by Stuart Woods
“I wish I could,” Charmaine said, “but I’ve got to get back. We’ve got a heavy load of VIPs in the hotel over the next few days, and there’s a lot of work to do. Maybe I can come back next week?”
The headwaiter found them a table, took their drink orders, and brought them menus.
“I’m going to look for an apartment tomorrow,” Teddy said. “By the time you get back, I’ll have a home.”
“You’re tired of Shutters?”
“I’m tired of paying per day what I’d pay per month for an apartment.”
“You’re going to find Santa Monica real estate expensive,” she said.
“I’ll manage.”
“I loved our day today,” Charmaine said, placing her hand on his.
He squeezed her thigh. “So did I,” he said.
• • •
After dinner, Teddy stopped by the front desk for a moment and passed the desk clerk two hundred dollars. “Can you tell me the name of the tall blond gentleman who checked in an hour or so ago?”
The clerk consulted his computer. “That would be Mr. Igor Smolensky,” he said.
“If anyone should inquire about me, I’m not registered in the hotel, nor have I been.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Igor checked into his room and immediately plugged in his laptop and turned it on, checking the GPS tracker. The little red dot on the screen was at Santa Monica Airport, exactly where it should be. He ordered dinner from room service.
Charmaine was up at five and was soon dressed and packed, while Teddy lounged in bed. She came over and gave him a kiss. “I’ll call you next week, then.”
“I’ll look forward to it and to giving you a new address,” he replied.
She left, and Teddy got out of bed, showered, dressed, and packed. He carried his bags down the fire stairs to the garage, then drove to Santa Monica Airport, to Cloverfield Aviation. The boy who sat at the desk all night was just surrendering his seat to the day man, and Teddy took the kid aside. “Did somebody ask about me last evening?” he asked.
“Yessir, he said he was a friend of yours, and I gave him your phone number. Was that all right?”
“Sure, no problem. If he comes back, tell him I’ve left for New Jersey.”
“You’re leaving us today?”
“Right. I’ll pay my bill and turn in my rental car a little later this morning.”
“Yessir.”
The boy left, and Teddy carried his luggage into the hangar and stowed it in the airplane, then he took a slow walk around and checked every inspection port. Finally, he came to the ELT port, opened it, and ran a hand around inside. He came out with a GPS locator, identical to the one he had found in Peter Barrington’s Cayenne. He found the switch and turned it off, then put it into his briefcase and went back to his car. He drove back to Shutters and parked in the garage, then he took up a position near the fire stairs and switched on the locator. He then telephoned the hotel and asked for Mr. Smolensky.
A sleepy voice answered. “Yes?”
Teddy breathed into the phone for a moment, then broke the connection.
• • •
Igor sat up in bed and phoned the front desk.
“Yes, Mr. Smolensky?”
“Did you phone my room just now?”
“No, sir, that was an outside call.”
“Thank you.” Igor hung up and thought for a moment, then he opened his laptop and looked at the screen. The red dot had moved; it was no longer at the airport; it was now at Shutters. He got into his clothes, put his gun into his trousers pocket, and let himself out of his room, looking both ways up and down the hallway first. The garage, he thought. He went to the fire stairs and ran down two flights.
• • •
Teddy could hear the footsteps ringing on the steel stairway. He flattened himself against the wall outside the door to the stairs and waited. A moment later, the door eased open and a hand appeared, holding a semiautomatic pistol. He waited until the man stepped slowly into the garage, then moved behind him and pressed the silencer against the back of his neck.
“Good morning, Mr. Smolensky,” he said.
The man froze.
“Now open your hand and let the weapon fall to the floor.” Smolensky did so. “Now kick it behind you.” He followed instructions.
“Mr. Burnett, I presume.”
“Quite right. Now tell me, why are you so eager to make my acquaintance?”
“It is the man I work for who wishes to meet you.”
“And who might he be?”
“His name is Yuri Majorov. He is intrigued that you managed to deal with two others in his employ back at Mesa Grande. He is in Las Vegas as we speak, and he would like you to accompany me there for a meeting.”
“Who, exactly, is Mr. Majorov?”
“He is a businessman with worldwide interests.”
“And why is he interested in Peter Barrington?”
“Not the boy—his father. He and Mr. Majorov have a mutual business interest.”
“And he thought that if he murdered the son, the father would become more cooperative? Why would Mr. Barrington wish to cooperate with the Russian Mob?”
“Mr. Majorov would find that an unkind characterization, and I would urge that, when you meet him you not speak in that manner.”
“Where is your car?” Teddy asked.
“Over there, to the right—a silver Toyota Camry.”
“Give me the keys, very carefully.”
Smolensky reached into a pocket and came up with a car key. Teddy pushed him ahead, then picked up the man’s gun and slipped it into his own pocket. As they approached the car, Teddy pressed the trunk button and the lid opened. “Climb inside,” he said. “I’ll drive us to Las Vegas. Which hotel?”
“The New Desert Inn,” Smolensky said. “But this is hardly necessary—I’ve no wish to harm you.”
“Climb inside, or I will find it necessary to harm you.”
Smolensky climbed inside.
“Make yourself comfortable, now,” Teddy said, then he removed the man’s gun from his pocket, held it against his temple, and fired once. He wiped the gun down, then dropped it into the trunk with the body, put the car key next to it, dropped the GPS locator inside, and closed the trunk with an elbow.
Teddy got into his car and drove back to Santa Monica Airport, thinking all the way. It seemed likely that Smolensky had put the locator into his airplane only the evening before, so there was only one other way he could have found the aircraft earlier: through flight tracking. He went into the Cloverfield office, paid his bill, and asked that his airplane be moved to the ramp; then he went into the flight planning room and sat down at the computer. He went to the FlightAware website and filled out a form requesting that his tail number be blocked to viewers, then he went out to the airplane and from one of his bags, took out a single airplane number, a 3. He glued it over the 2 in his tail number and did the same on the other side of the airplane, so that now his number was N133TF.
Teddy then got out the airplane’s avionics manual and looked up the instructions for changing the tail number in the transponder. He turned on the avionics power switch, and ten minutes later he had changed the number that the transponder would broadcast whenever it was on. He had already listed the new tail number on the FAA registry, along with a number of others, listing a corporation as the owner.
He started the airplane, then called Santa Monica ground control and, using the new tail number, requested a VFR takeoff and vectors to Hawthorne Airport, only a few miles away. After a short flight he landed there and inquired about hangar space, made a deal for it, and rented a car.
He drove back to Santa Monica and looked around for a real estate agency. Having found one, he parked, went inside, and had a conversation with the woman in charge about re
ntal apartments.
He selected two from photographs for viewing, and after he had seen both, chose one on the top floor of a six-floor condominium. The owner of the penthouse was out of the country, and Teddy rented the place for three months, using another identity from his store of documents. He paid in advance, in cash, and accepted a receipt.
Half an hour later, he was unpacked and ensconced in his new home. It was spacious and sunlit and beautifully furnished. He even liked the art on the walls. He got out his cell phone and called Charmaine at the New Desert Inn.
“Hi, there, I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” she said.
“I’ve found a very nice place to live,” he told her, “but now I have to ask you if I can trust you not to tell Pete Genaro where I live or my new phone number.”
She was silent for a moment. “Yes, you can,” she said.
“Tell him this: that the phone number I gave you has been disconnected and that I said I was checking out of Shutters and headed back East.”
“All right.”
“Something else: there is a man registered at the New Desert Inn called Majorov.”
“I’ve met him. I didn’t like him.”
“I’ll tell you why later, but it is important that he never hear the name Billy Burnett. When you next come to L.A., I’ll give you another name to use.”
“This is very intriguing,” she said.
“We’ll see how good an intelligence agent you can be,” Teddy said. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you next week.” He broke the connection.
When Charmaine finished her shift she went to Pete Genaro’s office and knocked on the door. He waved her to a seat.
“Tell me what you’ve learned about Billy Burnett,” he said.
She repeated the biographical information Billy had given her, then she took a deep breath. “I’m afraid he may have left L.A.”
Genaro’s eyebrows went up. “Oh?”
“He told me he was checking out of the hotel, and when I asked where he was going, he said, ‘Back East.’ He said he’d be in touch. I tried to call him a few minutes ago, and the number had been disconnected, like the earlier one.”
“Do you believe he actually left L.A.?”
“I don’t have any reason not to think so.”
“How did the two of you get along?”
“Okay, I guess. We had dinner, then went back to his hotel, which was Shutters. I stayed the night.”
“Did you have sex?”
“Yes.”
“Did he enjoy it?”
“I believe so.”
“Then why would he abandon you after such a short acquaintance?”
“I don’t know. I’m baffled.”
“Our Billy is a slippery character,” Genaro said. He threw up his hands. “Well, if he doesn’t want to know us, he doesn’t want to know us. Thanks, honey, you did your best.”
Charmaine left Genaro’s office wondering if her story had worked.
• • •
Teddy got settled in his new apartment, did some grocery shopping, and picked up a copy of a local magazine. On a rear page was an ad for a tour of Centurion Studios.
• • •
In Phoenix the young man keeping watch on the FlightAware screen saw the red light from the GPS locator go off, then, a few minutes later it went on again, this time at a street corner in downtown Santa Monica. He called Igor’s cell phone and got voice mail, left a message, then called his hotel and was told there was no reply from the room. He left a message there, then hung up. The GPS marker was still at the same location. He checked a map of Los Angeles and found that the dot was at Shutters.
• • •
Later that morning a maid knocked on the door of Smolensky’s room, then went inside and cleaned it. She thought it odd that he had gone out but left what appeared to be the contents of his pockets on the dresser—money, wallet, what appeared to be keys. She called the front desk and reported what she had found.
The desk clerk sent a bellman to the room, and he confirmed the maid’s story. Then an assistant manager visited the room and noted that a parking ticket for the hotel garage was among Smolensky’s belongings, and that he would have needed it to leave the garage. The car keys were missing, but a check of the garage showed the car was still there. Three hours later, when Smolensky had not returned to his room, the assistant manager reported the information to the manager, who called the police.
Two hours passed before a pair of detectives visited the hotel, talked to the manager and the maid, looked at Smolensky’s room, then at his car.
“Can we open the trunk without a warrant?” one of the men asked the other.
“If we have reason to fear for Smolensky’s life.”
“Okay, I fear for his life, how about you?”
“I fear for his life, too.” They got a crowbar from their car and pried open the trunk.
• • •
In Phoenix, Igor’s secretary came into his office and spoke to the young man watching the computer screen. She looked shaken. “The Los Angeles Police just called,” she said. “Igor is dead. They found him in the trunk of his rental car in the garage at Shutters. You should talk to them on line two.”
The young man went to Igor’s desk and picked up his phone. A long conversation ensued, during which he was asked a lot of questions he couldn’t or didn’t want to answer. As soon as they had hung up, he went to the secretary’s desk.
“Have you got a phone number for Mr. Majorov?” he asked.
“He’s at the New Desert Inn, in Las Vegas.” She wrote down the number for him.
“Have you ever met Mr. Majorov?”
“No,” she replied. “I’ve talked with him on the phone several times, though. He was very businesslike, no charm.”
“Would you like to call him and tell him what’s happened?”
“I think you should do that,” she said. “You’re management, I’m just a secretary.”
The young man went back to Igor’s desk, called the number, and asked for Majorov.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Majorov?”
“Yes?”
“This is Todd German, in Phoenix. I work for Igor Smolensky.”
“Yes, Mr. German, what is it?”
“We just got a call from the Los Angeles Police. Igor has been found dead, in the trunk of his car.”
After a brief silence, Majorov asked for an account of his conversation with the police. Todd told him everything he had said.
“Did they ask about someone called Billy Burnett?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you mention that name to them?”
“No, sir.”
“Then they don’t know that Igor was looking for him?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you have any information on the whereabouts of Burnett?”
“No, sir. I was watching the FlightAware website, looking for Burnett’s airplane, which seemed to be based at Santa Monica Airport. Igor planted a GPS tracker in the airplane, and I could see that represented on our tracking screen. Then the marker was turned off and turned on again, and it had moved to Igor’s hotel. I think the police must have turned it off, because it isn’t alive anymore. I called the place at the airport where the airplane was kept, and they said he left this morning, headed east.”
“Call the police back and tell them you’d like to claim the body, then go to Los Angeles and arrange to have it cremated and the ashes disposed of. Igor wasn’t married, was he?”
“No, sir, I don’t think so.”
“Did he have a regular girlfriend?”
“Not that I know of. He worked all the time.”
“Yes, he was a very hard worker. Go through Igor’s desk and office and remove everything that belonged to him and
shred any documents that mention Billy Burnett. Find his desk diary, if he kept one, and his address book. Scrub his office computer clean of any files pertaining to Burnett. If anyone calls the office asking for Igor, they are to be told that he has left the company and you have no forwarding address. When all that is complete, bring the diary and address book and come to Las Vegas. There will be a room reserved for you at the New Desert Inn. We will talk then.” Majorov hung up.
Todd hung up the phone and buzzed the secretary. “Book me a room for tonight at Shutters, and get me a seat on an airplane to Los Angeles, and tomorrow, to Las Vegas.” He thought for a moment. “First class. Then come in here and help me. Also, get two thousand dollars in cash from the safe.”
“You’re going to L.A.?”
“Yes, to claim the body and have it cremated. Then I have to go to Las Vegas and see Mr. Majorov. Do you know of anyone who Igor was attached to that should be notified?”
“No, I don’t think there was anyone like that,” she said.
“Anyone who calls should be told that Igor has left the company and we don’t have a forwarding address.”
Todd hung up the phone. He had the feeling that he had just been promoted in the organization.
Teddy drove to Centurion Studios after lunch and, at the gate, was directed to the parking lot for tour customers. He arrived to find two dozen people boarding a tram pulled by an electric cart, paid for his ticket, and climbed aboard the last car, sitting next to an attractive woman of about forty. The tram departed.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” the driver said over the speaker system, “and welcome to Centurion Studios, one of Hollywood’s last intact movie factories. Some of the buildings you’ll see date to the beginnings of the movie industry, but most were built after the founder of the studio bought this land and created Centurion.”
The driver continued his spiel as they drove past a row of what appeared to be old-fashioned Los Angeles houses. The driver explained that they were called bungalows and housed dressing rooms for stars and the offices of producers and directors. As they passed one particularly nice example, Teddy saw Peter Barrington’s Porsche Cayenne parked in front of it, and he made a mental note of the address.