LaFontaine said, “Gentry ended up dead three days later.”
Suddenly all the bluster went out of Maria Patrick. Tears welled up in her eyes and she blurted out: “Look. We been to Internal Affairs. We been to Homicide. They all said the same thing: Our husbands are killers. I’m telling you this is wrong. Someone’s got to believe us. This is wrong!”
“You think they’re right, don’t you,” LaFontaine asked after they’d gone.
“Do you?”
“I hate to admit it, but I do. Their reasoning is convoluted, but it’s the sort of understanding that only intimates can have.”
McCarthy nodded and rubbed his sore jaw. He told LaFontaine that Gentry was not a regular on the Boulevard and that she boasted of working for an escort service, the number of which she’d given Dusk.
“Called it yet?”
McCarthy said, “Not yet. Maybe I’ll head in to work, do just that.”
“No!” Estelle cried. She’d been listening to the entire conversation. “I’m very frightened of all of this, Gideon. The children, oh, everything.”
McCarthy went over and hugged her. “I can’t sit around here all day thinking about them. Work will do me good.”
He turned to LaFontaine. “You interested?”
“In making an appearance at The Post newsroom on a Saturday afternoon? I think not. It’s 2:00 P.M.—daiquiri time somewhere. But you have fun.”
LaFontaine dropped McCarthy at the door to The Post a half hour later, Estelle’s angry clucks still ringing in his head. Inside, a skeleton crew of reporters and editors worked on what little breaking news there was on a Saturday in late September. In a far corner, Isabel Perez and Claudette X hunched over a terminal editing the story about Barnes and toxic dumping.
McCarthy went to his desk and called the number Dusk had given him. The line rang once, then made a clicking noise, then a lower-toned ringing began.
A woman, her voice deep, throaty, and sensual answered, “Welcome to Tiger’s Jungle. Can I help you?”
“I hope so.”
“I’m having trouble understanding you. Can you speak up?”
McCarthy realized the way the doctors had wired his jaw slurred his speech. “I got a toothache,” he said.
“Sorry to hear that,” she said. “You should see a dentist. Any other aches and pains we can help with?”
“I was a little lonely this afternoon.”
“With your toothache and all.”
“That’s right. I guess I’d like to play in Tiger’s Jungle.”
“What’s your name?”
“Bob.”
“Have you been on safari with us before, Bob?”
“No,” McCarthy said. “I got your number from another great white hunter.”
“Funny, Bob. Does the hunter have a name?”
McCarthy hesitated, “Actually, I don’t know his name. He was just having a drink in a bar with me the other night and one thing led to another. He gave me the number.”
“No can do, Bob,” the woman said. “We work on referral by trusted clients only.”
“I have lots of cash.”
“I’d hope so. Adventure travel can be expensive. But a policy’s a policy. No referral, no jungle tours. I sincerely hope your toothache gets better. Ciao.”
The line went dead.
“Ciao,” McCarthy said into the silent receiver. He considered calling the number again, then decided against it. No use getting the woman more suspicious than she seemed. He took the number downstairs to the library and found the crisscross directory, a book which allowed him to look up the phone number and find out the address it corresponded to. It took him ten minutes to find a match: 8390 Commercial Way, Suite H.
Interior Designs …
MCCARTHY CHECKED OUT A staff vehicle with The Post’s bright logo on the side. So much for stealth. On the drive he decided coffee and M&M’s were a reporter’s best friends; they could give even the foggiest of scribes enough of a grip on reality to do their jobs. Look at Roy Orbison. Hell, look at me: flying up the freeway on a funny-bone airline of painkillers, fear, caffeine, and melts-in-your-mouth.
“Runway seven niner, we’re making our approach,” he yelled to himself as he exited off the freeway.
He passed a sporting goods store. A boy and his father tossed a football to each other outside. The giddy sensation deflated. The sober understanding that his children were traveling far away with someone their mother had despised flooded in. He glanced in the rearview mirror, saw himself, and felt terribly inadequate. Focus on moving forward, he thought, and you’ll get by this.
He got lost several times negotiating the maze of low-roofed, tan buildings surrounded by hibiscus and other flowering shrubs, but finally found Commercial Way, one of several cul-de-sacs at the rear of the Weber Industrial Park. Eighty-three-ninety sat at the back against the orange soil of a desert bluff. Smoked, reflective glass filled the doorframe of Suite H. “Flower Ltd.” was painted chest high on the glass. Nothing else. He pulled at the handle. Locked.
McCarthy paused in the warm sunshine, listening to the breeze shuffle the leaves of the two poplar trees planted in front of Suite H. It was a longshot anyway. He knew a little about the escort racket. The clicking he’d heard on the telephone line suggested that 8390 Commercial Way, Suite H was probably a relay station and mail drop.
Questions remained. To what telephone number did the relay switch incoming calls? And who was the husky-voiced woman who answered on the other end? Maybe she had known Carol Alice Gentry. Then again, maybe she hadn’t. For all McCarthy knew, Ms. Sultry Voice was a sales rep, and the escorts free-lance contractors.
He went to Suite I, a computer repair service. No answer. A sign said Saturday hours were 8-12. He’d missed them by forty-five minutes.
The sign in the window of Suite J said “For Lease.” Suite K was also for rent. A short, lean, balding man in his late twenties holding a blowtorch answered the door of Suite L—The Bird Bicycle Co.
“Can I help you?” the man said.
“Gideon McCarthy. I’m a reporter with The Post.”
“Yeah? About time. I’m Steven Bird owner and sole proprietor, Bird Bicycles. I’m making the mountain bike of the future in here. Shock absorbers, fiber frame, twenty-one gears. Climb the Himalayas with what I’m building in here. Good story.”
“Probably is,” McCarthy admitted. “But not the one I’m interested in today.”
Bird appeared crestfallen. McCarthy quickly added: “But if you’ll give me a minute, I’ll pass your card along. Somebody will probably come out.”
Bird set down the torch. “Fair enough. What can I help you with?”
“I’m interested in your neighbor in Suite H. Flower Ltd.”
“Don’t know them,” Bird said. “To be honest, I’m in my shop here most of the time testing prototypes. The only people I do see regularly are the computer guys. And there’s the foxy older lady down the other end who comes in and out in her white Mercedes convertible a lot.”
“Never saw a delivery van, like a floral delivery van pulling in there, to Suite H?”
“Not that I can remember,” Bird said. “Why the interest?”
McCarthy shrugged. “It’s a loose end of a story I’m working on.”
“Anything to do with your teeth there?”
“No,” McCarthy lied. “Got that trying to ride my son’s skateboard.”
“A bike’s much safer,” Bird said. “Got to get back to it now. Like I said, try the fox at the other end of the complex. She’s here a lot.”
“What’s her name?”
“Don’t know. It’s Suite E or F.”
Diane Tressor, Interior Decorations occupied Suites E and F. The hours listed on Tressor’s door indicated she was closed on Saturday afternoons and open during the week to “The Trade Only,” whatever that meant.
But the white Mercedes was parked out front, so McCarthy feigned ignorance and knocked. A platinum blond woman five feet eig
ht inches tall wearing stone-colored stirrup pants, a black silk tank shirt, and lots of silver jewelry came to the door. She had the kind of high-culture beauty that makes lesser mortals like street reporters feel uncomfortable. She could have been in her late thirties. She could have been in her early fifties. She gave McCarthy the once-over, pausing briefly on his black high-top basketball shoes. “We’re closed,” she mouthed through the glass before turning away.
McCarthy rapped again, pressing his identification card against the glass. She examined it, studied him again, then twisted the lock open.
“Yes, Mr. McCarter?” she said.
“McCarthy. You’re Diane Tressor?”
“I am,” she said. She had a graceful, melodic voice. “And I’m fairly busy. I have a presentation to make Monday morning.”
“I just have a couple of questions,” he began.
The phone rang inside the office. She turned and looked back inside. It rang twice more, then stopped. “Can we make this quick?”
McCarthy nodded. “I’m interested in Flower Ltd.”
Tressor hesitated for a moment. “Flower Ltd., are they an interior design group?”
“No, they’re right around the corner here, Suite H.”
She took a step outside to see where he was pointing. “I confess I don’t pay attention to my neighbors. Why the interest?”
Before he could answer, the phone rang again. This time it kept ringing. “Excuse me a moment,” she said. “My answering service doesn’t seem to be on duty.”
She darted back through the door. McCarthy followed. One side of the space was carpeted, open and quite large. He saw a closed loading dock at the far end. Expensive pieces of furniture, some wrapped in plastic, others bare, filled one section. Thick binders of carpet, fabric, and tile samples lay open on oak tables. And there, against the wall, stood a white plastic model of a large development.
Tressor had her back to him, speaking softly into the phone. She pecked at a computer. McCarthy crossed to the model and was surprised to see it was Sloan Burkhardt’s Cote D’Azure project. A carefully calligraphied card noted that Tressor was the decorator for the hotel and office building planned.
“I know who you are now!” she cried. She was off the phone, moving toward him. “You’re the reporter whose car blew up a few weeks back, the one who wrote the story about the two police officers who had that prostitute killed.”
“Guilty as charged,” McCarthy said. His reporter’s instinct came on alert. His photograph had been on the front of both newspapers, but that was two weeks ago. The average mind processes and discards all images but celebrity.
“I thought I recognized you,” she said. Tressor came very close to him. She wore expensive perfume. She had dazzling blue eyes and under the tank top her breasts were unnaturally perky. It had been a long time since McCarthy had been this close to a beautiful woman. It had been a long time since he’d been this close to any woman.
“Does it hurt? The jaw, I mean?”
“Only when I laugh.”
“I promise not to be amusing,” Tressor said. “Does this Flower Ltd. have anything to do with the bombing? Sorry to be so nosy, but I’m kind of a mystery buff. I read them all the time and well, my job is sort of mundane.”
Mundane wasn’t the word McCarthy would use to describe a business that catered to multimillion-dollar projects, but he couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t used to having stunningly attractive women fascinated with him. He smiled.
“So,” she said. “Tell me. What have my neighbors done?”
“Nothing for sure,” McCarthy said. “Their phone number came up in a conversation I had with one of the hook … um, prostitutes.”
“The one who told you about the killing?”
The alert signal faded. McCarthy knew he probably shouldn’t tell her, but she seemed innocent enough. And she smelled better than anything had in a long time. Was it the codeine-caffeine-sugar mix? Who cared?
“Yes,” McCarthy said. “But I’d rather not go into what it’s all about.”
“Maybe I can help? I mean, I’m here all the time.”
McCarthy shrugged. “I don’t know. If you ever happen to see anybody going into that place, Suite H, could you give me a call, maybe write down their license plate.”
Tressor frowned. “Is that legal? Writing down a license plate, I mean.”
“It’s a public document,” McCarthy said.
She laughed and delicately touched him on the arm. “I never thought about it that way, but then again, I’m no investigative reporter.”
McCarthy smiled again.
“Don’t smile now, your jaw will hurt.”
“I’ll get over it,” McCarthy said.
There was a moment of awkward silence, then Tressor said, “I really have to get back to work.”
“Oh, right,” McCarthy said. “The Cote D’Azure project.”
Her enticing smile evaporated. “How did you know about that?”
McCarthy pointed at the model. She clapped a hand over her mouth and laughed again. “God, of course. You see, my involvement’s supposed to be hush-hush. And you being a reporter and all.”
“That’s the sort of thing they write up in the real estate section.”
She touched his arm a second time. “So I’m safe with you?”
“Absolutely, Ms. Tressor,” McCarthy said.
“Please call me Diane,” she said.
“Gideon, Diane. Well, I guess I should be going.” He pulled out his wallet and handed her his card. “You’ll call if you see anything?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
McCarthy was on his way toward the front door when from the rear of the warehouse, a woman with a thick, deep voice called: “I’m back. Sorry, I went to get a cup of coffee and some water and … Oh, sorry again. I didn’t know you were with a client.”
McCarthy turned to see a tall woman in her early twenties with an amazing shock of red hair that tumbled about her shoulders. Freckles dotted her creamy skin. She wore a black, sleeveless dress that hugged the kind of body McCarthy had seen only in photographs. She seemed embarrassed and went quickly to the desk with the computer.
“Caitlin Harris,” Tressor told him. “One of my assistants.”
“Your answering service?” McCarthy said.
“That, too.” She gently steered McCarthy toward the door.
Just before he went out, he looked back over his shoulder and shouted, “Ciao Caitlin!”
“You’re sure it was the same voice?” Prentice LaFontaine asked an hour later. They were at News’s condo near the park. LaFontaine was wearing a bathing suit and jacket in a brilliant blue floral design. He was three daiquiris on his way to oblivion; the Physique Motivator was supposed to be home two hours ago and hadn’t showed.
“If it’s not, it’s her twin’s voice: sort of deep and sensual and, well, erotic,” McCarthy said.
“Erotic?” News sniffed. “When was the last time you had real sex, Gid?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Frustrations play havoc with the imagination in the course of an investigation.”
“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?”
“P. LaFontaine.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I’m severely depressed and actively pursuing the state of intoxication.”
“You’re throwing your life away on another of these bad boys,” McCarthy said.
“Life!” LaFontaine laughed. “Life, as we who cover it know, is a savage, scandalous comedy with an equal number of satisfying and not-so-satisfying sex scenes and weepy moments that ends in tragedy: We all die. I’m just playing out my bit part in the drama until the denouement.”
“You could at least try to pick your partners so you’d be happy.”
“Piffle. What kind of story would that be to tell? No matter, back to your erotic voice. That forwarding telephone could be ringing anywhere. What’s the possibility that it rings two suites away in the offices of a w
ell-to-do interior designer?”
“Who designs for Sloan Burkhardt,” McCarthy added.
News drew his glass away from his lips. “OOOH, you didn’t say that.”
“She’s got a model of Cote D’Azure in her offices. She told me she recently got the contract. Supposed to be a secret.”
LaFontaine got to his feet and trotted to a file cabinet on the far side of the room near the sliding glass doors that led out to his balcony. McCarthy couldn’t help himself; while LaFontaine dug through the file cabinet, he peeked in at the movie marquee to see what was playing. Beach Blanket Bingo.
News turned from the file cabinet, saw him in the door to his bedroom, and said sadly, “I’d planned a matinee performance, beach trunks and everything. Anyway, Ms. Tressor is lying. She’s had that contract from the get-go, listed here in the appendix to the filing Burkhardt had to make with the city as Decorating Consultant/LTD.”
“LTD? She has a stake in the development?”
News frowned and shuffled through the stack of papers. “I don’t think so. Burkhardt’s the general partner of Blue Coast Ltd. And Carlton Bank’s involved, of course. And Sankyo Bank of Tokyo, too.”
“But she could be one of the limited partners, right?”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“Which raises the question of who the others are?”
LaFontaine stared at the stack of paper. “Okay, I’m interested, but where does Gentry fit in?”
“I don’t know,” McCarthy said glumly. “Maybe I’m just hopped up from all the codeine I’ve eaten and trying to avoid thinking about Charley being with the kids.”
“Or maybe there’s something to it,” News said. “Maybe Sloan Burkhardt is dirty, dirty enough to have been involved with a slain hooker. I say we go after it.”
McCarthy thought about that a moment. “Okay, I’ll go through the secretary of state’s filings on Monday, try to figure out who the limiteds are. You use your contacts to find out more about Tressor.”
News went to the blender, added more ice, and flipped it on. “Actually, Gid, I think we should trade assignments. You’re only recently out of newspaper hell and this is a low-odds proposition. I think you should solidify your reemergence, write some follow-up stories to the arrest and your miraculous escape from the bomb.”
Hard News Page 25