The more I read, the more I understood Detective Hernandez. The police weren’t in a position to casually question Gustavo Escobar about a prostitute’s murder. I would have kicked my ass out, too. Worse, I had just crippled my own case, since the information flow would cease once the police started digging around Raphael and Club Phoenixx. I’d probably burned my sources before I went to the police, but now they were trashed for good.
Maybe the police would lift fingerprints from the driver’s license. Their first suspect might be Julio, the fake-ID guy. I’d been so caught up with the Club Phoenixx angle that I hadn’t tried to talk to him.
My earlier paranoia about Escobar seemed silly once I was back on the set, standing in the wings with the interns while we observed a master at work. On the surface, he was shooting a massive orgy scene, but as more cast members took their places under Escobar’s careful hand, I noticed that their makeup and costumes were smaller pieces of a whole—an undulating design that would stretch from one end of the set to the other. Elliot looked exhausted but happy as he directed his three-person team to apply finishing touches. He and Escobar worked well together.
Gustavo Escobar was an artist, whether or not I wanted to admit it. Escobar was way beyond slasher territory with Freaknik. He was using sex and zombies as metaphors for isolation, collapse, chaos. And he would somehow weave it all together into the message of hope by the end, with his male and female leads sharing an untainted kiss.
My phone vibrated, and I ducked into the empty hall when I saw it was Chela calling. I hadn’t talked to her all day.
“How’s the case going?” she asked me. Not even a hello.
“I just left the police station. I broke it all down for them, so we’ll see.”
“And that’s it?”
“You said you wished you’d gone to the police,” I said. “Now you have.”
“Sure, that’s fine for backup. But you’re the one who’ll find her killer, Ten.”
Chela’s trust had boosted me up before, but trust could be tiresome. “I’m on it.”
“Did you get any new leads?”
“Maybe.” I glanced around to be sure no one could overhear me. “This guy you call Mr. Big Nose—had you ever seen him before? Think carefully. He probably was wearing a disguise at the club.”
“Like a wig?”
“For instance.”
“I wasn’t that close to him, thank God. And he had sunglasses, too.”
“Could it have been my director? Escobar?” Long silence. “Hello?”
“You think your director’s a psycho? April says he’s a big deal. And his nose is nothing like that guy’s.”
If Chela couldn’t identify Escobar as Mr. Big Nose, I had even less to go on. “What if it’s fake? Look, I’m going to send you a scanned photo later from a security camera at the club. Just take a look and see if it helps jog your memory.”
“You’re no slacker,” Chela said, impressed.
“I made you a promise, didn’t I?”
I didn’t tell Chela that I thought Escobar might have recognized her. That was the last thing she needed to hear, even from nearly three thousand miles away.
“I’m keeping up my end, too,” Chela said, her voice dropping into a sigh. “But Ten, she’s trying to give me an eleven o’clock curfew. You need to talk to her.”
Good for April. April had improvised the curfew without direction from me. Her house, her rules. “Just don’t hurt her,” I said, chuckling. “She means well.”
“I’m not playing, Ten. She’s acting like she thinks she’s my mother.”
Chela never made references to her mother lightly, and her words caught me so off guard that I forgot any snappy answers. If I’d proposed to April in Cape Town instead of backing away, April would have been Chela’s stepmother by now, sort of. And Chela’s damage from her birth mother’s neglect was still multiplying, even years later. Chela needed a mother, and I needed April. Why had it seemed so complicated?
“I’ll make sure everything works out fine, Chela,” I said.
I wish I had known the magnitude of my lie.
“Tennyson!”
Escobar caught me at seven o’clock, just when I was ready to slip out to go home. How long had he known I was there? I hoped he wasn’t about to try to enlist me in his orgy scene. I surveyed his masterpiece of makeup: a collection of two dozen nude extras with perfect painted bodies and misshapen faces lay arrayed on dark-colored pillows.
I turned warily, and he gestured for me to come to his high director’s chair. Elliot, who was nearby, looked surprised to see me hanging around the set so late.
“I’m off the clock,” I said to Elliot, but the message was meant for Escobar.
“You’ve been spying on me,” Escobar said.
I glanced at Elliot, wondering if he’d told Escobar about the surveillance photos. I’d been foolish not to ask him to keep it to himself. Elliot shook his head: Nope, not me.
“What do you mean?” I asked Escobar.
“What do you think?” Escobar leaned closer to me so I couldn’t miss his earnest expression. His chair was so tall that we were at eye level. “This moment. This is the crossroads, Tennyson. All is lost, or all is won. The killing is stopped, or it goes on unchecked. The forces of good marshal against the forces of evil. One is vanquished.”
Elliot might have heard his director talking about his movie. Not me. My heart took a leap, turning cold. Escobar was toying with me.
“I already know how this story ends,” I said.
Escobar’s eyes flashed. “Do you?”
“It looks great, Gus,” Elliot said. “It could be a painting by that Spanish artist who went crazy—Goya.”
Escobar and I both ignored Elliot, intensifying our staring match. Finally, Escobar said, “Yes, Francisco Goya. His so-called black paintings, from his time of illness. He painted them directly on his own walls, so they always surrounded him. Do you think true art can only be inspired by madness?”
“You tell me,” I said.
Escobar laughed, patting my shoulder. “This is what I like about you, Tennyson. It’s why I chose you. You’re a truth seeker. A truth speaker.”
Elliot, puzzled by our exchange, stepped away to give us privacy. Louise Cannon appeared in his place, flustered as always. “Gus, can we all maybe get some sleep tonight?”
Escobar stared on at me, not blinking. “I won’t be sleeping tonight, mijo,” he whispered. “I’ll be dreaming. But you already know this, don’t you, Tennyson?”
Gooseflesh crawled across my arms. It took all of my willpower not to shove him away.
I SAT IN my car in the parking lot with the engine off, and I couldn’t force myself to go home. Escobar had all but announced to me that he would be hunting that night, and if the police weren’t going to tail him, I would. I needed to interrupt his plans. I didn’t want to hear about another dead woman on the news.
I needed computer-savvy backup, which meant I couldn’t rely on Dad, either. I dialed April’s number and hoped she was in a good mood.
She wasn’t. April had a litany of complaints about Chela, although everything she described sounded mild to me. Chela was apparently on her best behavior.
“Does she know how to pick up her clothes?” April said. “She dropped her jeans in the middle of the hallway! And when she took the milk carton out of the fridge this morning, she left it sitting on the counter. Do you play Jiffy-Maid at home, Ten?”
“I’ll talk to her,” I promised, although my thoughts were far away.
“Okay, well, I can see you didn’t call for an update on Chela,” April said. “What’s up?”
“I’m working a case,” I said, and bit by bit, I told her the real reason I had sent Chela to live with her, including my suspicions about Escobar. I held back on some of the details about Chela’s night with Raphael, but April probably knew. I braced for a lecture, but none came.
“Ten, that’s awful,” she said. “But I know you’r
e only telling me this because you want something, so what is it?” The distance in her voice was like a slap.
I missed the version of April who would have reminded how much my investigations had already cost me. But she didn’t have to. We both knew.
“Are you near your computer?” I said.
“Yeah, I’m at work. Trying to get out of here early.”
I pretended to miss her hint. “See if you can tie Gustavo Escobar to a boat called Rosa that’s docked somewhere down here. If it’s his boat, maybe he’s mentioned it or been photographed with it. I think he takes women to that boat before he drowns them.”
“Based on what?”
I sighed. “Just a hunch, April. I told you, my case has nothing to stand on.”
“If you find his boat, then what?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m trying to pull together enough evidence for the cops.”
That might have been partially true but not entirely. We both knew that, too.
“I’m only going to say one thing,” April said. “I know you made Chela a promise, but it sounds like you’re trying to sabotage your movie role. Just when things start moving ahead for you, all of a sudden your director is the bogeyman. Gustavo Escobar is eccentric, but that doesn’t make him a serial killer.”
Before my last exchange with Escobar, I might have agreed with her. “When it comes to my cases, when have my instincts ever been that wrong?”
April couldn’t argue. Never.
“I hope this isn’t the first time,” April said finally. “I’ll call you back. But under one condition. Don’t shut me out. If I’m helping you, I know what you know. And if there’s something to it, you won’t talk to any reporters before you talk to me.”
The L.A. Times may have laid her off, but April’s reporter spirit was alive and well.
“Deal,” I said. “Tell me anything you find, no matter how small.”
“I’m on it,” April said, and hung up.
For a short time, at least, April and I were a team again. It almost felt good.
April took twenty minutes to call me back. Escobar hadn’t come out to his car yet, and neither of the security guards in the lot had noticed me sitting in my car waiting.
“I can’t see a name on this boat, but I might have something,” April said.
She had found a Miami magazine story online about Gustavo Escobar with a photograph of him at a dockside party after the release of his film. The only boat in view was white with a cherry-red stripe, a vessel small enough to match Victoria’s description. The photo had been taken at the Fontainebleau marina a year earlier.
The Fontainebleau was one of Miami Beach’s best-known hotels, on Collins Avenue and 44th Street. I had stayed there many times. It was an iconic hotel with a history, featured in Goldfinger, and had hosted Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Elvis Presley, and countless other celebrities over the years.
That seemed like a good fit for him.
“Okay, thanks.”
“Hey, not so fast,” she said. “What are you going to do with this information?”
“Think I’ll do a little fishing. And find a way to keep him busy tonight.”
Since April insisted on full disclosure, I worked out my plan with her. Escobar preferred to drive himself to and from the set in his bright white Hummer, which was easy to recognize from a distance. Still on the phone with April, I composed a note to stick beneath his windshield wiper. If he was my killer, the note would get his attention.
YOU AND ROSA ARE IN DEEP WATER. I HAVE ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO DROWN YOU, BUT I WOULD RATHER GET RICH. MEET MR. VANDAMM IN HIS ROOM AT THE FONTAINEBLEAU HOTEL AT 8 A.M., OR I WILL UNMASK YOU.
“He’s going to laugh at that,” April said.
“Unless he has reason not to.”
If Escobar was my killer, the note might shake him up enough to keep him from hunting. He would have to assume he was being watched. And what if he actually came to the hotel? A killer would not politely wait until the assigned meeting time.
“If he doesn’t show up, please try another angle,” April said, her voice pleading. “I know you’ve been right before, but this sounds really far-fetched. It could blow up in your face. He tried to give you a break, Ten. If you mess this up . . .”
“I promise,” I said. “If he doesn’t bite when I go fishing, he’s not my guy.”
I have a dummy credit card under the name of Phillip Vandamm left over from my past year of secrets. I hadn’t used that card since Hong Kong, but I kept it with me as a souvenir. There was a chance that the card had been deactivated, but I bet it still had a bit of juice left. Extra cash would be Marsha’s way of inviting me to call her again anytime. I was her gambling addict in need of a fix.
I might accidentally invite my femme fatale back into my life if I put a charge on the card, but it was a chance I was willing to take. I didn’t want my name anywhere near the hotel records.
Phillip Vandamm is the bad guy who chases hapless Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest in a case of mistaken identity, and if I know Marsha, the name wasn’t a coincidence. She could have named the card for Grant’s good-guy character, Roger Thornhill, but that wasn’t her style. I tried to forget what happens to the villain at the end of the movie.
I sat for a long time to give my plan thought. I didn’t want a direct confrontation with Escobar. I only wanted to lure him into my trap so I would have evidence, however flawed, for the police. If I could, I wanted to avoid a face-to-face meeting. I would need time to set up my lair, and I couldn’t let Escobar out of my sight.
This would be a two-person job.
The Fontainebleau had plenty of rooms available, so I made my reservation from the car, using the dummy credit card to hold two adjoining rooms. I also left instructions that a key to the first room only, room 1025, should be given to Gustavo Escobar at the front desk if he asked for Mr. Vandamm. He should be sent right up for immediate entry without a call.
My net was ready. Next, to bait the hook.
I scanned the sheet of paper where I’d written the note, searching for identifying characteristics—a stray phone number or information about me. I’d used the blank side of a WaveRunner rental receipt I’d gotten at the beach with Chela a week before. I’d paid cash, so it only mentioned the price, date, and company, South Beach Day Rentals. No names, no credit-card numbers. I would have preferred a blank sheet, but it would do. My note was written in carefully masked block letters on the blank side, the Sharpie’s ink bleeding through.
I was parked near the gated exit. Escobar was parked with the other early arrivals near the mansion’s garage door, which lay open as a makeshift rally point, equipment storehouse, and break area. The parking area was well lighted, but I was able to stick to the shadows as I made my way from one end of the driveway to the other on foot, walking casually. I had credentials to explain my presence if either of the guards saw me—hell, they knew me—but I didn’t want Escobar to suspect I’d been sniffing around his car.
When I got to the Hummer, I slipped the paper firmly in place and hopped down in one smooth motion. The paper flapped a bit in the breeze, but it was secure. He couldn’t miss it.
I slipped into the garage to make one more phone call.
He picked up his cell phone on the second ring. I’d finally trained him to keep it on.
“Yeah?” he answered, sounding grumpy because he was already sleepy.
“Hey, Dad,” I said. “You busy tonight?”
I judged that the shoot had at least another hour left, so I made a quick run to the hotel.
The Fontainebleau is a spectacle as much as a hotel. When it opened in the mid-1950s, it was the luxury gem of Miami Beach, dreamed up by famed architect Morris Lapidus. Now it’s listed on the U.S. Register of Historic Places, and the walls vibrate with stories. The rooms are arranged in a bow-tie shape, mirrored by the huge pool area, where a scene from Scarface was filmed.
The lobby was made famous in Jerry
Lewis’s 1960 movie The Bell Hop; the hotel was the real star of that film. I’ve visited a lot of luxury hotels, but the sheer size of the chandeliers and the expanse of the Fontainebleau’s shiny lobby, bow-tie patterns on the floor, evoke an old-school glamour newer hotels can only dream of. Of course, there’s a dark side to that history. During segregation, I wouldn’t have been permitted to walk through the front door, much less reserve a room. And that was true for entertainers such as Sammy Davis Jr., who could perform at the hotel but couldn’t stay there. Mind-boggling.
I was whistling Sammy Davis Jr.’s “Candy Man” when I went to the front desk to check in and claim my key. It was eight thirty when I walked into Mr. Vandamm’s tenth-floor room.
The room was smallish, with only a partial ocean view, but I wasn’t there to sightsee; at night, the ocean is just a dark hole in the air. A smaller space was better for my purposes, anyway. I surveyed the room and found a good home for the nanny-cam disguised as a clock radio I’d picked up at a cheap spy shop on my way. Spy shops don’t rule every corner of Miami like they did in the eighties, at the height of the cocaine trade, but you can find the basics on short notice.
I set up the camera on the desk, angled between the bed and the doorway, and checked to make sure it would capture Escobar once he entered the room. My evidence might not hold up in court, but his presence alone would be incriminating.
I finished a few last touches to prepare the rooms according to the plan I’d mapped out with my father, and everything looked as perfect as a movie set.
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