I noticed a surfboard propped by the front door with sand strewn on the brick porch. While I rang the doorbell I analyzed the sand, the surfboard, and the unlikely prospect that Roger would take up such an athletically challenging, shark-baiting hobby. No answer. I knocked loudly and waited another moment. I reached for my cell phone and the front door opened. A man, probably in his late teens or early twenties with long silver-blond hair, stepped out and leaned into his surfboard.
“Hey,” came a slack, guttural greeting from the stranger.
I returned the greeting with a curious nod. “Is Roger here?” I asked.
“The dude’s inside,” the man said. He tucked the surfboard under his arm and plodded his bare feet along the steep pavement until he reached the walkway that wrapped around the house and toward the beach.
I entered the front door and heard the subtle percussion of an opening door at the other end of the house. I peered around the corner. Roger’s naked physique paced across the corridor and into another room. I stepped back and checked my watch. I felt like an intruder; I needed to start again.
Outside on the porch I rang the doorbell and pounded on the door. The door opened with Roger’s head craning around the doorjamb.
“You’re early, my friend,” Roger said. His eyes slid sideways. An unlike bordering on culpable tone was in his voice.
“I thought we’d get an early start. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, come in.”
I entered and saw Roger wearing only a bath towel around his waist.
“There’s coffee in the pot,” he said. “Help yourself. Excuse me while I change.”
“Take your time.”
He walked down the hallway to his room. Roger’s four-thousand square foot home was tastefully decorated, elegant by most standards. Large spreads of Persian and Indian rugs covered the dark-mahogany wood floors, and a collection of valuable nineteenth-century Impressionist paintings hung on the walls. Except for the cheap mini-blinds covering some of the windows, the place was first class, to be sure. Indicative, I thought, of my rich, bi-sexual amigo; stylish décor coupled with half-ass masculinity.
I glanced over at the Bose sound system positioned close to the window. Calm music carried in the air, a jazz fusion. On a nearby table stacks of assorted compact discs sat neatly arranged, classical, opera, etcetera, only the most sophisticated for Roger-boy, except those ugly-ass mini-blinds. What the hell was he thinking?
I poured a cup of coffee. An open folio sat on the kitchen counter next to the coffee maker. Inside the folio was an aerial photograph of what appeared to be rural agricultural land. I studied the image and an assessor’s map that sat under it: the terrain, the roads and corresponding coordinates…handwritten notations on yellow Post-it notes were stuck to it.
My brow furrowed; my breathing slowed; what I was snooping through wasn’t just a file of random documents and notations regarding one of Roger’s many million-dollar deals...no, what I was looking at was my one-hundred-and-sixty acres, scoped out and targeted as if a bull’s eye was plugged directly in its center. The names and contact information for James Falsetto, Conrad Turner, and others, and even the toad himself, Mick Balosky, appeared scribbled in Roger’s handwriting inside a nearby appointment book.
I forced myself to turn around and stand in the middle of the room with coffee in hand and with what now felt like a knife in my back. I stepped toward a large bay window and gazed at the view. An overcast of dark clouds made a sudden flyover, no doubt preceding a tropical storm moving up from Mexico. I stared out at the rolling, steel-gray ocean, realizing how its swirling currents were analogous with the swirling currents now in my head.
It was Roger in that photograph Rebecca Quinn showed me the other day, a candid pose of dealmakers and conspirators, of a best friend flirting with betrayal. It’s clear now why Roger was sitting at a pub with Mick Balosky last week. I took a slow, deep breath, trying to ignore the now tainted odor in my best friend’s house.
In the shallow surf, I spotted the dude with the long, blond hair, paddling out for the set of breakers. I took a drink of coffee and realized it to be Turkish rich, sweetly flavored, and decaffeinated—the way Roger always fucked with things. The surfer mounted the board and rode the wave to the shoreline.
Roger entered the room donning brightly colored gym clothes, chartreuse, it appeared.
“Racquetball today, my friend?” he asked.
My back-stabbing amigo looked like a stick of black licorice wrapped in a giant fruit roll. “Unless you want to play something else. Tennis maybe?”
“Racquetball it is. I need the sweat. A lot of pent-up energy I’ve been having lately.”
“Are you feeling all right?” My voice was flat.
“I’ve been feeling fabulous.” Roger stood next to me at the bay window and peered down toward the waves. My eyes eased sideways, noticing a peek of sunlight forging a silvery sheen against his face, exposing a few not-so-obvious blemishes. His eyes focused out toward the dude with the silver-blond hair, paddling out for another ride. He then locked his eyes out on the dark horizon and said, “It appears a storm is moving in, doesn’t it, Jack?”
Without responding I turned and crossed the floor. “Let’s go,” I said. “I have some pent-up energy of my own I need to care of.”
19
At the health club Roger and I played racquetball for about twenty minutes. We were evenly matched until most of Roger’s oomph had dissipated and his brightly colored, teetering on clownish, workout costume began to cook his skin.
Being the type that when an empty tank registered on Roger’s oomph meter, he would, in graceful manner, fold his match and retreat to the juice bar.
I on the other hand was still racing through high gears and in need of a more kick-ass match. I presented myself in the challenge court and wrangled for a while with a young, preppy gentleman who kept me on my toes by keeping his serves just a hair over the line. His unorganized, youthful energy finally depleted him, and after a handshake and some advice I gave him about his pace, we parted from the court.
I approached the juice bar and sat next to Roger at a table. He appeared to be sleeping, sitting upright on a barstool. A multitude of questions surged through my mind as I watched him meditating like a Sikh guru.
“Grabbing some winks?” I said.
Like two startled moths, Roger’s eyes fluttered open. He said, “You play quite aggressively, Jack. Our vigorous game put me into a near trance.”
“It was just a warm-up, Rog.”
“I can see how you’re able to keep a stable of mares happy with your performance.” He lifted his protein smoothie and sucked the slush through a straw.
I signaled for one of the girls who served the tables.
“I’ve been watching that one over there,” Roger said, massaging his eyes and face with his fingers. “Before I began resting my eyes that is. Do you see her, Jack, the one humping atop that Stair Stepper?”
“I see her.”
“It’s the one we met in the pub the other night, the one in your profile. Darkly wicked hair against that porcelain white skin—and that contour, that superb physique.”
I looked at the woman closely, confirming that it was Lena McGuire with long torso and a lithe, hourglass shape, humping lustfully in purple spandex. I wondered about her being here, coincidence, a placement? A girl came to the table and I ordered a double-protein smoothie, heavy on the slush.
“It’s these Ginseng herbs I’m taking now,” Roger said. “I’ve been sexually active, and they help with the performance. They’ve caused me to be quite horned out for the last several days.” Roger aimed his eyes on Lena and said, “I was captivated the moment she strolled by.”
“She was prowling, not strolling.”
“Indeed. It was goddess-like and salacious. Have your spying operations come up with anything besides her being a dancer?” Roger pulled a slow drink of his slush.
“Not much. She’s jus
t a shadow, it seems.”
“That’s a cleverly euphemistic way of phrasing it.”
Then words, impulsive and sly, served from my mouth, “There’s an open machine next to her.” I nodded toward the purple goddess. “Go for it.”
Roger hesitated, then dropped from the barstool and proceeding across the floor. A boyish fixation held his face until he climbed the Stair Stepper next to Lena and began lunging his tall, colorfully clad physique through a sequence of lumbering stepping motions.
I suddenly wondered what I’d done. I’d sent my friend, one with abject naivety in the matters of man-eating women, toward killer game. On the chessboard, Catherine leads out with her armed and dangerous knight; I lead out with my affluent and dithering rook.
In the margin of my eye stood a man I knew. His face was fixed deftly on Lena’s humping motions. He turned to look at me, offering a wily smile, then tipped his head and approached me. He stopped at my table.
“Hello, Jack,” the man said. He had a firm, honest handshake.
“Frank, have a seat.” I watched how Lieutenant Detective Frank Sullivan sat on the stool, rigid, yet nimble, fighting fit for any act of disorder: a firing gun, or the wrong answer to a loaded question. Frank was the same detective on the ferry the other morning paired up with Mick Balosky, and the same one who had arrested Lena McGuire at the dance studio several days ago.
“Would you like a blended health drink, Frank?” I asked.
The man cracked a smile. “I’m good. So how’s your world been, Jack?”
“Still turning and getting faster all the time.”
“You don’t need to tell me. I just spent an hour walking on one of those treadmills. Be glad you’re only pushing forty and not sixty.”
“You’ll always be a pillar of our obscure and obscenely wealthy township, constable, no matter how old you get.”
“Four years and I’m fly fishing in Oregon.”
“Sounds like the perfect career change for you.”
“I’m counting the days.”
Along with Lieutenant Sullivan’s tall, lanky build, he also possessed a pair of firm yet gentile eyes. He was a likable cop, the kind one learns about in grade school, trustworthy and confident, a hero with a badge. Knowing that the good detective didn’t come to this exclusive heath club just to quickstep along a treadmill, I inquired, “Working on any cases, Frank?”
“Got a tuffy. Puzzling the hell out of me.”
“I’m sure you’ll solve it.”
Frank asked, “What’s the procedure a woman takes to dye her hair?”
I turned my head. I didn’t really want to play twenty questions right now with Detective Sullivan, but considering my chess game was in progress with two colorful pieces in close position, I thought, what the hell. “I don’t dress hair, Frank. I sell real estate, or at least I try to.”
“How does a gal thicken her hair or make it frizzy?”
“I think it’s called a perm—how should I know?”
“Oh, just a guess. I’m sure you know the ins-and-outs of a woman better than any straight man out there.”
I pulled a swig of my protein smoothie. It was beginning to lose its chill.
Frank went on, “They’re powerful creatures when you truly study them, women, I mean. Take that one over there on that workout machine.” He nodded toward Lena. “Do you suppose her hair is dyed, or is she wearing a wig?”
“My money’s on her own hair.”
“Do you suppose she’s human; has any DNA or even a fingerprint?”
The connection was easy, but it was hard telling a cop like Frank Sullivan to buzz off. “What the hell are you getting at, Frank?”
He pulled a thin binder from his gym bag and opened it. He slid a small photograph across the table. I glanced down inside his bag and saw neither a racquet nor change of clothes. I considered the myriad of privileges Frank has when he flashes his badge, including entrance to exclusive health clubs far too pricey for a detective’s salary.
Frank nodded toward the photo. “Have you ever seen her before?” he asked.
“She looks familiar.” My voice dropped an octave.
“She is a beauty. A young one, too, late teens, early twenties, I’d say. Her name is Angela Bashir, isn’t it?”
“Why are you following her?”
“She’s been a busy girl, running errands and so forth.”
“Errands?”
“Yes. She’s been an obedient protégé to a couple other head-turning beauties who arrived in Newport Beach a couple months back.”
“Maybe she’s just a friend.”
“Most likely. Her placement and timing are interesting, though. You touch bases with her, don’t you? Dance lessons, twice a week over at the cathouse?”
“The cathouse?”
“Dr. Murphy’s Dance Studio here in the harbor. That’s what we call it down at the station.”
“Never thought of it as a house of ill repute.” I bit my tongue. The futon.
Frank chuckled. “Not so much that, I guess. More a hiding place, really.” The good detective paused for a moment, looking out toward Lena. “I need your help, Jack.”
“It’s none of my business, Frank.”
“It will be eventually.” He pushed another photograph toward me. “I know you know her.” A photograph of Catherine Fleming filled my eyes. “They’re actually sisters, two of them anyway,” Frank said. “The blonde and that bouncing brunette over there.”
“Sisters?”
“Not blood sisters but more in a twisted, religious sort of way.” A simmering pursuit hid beneath the cool expression on Frank’s face, a face showing wear from years of sleuthing out cases, a face in need of retirement. He said, “That white-skinned beauty over there in purple spandex was one of the easiest arrests I ever made. It was as if she wanted to come down to the station. No hesitation for a swab of her mouth; she even passed a lie detector test.”
“Why did you arrest her?” My patience was wavering, yet I couldn’t resist the juicy bait Frank was laying out. Welcome to my chessboard, detective.
“It was regarding one of the murders, you know the slice and dice incidents we’ve had the past month, the first murder, in fact, two weeks ago. She fit a description made by a motel worker.”
I angled a nod toward the photo of Catherine. “Why not the blonde?”
“The woman seen by the eye witness and surveillance cameras had dark, frizzy hair. Besides, the blonde has an alibi. She was in New York at the time of the murder.”
“Why not this one?” I pointed toward the photo of Angela.
“She does fit the description, but she too has an alibi. We checked the roster at the cathouse. She was teaching late that night at the time of the murder and went home that night and didn’t leave her apartment. The funny thing is the one over on that machine has no alibi. There’s a gaping hole in a timeline, about two days, in fact. We thought for sure we had her.”
“Are you sure about the blonde being in New York?”
“There were credible witnesses who vouched for her. The plane tickets and everything were all in order. It’s kind of funny, really, each two times a slice-and-dice occurred, she was on a plane. That’s where Mick and I were the day you saw us on the ferry. We had just followed the blonde, enjoyably too, I might add, from the airport to where she lives on the island. I should’ve realized it. If there’s a good looking woman around, you’re bound to be paired up.”
“You want your pencil back?”
“Nah, keep it. Except for the variations of hair and eye color, all three have remarkably similar physiques. A blonde wig, a little blush, and the perfect decoy is born.” Frank shook his head and huffed out a subtle roll of laughter. “They’re playing one hell of a shell game, I’ll give them that. I suppose we could haul in the blonde and draw chemistry, but after our search warrant blunder and without probable cause, it’d be like arresting anyone at random.”
“Search warrant blunder?”
“What were you looking for?”
“The weapons, of course. It’s perplexing as hell. We know we got the right suspects, yet no evidence. Just where would three drop-dead gorgeous women who get off on shredding horn-dog playboys hide their murder weapons? That’s what we keep asking ourselves down at the station. Where do you think they would hide them, Jack?” Frank’s words, as usual, were soft to the ear yet sharp as a sculpture’s chisel that carves mystery out of a block of plaster.
“Right under your noses probably.” I sucked the remainder of my frosty, vitamin drink through the straw, feeling it course through my esophagus like an ice cube.
“Probably,” Frank replied. More of the wry grin.
The critical-thinking gears of my brain began to spin. The French doors in my kitchen…was the lock jimmied? What about the alarm system—how was that disabled? The night I was drugged by Carmella, collusion or coincidence, or was I even drugged by Carmella? The wet, bare footsteps across my kitchen floor...who did they belong to? Catherine? Lena? The pieces to the puzzle were on the table, but they didn’t fit, not yet anyway, and whether I liked it or not, I was a double agent in this caper.
Detective Sullivan laid another photograph on the table. “Have you ever seen one of these?”
I looked down at the image of a gold coin. “Can’t say I have.”
“It’s a British sovereign, an old one, too, not even minted anymore, more for a collector, really.”
“When did you start collecting foreign coins, Frank?”
“Oh, about the same time all these murders started taking place. The last murder had a fire mishap, damn near cremated the victim. My captain thinks the murderer changed up their M.O., trying to throw us off their trail, or perhaps a protégé in training. She panicked and tried to cover her tracks. But I don’t believe it.”
The Irresistible Muse of Jack Kidd Page 13