“Unwittingly?”
“A perfectly useful word.”
We ate together quietly a little longer, then I pushed back from the table. “Excuse me a minute.”
I went inside and checked my cell phone for the Montes’s phone number. I dialed it. A woman’s voice came on the line. “Montes’s residence.”
I said, “Olivia, I’m sorry.”
There was a pause, and I wondered if she was going to hang up. Then, “It took you long enough to call.”
“I’m sorry about that, too. I’ve been confused. I have lots of feelings, and I’m not sure what they mean.”
“Feelings about me?”
“I think about you a lot. I’d like to apologize in person. Could we get together?”
“When?”
“How about tonight, for dinner? I could pick you up somewhere. Not at the Montes’s place, obviously.”
“Meet me at my apartment.” She gave me an address in Venice Beach. “Seven o’clock.”
“Listen, I owe you a fancy meal, so dress nice.”
“Don’t I always?”
She hung up.
I went back outside, where Simon was still sitting at the patio table. I sat down. “I’m taking her to dinner tonight.”
He nodded. “She has affected an attraction to you.”
“Affected? I’m shocked, Simon. All women are irresistibly attracted to me.”
“One is pleased to hear it.”
“I don’t think she’s been trying to set a honey trap.”
“No, that seems doubtful since the approach involves blackmail, usually associated with the victim’s urgent desire to conceal the illicit relationship from a concerned third party. In your case, there is no concerned third party, if I may apologize for saying so.”
“Never apologize when you’re right,” I said, knowing he meant Haley wasn’t around to object, so Olivia couldn’t get me into bed and then blackmail me. “I think it’s simple enticement. Get close to keep an eye on what I’m doing. Maybe get me making decisions based on lust instead of logic.”
“It does seem a more plausible explanation.”
“But decisions about what?”
“Perhaps you will learn the answer to that question this evening.”
“Well, if that’s her plan, it has one fatal flaw.”
Simon nodded. “The lady is quite beautiful, but she is not Miss Lane.”
40
When I left the guesthouse heading for the garage that evening, I was wearing a black silk sports coat over a white Egyptian cotton shirt open at the collar, a pair of bone-colored pleated linen slacks, a pair of brown leather Cole Haan loafers without socks, and the SIG Sauer P228 in a matching brown leather holster.
Haley and I rarely drove the Aston Martin One-77 because it made both of us nervous to be on the road in a car worth nearly two million dollars. When I asked her why she bought such a car, she patiently explained it was an investment, which appreciated about ten percent a year. Even parked inside the garage I kept it covered. But Olivia was a car fanatic, and I thought it might help soften her up. Besides, there was off-street parking at the restaurant, and I was pretty sure I could pay the valets to give it plenty of space and let me do the parking myself. I removed the Aston’s cloth cover, fired it up, and drove it over to Venice Beach.
Olivia lived in the rear unit of a duplex property about five blocks in from the ocean. I parked in the driveway and approached a modernistic gate of steel and frosted glass. Beside it was an intercom with the name “Soto” on a piece of tape under the button. I pushed the button.
Her voice came from the speaker. “Yes?”
I told her it was me.
She said, “The gate doesn’t have a lock. Come on in.”
I entered a long and narrow courtyard with a walkway alongside the front apartment. On the left was the two-story blank stucco wall of the apartment in front. On the right was a tall stucco wall between that property and the one next door. Horsetail reeds filled the planting beds on both sides of the walkway, packed tightly and trimmed flat on top like a hedge. There was a palm tree every ten feet or so, with low-voltage lighting shining up along the trunks. Her door was about halfway back, with frosted glass like the gate and sheltered by a steel trellis overflowing with riotous red bougainvillea.
Olivia answered my knock right away. She was dressed simply in a pair of open-toed high heels that brought her up almost to my height, a very low-cut beige silk blouse, and slacks made from some kind of bronze-colored fabric that shimmered and clung to her in all the better places. She wore her hair loose, the first time I had seen it out of a braid. It fell around her shoulders and glistened in the light as if she had a halo.
She looked absolutely stunning, so I said, “You look absolutely stunning.”
“Very good,” she said. “Keep up that talk, and I may forgive you.”
I wanted to see the look on her face when she laid eyes on the Aston Martin, to find out if she really knew as much about cars as she claimed. I made sure to go first down the walkway toward the street. I held the gate for her and watched.
She came to a full stop and whispered, “Santa Maria, madre de Dios!” Then she turned to me. “Is that really a one seventy-seven?”
“It really is.”
“But…but…how?”
“Like the Bentley, it’s sort of a perk. I get to drive it on special occasions.”
She tapped me on the shoulder as I held the car door for her. “There’s a lot more to that story, mister, and I intend to hear it.”
“Maybe we can work something out. You tell me I’m forgiven, and I’ll tell you about the warranty.”
When we rolled up in front of the Seven Palms, one valet opened Olivia’s door while another came to mine. “I’ll park it,” I said, handing him a fifty.
He said, “Certainly,” and then dashed off to remove a traffic cone in front of the restaurant. He stood by while I backed it in, and then he replaced the cone. When I got out, the valet said, “I assume you want to keep the keys?”
I said, “You bet,” and then walked over to Olivia, and we went inside.
They gave us a nice U-shaped booth in the corner. I sat with my back to the rear wall, and Olivia slid around to the middle, facing out toward the dining room.
She said, “Have you ever been here before?”
“Once I drove Miss Lane to a meeting here with a couple of producers. They were trying to attach her to a picture. She kept me close by in case of overzealous fans and so forth.”
Olivia said, “Doña Elena is the same way.”
“She has personal protection?”
“A service she calls in when she thinks she needs them. Any time she’s going someplace with a crowd.”
I thought about the two men who had tried to kill me in the mountains. They had obvious military training, but maybe they were in the personal security business now, as I was. Maybe they had been called in to escort Doña Elena and decided to capitalize on the inside information that was always available to bodyguards. Maybe they had been in the process of setting up a kidnapping, with Vega and the URNG as the fall guys, when I came into the picture. Maybe they decided I was making things too complicated, so they changed their plan a little and set me up to take the fall instead. Of course, that the idea only worked if Doña Elena’s security team had been around long enough to get access to the kind of details they would need to orchestrate such a complicated plan.
I said, “Does Doña Elena always ask for the same bodyguards?”
Olivia looked at me. “No. It’s usually someone different. Why?”
Ah, well. So much for that theory. I said, “Just making conversation.”
The waiter dropped by. Olivia ordered a martini. With the drive home in the Aston Martin in mind, I asked for mineral water.
After the waiter left, I said, “So, tell me about yourself. Where did you grow up?”
“Not too far from here. You know Pico-Union?”
“Wow. Not far as a crow flies, but you’ve come a long way. I’ll bet your folks are proud.”
“How about you? Are you from LA?”
“Uvalde, Texas. Down near Mexico.”
“That explains your Spanish.”
“The schools were about three-quarters Mexican. I pretty much had to learn it or miss out on all the gossip. How about you? Your parents teach it to you?”
“We spoke it all the time at home.”
“But you’re not Mexican American. I can tell from the accent. So, what? Colombian? Puerto Rican?”
“Kind of a combination, actually.” She was looking at the menu. “What’s good here?”
“I had a filet mignon that one time. I think Miss Lane said she enjoyed the swordfish.”
The waiter came back with our drinks. We went ahead and ordered dinner. Olivia and I both opted for the filet.
“Tell me about Haley Lane,” she said after the waiter had gone. “What was she like?”
I gave my stock answer. “She was a good woman. Easy to work for and very kindhearted. Not jaded or impressed with herself at all. What’s Doña Elena like?”
“You met her, so you know she can put away the Chablis. Sometimes that makes her a little bit mean-spirited, but mostly I like her. And the congressman is very kind and thoughtful. He can be curt, but only when he’s in a hurry, and he almost always apologizes later. It’s interesting how normal these people are behind the scenes, isn’t it?”
“In my line of work, I’ve met all kinds. Like they say, the rich are different; they have lots of money.”
“Really? Doña Elena and the congressman are my first rich and famous bosses. At first I was intimidated, but they treat me better than I would treat them if I were in their shoes, probably.”
“That’s an interesting thing to say.”
“I think it’s the power. Being able to make people do pretty much whatever you want them to do. I’d have trouble managing that. It’s seductive.”
Watching her sip from her martini, I said, “What did you do before you went to work for the Montes?”
“This and that. I went to college in Spain, then worked for a bank in a little town called Alzira in Valencia. That’s where I met the HRT Formula One guys.”
“What did you do at the bank?”
“Account management. I have a degree in international banking.”
I stared at her. “Seriously?”
She smiled. “Seriously.”
“Why are you working as a personal assistant?”
“Jobs in my field are kind of scarce at the moment. There’s a little recession on, as you may have heard.”
I smiled. “I did hear something about that.”
The sommelier arrived. I ordered a bottle of Rioja in honor of Olivia’s time in Spain.
When he had left the table, I said, “So how did you get from Pico-Union to Spain?”
“My father sent me.”
I admired her technique. The most convincing lies are always those that contain as much factual information as possible. It’s the same with a false identity. Soto instead of Sotomayor. Olivia was quite good at telling convincing lies. If I had not gone to Guatemala, I might never have known.
She took another sip of her martini, staring at me with her huge brown eyes. I felt her leg press against mine below the table. She maintained the pressure between us. Maybe she thought my leg was the table base, but I doubted it.
She said, “Let’s talk about you for a while. I’m still interested in how you get to drive an Aston Martin one seventy-seven. Who does it belong to now that Haley Lane is dead?”
Dead. It still seemed an impossible word to use about Haley. Suddenly I wanted to trade in my mineral water for three fingers of Scotch. I said, “I couldn’t comment.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
I tried to smile. “Something like that. In my business, discretion is everything.”
“Oh, I understand that, believe me. So answer this instead. Who were those men who tried to kill you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Are they connected to you looking into the kidnapping and murder?”
“Could be. I’m really not sure.”
The steaks arrived, and immediately afterward, the wine. When the sommelier had poured and gone away, she said, “Do you think it was connected to the home invasion?”
“Must be. Too coincidental otherwise.”
She looked at me a moment. “I can’t believe you accused me of being that woman.”
I looked her in the eye. “I’m sorry about that, Olivia. It’s just… I’m feeling a little desperate. Clutching at straws.”
“There might not have even been a woman there that night. I know what Doña Elena said, but she says a lot of things after her second bottle of Chablis. It’s hard to believe Alejandra Delarosa was involved.”
“Hard to believe I was involved, too. Right?”
She looked away. “Of course.”
“My fingerprints were on the door. Both inside and outside.”
“Well, you were there before, so you left them then.”
“Uh-huh. You know, there’s a funny thing about that. I could have sworn you were the one who opened the door both times, when I went in and when I went out.”
“Obviously not.”
“Yeah, I guess not. But I could have sworn.”
We ate silently for a few minutes. She continued to press her leg against mine below the table. The steaks were very good. Not worth fifty-three dollars each, but good.
Olivia said, “Have you learned anything interesting about Alejandra Delarosa?” She didn’t look at me as she asked the question. She was very focused on her filet.
I said, “I have, actually. Several things.”
“Really? Like what?”
I decided it was time to put on some pressure. I reached over with the back of my fingers and moved a lock of her hair away from her face. “You don’t really want to talk about her over dinner, do you? An evil woman like that?”
She cut a small slice from the steak. “I don’t mind. It’s interesting.”
“Doesn’t it kind of turn your stomach, thinking about what she did?”
Her leg moved away from mine. She said, “Not really.”
I watched her carefully as she lifted the bite of steak to her lovely lips. The lower lip seemed to tremble, just slightly. I almost felt sorry for her, but it had to be done. I said, “We were talking about how rich and powerful people are really like the rest of us, but people like that Delarosa woman, they’re a whole other species, if you ask me. Anyone who could do what she did to an innocent human being doesn’t deserve to be considered human. No conscience. No heart. She’s nothing but an animal. A disgusting animal.”
“Maybe she had good reasons. Maybe that Toledo man wasn’t so innocent. Maybe she was defending something, or getting some kind of justice.”
“Seriously? What good reason could a woman have for blowing a man’s brains out in front of his wife? What could she have been defending that would justify a thing like that?” I shook my head. “The woman is obviously a sociopath. She cares about nothing and no one but herself. She robbed a woman of her husband and abandoned her own husband and daughter for money. She has no more compassion than a snake or a shark.”
Olivia Soto put her fork down on her plate. It clattered loudly, drawing the attention of the couple at the next table. She said, “Excuse me,” and slid along the booth away from me.
I said, “Are you okay?”
“I… No. I’m sorry. I don’t feel well all of a sudden.”
She stood and hurried away, disappearing into the hallway toward the restrooms. The couple at the next table were still watching. I looked at them and shrugged, then went back to work on my steak.
Olivia was away for about ten minutes. I had finished my meal when I saw her coming back between the tables. She slipped into the booth but didn’t slide over to her plate. Her eyes were red
, and the skin on her cheeks was blotchy. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but do you think we could go now?”
“Sure we can. What’s wrong? I hope it wasn’t something I said.”
“I’m just not feeling very well. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” I got the waiter’s attention across the dining room and made a signing motion with my hand. He nodded, then walked into the kitchen. I looked back at Olivia. “Is there anything I can do?”
Her lower lip was trembling again. Her eyes were welling up. She looked down and shook her head. I reminded myself that Arturo Toledo and Fidel Castro weren’t around anymore to get their feelings hurt. I reminded myself that a couple of guys had put three slugs into my Kevlar vest and left me for dead. I reminded myself that Olivia Soto wasn’t her real name, that she was her mother’s daughter, and she was lying about it to get close to her mother’s victim. After all of those reminders, I felt a little better about myself, but not much.
With the check paid, we went out to the car.
“So, what is it?” I asked as we drove out of the lot. “Nausea or something like that?”
She stared straight ahead and said, “Something like that.”
Neither of us said anything for the rest of the ride to her place. I pulled into the driveway and parked. I got out and went around to her door. She was out of the car before I got there. We stood facing each other.
She put her hand on my arm. “It was a wonderful meal. I’m sorry I ruined it.”
“Don’t worry about that, Olivia. But listen. Obviously you’re not sick. Something else is wrong, isn’t it?”
She moved closer. “Would you please hold me?”
I put my arms around her. She turned her head and pressed her cheek against my shoulder. Her hair smelled of roses. Her body against mine felt strong but soft. I told myself again that she was a liar at the very least.
I said, “I wish you’d tell me. Whatever it is, maybe I can fix it.”
She shook her head. “It’s not like that.”
I dipped my head down to her level, trying to make eye contact. “You sure? I’m pretty good at fixing things.”
She waited for a second before answering, and for one crazy second, I thought she might actually be thinking about telling me the truth. Then she seemed to rouse herself with a little shake of the head. She reached up and touched my cheek. “Some things can’t be fixed, Malcolm.”
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