Marked Man

by William Lashner

  “No comment.”

  “And he, too, was somehow involved with the painting.”

  “Still no comment.”

  “And the rumor swirling around the press corps was that he was some prominent lawyer.”

  “I have nothing to say.”

  “And other people are at risk, including your client.”

  “Can we stop now?”

  “And it’s all about someone who is desperate to get the painting for himself.”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” I said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with the painting.”

  “No? Then what is it about?”

  “I’m not answering questions, remember?”

  “But it is all somehow related, the robbery and the painting and your client and the two dead men, right?”

  “No comment.”

  “Okay, that’s great. Wait a moment, I have to make a call.” She took out a cell phone, pressed a button on her speed dial, waited for someone on the other end. “Jim? Rhonda. It’s just like I told you…. Right, it’s all connected. So along with the Rembrandt and the hood on the lam who wants to get home, there are two dead guys already and probably more on the way…. Yes, wonderful, isn’t it? I don’t think weneed to wait and see if I can get the interview anymore, let’s get it done…. Great. Let me know…. Ciao.”

  “Who was that?” I said. “Your editor?”

  “No, my agent.”

  “Your agent?”

  “We’re packaging this whole thing as a true-crime book: art, death, sex.”

  “Sex?”

  “There’s always sex,” she said as her hand distractedly fell on my knee, as if she were going to put sex in her book right then and there. “A couple publishers have already bid, but the offers have been limited because they all thought the scope was too small and they were waiting to see if I could get access to Charlie. With another body they won’t care about that anymore. I should have an advance by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “There’s a man dead in that house. He had a wife and kids.”

  “Yeah. That’s a shame, isn’t it?”

  “How’d you get so hard on the art beat?”

  “Artists are a bitch. Okay, no more business, I promise. How are you?”

  “A bit rattled, actually.”

  “Oh, Victor, I’m sorry,” she said. She lifted her hand from my leg, put her palm on my cheek. “I forget that you have a weak stomach.”

  “It’s just that I was feeling really envious of him for the whole day until I found him dead. It was like he had the life I always wanted, the house, the job, the family life.”

  “And now it’s available.”

  I laughed. “Oh, so I should give the wife a call?”

  “After a suitable mourning period.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Depends. Was she good-looking?”

  “Yes, actually.”

  “Then don’t wait too long.”

  “You are hard, aren’t you?”

  “It’s a hard world, Victor. You have to take what you want.”

  “Do you think I’m tough enough to do that?”

  “Victor, are you okay?”

  “I’m just asking. What do you think?”

  “No comment,” she said.

  “I guess that’s my answer.”

  When I pulled up in front of her hotel, she sat quiet in the car for a long moment. The Loews was in the old PSFS Building, a classic of modern design. The building was sleek and spare, with clean lines and big windows. I couldn’t help but think that making love in the Loews would be like making love in a Swedish movie. And Rhonda actually did look a little like Liv Ullmann.

  “Do you want to come up?” she said finally.

  “I don’t know. Maybe not tonight. I can still see him sitting there. He was in a chair. He still had a drink in his hand.”

  “A drink in his hand? Oh, that is terrific. I have to call back and tell my agent that. It’s the details that make a story. When the book comes out, Victor, I’m going to make you a star, I promise.”

  “I don’t feel like a star.”

  “Not yet, you don’t. And an interview with your client would really seal the deal. Will you ask him?”

  “Yes, I’ll ask him.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She leaned over and gave me a kiss. It started out like a little peck, but it evolved. Her lips on mine were hard, angular. She leaned her upper body toward me so that her breast pressed into my chest, and when she opened her mouth, our teeth clacked. Her tongue was strong and rough. You could almost hear the sproing of arousal in my pants.

  “Come on up,” she said, her voice suddenly husky. “We could order room service. Champagne and strawberries, what do you say? To celebrate my pending book deal.”

  “I don’t think I should.”

  “Oh, Victor, don’t think so much.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s been my lifelong curse. So I’m sorry, really, but I have to decline. Besides, I have to pack. I’m heading out of town.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “But I’m finding out tonight.”

  51

  It turned out to be Los Angeles, which was absolutely not a surprise. If you’re chasing Sammy Glick, you don’t head off to Moline.

  Driving north on the 405, or at least pointing north, I had the strange feeling that I’d found my place in the world. I had sprung for a convertible, bright red and cheap—characteristics I find incredibly sexy in both convertibles and women’s lipstick—and I had the top down. The wind wasn’t quite blowing through my hair, since the 405 was more parking lot than thoroughfare, and, to tell the truth, with the sun uncomfortably hot on my shoulders and the nauseating scent of hot pavement and exhaust, I wasn’t feeling all that swell, but still, something felt so right about the place. And look, down there, well beyond the highway, on one of the streets heading off to the left, wasn’t that a palm tree?

  I wondered if the other motorists saw a young man on the make, come west to stake out his future, or just a pathetically pale tourist in a cheap suit, kiosk sunglasses, and a rent-a-car convertible trying to act L.A. and failing miserably. Well, really now, who the hell cared what anyone else thought? I was here, I was in a convertible, I had a beautiful woman by my side, I was ready for my close-up. And yes, to top off the picture, I was heading for a meeting with a mogul. Life in the fast lane, baby.

  Now, if only traffic would start moving.

  AFTER I HAD dropped Rhonda Harris off at her hotel and bitten my lip in frustration as I saw her sashay into the lobby, I placed a call to Skink. We met in his dust-up of an office and tried to figure out where the hell was that bastard Teddy Pravitz. All it took to find him, finally, was a little triangulation.

  “What do we got to go on, mate?” said Skink, lying on the leather couch with his shoes off. Skink did his best work with his shoes off.

  “Not much,” I said. “He probably changed his name. At one point he was in California. He wanted to make a movie.”

  “Who doesn’t?” said Skink. “I got this idea myself. It’s about a private dick in Fresno what brings down a motorcycle gang to help a damsel in distress. Turns out the damsel ain’t so much in distress and ain’t so much a damsel. All I needs to do is write the screenplay. What’s it take to write a screenplay anyway?”

  “Just a few free hours, I’m sure,” I said. “You spent some time in Fresno, didn’t you, Phil?”

  “So he’s out west, is that it?” said Skink, quickly changing the subject.

  “That’s my best bet right now.”

  “It’s a big country.”

  “I might have something else.” I took a piece of paper out of my jacket pocket and handed it to Skink.

  “What’s that?”

  “A list of phone calls made or received by a dead man.”

  “Come again?”

  “These are all the incoming, outgoing, and missed phone call
s for the last week from Stanford Quick’s cell phone.”

  “Cops give you that?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Oh, I get it. Frisked a corpse.” Skink grinned in admiration.

  “My guess is, one of the numbers is connected somehow to the guy we’re looking for. We should concentrate on the West Coast for starters.”

  “I’ll see if I can rustle up a name for each number with the right area code,” said Skink, sitting up in interest. “I’ll also run a name what I’ve picked up about that Lavender Hill fellow, see if anything matches.”

  “Great,” I said. “Meanwhile I might be able to find us another lead.”

  “From where, mate?”

  “A woman I know,” I said.

  “Business or pleasure?”

  “She’s a Realtor.”

  “That’s the answer, isn’t it? With a Realtor it’s always business.”

  “YOU NEVER told me the plan,” said Monica as she sat beside me in my rental red convertible. She near shouted to be heard over the bleat of L.A. traffic and the loud hum of the wind racing over our heads now that we were moving again.

  “Plan?”

  “You don’t have a plan?”

  “Plans fall apart,” I said. “A strategy is a mode of operation infinitely adaptable to the truth of the situation as we find it. I prefer strategies.”

  “Okay. So you never told me your strategy.”

  “Strategy?”

  “You don’t have a strategy either?”

  “That, I’m working on,” I said.

  Monica turned to me and frowned, and I must say it was a lovely frown. Her black hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, her sunglasses were big and round. To the other drivers peering into the cabin of our convertible, she must have looked like a starlet on the way to the set. I probably looked like her accountant.

  “It will be all right,” I said. “Hey, we’re getting close to the Pacific Ocean. Can you smell it?”

  “We have to take a right somewhere.”

  “I know. But it is so cool, isn’t it? Sit back and take a sniff. The Pacific Ocean, the Santa Monica Pier, Muscle Beach.” I had gotten off the blocked stream of traffic on the 405 at Venice Boulevard, heading west toward the Pacific Coast Highway. Not the most direct route, maybe, but scenic, sure, and, dude, like, what’s the rush? “Maybe I should pop my biceps for the locals.”

  “You’ll need to give out magnifying glasses.”

  “Be nice,” I said.

  “Really, Victor. What’s the plan? We’re just going to march up and demand the truth?”

  “Pretty much,” I said. “He’ll be prepared for us. I don’t know if we’ll be shut out or charmed to death, but whatever game he plays, we’ll adjust. Sometimes the best strategy is to just blunder forward and make a mess. It’s how I found him, I riled things up enough so that he knew I was coming, and he got nervous. That’s why Mrs. LeComte was rudely warned to keep quiet and why Stanford Quick ended up dead.”

  “And from that you found his new name?”

  “Well, I had some help,” I said.

  THE LAKESIDE Chinese Deli was not by a lake and not a deli, and with its bare tables, busted sign, and the hand-scrawled Chinese posters in the window, the joint screamed botulism. But if you wanted dim sum in Philadelphia, if you weren’t looking for linen tablecloths and silver candlesticks, and if you didn’t mind being the only Occidentals in the place or being treated like family, which included rude service and a lot of yelling, then there was no better place than the Lakeside.

  “You’re not eating,” I said to Sheila.

  “I’m not really hungry.”

  “But I ordered all this for us,” I said, gesturing at the metal steamers and small round plates sitting before us, a tempting array of dumplings on each.

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll find a good use for it.”

  And she was right, I would. I was suddenly starving, ravenous, as if my brush with death had fed my hunger. Eat while you can, because you never know when it will be you in that chair with an unfinished drink and a bullet in your head while some skeevy interloper gropes through your clothes for a cell phone. I pinched a dumpling with my sticks, dipped it in the dipping sauce, popped it in my mouth. Shrimp. Nice.

  “So if you’re not hungry,” I said, “why did you come?”

  “Because you called.”

  “It’s that simple?”

  “Why not?”

  “How’s your fiancé?”

  “Lovely. Thank you for asking.”

  Her smile was sly, her lips were coral, her eyes were bright, and I liked the way her false blond hair rested lightly on her cheek. Sheila was one of those women who got better-looking every time you saw them. How did she do that? I wondered.

  “You sell that condo yet?” I said.

  “Are you interested?”

  “Not in buying the condo.”

  “Good, because I don’t think it is a good fit.” She looked down, traced a Chinese letter on the tabletop with her fingertip. “But if you want another look, just to be sure, that can be arranged.”

  “Not tonight, thank you. I’ve had a tough day.”

  “Too bad. I’m feeling frisky.”

  “Are you going to keep dating while you’re married?”

  “I don’t know. Give me a call after the wedding and we’ll see.”

  “He’s a lucky guy.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Investment banker?”

  “Of course. But I have something special just for you, Victor. A name.”

  I put down my chopsticks. “Go ahead.”

  “That house you wanted me to keep tabs on? The Ciulla property? There is another Realtor who is showing surprising interest. His name is Darryl. I had lunch with Darryl just yesterday. We chatted, we laughed, we drank too much. It was quite chummy.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Darryl is short and sweaty and wears a toupee, yet still he thought just the thing I wanted in my ear was his tongue.”

  “Men are funny like that.”

  “In the course of our rather wet lunch, we decided to work together and form a syndicate to purchase the Ciulla property for ourselves. It’s unethical and illegal, which is why it’s so delicious. Instead of bidding against each other to make the seller rich, two Realtors buy the property for themselves and then let the clients bid to buy it from the syndicate. It costs the clients no more, but the Realtors end up splitting the profit.”

  “Sweet.”

  “Of course, even in a syndicate, the name of the buyers always stays confidential. No Realtor wants another Realtor to poach a client.”

  “You would never do something like that.”

  “I’m a Realtor, Victor. But in the course of our conversation, after our fifth drink, while I was trying to keep my eardrum from drowning, Darryl let slip a bit of his client’s name. Reggie, he called him.”

  “Reggie as in Reginald?”

  “There you go.”

  “Reggie.”

  “Yes, and he’s on the West Coast. Darryl was very pleased to have a client on the West Coast. He mentioned it repeatedly. ‘My client on the West Coast.’”

  “Reggie from the West Coast.”

  “Does that help?”

  “Yes, yes it does. You’re beautiful, do you know that?”

  “It was nothing.”

  “No, it was definitely something, but that’s not what I mean. You really are beautiful.”

  “Oh.” She almost blushed. “Then thank you.”

  “I was trying to figure out why every time I see you, you seem more beautiful, and now I know.”

  “And why is that, Victor?”

  “Because against all appearances and against all odds, despite your Escalade and your bracelets and your rather frightening profession, and despite all your attempts to appear otherwise, inside you are actually a doll. I asked a favor without telling you why, and you endured a drunken lunch wi
th the likes of Darryl just to see it through. You are too sweet for words, and I think the more I see of you, the more it shows.”

  She lowered her chin and stayed quiet for a moment. “If you tell anyone,” she said finally, “I’ll rip out your lungs.”

  “I don’t doubt that you would.”

  “Nobody wants a sweet Realtor.”

  “Just promise me one thing.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “If things don’t work out with your investment banker,” I said, “you’ll give me a call.”

  She fought a smile for a moment and then picked up her fork. “Maybe I will have one,” she said as she speared a dumpling.

  TRIANGULATION IS as easy as one, two, three. We had the numbers from Stanford Quick’s cell phone, we had the name from Sheila the Realtor, and we had an intriguing piece of information picked up from Skink’s contacts in Savannah. Our friend Lavender Hill had mentioned something to one of his more sinister associates. Lavender had said he was thinking of getting into the film business. He had a screenplay he’d been working on, about an art dealer and a precious urn and old money gone bad, and now, thanks to a stroke of luck, he had a client to sell it to.

  “Everyone thinks they have a movie in them,” I said to Skink. “What was the name of the company?”

  “Sara Something Productions. The guy didn’t catch the whole thing, but he said it sounded like a name. Sara something.”

  “Does it exist?”

  “Couldn’t find it. Found me a registry of production companies, and there wasn’t a Sara Something or a Sara Anything in the whole list.”

  “Sara,” I said. “Sara something.” I thought about it for a moment. “What about Zarathustra?”

  “Say what?”

  “Zarathustra, with a Z, not an S. It’s a Nietzsche thing, and our boy had a thing for Nietzsche.”

  “Wasn’t he the bald guy what played for the Packers?”

  “Sure he was. Check it out. Zarathustra Productions.”

  And that was it, exactly. With an office in North Hollywood. There wasn’t much about it on the Web, just a few contact numbers, but one of them was for a Reginald Winters. Reggie from the West Coast. I laughed when I saw it. What a perfect name for an upwardly striving Jewish kid from Tacony to adopt, as if he played tennis in his whites growing up, summered on Mount Desert Island, had cousins at Andover. Reginald Winters. The more I rolled it over my tongue, the more I was certain it was a phony. It’s the kind of name that would be picked by a kid who had read one too many Archies and decided he was more a Veronica than a Betty kind of guy. Reginald Winters. How fake could you get? Except it wasn’t.