by Rick Copp
“Watch your step, sir. I would hate to see you fall in the pool again!”
The other two older men all smiled politely and went about their business.
I nodded to the younger man. “Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen to me today.” In fact, I was sure of it. With the gardeners milling about the backyard, Eli would be hard pressed to try something in plain view.
“Looking for somebody?” a voice asked from behind.
I turned to see Eli, wearing only a tight red Speedo and Armani sunglasses, lying on a chaise lounge and nursing an Amstel Light beer.
“Yes,” I replied. “You.”
“Well, lucky you. Here I am.”
There was something off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But Eli was acting strange, like he had no recollection of our previous encounters. He stared at me with vacant eyes.
“I need some information. And you’re going to tell me,” I said. “You’re going to be nice and behave this time, or I’ll have my boyfriend the cop boot your ass in jail again.”
Eli sized me up before responding, like he was deciding the best way to handle me. “I’m just soaking up the sun, enjoying my beer. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”
“I saw you at Crunch with Spiro. I heard everything. I don’t know what your role is in all of this yet, but I do know if anything happens to Tamara Schulberg, you’re going to be charged with accessory to murder.”
“Now that would be a big pain, wouldn’t it?”
It pissed me off that he was so calm, but I kept my cool. “I think you better tell me where in Palm Springs they went.”
“Haven’t a clue.”
“I was in the steam room. I heard you talking. You know the place he was taking her. Tell me, or I call the cops.”
That’s when I noticed his nose. It was perfect. I remembered before it was bent, like it had been broken. Had he gotten surgery to fix it in the interim? It was very distracting.
Eli took a swig from the bottle and smiled. “Wish I could help you, but I can’t.”
I made my second observation. Eli the tattooed hustler had no tattoo. There wasn’t a trace of that distinctive eagle on his arm. I finally woke up.
“What’s your name?”
“Elliot.”
“Eli’s twin.”
“Uh huh.”
“Down visiting. From San Francisco, I bet.”
“Uh huh.”
He was quite pleased with himself. I was sure they tricked unsuspecting people all the time for kicks. I was just another rube to toy with.
A voice called out from behind me.
“You here for another swimming lesson?”
I turned to see Eli, in a matching red Speedo, emerging from the main house with a beer in his hand. The eagle glistened on his right arm. Thank God. Otherwise, I might have been dealing with triplets.
“Just having a nice chat with your brother here.”
Elliot turned himself over on his stomach and let the harsh rays of the sun wash over his back. “He’s looking for your pal Spiro. Says he knows all about his big plan.”
“You don’t know nothing,” Eli said as he popped the top off his beer.
“Oh, that’s where you’re dead wrong, Eli. I know you no longer have an alibi for the night Willard Ray Hornsby was murdered.”
He looked at me. I detected faint creases of worry on his forehead. Finally, he wasn’t so cocky and cool. My surprise visit today had messed up his story pretty good.
“You said you were dancing in a bar in San Francisco the night Willard was murdered,” I said. “You told me there were a bunch of old farts there who would corroborate your story. So tell me something, Eli, you think any of them will remember your eagle tattoo?”
I thought he might lunge at me right then and there and try to finish the job he started during my first visit, but the gardeners were still on the property trimming and sweeping so his hands were tied. I felt incredibly confident at this point because I knew I had him.
“You figured the cops would question all the men who were in the Castro bar that night, show them your picture, and they’d recognize you as the sexy dancer who got a whole lot of dollar bills stuffed in his g-string. But it wasn’t you. It was your identical twin brother.”
“I didn’t kill anybody, you understand?”
“Then why’d you lie?”
“I told you . . . it’s easier for the cops to pin a murder on someone like me, a pay and play kind of guy. I was protecting myself.”
“Was it Spiro?”
“No. He never had any plan to kill Willard.”
“Just his wife.”
He didn’t respond.
“Talk to me, Eli. Tell me where they went.”
Eli glared at me defiantly but I noticed his hand shaking. He wasn’t as tough as he pretended to be.
“If you don’t talk, then a woman’s going to wind up dead and it’ll be on your conscience,” I said.
“Tell him, Eli.” Elliot stood up and put an arm on his brother’s shoulder.
“Look, Spiro says a lot of things. It doesn’t mean he’s going to actually . . .”
Elliot grasped his brother’s arm and shook it. “Do you really want to take that chance?”
It was obvious Elliot was the one who got the brains when they were being passed out. But at least, for the first time, I saw a trace of humanity in Eli.
He stared at the ground, and finally said in a low, defeated voice, “Two Bunch Palms.”
I knew the place. It was a former compound hidden in the desert by a cluster of majestic palm trees once owned by gangster Al Capone. In recent years it had been transformed into a world-class spa. I dragged Charlie there two years ago to celebrate our first anniversary. I spoiled myself with salt glow herbal wraps and exfoliating mud baths, while a bored Charlie mostly just read a Tom Clancy novel.
I darted back to my car without saying another word. It was a two-hour drive to the desert and both Tamara and Spiro had a good head start. Eli was young, scared and stupid. But I believed him. Okay, he did try to drown me, but I was beginning to wonder if he would have ultimately had the guts to finish the job if the gardeners hadn’t surprised him. He was just a street kid who got charmed by yet another slick older man, much like the older man who owned the guesthouse where he lived. Eli was Spiro’s pawn. He was drafting this kid into all kinds of sordid affairs, including a possible murder plot. He was in way over his head, and had crippling low self-esteem. Poor kid figured just because he was a hustler, the cops would use him as a scapegoat. Which would explain the elaborate lie involving his twin brother.
I jumped behind the wheel, and tore off down the hill. The plan was to hop onto the Hollywood Freeway, which connects to the San Bernardino Freeway, and ultimately spills out into the desert. I prayed traffic would be on my side, and that I would make it to the spa on time.
I debated calling ahead to the Palm Springs police and warning them about the impending murder attempt. But would they believe a disgraced actor who had been plastered all over the tabloids lately? No one was willing to take me seriously, especially the police. And since I wasn’t even one hundred percent sure what I heard in the steam room was an actual murder plot, I opted for calling the spa instead. I knew if I didn’t immediately get Tamara on the phone, she would never call me back. Why spoil her romantic weekend getaway by talking to me? But I at least had to try.
The desk clerk told me Tamara and Spiro hadn’t checked in yet. I left my name and cell phone number and said it was an emergency before I hung up.
One thing nagged at me as I careened from lane to lane in an effort to make it outside the city limits, where the unrelenting sea of cars would eventually ease up. If Eli was telling the truth, and my gut told me that he was, then Spiro didn’t murder Willard. Eli maintained he never planned on it. So maybe it was an accident. Or maybe Spiro got rough with Willard and accidentally killed him and didn’t bother to tell Eli. Or maybe this mysterious Theodore Ph
elan was behind the killing. I still had no idea where to find him. I didn’t even know what he looked like. But I had a gnawing feeling that he was already in the equation. I just had to figure out how.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dashing Robert Wagner and gorgeous Stefanie Powers played the globe-trotting, impossibly happy married couple Jonathan and Jennifer Hart, who lived off their millions and solved murders for sport in the hit eighties crime series Hart to Hart. Yes, it was a knock off of those classic Thin Man movies of the thirties, but hell, those were in boring black and white and not as accessible as the Technicolor Harts, who had an adorable dog Freeway, a raspy-voiced, devoted manservant Max, and a custom-made Lear jet at their disposal. I worshipped the Harts, and even wrote letters as a child begging them to adopt me.
Even after I was cast in my own television series, I spent my free hours lobbying the producers to secure Wagner and Powers for a guest shot just so I could finally be reunited with my “other parents.” But the stars were well beyond making appearances on highly rated yet critically reviled Friday night family comedies.
They had definitely made an indelible impression on me, and even now, as I raced along the 10 Freeway, east towards Palm Springs, this entire surreal quest to stop a murder at a spa once owned by Al Capone, harkened back to one of those high society murder escapades I watched on Hart to Hart as a kid.
In fact, it was a bit scary as I realized just how much I had modeled my life after them—a fancy house in the hills, a happy marriage, an adorable dog with a cutesy name. All that was missing was a manservant, but there was still time. I just hoped that when I got to the spa to confront Spiro, I would be able to muster the same class and style the Harts displayed as they outwitted the bad guys.
I grabbed the cell phone and punched the speed dial button. An annoying beep kept alerting me to the fact that the battery was low, so I knew I didn’t have much time to talk. And just to make things even more difficult, I had left the cigarette lighter adapter at home. No chance of juicing it up while I drove.
I hate cell phones and the people who use them, especially in moving vehicles. They’re a menace, and already statistics have shown a spike in the number of automobile accidents because of them. But here I was, on a busy California freeway, making a call.
A wailing semi horn jolted me to attention. I had drifted into another lane while searching for Charlie’s speed dial button, practically colliding with an eighteen-wheeler. I cursed out loud as I jerked the wheel back to my rightful lane.
I saw the trucker flash me the finger, so I gave him a sheepish shrug to let him know I was aware that it was my fault. There wasn’t much else I could do. I was the perfect example of why there should be a law against operating a cell phone without a hands free set. The line crackled and cut out as it rang.
“Come on, Charlie, come on, pick up . . .”
It rang a few more times before I heard a click and then the distant, barely audible voice of my boyfriend.
“Charlie Peters.”
“Hi, it’s me.”
“I can barely hear you . . . Where are you calling from?”
“The car. Listen, my battery’s low and I don’t have much time. I’m on my way to Palm Springs . . .”
“Where?”
“Palm Springs!”
“What for?”
I tried to fill him in on everything, but the phone kept cutting out and he was only getting bits and pieces.
“You’re going to do what?” he asked.
“Stop a murder!”
I knew if he got the whole story, he’d insist I turn the car around and head straight home. He wouldn’t hear of me putting myself in peril again. Charlie would just call ahead to the local authorities and send them out to the spa to check out my wild, improbable story. But even though I had overheard Spiro’s insidious plot in the steam room, there was still the chance that I was off base. That he was only fantasizing out loud and had no real intention of offing his wife. And once again I would be proven wrong, be publicly humiliated, and lose what little credibility I had left. No, this time I needed to handle things by myself.
I checked the digital clock on the dashboard. Ten forty-five. Tamara and Spiro were probably just pulling onto the private grounds. He wouldn’t try anything so soon after their arrival, and their first spa appointment wouldn’t be scheduled until at least noon to give them time to check into their bungalow. I had some time.
“Jarrod, are you there?” Charlie’s voice bellowed in my ear during a brief moment of clear reception.
“Yes, I’m here. I’ll call you after I get to Two Bunch.”
“Listen to me, Jarrod, I didn’t hear a lot of what you said, but I got enough. I don’t want you to . . .”
And then, mercifully, the phone cut out for good. The battery was on life support.
I knew exactly what he was going to say. But how could he possibly be angry with me if I legitimately didn’t hear him tell me not to get myself into the middle of anything?
I wasn’t sure what I would do once I got to the spa, but the point was to make my presence known so Spiro wouldn’t be tempted to try anything. And if I could just corner Tamara somehow and tell her what I heard, she might finally see Spiro for the murderous, money-grubbing cad he was. And even if she didn’t believe me, the seed would be planted in her mind, and perhaps a grain of suspicion might grow to the point where she couldn’t trust him, and would finally have to leave him. That was the most I could hope for at this point.
But then, in typical California commuting fashion, traffic came to a grinding halt. I was about a mile away from the interchange where four separate freeways converge, just west of the industrial city of Riverside. The bottleneck was more severe than usual, and after tuning into a local radio station for a commuter report, I discovered there was a three-car pile-up ahead.
This was not good. By the time I cleared this mess, I would still be another hour away from Two Bunch. Both Tamara and Spiro, in separate cars, already had a good start, and the longer it took me, the more time Spiro would have to set the wheels in motion for Tamara’s ultimate demise.
The accident slowed down the flow of traffic, but it was the gawkers, the curiosity seekers who hit the brakes and craned their necks for any sight of blood and carnage that brought the cars to a full stop. California drivers by nature are a soft bunch. A light rain on the west coast arouses about as much panic as a tropical storm in the south, a blizzard in the east, or a tornado in the north. Cars can be backed up for miles if there’s a lone tube sock in the road. I didn’t need this delay today, and as I passed the sight of the smashed-up cars, I glanced out to make sure it wasn’t Tamara or Spiro.
A Mexican family of four sat sullenly on the roadside, their only means of transportation, a beat up Toyota truck, damaged beyond repair. A few feet away, a tight-faced bottle blonde with teased hair and a cell phone clamped to her ear shouted directions to AAA next to her dented Infiniti.
It would have been easier if it had been Tamara or Spiro. But I tapped my foot impatiently, muttered obscenities at the cars ahead of me, and waited for the traffic to clear. I had no reason to complain. At least I was in a luxury car with a six CD changer and perfect temperature control.
Finally, after an exhausting wait, the lanes opened up and I was on my way again. I knew from my previous visit that Two Bunch Palms had tight security, and no one would be allowed past the gate without a room reservation. So I lost more precious time, pulling off the freeway, finding a pay phone since my car phone battery was nearly kaput, and placing a call to the spa’s reservation line. Luckily, there was one room close to the hot pools still available, and I booked it with my American Express. This way, I was a legitimate guest and Spiro would not be able to protest.
By the time I jumped back in the car and was speeding past the barren hills and sporadic cactus trees towards Desert Hot Springs, the outside temperature had soared to over a hundred degrees.
Just as I relaxed a bit,
confident I would make it in time, the flashing red lights of a police car filled the back window, urging me to pull over. My heart was in my throat as the older, graying, seen-it-all highway patrolman got out of his car behind me and shuffled up to the driver’s window. What now, I thought?
“Got a broken tail light.”
Great. My bad driving in the Crunch Gym parking lot might cost Tamara Schulberg her life. After a painstakingly slow process of issuing me a warning, the patrolman ripped the official looking piece of paper off his pad and handed it to me. For a brief moment, I wanted to grab his arm and spill everything, how I was on my way to stop a murder, and how he should follow me in case Spiro got out of control. But a cooler head prevailed, and I simply thanked him for the warning. Then I pulled the car back on the road for the last ten minutes of the drive. He followed me for five more miles, so I had to stay close to the speed limit, but after he took an exit towards downtown Palm Springs, I hit the accelerator to make up for lost time.
It was after one in the afternoon by the time I rolled up to the gate that led into this swank private oasis in the middle of the desert.
The smiling, handsome guard (the entire staff of the spa was friendly and nobody was deficient in the looks department) checked off my name, and the gate opened, welcoming me inside.
The grounds were immaculately kept, and the buildings, which included a dining room, spa, and individual bungalows, were built of stone and wood that seemed to melt into the vast, lush foliage of palm trees and natural hot springs.
After checking in, I didn’t even bother stopping by my room first. I headed straight past the lush greenery and a small, almost hidden pool where a few guests were lounging about reading Hollywood movie scripts and a couple of self-help books. It was absolutely quiet, as there are only two rules at Two Bunch—don’t make a lot of noise and let yourself be pampered.
I swung open the door that led to the underground spa and hurried down the steps to the reception desk. A bright-faced young woman with an impeccable complexion smiled at me and asked if I had an appointment.
“No,” I said as casually as I could, “I’m just seeing what time my friends are done with theirs.”