Bertie was holding the phone up to her face to see if there was a charge when it suddenly rang. She shrieked and dropped it down around her feet. It continued to ring while she felt blindly for it, finally snagging it from under the seat.
“Hello, HELLO! Katie, are you still there?”
“Head toward the freeway and go west till you hit the 201. I’m about four miles north on the freeway right now. We’re following a dark-colored car. Hold on, Gene is on call waiting.”
Bertie hunched over the steering wheel. Sweat started to trickle down her spine, but she started out, wondering how she was going to catch up with a high-speed chase that was already miles away. The phone chirped again.
“OK, we’re holding steady for now. Where are you?”
“I’m heading your way. Kate, please give this up.”
“I don’t have time to discuss it right now,” Katie said. “We’re turning left off the freeway onto Bonaventure. Hurry up.”
“Wait! I’ll never catch up with you.”
“Sure you will. The guy doesn’t know he’s being followed; he’s driving in the slow lane and signaling when he turns. Gotta go.”
By cleverly driving a few (30) miles over the speed limit, Bertie was able to spot the three-car cavalcade in a few minutes. Fortunately, there were enough cars on the freeway to camouflage the little parade, even at 3:30 a.m. Her phone chirped again.
“OK, Bertie. Gene says he’s signaling to get off at the next freeway exit. Our thief is a law-abiding crook, ain’t he?”
“Promise me we’re not going to confront this guy, PROMISE ME.”
“No, no, we just want to see where he’s going, then we’ll call the police. Bertie, maybe if we lay it all out for them, the cops will do something about it. Probably not, but maybe. OK, hang back a little bit when you make the turn. There’s not much traffic here”“
The caravan made its way over dark surface streets through what looked like a high-class office park. Expensive-to-maintain lawns were black oceans lapping up against the cliffs of empty buildings. Nothing moved, not even the wind stirred the branches of the few trees along the streets.
The neighborhood was starting to look horribly familiar.
“Bertie, Gene says he lost him. He pulled over about a block from here. Let’s meet at his car.”
As Bertie pulled up, she saw Kate standing there. Gene was talking to her, but Kate just stood there, staring. Bertie joined her and they both stood there, staring.
The Bellingham building rose in the dark sky before them, the black stone absorbing the little bit of illumination from the quarter moon. Exterior walkways circled the facade, arched openings in the stone like multiple insect eyes stared unblinkingly at them. It was so quiet. The noise from the freeway was a low murmur, hardly audible in the deafening silence.
“I’m sorry, Katie, he just disappeared. I don’t know—”
“It’s OK, Gene,” Bertie interrupted. “We know where he went. We know exactly where he went.”
Gene turned to look at the building, too, although he didn’t understand why. One light shone through the darkness at the bottom, presumably from the lobby.
“OK, we’ve seen what we need to see, let’s call the police,” Kate said.
“Nope, I’m going in and I’m going to grab that little creep by the neck and shake him till his fat belly bounces up and hits him in the face.” Bertie started up the walk to the lobby.
“Bertie, no,” Kate yelled after her. “You said we shouldn’t confront the burglar. You said we should call the police.”
Bertie ignored her and finally Katie and Gene followed. They climbed the decoratively tiled steps to a giant slab of glass that served as the door. The lobby was empty but Bertie started pounding on the glass with the flat of her hand. A startled guard in khaki entered the room from a side door buried in the shadows, his shirt tail sticking out through his fly.
The man was 50ish, with a steel gray crew cut, a stocky build, and a face like a petulant bulldog. He waved Bertie away, but she kept pounding on the glass.
He came up to the window and impatiently mouthed “This building is closed, come back in the morning.”
Bertie set her jaw and kept pounding. The guard, whose shirt pocket proclaimed his name as Frank, hit a button that allowed his amplified voice to reach them.
“The building is closed—come back tomorrow at 8 when it opens.”
“We want to see Robert Bellingham,” Bertie said, hitting the intercom button.
“It’s almost 4 a.m., he’s not here, come back tomorrow.”
“Mister, I know he’s there, now you find him and tell him we want to talk to him.”
“What’s the matter with you, lady, are you deef? I’ve been here all night and I’m telling you he’s not here. Now clear out or I’m calling the police.”
Bertie hit the intercom button again. “Look, I don’t know if you honestly don’t know he’s there or you’re covering for him, but you call up to his office and you tell him that there are some people here from the kennel and if he doesn’t see them, they’re going to call the police.”
“Lady, he’s not here.”
Bertie pulled out her cell phone and held it up. “If your boss is here, do you really want to be responsible for explaining why the cops were here at 4 a.m.? Believe me, Frank, you don’t want that. And your boss won’t want that, either.”
“I’ll call, but I’m telling you he’s not there. What kennel should I say you’re from?”
“Doesn’t matter, Frank, old boy, he’ll know which kennel we’re talking about.”
They watched as he stalked across the marble floor and picked up a phone on a highly polished reception counter. He dialed and listened for several seconds when a startled look came over his face. He mouthed some inaudible words into the phone, then it hung up and came back to the door where they waited, pulling a bunch of keys from his pocket as he walked.
“I don’t know how you knew he was there, but he told me to escort you all up to his office.” He led the way to the elevator, unlocked it and hit the button for the fourth floor. Frank’s face was red. He didn’t seem to be a man who liked to be wrong.
The silent building was unnerving, every little noise echoing and bouncing back amplified several times. The guard, his fly still unzipped, ignored them. The door opened to a long dark aisle with a reception desk at the end. Gene, Katie and Bertie walked behind the guard, shoulders touching, almost stepping on his heels.
Frank tapped a button on the desk and then turned and walked back to the elevator, leaving them standing there. The only light in the hall came from the emergency exit sign over a door leading, presumably, to stairs. The elevator doors closed inexorably behind Frank, leaving the three of them alone in front of huge double doors.
“I feel like we’re in ‘The Wizard of Oz’,” Kate whispered, “waiting to see the Wizard.”
Bertie winced.
“The Wizard of Oz,” she thought. “Oh, no.”]
The double doors started to slowly swing inward on their own, revealing two-story high windows looking over a balcony with arched openings in stone walls. The room was empty except for an oversized mahogany desk and several overstuffed chairs around a coffee table.
A pool of light from a green-shaded banker’s lamp on the desk didn’t extend very far into the room. It was so quiet that Bertie’s ears hurt.
“What do we do now?” Katie whispered. Even the slight sound made Bertie jump.
“I guess we go in. What do you think, Gene?”
“I guess,” he said. The rhythm of his breathing had picked up and Bertie knew he was scared. When he swallowed, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple was painful to watch. Still, they just stood there.
“Oh, this is silly,” Bertie said out loud, her voice exploding like a bomb in the quiet. “Let’s go.” She led the way through the doors until they reached the desk.
Suddenly, the doors slammed shut and a shadowy figure came out from behind
them.
Katie screamed. Bertie backed up into Katie, who backed into Gene. They overbalanced and collapsed onto the floor in a heap of tangled arms and legs, like a game of Twister gone horribly wrong.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
R2 Bellingham was wearing a long-sleeved white polo shirt with an expensive emblem over the heart, dark blue jeans, and black high-tops. His belt plowed a deep furrow across his stomach, dividing it into two bulges above and below his waistband. Wisps of hair stood up in sharp exclamation points. It was not a flattering look.
Bertie removed Gene’s size 11 sneaker from her armpit and struggled to her feet. Gene followed and then reached down and lifted the petite Katie upright.
“What are you people doing here at 4 in the morning?” he asked.
“We want to know why you broke into my business,” Katie said.
“I don’t have to answer any of your questions about anything, ever,” he blustered. “I’m going to call the police.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Bertie interrupted, punching her index finger into his chest. “We’re the good guys, you’re the bad guy. We get to make the threats, not you, so shut up.”
He spluttered to a stop.
“What were you doing at my friend’s kennel? Why did you break in, what were you going to steal?” Horror suddenly struck hard at Bertie; what if the break-ins were retaliation for her meddling into the Bellingham murder?
“You didn’t break in because of me, did you?”
“You?” Bellingham peered at her. “Who the hell are you? Now look you people, I’ve been very patient, but get out.”
“Not a chance,” Bertie said. “Tell us about the kennel.”
“Kennel? Why would I break into a kennel? I can buy the most expensive dog in the world, I don’t need any flea-bitten mutts from a kennel.”
That was too much for Gene. “These are the best-taken-care-of dogs in Los Angeles County.”
“Pardon me,” R2 said sarcastically. “I still would never break into a kennel.”
“I followed a car straight to this place. If it wasn’t you, why are you here? That’s a pretty big coincidence. It’s not exactly normal working hours,” Gene said.
“Let me repeat: I do NOT have to answer to your questions. And what makes you think it was my car in the first place?”
“Black, looked like a Mercedes or a BMW.”
“You followed a black car that could’ve been a Mercedes or a BMW to this neighborhood? Please, do you know how many people own cars like that?”
Bertie thought of Madison’s car.
“You could have been following any car that was headed in this direction. Did you get a look at the person you claim robbed this kennel?” Bertie realized that he hadn’t asked the name of the kennel or where it was located.
“Yes,” Gene said. “It was a man dressed in dark clothing, about your build.”
“And I have on a white shirt that’s pretty hard to miss. Now, I’m going to call the security guard and have you escorted from the building.”
Katie, who’d been unobtrusively looking around the room, reached behind a chair and pulled out a rumpled black sweatshirt. “Is this where you get dressed for work?” she asked, twirling the shirt around her index finger.
“OK, we’ve had it, now GIVE,” Bertie said, walking toward him and crowding him against the wall.
He suddenly let out a wail that would’ve made fingernails on a chalkboard sound like a lullaby and slid to the floor. He started to cry, big heaving sobs.
“Please, please don’t call the police, please,” he blubbered.
The three of them stood in shock while he cried and begged. Instead of subsiding, the din was growing louder. “PLEASE, PLEASE...”
“Kate, tell him you won’t call the police if he’ll tell us what the hell is going on. I can’t take much more of this,” Bertie said.
“Sir... Mr. Bellingham, stop crying. I can’t promise I won’t call the police, but I’ll think about it. Why did you break into my kennel?”
He continued to blubber, but slowed down enough to choke out, “Because it starts with A.”
“A? A what?” Katie asked.
“I started at the beginning of the phone book, the name of your kennel starts with an A.”
“Wait! You’re not the guy who robbed A Dog Spaw, are you?” Kate asked in disbelief.
“I refuse to answer that,” Bellingham said.
“And you’re going to rob them all—A to Z?” Bertie asked. “What is it, some kind of weird hobby?”
“What are you stealing? TVs and leashes that you return right away?”
Snot was starting to run down his face from his nose.
“Hair, dog hair. Fur! We’ve started this damned line of accessories, pillows, hats – whatever- hand-knitted with fur from the owner’s dog. These celebutants and starlets … rich ninnies… they own fucking Chihuahuas and Yorkies, there’s not enough fur to knit pasties, let alone a scarf. I didn’t do any harm. I made sure you got back your items, and if it’s the cash you’re worried about, here! He took out his wallet and threw some green at her. I’m sure there’s more than enough to cover it and the repairs to your door.”
“But why steal?” Katie asked.
“This line was my idea, the first one my father ever accepted. I wanted so badly to do it right, to show him that I could do something right, so he wouldn’t make fun of me, call me a monkey’s blobbery behind. But when I saw the dogs, I knew there’d never be enough fur. I’ve been worrying and thinking and trying to figure out some way to make this work, and then I realized there’s a lot of fur out there; who’s going to know what dog it came from if it matches the color? So I started casing kennels, and yours was fairly isolated and I thought, why not? I took the other stuff to make it look like a regular break-in.”
He’d stopped crying, but hadn’t bothered to wipe the snot off his face.
“But he’s dead, he can’t hurt you anymore.”
“It was my tribute to him, it was the least I could do for his memory.” A fresh round of sobs started, unleashing a fresh torrent of snot and tears.
“Please, please, don’t tell anyone, don’t call the police … no one can know. I couldn’t even hire someone to do it for me, they’d sell the story to the tabs, and people would laugh.”
The snot was hanging in long strings from his chin.
Bertie knelt on the carpet in front of him, and held his hand until she realized he’d surreptitiously wiped his nose with it. She dropped it quickly.
“Mr. Bellingham,” she said gently. “I didn’t know your father very well, but I think the fact that you’re stealing and cheating your customers would make him very proud of you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Robert Bellingham II sat on the floor with his Buddha belly round against his chest, sobs slowing, then stopping.
“Don’t you think?” Bertie asked.
He wiped his nose again. “You could be right,” he said.
Bellingham sat for a moment longer, sniffing, then raised a hand for help standing up. Everyone was looking elsewhere.
He pulled himself up, sighed, then took another look at Bertie. “Wait! You’re that newspaper broad … Burpie! That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You’re going to make sure that everyone knows about my little … indiscretion, aren’t you?” He started to wail again.
Burpie? Bertie rushed to reassure him, mostly to stop the noise.
“No, no, no, I’m not going to write anything if Kate doesn’t file a complaint with the police. If there’s not an official complaint, then I can’t do anything.”
His sobs slowed down to a hiccuping whimper. “Okay. Thank you. And you won’t file a complaint, will you?” He turned to Kate. “I can pay you.”
He pried a wallet out of his jeans pocket again and without looking flung more money toward Kate. They fluttered to the floor.
“No, no it’s all right, I don’t want money,” Kate said, picking up all the m
oney on the floor. She was talking to him like he was one of the pups in her kennel. “But you have to promise you won’t break into any other kennels.”
“Yes, yes, I swear.”
“Fine, then I’ll give you all the fur you need, free of charge. And I’ll keep quiet about it.”
He reached for the hand that wasn’t holding the outstretched money and for one horrifying moment, Bertie thought he was going to kiss it. Instead he wiped his hand on his pants and shook hers.
As suddenly as he’d started his emotional storm, he transformed back into Robert Bellingham, CEO of a multimillion dollar company. Except for his red, swollen eyes and snot-stained shirt sleeve, it was a good imitation.
“Well, that’s settled,” he said, briskly. “I’ll have a nondisclosure agreement drawn up for you to sign and we’ll put this matter to bed.”
Kate stared briefly at him, mouth agape. “You, sir, have the balls of a bull moose. I will not be signing anything.” He looked pleased at the bull moose reference.
He harrumphed, then obviously thought better of saying anything more. He started walking them to the door, a minesweeper in jeans. “Well, I think that’s it, then,” he said, holding the door. “I’ll go out with you since I think we’re done here.” He reached to put his hand on Bertie’s back, but she cringed.
As they entered the long, dark featureless corridor, he said, “My father built this building, you know. My sister and I more or less grew up here. I have a lot of fond memories of the two of us coming to the site with my father while it was still just a skeleton and playing on the scaffolding.”
Bertie wasn’t surprised that daddy Bellingham let his small children play on scaffolding.
“My sister and I know every inch of this building from the inside out.”
The almost seamless changes from blubbering penitent to brusque businessman to reminiscing son had Bertie wondering if maybe he didn’t have a severe personality disorder—schizophrenia, multiple personalities? Bipolar? Hollywood cretins were falling all over themselves to be the first to claim a mental illness, but R2 didn’t seem that far into the H-wood loop.
Trashy Chic Page 12