“What is it?”
“They pulled into a parking lot.”
“Where?” said the Eagle. He was getting too old for this. The stress, the long days, it was taking a toll.
“One moment.” More seconds passed.
“It’s a motel.”
“Damn it!”
“One of them is out of the vehicle, headed toward the front of the building. Looks like he’s gone inside.”
The Eagle knew it. They had set up a meeting. He wondered how much the lawyer already knew. A transcript with more holes than Swiss cheese, she could have told him anything inside that club. The girl was likely to remember him, right down to his silver-handled cane. She had commented on it, the fact that she’d never dated someone who carried a cane before. She called it “elegant.” He wondered if she was putting him on or putting him down. What was an old man like him doing in a club like this? Business, if the truth be told. Champagne and a room upstairs, conversation and money changing hands. Services rendered, but not the usual kind. Sweet girl, and bright. She didn’t miss a trick.
“Both men have now exited the vehicle and entered the motel. What do you want to do?” The voice at the other end of the phone roused him and set the adrenaline flowing again.
“Just hang tight. Keep an eye on them and call me the minute the girl leaves the other building. Do we know where her ride is?”
“One moment.” There was a delay. He could hear voices in the background over the line. “The driver is on the road, just exiting I-5, en route.”
“Headed her way?”
“That’s affirmative.”
All the pieces suddenly snapped into place. They were waiting for her at the motel. She called her ride and, depending on what they told her, how much she knew, she was either getting ready to meet with them or getting ready to run.
What he couldn’t be sure of was how much she knew. She had very quick eyes and they seemed to be everywhere all at once, spilling over you like a flood. There was little that escaped her. She caught him up in two small lies in the first three minutes of their conversation the one time he met her. That and the fact that the story he gave her about a practical joke being played on a young friend, the prank invitation to a party, had not fooled her. She knew he was lying. There was more to it than that, but she didn’t care.
She did it for the money. The mistake was in paying her too much. The high tariff would guarantee that she would remember him, right down to his argyle socks. Still, the cash couldn’t be traced.
It was the note and the name he had given her that worried him the most, the name Ives was to use if he got stopped at the door. He told her not to write it down. He gave her the name and asked if she could remember it. She said: “Sure! Just like the Bishop at Canterbury.” She might have worked in a strip club, but she’d read a few books and knew how to trigger memory with it. He worried the instant she said it. For all he knew, she could have been a grad student at the university. He should have checked her out more thoroughly, but it was too late for that.
He wrote the address and a phony cell number out on a slip of paper and told the girl to wait for the kid outside his office at noon. He gave her a photograph so she could recognize him. The address would get him to the party. The name would get him through the door if anyone questioned him.
Now, as the man at the other end of the phone might say, the entire mess had become “very problematic.” If the lawyer told her that Ives was used as cover in a killing, her nimble little brain would start turning over all the details. The man who gave her the note: What did he wear? What did he look like? The silver-handled cane. She would certainly remember that. What was on the note? The location of the party. She probably looked at it. Whether she would have committed it to memory was doubtful. But the one thing she was not likely to forget, the name, the one that gave Ives access if he was challenged, that she would remember.
Inside the hotel room I turn on the light, which consists of a single lamp on the nightstand by the bed. Herman pulls the curtains closed and we sit and wait.
I look at my watch. “Twenty minutes if she’s on time.”
“What did she sound like?” he asks. “She seem scared?”
“No reason to be. I didn’t tell her anything.”
“What’s she like?”
“All business,” I tell him.
“So she thinks she’s coming here to polish the nob,” he says.
“Wasn’t my idea,” I tell him.
“What you think she’s gonna do when she sees me?” he says.
“Run like hell,” I tell him. “That’s why you’re going to be hiding in the bathroom until she and I get through the preliminaries. Once she agrees to talk, I’ll introduce you.”
Moving headlights flash in the parking lot out front. The sound of gravel under tires.
Herman gets up off the bed and sneaks a tiny peek around the end of the curtains. He watches for a second. I notice the headlights moving around like someone backing into a space across the way. Then they go out. A few seconds pass.
“It’s her, I think,” says Herman. “Guy in a car. She walked up, started talkin’ to him. Maybe a john, I’m not sure.” He keeps looking.
“Be careful they don’t see you.”
I hear a car door slam. A second later the electronic beep and the flash of lights as the doors lock.
“She’s comin’,” says Herman, “and she ain’t alone.”
“What?”
“She’s got a guy with her. Big dude,” he says. He lets loose of the little pinch on the curtain and looks at me. “I’ll be in the bathroom if you need me. Good luck.” Herman heads into the bathroom, leaves the light off, and closes the door.
I sit there nervously tapping my foot on the carpet waiting for the rap on the door.
“What do you mean, you couldn’t get her?” The Eagle was flummoxed.
“We couldn’t. She never got in the car.” The man at the other end was trying to explain. “She hoofed it,” he said, “from the club to the motel. It’s only a block. The driver went right to the parking lot. She met him there.”
“Son of a bitch,” said the Eagle. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. They’re gonna talk no matter what we do. It’s too late to do anything about it.” He thought for a moment. “Can you turn on his cell again?”
“I don’t know. Depends how much battery is left.”
“Well, try! And record it this time. I want one transcript, no copies, and when you’re finished, destroy the audio. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“And when they’re done, you finish the operation. No ifs, ands, or buts, and no mistakes this time.” The Eagle pushed the button on his cell phone and hung up.
THIRTEEN
When the knock on the door finally comes, I sputter and end up answering with a voice that sounds like Minnie Mouse. I cough and come down two octaves before I say, “Who is it?”
“Come on now, who do you think it is?” she says.
For a moment I consider sliding the security chain onto the door until I can find out who her friend is. But it probably wouldn’t do any good. The door looks like it’s made of cardboard. Besides, the chain might put her off, cause her to simply walk away. So I take a deep breath and open it, just a crack. “Hello.”
She gives me a studied eye. “You’re awful nervous.” She is nearly lost in the shadow of the man Herman spied from the window. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s about six foot five, sporting an upper body like a bull only with more hair on his chest. This seems to sprout up into a beard on a brooding face that would rival Neptune’s. The only thing missing from this picture is the trident. “Aren’t you going to invite us in?” she asks.
“Who’s your friend?”
“He’s my brother,” she says.
“Yeah, I can see the family resemblance.”
“He just wants to make sure I’m OK. Nothing to worry about,” she says. “As soon as he’s satisfied that I’m saf
e he’ll wait outside.”
“That shouldn’t have too much effect on my performance,” I tell her.
“Are you going to open up or not?” she says.
I ease the door open.
She smiles and slides around me through the opening and into the room while the guy’s eyes scan me up and down like an imaging machine. When he’s done with this, the big brown eyeballs do a quick roll around the inside of the room.
“Is he going to do a blood test?” I ask.
“That’s not a bad idea.” The guy says it with no humor in his voice. He just pushes past me, no ceremony, and heads toward the bathroom, the closed door with Herman on the other side.
“Hold on a second,” I say.
He turns and looks at me. “You got a problem?”
“We’re all going to have a problem if you open that door,” I tell him.
“Is that right?”
“Yes. Just listen to me for a second. My name is Paul Madriani. I’m an attorney. I’m working a case.” I reach into the inside pocket of my jacket.
“Keep your hands where I can see ’em,” he says.
When my fingers come out they are holding a business card. I hand it to him. He looks at it and then hands it to her.
“Are you with the police?” she asks.
“No. I’m a private defense attorney, criminal cases, but on the other side,” I tell her. “The man inside the bathroom is my investigator. We didn’t want to scare you off.”
“Yeah, right!” says her man.
Herman opens the door and steps out.
As soon as the guy sees him, the big black face staring back at him, he starts to bristle, spitting expletives, racial epithets about people hiding in woodpiles, while he flashes mean looks at Herman and me.
He squares up against Herman, tenses his body and widens his stance over the tactical boots on his feet, neck bowed as if he’s readying for combat.
“Calm down! Relax,” I tell him. “There is nothing bad going down here.”
“Are you packin’?” he asks Herman.
“No.”
“Lift your coat. I wanna see.”
Herman does it.
The man looks down around Herman’s ankles. “Lift ’em.”
Herman pulls up his pant legs to show that he has no weapon strapped to his ankles. First one, then the other.
The man turns to me. “You?”
I shake my head. “That’s not my gig,” I tell him.
He doesn’t bother to frisk me.
“What’s this about?” she asks.
“We are prepared to pay you,” I tell her. “For information.”
“Is this about the club?” she asks.
“No.”
“What then?”
“Can we close the door?” I look out through the open portal into the parking lot. “I’d rather not have the world looking in.”
The guy looks at her. She nods. “Go ahead,” he says.
I do it, walk over and close the door. “I admit it’s not much of a room. Not a lot of places to make ourselves comfortable,” I say, “but take a seat if you can find one.”
She settles onto the edge of the bed. The guy remains standing, as does Herman. Contest of the bulls.
I grab a chair, pull it toward the bed, and sit. “About three weeks ago there was an auto accident on a highway out in the desert. A woman was killed. A young man was arrested. He’s our client. You don’t know his name but you have met him,” I tell her.
She doesn’t say a thing. She just looks at me, steely eyed, chewing gum.
“You invited him to a party. You gave him a note telling him where this party was to take place and you told him you’d meet him there. But you never showed.”
The eyes start to shift and the chewing stops.
“Our client was drugged at this party and he was transported unconscious to the site of the accident.” I don’t couch it as belief, but fact, leading her to believe that we have more than we do. “The accident itself was staged.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Finally, a denial.
“Our client has identified you by photograph as the person who invited him to the party and who gave him the note with the location. He has said nothing to the police as yet. But if you refuse to cooperate, he’ll have no choice.”
“I . . .”
“Don’t say anything, not yet. Just listen,” I tell her. “Our client has also described in particular detail that tattoo on your leg.” She looks down over the hem on the bottom of her micro-mini, one hand absently touching her naked thigh. “If you like, we can take the cops and have them talk to the artist who put it there. The man has a photograph of the tattoo with your name on file.”
“So what?” she says.
Two bullets and she is still holding up. I am running out of ammunition. “Now if you like, we can take the fingerprints we lifted off the note, the one with the directions to the party, and give those to the police as well.” I lie. It’s a whopper, but it stops her in her tracks like a dumdum round.
“You know what the cops are going to think?”
She shakes her head rather nervously.
“That you were part of this from the beginning. If the evidence we have is accurate, the victim in this case was murdered.”
The M word pushes her over the edge. “I don’t know anything about any murder. I didn’t drug anybody,” she says.
I turn and look at Herman. “I told you so. Herman here believed you were part of it. I told him I didn’t think so, that they probably used you just like they used our client. Hired you and didn’t tell you a thing. Didn’t I, Herman?”
“Got me there,” says Herman. “Owe you ten bucks,” he says.
By the look of relief on her face she would gladly front him the money for the wager right now. “That’s right,” she says. “He didn’t tell me anything.”
“Who?” I ask.
“The man with the cane.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know. He never gave me a name. If he did, I don’t remember. Besides, everybody lies about that.” She would be an expert on this.
“But he did hire you to deliver the note?”
If I listen closely I can hear the tinkle of crystal as she shatters.
“Yes, but that’s all,” she says. “He gave me the note and told me who to give it to. He said it was a joke . . .”
“Tell me about him, the man with the cane.”
“I don’t know. He was maybe sixty, sixty-five, older guy,” she says. “Well dressed. Gray hair. He carried this cane, looked silver, you know, on the handle. Some kind of a bird. I don’t know. He gave me the note and a picture of this young guy, your client, I guess. I mean, if anything happened, I’m really sorry,” she says.
“Go on.”
“Well, that’s it,” she says.
“How much did he pay you?”
She swallows hard enough that I wonder if the gum went down. “I don’t remember,” she says.
“Maybe if the police ask it might jog your memory.”
“All right,” she says. “Two thousand . . . twa . . . twenty-five hundred dollars.”
Herman whistles. “FedEx is gettin’ screwed,” he says. “You think maybe their delivery people need shorter skirts?”
“We’ll put it in the suggestion box,” I tell him. “Where did you meet this guy, the older one with the cane? At the club?”
She nods, quick vertical head movements like the spring-bound head of one of those plastic puppies mounted on a dash.
“How many times did you meet him?”
“Once. Only the one time.”
“Upstairs or down?”
She knows what I mean. “We went up into one of the private rooms. He bought some champagne. You have to do that if you’re gonna go there.”
“Mm-hmm, go on.”
“We talked, that’s all.”
“He gave you the note, the picture of our cli
ent, and told you that you could find him where?”
“In front of the building where he worked.”
“He gave you that address as well. Did he write it down?”
“No. I knew the place. Big plaza downtown. I shop there sometimes.” She stops abruptly, glances toward the ceiling like a lightbulb just exploded and says, “You know, maybe you can get his fingerprints?”
“Whose?”
“The man with the cane,” she says. “You know, off the note.”
“I’ll work on that,” I tell her. “Did he say anything else?”
She thought for a moment. “Let’s see. He told me to give him the note. Invite him to the party. Tell him I would meet him there.” She ticks them off with her fingers counting them off like it’s a checklist, your five basic steps on how to hook the horny male. “And, oh, yeah, I forgot,” she says. “He told me that I was supposed to tell him that if anyone tried to stop him at the door, you know, the party . . .”
“Yes.”
“That he was supposed to be seated at Mr. . . .” Her voice trails off. She freezes up for a second like she can’t remember, then suddenly she smiles and says, “Mr. Becket. That’s it. That was the name. That he was supposed to say that he was to be seated at Mr. Becket’s table.”
“That was the name he gave you? Mr. Becket?”
“Yes. That was it.”
“Do you think he was Becket? The man with the cane?”
“I don’t know.” She says it with a lilt as if answering this is beyond her pay grade.
“You didn’t know anything about this party?”
“No.”
“Twenty-five hundred bucks seems like a lot of money,” I tell her.
“Listen. He told me it was a joke, on a friend. I had no idea,” she says.
“We’re going to need a written statement for the police.”
“The police?” she says. “I don’t want to get involved with the police.” She starts to get up from the bed.
I’ve said the P word—plague, police, it’s all the same thing to her.
“It’s the only way you can clear yourself,” I tell her. If I couch it in self-interest maybe she’ll sit down again. “Tell them what you know. That you had no idea what was going on. Otherwise they may think you’re involved.”
The Enemy Inside Page 9