monster

"Photos?!" He sounded a little angry. "I don't know what you've got there, Alex, but if they're photos of what I think they are it's Gina you need to be talking to, not me! I turned my back and walked the hell out of there!"

I believed him, too. His annoyance was so obvious, and Barry had told me that they'd turned up nothing between him and Gina beyond a single phone call from her to him.

"Okay, Bernie, I believe you. Could you tell me about it, please?"

He was still pissed. "She invited me over, Alex! Gave me some crap about a surprise party, wanted my ideas on what you liked. Not that that made much sense to me.

"And when I got there, she—well, you've seen the photos! Dressed in a transparent nightie that didn't go past her hips! She pulled me inside, gave me a kiss and tried to stick her tongue in my mouth. I'm sure that's there in the pictures!"

"What happened next?"

"I told her I couldn't do anything with her, she was married to my boss—and I unlocked the door and walked back out to my car. I just sat there, waiting for my hard-on to go down, and then I drove away!

"I didn't figure there was much point in telling you, Alex. Nothing happened, and frankly I was afraid you'd blame me rather than Gina. So I just let it alone. And now, here you are accusing me of..."

His voice was rising in anger, and I cut him off. "Easy, Bernie, easy. Let me explain. I've just found out Gina was cheating on me with at least two other people at the company, and I'm simply trying to get to the bottom of it. I believe you—I believe nothing happened between you two."

His anger disappeared, replaced by surprise. "Two other people? Jesus!"

He sat back. "I actually remember hearing a rumor about her and Josh...a few years ago. I didn't believe it, of course, figured that was the kind of thing people were bound to say, given how attractive she is. But then, after she made that crazy pass at me, I kind of wondered. Still, it wasn't any of my business."

We spoke for another couple of minutes. I assured him of my trust in him, mollified him about having accused him, and reminded him to keep our conversation totally confidential. Then he was gone.

*****************

As I sat back, thinking of what I had learned, Meredith came into the conference room.

"Alex, Jeff Denham is outside and he's practically jumping out of his skin. I know you asked me to set up his meeting for 4:00, but he's about to pee his pants. Says he has to see you this minute, it's life-and-death, and so on. If it weren't for the security guards you had me post outside the room he would have barged in here already. What do you want me to do with him?"

I smiled at her. "Just give me five minutes, then you can let him come in."

I wanted the five minutes just to savor what was about to happen. It's not every day that you discover your best friend wants you dead. And it's certainly not every day that you have a chance to get even....

When Jeff Denham entered the conference room he was practically trembling. He looked like a man who'd been hooked up to an IV full of espresso, though he was trying to hide it.

"Hey Alex, what's going on?" It was said with elaborate casualness, but his voice was several tones higher than usual.

"Hi Dowdle, thanks for coming in. You want coffee or something?'

He shook his head. "What's with the video camera?"

I smiled and said, "I just thought I might want a record of the meetings I'm having today. You don't mind, do you?"

He looked very uneasy, but all he said was, "not at all, of course not. But what's the big mystery, anyway? Meredith wouldn't tell me a thing, and when I passed Bernie Eisenhart coming out of the elevator he just gave me a kind of a funny nod and kept on walking."

I pulled the laptop around so it was facing him, and said, "take a look".

When he touched the built-in mouse the screen saver disappeared, revealing a freeze-frame from a video taken in my bedroom earlier that week. It showed Gina, naked, lying on her back, legs spread wide—and a naked Jeff with his head buried between her legs and his hands wrapped around her thighs, eating her out. She had her head thrown back in apparent ecstasy.

After a split-second Denham looked up at me, utter shock on his face. I waited until he said, "uh, Alex, I..." and then I hit him with my right fist just beneath his right eye, absolutely as hard as I could. He went flying over backward, smacking his head on the carpet as he hit the floor, the rolling chair gliding smoothly away from the table.

I stood over him, pulling off the thick winter glove I'd put on my hand. It still hurt like hell, but at least I didn't think I'd broken a knuckle.

I sat for a little while, smiling grimly and massaging my sore hand, waiting for Denham to come to. It took several minutes before he opened his eyes and moaned, feeling his face with his hand. When his head cleared a little more he looked around for me, then quickly scuttled away from me to sit against the wall, looking both sheepish and wary.

"Want more, you slimy prick? I could still hit you with my other hand." I spoke casually, almost flippantly.

"Jesus no, Alex!" I saw him look towards the door, as if gauging whether he could make a break for it or whether I'd catch him before he got there.

"Forget it, Dowdle—those two guards are still outside. You're not leaving quite yet."

We sat a bit longer, and I watched him morosely contemplate his situation. No doubt he was hoping I didn't know quite everything, but he was about to be bitterly disappointed.

"All right, Dowdle, get up and sit back down at the table. Don't worry, I'm not going to hit you again. What's ahead for you will be much more painful than that."

Warily, he got up and sat in a chair a good ten feet away from me, never taking his eyes from my face.

"I'm not going to waste much more time on you, you piece of shit. My best friend since junior high! You're a fucking disgrace!"

He didn't bother to reply, and I went on.

"You've not only been screwing my wife and trying to steal my money, but you tried to kill me"—here he jerked his head suddenly, looking at me in shock and alarm—"and I'm going to see to it you get to make some new friends in prison.

"Gina has confessed it all to me," I went on, now lying through my teeth, "and I know the stealing and the murder plot were all your idea. It wasn't good enough just to cuckold me, huh, you cocksucker? You thought knocking me off in the bargain would just complete the picture?"

"For God's sake, Alex, it's not true!" He sounded absolutely desperate. "She's lying! I admit I...we...I had an affair with Gina. There's no point in denying it now. But stealing the money...and then killing you, that was all her idea! I tried over and over to talk her out of it!"

"And when that didn't work, you said 'what the hell' and arranged to have my car tampered with, is that it?"

He hung his head, not looking at me.

Within a few minutes he'd told me all of it. The affair had started much like those with Josh and Eddie. Gina had put on the full-court press, and Denham wasn't able to keep it in his pants. He swears he fought her off two or three times before he gave in, but then that doesn't make too much difference, does it? He never came to me about it, and he ended up fucking her.

When she'd been screwing him for about three months she started in about stealing some of my money. Unlike her previous co-conspirators, Denham was willing to go along. He invented a "subsidiary" and found a way to have legitimate payments logged into Accounts Receivable, then diverted to the invented company. Since he was the head of security (which included the financial division) he was able to keep anyone else from taking a close enough look to discover what he was up to. Within seven months or so he was able to skim about $1.8 million. All this was pretty much what Barry's people had already found out.

"But that wasn't enough for Gina, Alex." Now Denham was talking freely—never mind the camera, he was eager to get it off his chest. He wasn't such a complete asshole that he didn't feel guilty about what he'd done to me.

"She said you had so goddam much money, a million or two for her simply wasn't enough—it wasn't fair. So I closed the account and covered my tracks as thoroughly as I could. A month later she started talking about killing you.

" 'Then we could be together, Dowdle!'—that sort of thing. 'You could run the company, or let the other guys run it while you and I went off to spend some of that lovely money!" She wouldn't let up about it. Every time we...were together, she had some new idea about what we'd do 'afterwards', when you were dead and she inherited your money."

"And you believed her?"

He sighed heavily. "I was a fool, Alex. The sex was incredible—the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. And I convinced myself she loved me. I was certainly in love with her, or I thought I was.

"I held out for a long time, and then she started hinting around that if I wouldn't do this for her, maybe we 'weren't meant to be together'. After a few weeks of that, it began to seem like my only choice.

"Alex, Gina is a cold-blooded monster! Once she got the idea in her head she was like a terrier with a bone—she just wouldn't let go. So I...finally, I...made some calls and found a guy who knew how to do this kind of thing. He said it would be no sweat to tamper with your brake line, and if it were done right no one would suspect a thing."

He gazed at me, a tormented look on his face. "I know you'll never forgive me—how could you? But I still can't believe that I did it. It was like I was another person, like Gina programmed me and I carried out her instructions—like I was a little monsterette."

"Were you going to try again?" I already knew the answer, from seeing the video Asimove had sent me.

In a choking voice he said, "she wanted to. I insisted that we had to wait a few weeks, to make sure that no one got suspicious about the car. I was trying as hard as I could just to put her off; but eventually she would have made me try again. She wasn't going to give up."

He covered his face with his hands. Denham was broken, finished. He hadn't even tried to deny the truth.

I asked him about the stolen money, and without hesitation he gave me the numbers of the two off-shore accounts where he'd stashed it. "All but about $60 thousand—Gina's already spent that."

It was a little past 4:30. I handed Denham off to the guards, who would hold him until the police arrived. Then I sat back in the conference room to wait for Gina, who was due to arrive at 5:00.

With each successive revelation, the incredible and painful truth seemed to sink in a little deeper. My wife was not only fucking around on me and stealing my money—she had tried to have me killed! How does a normal person get his head around that? What did it mean that I had lived with this woman, for the most part very happily, for more than eight years without having the slightest idea of who and what she really was?

****************

Gina came sweeping into the conference room, about twenty minutes late as usual, looking glamorous and slightly irritated.

"Baby, what on earth is all this about? Meredith practically commanded me to come meet you here, and she wouldn't tell me anything about what you wanted! Is something going on with the company? And why on EARTH did you leave me without a car this morning?"

I watched her very carefully, and I could see that the irritation was an act. Behind it Gina was worried. In all probability she and Denham had been burning up the phone lines today, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Honey, just sit down please, okay? This isn't going to be easy for me."

I sat quietly, as if doing battle with my emotions, and watched her struggle to stay calm. I was determined to enjoy every last fucking minute of this!

After a long pause, during which Gina's knee started to jiggle nervously, I spoke.

"Gina, I know you cheated on me. How could you do this to me? I thought you loved me!"

She tried to sit still, but her eyes widened and she stiffened a little. I watched as she composed her face into a look of sorrow and compassion. It was impressively quick—she must have expected this.

"Baby, I am SO sorry. I never meant to hurt you. It just...I guess...you were away so much, and I..." She broke off and began to weep. Convincingly, too; I might have been softened if I hadn't known the whole truth.

Still crying, she reached across the table and took my hand. "Alex, I...is there any way you can ever forgive me? I don't want to lose you!"

"I don't know, Gina. I just don't know." Then, after another pause, "I need you to tell me about it. When and how it started, and when it ended. And WHY? Above all, why? Why did you do this?"

"Oh baby, please don't make me talk about it. We can get past this, you'll see! I can make it up to you. I'll be the best, most perfect wife you could ever..."

"No Gina," I said, giving my voice a cracking sound. "If we're ever going to get past this, you need to be honest with me. Here and now.

"When did it start? How long did it go on?"

I had her by the short hairs, and I was reveling in it. She didn't know which of her lovers I knew about. I had deliberately spoken about her affair in the past tense, so she would think it might not be Denham but one of the others. Now she had to guess—and if she guessed wrong, she'd be admitting to an affair I (supposedly) didn't even know about!

Reluctantly, she began to talk. "Like I said, Alex, it was...you were away a lot, and I felt lonely. Abandoned. I know that's not fair, you were working so hard and being successful, building the company for both of us, but...

"But I let it get to me, I guess. And then he...I'd had a couple of drinks, and when he made a pass, I...just gave in."

I laughed to myself. Nice try, Gina! But you're not off the hook yet.

"When was this, Gina? I really need to know."

She suddenly rose from her seat, came around the table and tried to throw herself into my arms, tears on her face, crying, "Alex, I'm so sorry!"

But I held her at arm's length, still looking into her eyes, and said, "when was it?"

I saw the split-second mental calculation as it appeared and then disappeared from her eyes. She sighed, sat down in the chair next to me, and said, "a little over four years ago."

She had placed her bet on Josh Daniels! I chuckled to myself. Nice try, Gina—too bad you don't know that there IS no right choice!

"And?"

She looked at me, her annoyance showing a little behind the mask of sorrow, but she realized she really didn't have much choice.

"And it went on for a couple of months. I don't know why, Alex—I just got a little crazy. I knew it was wrong, and finally I just told Josh I couldn't see him any more, it was destroying me. I was crying all the time, and..."

"Josh?!" I interrupted her with a yell. "You cheated on me with Josh too?!"

If you could have seen the look on her face at that moment!

Desperately, her eyes wide with fear, she said, "baby, I don't understand what..."

"Eddie Kreitler wasn't the only one?" I shouted at her. "You slept with TWO of my employees? What the fuck were you thinking of?"

She tried to break in, to slow me down, but I was on a roll.

"For God's sake, Gina, how can we ever make this right? How am I ever going to be able to trust you again? Jesus, everyone at Apex must have been laughing at me behind my back! The boss's wife does the underlings—just get in line, she'll get around to you soon enough! Who else did you fuck, the janitor?"

"No baby, I swear, it was just the two..."

"And how am I supposed to believe that?" I demanded. "For all I know you've been screwing everybody I've ever been in business with! Did you do Dan Camorin, before he left? And what about our friend Archie, or Debbie's husband Peter? Or Dowdle? How am I supposed to be sure you haven't been fucking all of them?"

Gina saw her opportunity and she leapt in. Her face got a solemn look, and she reached out and took both my hands in hers. In a quiet, serious voice she said, "Alex—as God is my witness, it was only those two. And it was years ago. I regretted it so much! I've been completely faithful to you since then—and I will be for the rest of my life."

There was silence in the room. I gazed at her, wearily, sadly, concealing the angry joy I felt at her impending destruction.

"All right, Gina," I said slowly. "Okay, you...you cheated on me with two of my employees, but then you stopped. You got your act together, and decided to go back to being my faithful wife. Is that right?"

"Yes, baby," she said, hope beginning to show in her eyes.

"Well, there's...just...I guess I just need to ask you one more thing," I said, pulling the laptop over in front of her. "Can you tell me what this is all about?"

I touched two keys. This time when the screensaver vanished the video leapt into motion. We saw Jeff's head bobbing between Gina's thighs, saw her arching her back in pleasure, and heard her harsh voice. "Oh, yes, yes...oh baby...oh Dowdle, do that! Yes, baby, do that!"

I have to give Gina some credit. She didn't jump back from the laptop as though it were a snake, she didn't try to run from the room, she didn't even cry out. Just a quick "oh!", choked off almost as soon as it began. Then, after a few seconds, she pushed the laptop closed and turned to face me.

Her face was nearly unrecognizable from a few moments earlier. Now it was a tight, angry mask, her eyes flashing, her mouth a tight-lipped sneer.

"Okay, Alex, you got me. Good for you! What do you want me to say? Yes, I was fucking Dowdle, and he did me a lot better than you ever could!"

"Is that so, Gina? Does that explain why you tried to have me killed?"

That one shook her. She froze, staring at me for a minute; and the best she could manage was, "what? I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Really?" I said mildly. I opened the computer, pressed a few buttons, and turned it around so that she could see it. The scene was our kitchen, with Gina and Denham sitting together at the table, both with robes on. Gina was speaking.

"I don't care, Dowdle. So we got unlucky and he didn't crash the car. You can try again!"

"Gina, you don't understand how risky this is! If someone starts looking into what happened, they..."

"Bullshit! You had the car burned up, right? Totally destroyed, along with a bunch of other ones! Who's going to suspect anything? We just need some other way to kill him. Can't you poison him, or have him shot and make it look like a robbery?"

I pressed a button and the computer fell silent. I smiled at Gina.

"Too bad for you I've got this video, hey baby? It's going to be pretty hard to stand up in court and deny you had anything to do with it."

I watched Gina's cold eyes as the wheels turned behind them. She was a rat, caught in a nasty trap, searching every corner for a way out. She no longer made any attempt at looking sorry, or even affectionate. When she finally spoke her voice was low and contemptuous.

"You'll never go to the police with this, Alex. It would make you a laughing-stock, and turn Apex into a joke. The head of a multi-billion dollar company, and his wife is screwing the employees! You'd be a worldwide fool!"

She sat back, looking satisfied and disdainful. I picked up the phone and asked Meredith to have Nancy Leggett come in. When she entered she sat across the table from Gina and me, regarding my wife as though she were a sack of dirty laundry.

"Nancy, my lovely wife Gina thinks that it would be bad for me and bad for business if I had her arrested for grand theft and attempted murder. Why don't you tell her what you told me this morning?"