I went down the stairs and back to the lobby, where Patrick eyed me curiously.
“Patrick,” I said, “there’s someone in my room, isn’t there?”
“Mr. Jacoby, I swear—”
“Don’t worry about it, Patrick,” I said. “Just tell me what happened.”
He swallowed and then said, “Two men came in and asked if you were staying here. When I said yes, they asked for your room number. I told them I wasn’t allowed to give them that information, but they . . . made threats. I’m sorry, Mr. Jacoby, but I told them—”
“Don’t worry about that, Patrick,” I said. “I don’t hold that against you. What else happened?”
“They said they were friends of yours and wanted to surprise you. They said they wouldn’t like it if I told you they were waiting for you.” He started to apologize again, and I cut him off again.
“Patrick,” I said, “I don’t have a problem with anything you did, okay? Take it easy.”
“You didn’t go into your room?” he asked.
“No,” I said, “I felt something was wrong. You didn’t look right, and then I heard something before I opened the door.”
“Do you want me to call the police?” he asked.
I thought about that, then said, “Yes, but here’s what I want you to do. . . .”
Patrick allowed me to wait in the manager’s office, because the manager was gone for the day and the assistant manager was not coming in. He then called the police and told them that he thought there were a couple of burglars working the hotel. Over the phone he gave the description of the two men who were in my room, and I was doubly glad I hadn’t walked in on them. From Patrick’s description, they were a couple of bodybuilding types.
In the manager’s office I put in my call to Cathy Merrill.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m glad you called.”
“We on for Busch Gardens tomorrow?”
“We are,” she said, “but not Shane.”
“Why not?”
“His father’s coming to get him. He’s going to take him to Disney World. Do you still want to go if it’s just me?”
“I’ll force myself,” I said. “Want me to pick you up?”
“No,” she said, “let’s meet there, by the front gate.”
“All right, what time?”
“If we go in the morning it’s really going to be hot. I suggest we go at about three and stay until closing. How’s that?”
“Works for me,” I said. “What about Shane? Won’t he be coming home in the evening?”
“No. His father is keeping him overnight and bringing him home tomorrow evening.”
“So you’re a free woman until then, huh?”
She hesitated a moment, then said, “Not so free. You’ll find that out tomorrow. Uh, I assume you’re bankrolling this excursion.”
“Absolutely,” I said, although it was actually Jerry Meyer who was bankrolling it.
“Good,” she said. “I’ll see you in front of Busch Gardens at three.”
“I’ll be there.”
After we hung up, I spread my magazines out on the manager’s desk and leafed through them. Patrick would tell me when the deputies arrived, and whether they had successfully flushed out my two bodybuilder types. There was a coffeepot in the office, so I helped myself to a cup and went about getting as much bodybuilding education as I could from six magazines.
I was primarily interested in female bodybuilders. Just leafing through the magazines quickly showed me that I—and everyone else I had ever talked to about it—was full of it when we assumed that female bodybuilders were not feminine. The photos I saw in those magazines quickly dispelled that myth.
Want to take a look at some lady bodybuilders who would turn heads anywhere? Pick up a magazine one day and try to find pictures of these ladies: Laura Creavalle, Cory Everson, Tazzi Colomb, Anja Schreiner, Tonya Knight, Sharon Marvel, and Sharon Bruneau. Just from leafing through the half-dozen magazines I had I could see that these were sexy, sensual women who were also bodybuilders—or maybe they were sexy and sensual because they were bodybuilders. Most of them had faces that matched the rest of them, faces that could have easily put them on covers of other kinds of magazines.
I was staring at a full-page photo of one of them when Patrick stuck his head in the door.
“Deputy’s car just pulled up.”
I closed the magazine and pushed them all aside.
31
“Try to get them on my floor,” I said, moving to the door. “Say you’ve had some complaints from there. Maybe they’ll start knocking on doors.”
Patrick nodded and withdrew. I remained right there by the door so I could hear what was going on.
Patrick did a good job. He told the deputies that he’d gotten some calls from the second floor about prowlers maybe breaking into a room. The deputies asked which room, and Patrick ad-libbed and told them it was probably somewhere around 217 or 219, something like that. They said they’d go up and check it out.
After they left the lobby, I came out and stood behind the desk with Patrick.
“What will happen now?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Hopefully they’ll flush out whoever’s in my room.”
“Don’t you know who’s in your room?”
“Hell no,” I said, “how would I know that?”
“Does this have something to do with the murder?” he asked.
“I don’t know that either,” I said, “but it would make sense to assume so, wouldn’t it? Maybe somebody believes I know more than I do.”
“And they sent those two fellas after you?”
“Maybe.”
He frowned at me. “It’s funny you don’t know anything about it, but all of this seems to be happening to you.”
“Yeah, it is,” I said, “isn’t it.”
“It’s like an Alfred Hitchcock movie,” he said, “and you’re Jimmy Stewart—or Gregory Peck.”
I made a face and said, “Neither one of those appeals to me.”
“Cary Grant?”
I shook my head.
“I’m just not the leading man type.”
“Oh,” he said, “I think you are. You’re very attractive.”
That was the first time I realized that Patrick was gay.
At that moment we heard some shouting, followed by somebody pounding down the stairs. Two bulky, muscular men in T-shirts and sports jackets came running out of the stairwell and went out the front door, one of them cursing aloud.
Several seconds later the two deputies came running into the lobby.
“They went that way,” I said, pointing out the front door.
The deputies nodded and went out the front door. I didn’t recognize either of them, but it would have taken two of them to make up one of the bodybuilders.
“Now what?” Patrick asked.
“Now I think I’ll go to my room.” I went into the office and retrieved my purchases.
“What if they come back?”
“The deputies, or the other two?” I asked, moving out from behind the desk.
“Well . . . any of ’em.”
“Well, if the deputies come back, it’ll just be to tell you they caught them or they didn’t. Personally, I don’t think they will. You just thank them for responding so quickly.”
“And the other two?”
“I don’t think they’ll be back tonight, Patrick,” I said. “If they do, though, you just do what they tell you to do. No point in going up against them.”
He seemed relieved to hear that.
“What about you?”
“I’ll take care of myself when the time comes, Patrick. For now, thanks for your help.”
“You outsmarted them,” he said.
“I guess I did.”
“Magnum would have never done that,” he said. I think his tone was one of admiration.
“I wouldn’t know, Patrick.”
“I’m going off duty so
on. . . .”
“Well, see you in the morning, then,” I said, and beat it up the steps to the second floor
When I got into my room, I double-locked the door and then looked around. Nothing had been disturbed. Apparently, the two men had simply let themselves in and settled in to wait. The bed was mussed, so one of them had sat there. The other had probably sat in one of the chairs.
I went into the bathroom to check for extra towels, but there were none. Neither was there a pad of paper. I guessed that Consuelo either hadn’t been able to find it or hadn’t been inclined to try. Or maybe she was holding it until she got paid. If that was the case, I’d hear from her soon enough.
I went back into the room, lay on the bed with my hands behind my head, and thought about the two men who had been waiting in the room. Had they been sent by Ray Cortez, to warn me away from him? Maybe the photographer had gotten a couple of his models to do the job for him. Or maybe they were the two men who had left Styles’s body in my old room, and they had come back to finish the job on me.
It would have made sense for me to call Becker and let him in on this, but I didn’t feel like answering a bunch of questions. As it was, he probably didn’t believe that I didn’t know Styles.
I guess I must have drifted off to sleep, because the next thing I knew somebody was pounding on my door. I jumped off the bed and stood there, trying to get my bearings. I didn’t have a gun, because I couldn’t have gotten one on the airplane. Besides, I wasn’t licensed to carry one in this state.
I thought about going out the window, but I was on the second floor. It wasn’t that high up, but I still could have broken an ankle. I started to look around for a weapon when a familiar voice called out.
“Come on, Jacoby,” Detective Becker called out, “wake up.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and opened the door.
“Sorry,” I said, “I fell asleep.”
“You know a photographer named Ray Cortez?” he asked without preamble. His partner was standing behind him.
I hesitated. Admit I knew Cortez or lie? Or should I just be vague?
“No, I don’t know him,” I said.
“That’s funny,” he said, “because he had your name and hotel on him, written on a piece of paper—just like Styles.”
“What do you mean, just like Styles?” I asked, suddenly feeling cold.
“I mean,” Detective Becker said, “Ray Cortez is dead, just like Ben Styles.”
“Shit,” I said.
“You want to come with us . . . please?”
32
They took me in their unmarked car. i sat in the backseat while they sat in the front. Becker’s partner Rizzo drove. No one said anything.
I didn’t ask where they were taking me. It soon became obvious that they weren’t taking me to their office, so we were probably going to the scene of the crime. I was too busy in the backseat thinking to notice where we had gone, but soon we were pulling into a development, and then into the driveway of a small house. There were a couple of deputy’s cars in the driveway as well. Rizzo had to park on an angle so we could open our doors. When I got out, I saw that the right side of the car was on the lawn. He probably figured Cortez wouldn’t mind.
As we entered the house it became immediately obvious that it was Cortez’s home. The walls were lined with framed photos, some of women, some of men, some of both. Most of them looked like bodybuilders.
“In here,” Becker said. I followed, with Rizzo behind me.
In the bedroom more photos were on the walls, but these were still lifes. I recognized one as a photo of the Pier in St. Pete. The others were of beaches, buildings, and there was one of his car. I looked around the room, which was in a state of disarray. Tossed, I thought.
A deputy stepped aside and allowed us to enter the bathroom. There was no tub, but there was a shower stall, and that’s where Ray Cortez was. There was no mistaking how he had died. The glass door had been shattered by the shots, and he was crumpled up at the bottom, lying in a pool of blood that had flowed from three or four wounds. I tried to see what I could see without really looking like I was looking. I noticed that a couple of fingers on his left hand were either dislocated or broken. Could have happened when he fell. Then again . . .
“Okay,” I said, “so I’ve seen him. Now what?”
“Now you explain to me what’s going on,” Becker said. “Since your arrival in Tampa I have two bodies, and I don’t like it. Each of the dead men had your name written on a piece of paper in their possession. I don’t like that either.” He had probably found the slip of paper in Cortez’s clothes, since he was naked when he was killed. I was playing with semantics while trying to think of an answer for him.
Becker put his hand in his pocket and took out the piece of paper I had given to Cortez’s assistant, Carol. No more lies here. Carol could identify me.
“Did you write this?” he asked, extending it to me.
“Yes.” I didn’t touch it, and he withdrew it.
“But you told me you didn’t know Cortez.”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I never met him. I was trying to meet him.”
“Why?”
Well, almost no more lies.
“A friend asked me to look him up.”
“Oh, bullshit!” Becker snapped. He looked down at the body and then made a face that reflected his distaste. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
On the way out we passed the ME and the forensic team.
“He’s all yours, Doc,” Becker said.
“Thanks.” The man who spoke looked too young to be a medical examiner, but then this was Florida. What did that mean? Damned if I know. My mind was reeling as I tried to think of some explanation that Becker would accept, that wouldn’t get my ass in a sling. That’s the bad thing about lying. At some point in the process it becomes impossible to stop. I know that, but I still find myself doing it. Some people never grow up. But to tell Becker the truth now—that I had seen Styles before—would definitely give him a major hard-on for me for lying to him in the first place. The last thing I needed was a cop who was looking to fuck me just to fuck me.
“This is far enough,” Becker said when we reached the living room. I looked around. The pillows from the sofa and all the chairs were on the floor. The magazines from a rack were spread all over the rug. Definitely tossed, I thought. Somebody was looking for something. I wondered if they had found it.
There was a sliding glass door in the back wall, which led out to an enclosed patio.
“How about out there?” I asked.
“Okay,” Becker said.
“I’ll talk to the ME,” Rizzo said.
Becker and I went outside. He left the sliding door open.
“Start talking, Jacoby,” he said, “and stop feeding me bullshit. I don’t like it.”
I studied him. He was wearing a powder-blue suit with a pink shirt and a dark blue tie with some kind of designs on it. I finally figured out that they were supposed to be small red birds. They could have been m’s. So help me, his belt was white.
“Well?”
“Who dresses you?” It was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
“You know, maybe that smart mouth gets you someplace with New York cops, but not with me. I’m just about ready to toss you into a cell for a while. Maybe it will improve your thinking.”
“I don’t think well in cells.”
“Then start talking.”
“About what?”
“Two dead men.”
“Neither of whom I knew,” I said truthfully. “I can’t tell you I did if I didn’t. And I can’t tell you why they’re dead, because I don’t know.”
“Tell me why you’re in Tampa, then.”
“I told you—”
“You told me you were on vacation,” he said. “That’s more smoke. I want to know why you’re really here.”
I hesitated.
“Jacoby,” he said, “I’ve got two murders on my
hands. I don’t care if you’re running an investigation in Florida when you’re not licensed to do so. I’ll overlook that. These murders come first. Now talk to me, damn it!”
So I talked to him—although I didn’t tell him quite everything.
33
I told him that I had been hired to find a runaway wife, and that I had reason to believe that she was here in Florida, possibly working as a photographer’s model.
“For Ray Cortez?”
“That’s what I was trying to find out.”
“Why Cortez?”
“I wasn’t just checking with Cortez,” I said. “I called some other photographers, too.”
“Really? I’ll want their names.”
“And their phone numbers,” I said, “only I never told them my name when I called.”
“And they talked to you?”
“Some of them did,” I said with a shrug, “and some of them didn’t.”
“So you never got a chance to talk to Cortez?” he asked. “You never saw him?”
“I found out he was doing a shoot at a place called Sam’s Gym, on Waters,” I said.
“I know it.”
“When I got there he took one look at me and turned into a rabbit.”
“Did you go after him?”
“A guy the size of Hulk Hogan got in my way.”
“Why did he run?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would he run if he didn’t know you?”
“I don’t know,” I said again. “He ran because he saw a stranger coming toward him. I don’t know what he was afraid of, but it was something. I also talked to his girl, or his assistant. Her name is Carol.”
“What did she know?”
“Nothing, if I’m any judge.”
“Well,” Becker said, “I’ll talk to her myself anyway. How did he get your name on that piece of paper?”
“I gave it to her and asked her to give it to him,” I said. “I guess she did.”
He rubbed his jaw.
“That might just make her the last person to see him alive.”
“Except for the killer,” I said.
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