Part 7 (1/2)
Karyn gave Calista Johnston a tight look. ” Again the sun bleached ivory cracked wide. ”Good heavens Ms. Kane-Karyn. I am quite forgetting my manners. Please, come through into the living room, there is the most beautiful view of the bay. Let me get you a drink, tell me, what is your poison?”
Karyn followed Calista Johnston, with careful steps, as the older woman wrapped a thin arm around her and guided her forward. A cloying scent engaged Karyn's nostrils, holding her senses hostage, bullying them, as swirling top notes of s.e.x and cigarettes presented themselves like guilty Catholic schoolgirls before the mother superior.
The view from the penthouse was astounding, the city of Honolulu spread wide like a glittering jewel encrusted tiara under the breathless Pacific sky.
Karyn turned away from the view, her mind working fast. ”Is there anyone who would want your husband dead Calista?”
”My goodness Karyn, don't you field the big questions early, and no messing about either,” Calista Johnston flashed her famous smile, but it was somehow more grotesque this time. She walked over to a nightclub-sized bar and reached for a silver cigarette case. She snapped open the case, and said quickly, ”I don't expect you smoke, do you honey? Hardly anyone does these days.”
Karyn shook her head.
Calista Johnston reached out a cigarette from the case and double tapped it on the hard silver. ”In answer to your question honey, my husband was a multi-billionaire; a bigot with a mouth that had no off switch. I think we can safely say he was hated, by just about everyone he met. Tex was that kind of man, power-hungry and insensitive. The only things he gave a good G.o.dd.a.m.n about were making money and buying his way to the top of the political system.”
Karyn nodded, ”I see.”
”I am not sure you do honey. You have no idea what it was like living with a man like my husband. Close to twenty five years we were together all told, twenty five years in a cold, dead marriage with a man who would rather spend time talking money with a bunch of cowboy booted yahoos than making love to his wife. Now I ask you honey, what kind of marriage is that?”
Karyn pursed her lips, her face getting tighter by the minute.
Calista Johnston put the cigarette in her mouth and lit it. She took a long, deep pull and exhaled. Smoke curled into the air, languid and deadly. ”What kind of drink can I get you honey? I am going to have myself a margarita, but I am guessing you being young and all, that you take your pleasures more simply?”
Karyn smiled, ”Tequila. Rocks.”
”But of course-how very apropos.” Calista Johnston took another pull on her cigarette and called out, ”Enrique-come here at once my dear, we have a guest-we will be needing your
services.”
Karyn raised her eyebrows.
”Enrique is my personal a.s.sistant and companion.” The explanation was volunteered so blandly it almost seemed as though it was the most normal thing in the world to have an a.s.sistant.
There was a pause-a long pause. Calista Johnston held her cigarette like a starlet in a 1940s Hollywood B-movie. She took gentle puffs and eyed Karyn with a sly, almost lascivious smile. At length, Enrique appeared. He was young and slim and athletic with a mop of curly black ringlets bouncing on top of his head. He was wearing tight linen pants without shoes, and a crumpled dress s.h.i.+rt. He looked like he had just got out of bed-or the shower, and from the dark look on his face he was none too happy about it.
”I will have my usual darling and our guest Ms. Kane-Karyn, will have a double shot of Agave with ice.”
Enrique gave Karyn an oily look and slid behind the bar.
”What business did your husband have with the governor?”
”Business my dear? I was never a party to my husbands business dealings.”
Karyn nodded. ”I see.”
”I would imagine however, if I were to take an educated guess, that my husband, was engaged in furthering his political agenda, if you understand what I mean.”
Karyn nodded, ”Are you telling me he was bribing the governor. Why?”
”Goodness my dear, how very direct you are.” Calista Johnston paused, examined her nails and then took a slow pull on her cigarette, as she exhaled she said brightly, ”My husband was a man of very particular tastes Ms. Kane, he could not be aroused in a normal s.e.xual way-his obsession with perversion prevented that-voyeurism, sadomasochism, dacryphilia. Such things appealed to his endless need for dominance.”
The sound of Enrique hacking into a slab of ice with a steel pick cut through the silence.
Calista Johnston examined her fingernails again then looked directly at Karyn. ”My husband enjoyed humiliating his business a.s.sociates. He derived pleasure from their pain, a compulsion that has created a number of potential scandals in the past. I wouldn't be surprised if this little scenario at the Pacifica Towers was connected to my husband's rather dangerous and unwholesome needs.”
Karyn stared.
Enrique, having filled the c.o.c.ktail shaker began rattling it vigorously, all the while his black eyes burning l.u.s.tfully into Karyn.
”Your husband had connections on the far- right didn't he?”
Calista Johnston cast her head back and laughed wholeheartedly. ”My husband believed in freedom Ms. Kane, freedom from the yoke of the Federal Government. He also believed in the determination of a New South, unshackled from the servitude it has so long suffered. No doubt there are those who would choose to label such vision as extreme, but politics is an ugly game Ms. Kane, exceedingly ugly.”
”No doubt. You telling me his death had nothing to do with politics?”
”My husband was a Libertarian, a Humanistian, He dreamt of throwing off the shackles of government and delivering freedom to the many. He may have been an a.s.shole in private, but his political aspirations were truly G.o.d given.”
Karyn nodded, ”Freedom can be a dangerous thing in the wrong hands.”
”Perhaps you believe also that freedom is the new captivity? If that is so my dear it would seem that you are doomed to a life of servitude.”
”I work for the Government. Servitude is my business.”
”But for how much longer? Very soon all governments will be as extinct as the dinosaurs. Liberate yourself whilst you still can Ms. Kane, very soon the whole world will be singing a song of freedom.”
Enrique sashayed around the bar and delivered the ice cold drinks with a flourish. Karyn let hers stand on the coffee table, and looked at it thoughtfully. ”Sounds like you and your husband had a lot in common after all. Tell me, with his political career riding on such a peak of euphoria, why would he take his own life? It just doesn't make sense.”
”The pressures of high office and longstanding personal obsession finally proved too much for him-if I had to guess, he was indulging in one of his scenarios with Governor Geryon and the wh.o.r.e they were with-obviously that scenario got out of control-how, we may never know-but what I can tell you is that the thought of final political ruination would have been too big a burden for my husband to bear and so he ended his life. If he had been a man he would have faced the consequences, but no, the thought of being judged was an impossible burden for him.
Karyn nodded. ”An interesting theory.” ”More than a theory I think you will find Karyn, it is a course of events supported by the investigations of both the FBI and the HPD.”
”Those investigations are ongoing at this current time Mrs. Johnston.”
Calista Johnston gulped her margarita, her lips growing thin and tight. She extinguished her cigarette in a capacious onyx ashtray and it was immediately removed for cleaning by Enrique, who returned promptly with the c.o.c.ktail shaker, so that he might refill his mistresses drink.”
”Time will tell what insights the investigation will yield. Meantime, life goes on, does it not Karyn?”
”You have been very cooperative Mrs. Johnston-Calista. Thank you very much for your time,” Karyn paused. ”Tell me, do you have a trip planned?”
”I flew in purely that I might be of service to the authorities. Now that I have played my part I will be leaving.”
”A scheduled flight?”