Needles had taken the white van and gone to get burgers for himself and Beeks; he sat alone at a red light drinking a cup of coffee. His cell phone rang and he set the cup in a holder and answered the call.
"Needles," a woman's voice said, "this is Brandy."
Needles was quite surprised. "Well, hello, Brandy," he said politely.
"I'll get right to the point," she said. "You know about Johnny's meeting with that woman tonight, right?"
"At Sally's… yes." He glanced at his watch. 6:02 p.m. "In just under half-an-hour."
"Well, I had lunch with him today, and he got drunk on his ass, and told me a lot more about that meeting than I wanted to hear."
"I'm listening," Needles said.
"You've heard how he and I first met, right?"
"At church, right? He was your Pastor."
"Well, that's not really how it happened."
Needles smiled. He wasn't surprised. The whole affair had been shadowy from the get-go, and he'd learned to take Souther's stories with a grain of salt.
"My real name is Barbara Fischer," Brandy explained. "Two weeks after my sixteenth birthday my parents and I had this huge fight, and I had seen this ad online for a modeling job at a new agency downtown and decided to check it out — you know, to get back at them."
Needles had no idea where this was going — and the smell of the food was making him hungry.
"So, anyway, the people were really nice, and they took a gazillion pictures of me. And, well, apparently they liked what they saw, because they sent me straight upstairs to the owner's office. And you won't believe who it was?"
The light turned green, and Needles plucked a few French fries from the bag and proceeded through the intersection.
"It was Johnny Souther," she said. "That's how we met."
Needles sat up in his seat.
"I was totally star struck," she went on, "and Mr. Souther knew he'd hooked me. So he came right out and told me that Black Eagle Studios was in reality a front for his prostitution ring, and that during my first shoot the photographer would be taking more than just pictures."
"You've got to be kidding me," Needles said.
"Yes… and by then I couldn't back out, of course — I knew too much. Besides, I knew the money would be good, and I had zero desire to go back to my parent's house anyway. So he got me a place to stay and renamed me Brandy Fine, and I spent the next two days trying to psych myself up for my big debut."
Needles was speechless. Johnny Souther, a pimp? How could I not have known about this?
"… But then, at the last minute, Mr. Souther canceled everything and took me out for dinner and drinks — just the two of us — and we've been together ever since."
"So, what does this have to do with Ashley Quinn?" Needles asked. But no sooner had he said it did it dawn on him.
"Can't you see?" Brandy said. "Johnny wouldn't go to all this trouble if all he wanted to do was kill Ashley."
"He'd have done that by now," Needles said. "And he's not thinking prostitution here… he wants her all to himself."
"Right. And don't think for a moment that her son is out of the woods," Brandy said. "That exchange he promised her? It's crap. Johnny may be a sociopath, but he's not stupid. He knows he can make a lot of money with a pretty teenage boy."
Needles's stomach was in knots. "What about the digital recording? Why not just take her?"
Brandy gave a sad laugh. "Digital… that's cute. He used to leave cassettes. Listen… the recordings are one of Johnny's methods of courting a girl. For some weird reason he thinks they're clever — like that stupid hat. I think they're sick. I've heard him locked in his den recording them, and it makes we want to puke. He only makes tapes for the special girls — and they're the first to kick off when they reject him. I know this because I was friends with girls who got tapes right before they got iced. He wants to have her, Needles. And if she doesn't like it… she's dead."
"But why the sudden compassion?" Needles asked, still struggling to digest it all. "Where were you when the other girls were in trouble?"
Compassion? Brandy thought. Who said anything about compassion?
"The others were never a real threat," she said proudly. "But Johnny has never lusted for any woman the way he lusts for Ashley Quinn — not even me. I saw her picture. I know she's gorgeous — probably smart, too. I don't need a woman like that strutting about in my territory. I'm his woman, okay? I've been his woman for ten years. And I will be his woman, until the day he fucking dies."
Needles grabbed another handful of fries and put the pedal down. He knew what he had to do.