CAPRIATI'S BLOOD (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 1)

by Lawrence de Maria

  I didn’t like being a Judas Goat. Billy Capriati was nothing to me, but that didn’t mean I was happy somebody snapped his neck and cut off his finger. Whatever he was, he sent money and oranges to his mother. I thought about her. I had used her to get her son killed.

  “Goddamn it!”

  The cleaning lady looked at me. It wasn’t much of a curse, but I said, “Sorry.”

  I calmed down. And my confidence waned. How the hell would I find out what was going on? Call Nando Carlucci and ask for an explanation? If I was lucky – and he was in a good mood – he might tell me just before he dropped me in the harbor. I had to find “Ellen James.”

  She had paid me in cash. Her cell phone had turned out to be a throw away. Mac said the hotel was a dead end. There were no fingerprints.

  The cleaning lady came around my desk and picked up my trash receptacle, which was overflowing. She tapped a finger on the top of my bourbon bottle.

  “No good. Too early!”

  She walked away. I heard the outside door open.

  “She’s right,” I said, and put the cap back on the bottle and opened the fridge. Maybe if I stuck it behind the Coke cans I wouldn’t be so easily tempted. Only there were no Coke cans. I remembered I’d given the last one to Savannah.

  I bolted for the hallway. The cleaning lady was just emptying the contents of my waste basket down a trash chute.

  “Stop!”

  She was startled. Terrified is more like it. The madman who had been cursing and talking to himself was now bearing down on her with a bottle of bourbon in his hands.

  “Madre de Dios!”

  She picked up her broom and prepared to defend herself. I slowed and held up my free hand.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “I need that basket back.”

  I took it from her gingerly and went back to my office. I could hear her mumbling. My Spanish is rusty, but I think she said “fucking idiot.”

  Back at my desk I carefully went through the basket. Near the bottom was a Coke can. I took out a pen and lifted it out. Then I called Cormac Levine.

  CHAPTER 29 – LAURENE

  It had been the longest of shots, but there were two sets of identifiable prints on the Coke can. Mine, and those of a 19-year-old Louisiana-born prostitute by the name of Laurene Robillard.

  “You fell for it hooker, line and sinker,” Mac happily told me when he got the prints back on Monday. He thought the line funnier than I did. “She’s been a whore since she was 15. Multiple arrests, mostly for solicitation, starting in New Orleans. A couple of minor drug busts. Spoke to a vice cop I know in Manhattan. She ditched her pimp and went to an upscale escort service. She’s a real chameleon, pushing 20 but can pass for pre-pubescent. You should see her mug shot. Doesn’t look like she could have fuzz on her pubes. Course, she probably doesn’t. Most of the pros shave now. A pedophile’s wet dream, but the bulk of her clients are middle-age guys from the suburbs living out their computer fantasies. She’s in great demand. Gets top dollar. Never been inside for long. Can afford good lawyers and Vice has better things to do, sad to say.”

  “Got a current address?”

  “Yeah. And it’s a better one than you or me can afford.”

  I wrote it down.

  “Thanks, Mac. I owe you.”

  “You sure you want to go down this road? If you drop it now, nothing will probably happen. But all bets are off if you start stirring up the mud.”

  “They used me to kill somebody.”

  “You were in the service. Must be old hat by now.”

  ***

  Laurene Robillard, a.k.a. Savannah James, had an apartment in a one of a row of townhouses just off Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. Anyone who ever watched Law and Order would recognize the block. Someone was always being killed or arrested on it. The show’s detectives and district attorneys came and went, but that block stayed the same. I rang the buzzer by her name in the small foyer. It was 11 AM. Hookers tend to sleep in, so I leaned on the buzzer. Still no answer. I hit some other buzzers.

  “Yes, who is it?”

  Sounded like an elderly lady. Probably the only one in the townhouse not working.

  “This is the fire marshal. Your front door is malfunctioning. It keeps jamming from the inside. We may have to ask you to leave the building until it’s repaired.”

  “It was working fine a little while ago.”

  “Somebody must have slammed it, bent the frazzle toggle. Unless we can get it to work properly we have to evacuate. The place is a fire trap now.”

  “Oh, for Christ sake!”

  “Listen, let’s try something. Keep pushing the buzzer hard until I tell you to stop. I’ll tell your neighbors to do it, too. Sometimes simultaneous buzzing fixes the problem.”

  You’d be surprised how often that works. I wondered if she was still pushing the button by the time I had broken into Laurene’s second-floor apartment.

  It was a spacious and tastefully-decorated one-bedroom with a park view. It was also very neat. I would be out of luck if she was working a gig in Vegas. I opened the dishwasher. Dirty dishes but no bad smells. Garbage pail under the sink had fresh coffee grounds. I figured she’d have run the dishwasher and dumped the garbage if she had gone away. She’d be back. I killed time by searching the apartment. The living area consisted of a couch and love seat arrangement facing a large flat screen TV on an opposite wall. I walked over to a small bookcase, which contained a mix of books and DVD’s, heavily weighted toward biographies and documentaries. Whores aren’t very romantic.

  But grouped together in one corner were the book and movie versions of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Sabrina, Gone With the Wind, The Great Gatsby, Rosemary’s Baby and The Prince of Tides. That had nothing to do with romance. Laurene had apparently done some homework to play her role. I wondered if she came up with the research or it had been assigned by her “mother.” She had obviously opted for the young Mia Farrow look over Audrey Hepburn, and I’d bet my blackjack she took the name Savannah from Nick Nolte’s sister in Tides. Gone With the Wind was probably for general verisimilitude.

  As expected, I found a lot of interesting things in the bedroom, many of which increased my already extensive sexual knowledge. Her clothes were mostly hooker chic, but she had kept the pinafore. Nothing else linked Laurene to Ellen James or William Capriati. Except for some movies and DVD’s, the apartment, like me, was basically clueless. I was hungry. The least she could do was feed me while I waited. Her fridge was surprisingly well stocked, from Balducci’s no less, and I made myself a couple of delicious ham and gruyere sandwiches on wheatberry bread. Out of spite I opened a bottle of Crystal.

  I sat at the kitchen table and spotted her laptop on a sideboard. I brought it over and started eating while it booted. I went through her WORD documents, which consisted of letters to family, mostly to a brother, Andre, who was in the Army in Iraq; inquiries about admission to various local colleges, and some very bad attempts at poetry. I opened up Excel and found a few spreadsheets devoted to her business. There were scores of entries (Montclair, Greenwich, Albany, San Francisco, Austin, London, Scarsdale, Cleveland, Boston, Miami, Moscow, etc.). Each had a date, time, a first name and a dollar amount. I didn’t think Laurene could be that well-traveled so I assumed it was a list of clients. All the first names but one were identifiably male. The exception was Veronica from Kansas City. I thought about that for a moment. Well, why not? Laurene Robillard was very popular, and doing very well financially, since none of the dollar amounts was for less than $500. Was that per hour? No wonder she’d gone out on her own.

  That gave me a thought. She probably kept an electronic datebook to keep track of everything, including phone numbers and addresses. They could prove valuable for any number of reasons. I opened Microsoft Outlook, but she didn’t use its calendar. I was on the verge of being discouraged. I took a sip of champagne and noticed the desktop icon for Lotus Organizer. I happen to prefer it to Outlook myself. I opened it and the
current monthly calendar came up. I was about to switch over to the “Contacts” section when I noticed today’s date. There was a notation: Park Lane, 1 PM, Scarsdale (Room 4152). I went back to the spreadsheets. Scarsdale was a bimonthly client named Fred, who had his ashes hauled for $650. A strange figure. Maybe a discount. Why not $649. The use of “9” in a price point is supposed to generate more sales. It works for flat screen TV’s. Perhaps I’d tell Laurene about that. We were, after all, pals. She could undercut all the other hookers. Start a pussy price war.

  CHAPTER 30 – BISMARCK

  The Park Lane Hotel is on Central Park South and offers some of the best views of the park in the city. Not that I thought “Scarsdale” was there for the view. At least that view. As I headed to the elevators I passed a ballroom that was obviously set up for a conference. There was no one in the room but many of the chairs had folders on them. A table outside still had promotional material and various giveaways from the conference sponsors, which appeared to be brokerage firms. Also on the table were brass name tags, apparently no-shows. The sign on a easel next to the double door said: Managing Risk in the Middle East. Good luck with that. The no-shows had the right idea. From the dining sounds coming from an adjacent hall I assumed everyone was at lunch. I pinned one of the unused name tags on my jacket. Nearby was a buffet table on which sat a coffee service, bottled water, various juices and sodas, and platters of fruit and cookies. I took a chocolate chip and went to the elevator banks.

  When I got to Room 4152, I put my ear to the door. I heard giggling and a man’s voice. I knocked. Loudly.

  “Who is it?”

  The man’s voice, now slightly tentative. I stepped back so he could look through the peephole if he wanted. I was wearing a blazer and wearing a nameplate, which he couldn’t possibly read, so I said, “house detective.” I thought I heard him say “shit.” I gave him a little time to pee in his pants and then rapped more insistently. The door opened, with the security slide still on.

  “What’s this all about?”

  Fred from Scarsdale was trying to sound authoritative and annoyed, and failing.

  “I think you know, sir. Please let me in and I’ll see if I can save us all some embarrassment.”

  It worked. A drowning man (especially one who probably has a wife and kids in the suburbs) will grasp at any life preserver. He opened the door and I bulled my way in. He had on suit pants with red suspenders but no jacket or shirt. The suspenders probably came in handy because he had a pot belly. His undershirt was on inside out and he was barefoot. I had apparently arrived at an inopportune moment. There was an open bottle of champagne in an ice bucket on a table in the suite behind him. He instinctively looked at the badge I was wearing. His mouth dropped open. I looked at the name tag: Doris Millbank (Certified Financial Planner). Before he could recover and try something stupid I opened my jacket to show him my gun.

  “Grab your duds and beat it.”

  The bedroom door opened. She was wearing a fluffy white bathrobe. It was apparently the uniform of the day for the “James” women.

  “Oh, Jesus God!”

  “Hello, Savannah.”

  The john saw a ray of hope. He didn’t know who I was, but showed a little spunk.

  “Her name isn’t Savannah. You have the wrong room. Now get the hell out before I call the cops.”

  “Go ahead, Fred,” I said.

  The name did it. He rethought spunk and started gathering his clothes. There is no dignified way to do that, so he opted for speed. After he left, I turned to Laurene.

  “Sit down.”

  She walked over to a couch and sat, crossing her legs. The robe draped open. She looked more her age but was still a knockout. She bobbed a bare foot at me. Her toenails were painted red. She smiled.

  “How did you find me? Never mind. Miss James said you were good.”

  She saw the look on my face.

  “I’m not afraid of you. That jerk can’t afford to call the cops. His cow of a wife thinks he’s at some conference. But I might. Some of my best friends are cops.” Her hand went to the robe’s belt. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. I liked you and I do feel bad about what happened. I guess I owe you something.” She undid the robe entirely and held it open, then shrugged out of it.

  It took me a moment to realize that I was looking at a woman and not a 14-year-old girl. Her breasts were small but firm, with prominent pink nipples, still apparently aroused from whatever was going on when I arrived. She was thin, of course, but well-proportioned. There was a small tattoo just above her shaved pubic region. I couldn’t read what it said. I walked over to her and she gave me a look that undoubtedly launched a thousand erections. I slapped her.

  “I’m not here to fuck. Or to fuck around with you. Do you understand that, Laurene?” I picked up the robe and threw it in her face. “Put it on.”

  Now she was afraid of me. When she got over the shock, she put on the robe.

  “Can I have a drink?”

  It was the little girl voice. But I don’t think she was faking it now. She’d just realized things had gotten out of hand.

  “No. And no cigarette. And no phone call. And no priest. No anything.”

  I pulled up a chair and sat in front of her. She shrank from me.

  “Jesus, Mr. Rhode, what the hell is the matter with you? You were scammed. So what? I don’t know what the deal was but she paid you, a lot. Who got hurt?”

  “You’re quite the little actress.”

  “You bet your ass. Miss James said I have real talent. And she really is an actress. Been in films and everything. She really knew her stuff. Coached me a lot. We rehearsed everything before going to meet you.”

  “That day I met you for lunch in the city was also a setup.”

  “Yeah. But what a rush job! I don’t know why she did that. Screwed me up. I was supposed to meet a client for the whole day. He was gonna take me to the museums, out to dinner, then a show. Spend the whole weekend, like in Pretty Woman, you know. Nice guy from Atlanta. I’d done him before. Not kinky, just wanted a real fantasy affair, you know. Widower. Would have been five grand! Course, Ellen gave me ten, so I told the poor schmuck I had the flu. I think the service fixed him up with someone else. Hope he doesn’t like her more. He’s one of my regulars.”

  “Life’s a bitch.”

  “I’ll say. I had to get into my kiddie togs and run out to meet you. No time to take the drug crap she used the first time to make me look sick. Bismarck or something.”

  “Bismuth.”

  “What?”

  “Bismuth subgallate. It causes symtoms that temporarily mimic severe illness.”

  I knew it well. Army medics and Navy Corpsmen always kept a little on hand for soldiers or marines near the breaking point after three or four deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan. Sometimes it was done with the knowledge of the men but just as often without. The resulting symptoms appeared serious enough to warrant a respite from combat and there was no stigma attached. Good officers suspected but, deferring to the wisdom of ‘Doc,” looked the other way.

  “All I know is it tasted like crap. I thought we were done for when you said I looked so healthy. That’s why Miss James came up with that transfusion bit. She’s quick.”

  “What’s her real name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I reached across and grabbed her by her pretty neck.

  “Her real name!”

  “I tell you, I don’t know. Get your fucking hands off me.” I liked her for that. I let her go. She rubbed her throat, mostly for effect. I hadn’t hurt her. “Couldn’t you find the guy? Is that why you’re pissed?” She wasn’t that good an actress. She didn’t know.

  “I found him. And so did the people who hired you. Somebody broke his neck. In fact, ever since you walked in my office people have been turning up dead. And I’m probably next in line. Unless, of course, I let it out that I found you. Then you might move ahead of me.”

  That got her a
ttention. Her hand went to her throat again.

  “He’s dead?”

  She folded in on herself. Now she did looked like a frightened child. I got up and walked over to the champagne bucket. I poured her a glass and gave it to her. She drank it down in one gulp.

  “She always was Ellen James to me. I swear to God. I know you’re pissed. Can’t say I blame you now. But the way she waved bills around I didn’t care if she was Lady Fucking Gaga.”

  She was telling the truth.

  “How were you hired?”

  “Miss James called me. Said she got my name from one of my clients.”

  “Which one?”

  “Wouldn’t say. Said it was better that way. She needed me to play a role, but no sex, so what did I care. Nothing illegal. Took me to lunch at the Plaza and told me about it.”

  “And you weren’t suspicious?”

  “She gave me $10,000 up front, and promised me another ten if I could pull it off. I make my living putting my legs up in the air for hairy guys from the sticks. I’m gonna turn down twenty grand to act like I got leukemia? Give me a fucking break. Sure, maybe she’s a kook. But I liked her.” Laurene looked at me. “So did you. I know you balled her the night before we had lunch in the city. She didn’t say, but I could tell. I’m in the business, you know. So don’t get all high and mighty on me.”

  She held out her glass. I got up and filled it.

  “What else can you tell me about her?”

  “Nothing. I swear on my mother. Only saw her when we rehearsed. And that time we winged it at lunch.” She was proud of that performance. “Miss James said I had a knack for improvisation. So do my teachers at Stella Adler. I’m taking a part-time workshop.”

  “Where did you rehearse?”

  “My apartment, mostly. We watched videos. It was fun.”