CHAPTER 4
ROONEY SAID he reminded him of someone called Lubrinski.’
Lorraine reacted, giving Rosie that funny half-squint look, her hair covering part of the scar on her cheek. ‘Did he now?’
‘Yeah, said he was injured in some shoot-out. He’s got a nickname, Nick the Limp.’
‘Really?’ Lorraine said non-committally.
‘So who was this Lubrinski guy? And what was that about you using a pair of pantihose as a tourniquet, is that true?’
‘You should know Rooney by now, Rosie, he’s full of crap. He should have been doing what I told him to do, like contact the psychic. We got two weeks, Rosie, just two weeks.’
‘But you told Bill to check out all the agencies, and I’m not exactly sittin’ on my butt doin’ nothing all day, thank you very much!’
‘Oh, shut up. And if you don’t wanna use the shower I will. Maybe see if I can see her tonight.’
Under the water-jets of the shower, face uptilted, eyes closed, the memories came back. The way Jack Lubrinski had looked up at her in such agony and gripped her hand.
You’re gonna be okay,’ she had lied. ‘Ambulance’s gonna be here any second, you old bastard, but in the meantime . . .’
‘Hell, if it takes being shot to see you whip off your panties I’d have done it before.’
‘Shut up, you perverted shit.’
He’d died in her arms fifteen minutes later as the ambulance, siren screaming, cut its way through the traffic to the hospital. He was still holding on to her hand like a child when she saw the light go out of his eyes. They’d had to prise his hand away from hers. She hadn’t wanted to let go, sure that maybe there was hope, but there had been none. The black-haired, dark-eyed Lubrinski had left a deep empty place inside her. Was that why she wanted Robert Caley? Was that gonna be the game plan for the rest of her life, the look-alike Lubrinskis? Was that why she was attracted to Robert Caley, because he was dark-haired, with fierce, scared eyes? That was what she had seen when he’d taken the shades off, fear and pain. Lubrinski had always hidden behind the smart remarks, the tough exterior, until he was dying; then she had seen something in his eyes that squeezed her heart. What was it? Why did it attract her? What she felt was in no way a mothering feeling. She didn’t want to mother Robert Caley: she wanted him to screw her, just like she had wanted Lubrinski. But at that time she had been married with two kids. She wished she had just once told him before he died that she loved him. She shut her eyes tightly, clenched her teeth together; she wasn’t going to cry now, it was all too long ago. But she couldn’t stop the tears, because for the first time she was admitting to herself that she had been in love with Jack Lubrinski. She had fought and denied it, even after his death, but now all these years later she wept for him and whispered to herself, ‘I loved you, Jack, and I still miss you.’
Rosie opened the shower curtain. ‘I called the psychic. She says she won’t see nobody.’
Lorraine reached for a towel. ‘Wanna bet?’
‘You going there now?’
‘Yep. We’ve got two weeks Rosie, just two weeks.’
‘Oh, can I come with you?’
Lorraine was about to refuse, but Rosie’s child-like eagerness changed her mind.
‘Sure, why not?’
The address was good but the apartment was in the lower ground floor and at the end of a corridor. The apartment block was an expensive one with intercom buzzers, top-level security and an underground car park for residents. Lorraine had been lucky; she had simply followed a car into the parking area, waving at the woman in front who had smiled back, unaware that Lorraine had no right to be there.
‘Bingo, we’re in. We can surprise Mrs Salina unless she saw us coming in her crystal ball,’ said Lorraine as she followed the woman into the car park.
‘Learn something every day,’ Rosie said, impressed, but Lorraine was already hurrying out of the car.
‘Afternoon,’ Lorraine smiled as the woman parked her Saab convertible.
‘Afternoon,’ she replied, switching on her blinking alarm and heading towards a private entrance door.
Lorraine moved quickly to join the woman as she punched in the security code to access the elevator into the building. ‘Weather’s strange, nearly seventy already today.’ She glanced behind her, irritated to see that Rosie was still getting out of the car. The woman nodded, more intent on getting her house keys out from her purse than concentrating on Lorraine. The elevator door was still open, and Lorraine rammed her foot against it in case it closed.
‘Are you having problems with your air conditioning?’ Lorraine asked, keeping up the conversation and giving Rosie a glare.
‘No, but I noticed it was a lot warmer today.’
‘Yep, could be heading up in the eighties according to the weather report.’ Rosie stepped in and the elevator door shut.
The elevator from the garage opened on to the main corridor by the apartment elevators. The woman turned towards them as Lorraine carried on down the corridor with Rosie tagging behind, neither of them realizing that they were in actual fact heading in the right direction for Mrs Salina’s place.
‘Yes, who is it?’
Lorraine leaned close to the door. ‘My name is Lorraine Page.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Mrs Salina, I really need to talk to you. I am a private investigator looking into the . . .’
‘I don’t know how you got into the building but you’d better leave immediately or I’ll call security.’
‘You go right ahead and do that, Mrs Salina, but I’m sure Mrs Caley won’t like it.’
There were a few moments of silence. Rosie stood to one side, still more impressed by Lorraine. Then came the sound of a chain being removed, a bolt pulled back, and a higher lock opened before the door inched open.
‘I’m goin’ out in five minutes.’
‘Fine, this won’t take long. Can I come in?’
‘You with the police?’
‘No, this is my card, my name is Lorraine Page of Page Investigations, and this is my assistant, Rosie.’
Mrs Salina snatched the card and then the door inched further open. ‘Five minutes.’
Rosie pursed her lips – she didn’t like the assistant line, since she was a partner in the agency, but she said nothing as they were led along a dark, narrow hall. The main room of the apartment was at the end of a narrow corridor, the walls lined with framed photographs of well-known and not so well-known stars, alongside certificates for psychic readings, palm readings, crystals, tarot cards and more. It seemed Mrs Salina dabbled in every form of psychic phenomenon and had a certificate to prove it. Rosie glanced at everything, wishing she had brought a note-pad. This was really interesting, she thought – no wonder Lorraine liked her job, you got to meet all kinds.
It was not until they followed Juda into the small sitting room that they got a good look at her. She was exotic-looking, olive-skinned, with thick, black crinkly hair tied in a knot at the nape of her neck. She weighed at least 280 pounds, yet like a lot of very heavy women, she moved lightly and had tiny, delicate hands. Lorraine estimated her age to be about fifty, and her shawls, bangles and thick beaded necklaces were reminiscent of the ‘Flower Power’ days. In contrast, her perfectly made-up face was very much a nineties work of art, with well-placed false eyelashes, lipstick similar in colour to the one Mrs Caley had worn, and even the lips outlined in the same way.
‘Sit down,’ she said as she eased her bulk into a hard-backed armchair. ‘Like I said, I got five minutes. Why do you want to see me?’ She had a New Orleans accent, not heavy but easy to detect by the way her voice drawled and lifted in a musical manner.
She stared hard at Rosie, who tried to blend into the wallpaper, uncomfortably balanced on a stool. She had let Lorraine take the better chair, or rather, Lorraine had taken it automatically: she behaved as though Rosie wasn’t there.
‘Tell me about Elizabeth Caley.’
�
�I’m sorry, but unless I have Mrs Caley’s permission I cannot discuss her. My business is just like a priest’s or a doctor’s, my clients’ private consultations with me are exactly that, private.’
‘But, like me, you have been hired to help trace their daughter.’
‘Yes, that is correct.’
‘How much contact have you therefore had with Mrs Caley?’
‘I am afraid I cannot divulge that.’
‘Did you travel to New Orleans?’
‘I did.’ She levered herself up from the chair and crossed to the dresser. She opened a drawer and took out a photograph. ‘She is a very strong presence.’
‘Anna Louise?’
‘Why, yes. This was given to me by Mrs Caley.’ She thrust it in front of Lorraine, and there was the sweet face, the long blonde tresses.
‘She is very beautiful.’
Juda nodded, then passed the photograph to Rosie, who leaned forward to look at it.
‘Yes, she is very pretty,’ Rosie nodded. Juda returned the photograph to the drawer.
‘She most surely is, and I would say she is still in New Orleans.’
‘Alive?’ Lorraine asked sharply.
Juda shut the drawer and remained with her back to Lorraine. Then she turned slowly and, with her eyes closed, pressed herself against the dresser. Rosie studied the big woman: if she had been worried about her own weight, Juda had even more of a problem.
‘I sincerely believe Anna Louise is alive.’
‘Why?’
The false eye-lashes fluttered. ‘Why? Like I said, she has a presence. The little girl is alive, I am sure of it.’
‘Why?’ Lorraine persisted.
The eyes opened. ‘I have just told you, I feel her presence.’
‘Well, that may be so but I am not quite as fortunate as you, Mrs Salina. My job is to find her, I can’t feel any presence, I am not in touch with the . . . forces, so to speak.’
‘They are forces, Mrs Page, strong ones, and I am telling you that little girl is alive. I take my work very seriously and when I feel her, become her, she is not saying to me she is cold.’ She turned her dark eyes to Rosie again, and Rosie felt a frisson of fear. She looked away, biting her lip: there was something unpleasant about the woman, about the whole apartment.
‘So, what is she saying to you?’
Juda pointedly looked at her watch, and then at Lorraine. ‘Mrs Page, you ain’t paying, Mrs Caley is, and I have told her all that I have been able to receive, that is, Anna Louise is alive.’
‘Well, I’ll pay you, is that what you want?’
Juda stared hard at Lorraine. ‘I have to go out now. If Mrs Caley personally tells me that I can give you what I have received, then you may call again. But right now all I can tell you is that I feel her presence, an aura of light, every time I look at her sweet angel face.’
‘Well, if this presence should indicate where Anna Louise is, then I’ll talk to Mrs Caley and I’ll come back and make you tell me where she is. You see, I deal in facts, not fantasy, and she has been missing nearly a year. Now, that is a very long time to have no word, no letter, no contact. I’m hired to find her.’
‘But I presume you are being paid.’
‘Yeah, but then so are you.’
‘No. The husband has refused to allow me to see my poor dear Elizabeth.’
‘Did you tell him his daughter was alive?’
Juda crossed to the door and stood there. ‘I have had no dealings with Mr Caley but I have known Elizabeth for many years.’
‘She’s a drug addict, isn’t she?’
Juda gave Lorraine a surly look. ‘I said five minutes, now I ask you to leave. I only agreed to see you because you implied Elizabeth had asked you to see me, but I think you are lying, just like all the others who have tried to talk to me. My clients have my total loyalty.’
‘What other people have talked to you?’
Juda again gave that direct, rather eerie stare. ‘Private investigators, and the police. They treat me with no respect, Mrs Page, I can feel it, see it in their faces. They don’t have to say a word, I know what they think of people like me.’ She moved back to the dresser and opened a drawer. ‘Here, take this, but now you gotta go.’
She handed Lorraine a cheap computer-printed document, clipped together. Juda didn’t wait for her even to glance at it before moving impatiently into the hallway. Lorraine handed it to Rosie and indicated by a nod that Rosie should follow her to where Juda stood by the open front door, waiting.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Page. Er, just one thing, will you come real close to me for a moment?’
Lorraine stepped closer and Juda stared up into her face. She lifted her delicate hand and touched the scar running down Lorraine’s cheek. ‘Honey, you should get that fixed, you’d be real lovely. What was your first name?’
‘Lorraine.’
‘Nice to talk with you, Lorraine.’
Rosie was squeezing past her when the woman leaned forward again.
‘Rosie. Your name is Rosie, and your spirit is kind. You take care now, honey.’
The chain was replaced, the bolts banged across. For someone who was about to go out, it was weird to lock themselves in. Was she expecting someone or simply lying? Lorraine suspected the latter; Juda Salina was not about to go out.
Lorraine and Rosie had to wait fifteen minutes in the car park before a resident came down and used the special code to open the security gates. They sat discussing Juda and, as Bill Rooney had done before them, came to the conclusion she was one big fake, able to make a lot of money from people as desperate as Elizabeth Caley. Her computer-printed advertisement was crude, unprofessional, stating how many people had been saved by Juda Salina predictions, and how many times. She also listed a number of police cases she had assisted in. It was all rubbish; saying she felt a presence and that Anna Louise Caley was alive only meant she could keep asking for more money from Mrs Caley.
Rosie read the print-out, and frowned as she turned the pages.
‘I hope she’s right.’
‘About what? Your sweet soul?’
‘No, that the little girl is alive. I hope she is.’
Lorraine was now more convinced the girl was dead but she decided that Rooney should at least check out the so-called police investigations listed in the print-out and Salina’s part in them. She had gained only one thing of interest: Robert Caley did not like Juda Salina. She respected him for that.
Juda sat wondering whether or not she should call Mrs Caley. She didn’t like the fact that yet another private investigator was questioning her, and supposedly with Mrs Caley’s permission. In fact, it annoyed her that she had been told by some faceless employee of Robert Caley’s that she was no longer allowed to visit his wife and that there would be no further payments. She had made a lot of money out of their misery, even a trip back home. But this time she was worried.
She went over in her mind everything Lorraine had said. The woman hadn’t asked anything new, so what was it? The scar? She had a feeling that it had been inflicted by a man, but the message had been very hazy. She sighed, feeling tired, unsure whether or not to put herself through it, and without being paid. But even as she fought against doing it, she got up, drew the dark crimson curtains and turned off the overhead lights so the small room was in virtual darkness. She sat down again. An onlooker would have thought she was nodding off to sleep, her eyes drooping like those of someone heavy with exhaustion, unable to keep awake. She moaned softly, as though with sexual gratification, and sank deeper into the chair. Her big bosom rose and fell as she took slow, deep breaths.
‘Yes, oh yes, yes,’ she whispered, and her tiny, delicate hands clung on to the carved arm of her uncomfortable chair. She continued to take deep laboured breaths, her bosom heaving, her head beginning to feel light as she began to go slowly into a trance. The darkness seeped into Juda’s consciousness. Nothing for a while, then it started to happen, just as it had when she had been with Elizab
eth Caley. First came the distorted sounds of music, then of a street. She couldn’t grasp the area, it was happening too quickly and she couldn’t control it, but she felt the place was familiar. Exactly as it had played out before, something began to terrify her, and this time she felt it even more strongly. She began to gasp, her hands clawing at the chair; there was a pain in the centre of her chest, as if a weight was pressing down, squeezing the air from her lungs. She began to flap her hands; someone or something was astride her, a man, it was a man and he was taking out a knife. She couldn’t see his face, just knew he was going to slice her throat.
Her own scream cut through the dark void of panic, and she lurched forward, coming to fast, fazed for only a few moments before she realized she was safe in her own apartment. The sweat trickled down her cheeks and she involuntarily patted her neck and chest, frightened by the still awful feeling of choking, of someone squeezing the life out of her. But it wasn’t her, she knew that, it wasn’t Juda Salina being murdered, it was someone with a name beginning with the letter L.
The initial L: did it stand for Lorraine Page? She was tensing up, remembering what she had just put herself through, and for a second time. Juda’d had a similarly jumbled message when she’d gone into the trance at Mrs Caley’s, someone’s name beginning with the letter L. She knew she had frightened Elizabeth Caley but she didn’t know what it had meant. Often she didn’t, the messages for one client could get confused with another’s, but this one had been particularly strong. She’d presumed then that the letter L was for Louise, Anna Louise, because she had had an overpowering feeling of imminent danger, and death. She had lied to Mrs Caley, said the powers had been strong and that her daughter was alive, but she had felt death very close.
Juda tried to recall the exact day she visited Mrs Caley. She found the entry in her diary and turned over the page to the next day. She read the scrawled message from Robert Caley’s secretary that she was not to see his wife again. They were the only notes in the diary for that day. Juda drummed the blank pages with her painted fingernails, made a decision and dialled the Caley residence. Phyllis answered.
Cold Blood Page 9