“What do you mean, I’ll be hearing from you?”
“You may go.”
“Wait a minute. I cooperated. Don’t you understand? Victoria won’t like it if she finds out I talked to you.”
For the first time his baby-pure eyes darkened with fear. “I don’t have anything else to give you.”
“We’ll be the judge of that. Show him out, Boulton. And tell Gerta to bring in tea and sandwiches. I’m starving.”
“A guy makes one mistake and everybody makes him pay!”
“Who else is making you pay?” Claire asked quickly.
“The world!” He tossed his jacket over his shoulder and swaggered after Boulton.
A short time later Gerta brought in a tray of dainty, crustless sandwiches filled with watercress, and cucumber sliced as thin as a pale-green chiffon scarf. Before she returned to her kitchen she put her hand under my chin and gave me a motherly squeeze. I gave her a daughterly smile and glumly ate three of her sandwiches.
After my second cup of tea I decided to make an announcement.
“I just want to find the codicil. I don’t want to find or know anything else.”
“I have to see that photograph.” Claire touched a linen napkin to the corner of her lips.
“You go right ahead.”
“Do you still have that number Patricia gave you?”
I nodded.
“Call and tell her we have important information and we would like to see them tomorrow.”
I dialed the number, got an answering service, and left the message.
“What information?” I asked. “That we know what’s in the photograph, but we don’t have the photograph?”
“They think we do. I want them to think we are ready to sell it to them.”
“We don’t have anything to sell!”
“Miss Hill, genius doesn’t always have to be logical. But it must be creative.” She looked at her watch. “I’m going to my room and rest. We should leave at five forty-five if we’re going to make our six-thirty appointment with Roger Valcovich.”
At exactly six thirty Boulton parked the car in front of Valcovich’s building. He opened the glove compartment and took out a gun.
“Valcovich is greedy and crooked, but I don’t think he’s dangerous,” I said.
Boulton put the gun between his belt and the small of his back.
They followed me through the tiled lobby and up the back stairs. Rock music still clashed with Muzak. The world peace movement was working overtime.
Outside Valcovich’s door Claire said, “I’ll go in first. Wait about four minutes, then come in.”
“I don’t like it,” Boulton said.
“He’ll recognize Miss Hill, and your presence will make him suspicious.” She opened the door and went in.
I leaned against the wall. Boulton stayed by the door. The rock music stopped. Two peace marchers came out of the office. “See ya later, man,” a bearded kid yelled and hurried down the hall to the stairs. The other kid, all pink and red-haired, gave me a wink as he locked the office door. I winked back. It was all in the name of peace.
“Men like you, Maggie,” Boulton said.
“I’m the only female in the hall. Winks and wolf whistles aren’t compliments—-just instinct. The male sexual howl.”
“We men are just automatons to you? We have no discernment?”
“You looked pretty mechanical when you were beating up Erwin.”
“I could have killed him. But there was no need to. What does that have to do with an attractive woman?”
“I don’t know. But I have a feeling there’s a connection there somewhere, and I’m not sure I like it.”
He smiled. It was a full, spontaneous smile, not secretive and insinuating like Neil’s. I imagined pressing my lips against his.
He looked at his watch. “Shall we go in, Maggie?”
“Sure,” I said, wishing I hadn’t imagined kissing Boulton. The last thing I needed in my life was another macho man, even if he did speak as if he belonged on PBS. But, let’s face it, the last thing a New Woman needs is a New Man. Oh, hell.
The reception room was empty. A lamp, surrounded by a messy pile of magazines, glowed on a small Formica table. There was the smell of cold cigarette butts. The filing cabinets were open. Manila folders and papers littered the floor.
Boulton took out his gun. “Where’s the office?”
I pointed down the hallway. He made his way quickly, quietly toward Valcovich’s door. I was behind him. He kicked the door. It slammed against the wall, making a dull slapping sound.
Claire sat in a chair, across from Valcovich, observing him as if he were a priceless oil painting. Valcovich was in his white leather chair. His head sagged awkwardly to one side. Mouth gaped open. Tongue, crusted with blood, rested in the corner of his bluish-white lips. A jagged, fleshy red hole was where the knot of his tie should’ve been. Blood had spilled down his vest into a puddle on his lap. Red pools had formed on his desk and veined out, covering two eight-by-ten glossies of Valcovich smiling for all he was worth.
“Now, the case begins,” Claire said.
I walked around the side of his desk.
“Don’t touch anything,” she warned.
Careful not to touch, I leaned over Valcovich’s wastepaper basket and puked up Gerta’s dainty, crustless sandwiches.
“I haven’t checked that for evidence yet,” Claire said peevishly.
Boulton moved toward me. “Feeling a bit faint?”
“No!” Yellow dots, lined in black, danced in front of my eyes once again. I swallowed my own bitter saliva. “I’m just not used to seeing two dead men in two days.”
“She’s going to faint,” Claire said.
Boulton’s arm curved around me, and he guided me toward the white Naugahyde sofa.
“Put your head down.”
“I’m all right.”
The room swayed.
He put his hand on the back of my damp neck and pushed my head down toward my knees. “Stay that way.” He went and stood by Claire.
I shut my eyes. Their voices came to me through waves of nausea and dizziness. I could hear the evening traffic outside—people going home from work. The air brakes of a bus made a whooshing sound. Some German number honked, sounding like a lovesick mallard.
“This is the best time of a murder,” Claire said. “Right after the violence and just before the police bureaucracy takes over. Rarely do I get such a chance.”
“Shot in the throat,” Boulton said.
“The trachea is a very small target.”
“The killer was either an excellent marksman or a very lucky shot.”
“Lucky shot. The first bullet missed. It’s embedded in the wall above his head.”
“It appears nobody heard the shots.”
“I’m sure it got lost in the cacophony of music in the hallway.”
“How long do you think he’s been dead?”
“Hard to tell. If the bullet hit the carotid, it would only take several heartbeats to empty. If it didn’t hit the carotid, it took him about ten minutes to bleed to death. I’d say a half-hour at the most. In his desk diary he circled six o’clock. No name next to it. Then he wrote ‘Edith Wharton’ at six thirty. All his other appointment times have names next to them—except the six o’clock.”
“Did you see the filing cabinets?” he asked.
“Yes. Did you notice the secretary’s desk?”
“No.”
“It’s been cleaned of everything personal. Are you still with us, Miss Hill?” Claire asked.
“I am.” I slowly raised my head. Just a few dots remained.
“What was the secretary’s name?”
“The Smoker? Do you think she shot him?”
“I have no idea. But she did clean out her desk. Her name?”
“I don’t know. Wait a minute…I stood outside that private door listening. I think he called her Helen…no, Ellen. It was Ellen.”
> “Last name?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire got up and stood by Valcovich. She leaned across him. His chin rested on her arm as she deftly slid her gloved hand under his jacket. Her hand slipped out, holding a shiny address book.
A siren screamed down Pico. Boulton peered out the window. “Ambulance. No police cars.”
“We’d better be going,” I said.
Claire sat down and began to go page by page through the address book.
Voices came from outside the private door. Boulton and I stared at one another. Claire read. He moved quietly to the door and listened.
“Cleaning crew,” he whispered.
“They’ll have a master key,” I warned.
Still studying the address book, Claire casually ran her gloved finger along the top of a table next to her. She held up her finger—dust clung to the tip of it.
“He doesn’t have a cleaning crew.”
So Valcovich was greedy and cheap.
“The Kenilworth number is in here.”
“Ellis probably gave it to him,” I said.
“Probably. This may be it. Ellen Renicke. Sound familiar?”
“She’ll always be The Smoker to me.”
“Write this down. She lives at 6986 Howard Place.”
I got out my Filofax. “I think that’s near here.”
“Brian Waingrove’s number is listed.”
She carefully slipped the book back into Valcovich’s breast pocket. “Shall we go?”
I forced myself to take a last look at Valcovich. Death had taken all the greed out of his eyes. He looked almost as innocent as Bobby Alt.
We made our way toward the waiting room. Boulton opened the door and peered out into the hallway. He motioned to us. We walked quickly down the hall to the back stairs, through the tiled lobby, and out into the safe night air.
We had driven for about five blocks when Claire told Boulton to pull into the lot of a closed gas station. He parked near the one phone booth.
“You know what to say,” she said. “Make it anonymous. Do not use 911. And just give the police the address.”
Boulton nodded and went to make the phone call.
“Why don’t you use the car phone?” I asked.
“I don’t want the call listed on my bill.”
“I can’t believe this has led to murder,” I said, leaning my forehead against the cool window glass.
“It usually does.”
“Valcovich thought he got lucky.”
“Maybe now he agrees with the Egyptians. They believe life is unlucky. And death is lucky.”
“They say you never get used to it.”
“Used to what?”
“Death.”
“They are wrong.”
I turned and looked at her. A small yellow light from the car ceiling illuminated her long, pale hands and glowed on her somber, elegant face.
“You’re used to death?” I asked.
“All but my own.”
“What about your parents’ death?”
She looked at me sharply. “I’ve accepted their death. I haven’t accepted the reason given for it. What’s taking Boulton so long?”
“They probably have him on hold.”
“Try to do a good deed and what does it get you.”
Boulton got back into the car. “Had me on bloody hold. Try to do a good deed and what does it get you!” he said.
They looked at each other in righteous indignation while I tried to figure out just what the good deed was.
Ellen Renicke lived about ten minutes from Valcovich’s office in a residential area off of Fairfax. The houses looked as if they’d been designed by Munchkins—tiny castles with dwarfed turrets, shrunken down for the middle-class and their little slice of the property pie. The Smoker’s house had a sloped roof shaped like the top of a mushroom.
We pulled up into the driveway. The Bentley’s lights shone down the length of the drive, revealing an empty carport. Boulton took a flashlight, and we got out of the car. The house was dark. Claire knocked on the front door. Silence. She tried it. Locked. We went down the driveway to the back of the house. The back door was ajar. Claire took the flashlight. Boulton took out his gun.
We filed into a dark kitchen. The refrigerator sighed and the wall clock ticked. We moved through a door into a small dining room. The flashlight swept over a glass bowl filled with fresh flowers; it illuminated gold-flocked velvet wallpaper and heavy velvet chairs. We followed our small circle of light down a hallway. In a tiled bathroom the light swept over neatly folded green towels. We continued down the hall toward the circle of light into a bedroom. I prayed to God that we wouldn’t find The Smoker dead. I prayed to God to let her die of natural causes, like lung cancer.
Claire moved the light over an open suitcase on the bed. Clothes hung over the sides of dresser drawers. The flashlight settled on an open closet door. One coat and a sad-looking evening gown were left. They looked as if they were still waiting to be taken to the dance. The light went back to the suitcase. Like moths, we moved toward it and peered into the case. Valcovich framed by sterling silver grinned up at us. It was one of his eight-by-ten glossies.
“If I’d just killed a man I don’t think I’d want to take his picture with me,” I said.
“This woman left in a hurry, as if she were afraid for her life,” Claire said.
“Maybe she knows who shot Valcovich,” Boulton said.
“So why doesn’t she just tell the police?” I asked.
“Ellen Renicke knows something.” Claire tapped the flashlight in the palm of her hand. “Where did you say Waingrove was holding his symposium?”
“The City Hotel.” I stared down at the silver-framed photo. “She must’ve loved Valcovich. That’s a very expensive frame.”
11
VALCOVICH WAS A SON of a bitch. And, contrary to popular opinion, sons of bitches usually get theirs. It was how he got his and why that left me with a chill that wouldn’t go away.
“What if somebody thought I was a daughter of a bitch and decided it was time for me to get mine?” I blurted.
Claire turned away from the car window and peered at me. “I beg your pardon?”
“Am I in danger of being murdered?”
“Probably. The more troubling question is who the murderer might be.” She looked back out into the night.
“Oh, hell.”
Century City, located between Beverly Hills and Westwood, is a little island of officious-looking high rises angled and positioned like giant glass soldiers on a tiny battlefield. Boulton turned the Bentley onto the Avenue of the Stars. The battlefield was once the back lot of Twentieth Century-Fox. I guess that’s why they named the street Avenue of the Stars—even though there aren’t any stars, only corporations.
The City Hotel is a sleek modern temple to the businessman’s fantasy. Fountains lit by colored lights gushed envy-green. Women in puffy evening gowns, looking vaguely disappointed, curled their arms around themselves against the night air. Tuxedoed men searched their wallets for money and parking tickets so the red-jacketed valets would retrieve their cars and put an end to the evening.
A valet took the Bentley and we made our way into the lobby. Chandeliers the size of my ex-apartment dangled balls of crystal from the ceiling. Marble floors and zaftig columns were the color of flesh. Big, deep leather chairs curved out their arms, almost begging for people to sit in them.
We took the escalator down to the foyer of the International Ballroom. A portable bar had been set up among potted palms. Red-faced men with easy grins laughed and coughed over their drinks. A long table, draped in green, displayed books, pamphlets, records, and video cassettes. Waingrove’s face was plastered over every one of them. He managed to look debonair while clutching thousand-dollar bills in each hand. Three young women stood behind the table. They wore tight money-green T-shirts over short leather skirts. Spread across their large breasts was the word “Profit.”
&
nbsp; “We’re looking for Brian Waingrove,” Claire announced to them.
A bleached blonde, with dark roots defiantly on show, stopped picking at her crusty elbow and said, “Thirty dollars per person unless you’re taking the special classes—then it’s fifteen.” Her purple lipstick was smeared around the edges of her mouth as if she’d just been interrupted in the middle of a big, wet kiss. I was still struggling with liberation, and suddenly there were all these young, sexy reactionaries undulating around looking like they’d just got off a hot, sweaty man.
“We would just like to talk with him,” Claire said.
The blond Profit shrugged. “He’s supposed to be on stage, but he’s late. Oscar’s warming up the audience. All I know is I leave at ten o’clock no matter what.” She turned to Boulton, breasts first, rest of body following. “How’d you get such big muscles?”
“I polish tea sets,” he said, looking at me.
“Sure.” She gave a false laugh.
“I need warmth,” I said and walked over to the bar and ordered a double martini. I downed half of it and stared through the potted palms at a door marked MEN and another door marked EXIT. I finished my drink. My chill was almost gone. The exit door opened and Waingrove came in. He went into the men’s room. Before the exit door could close it was pushed open again. Mr. Erwin, still nursing a bruised eye, also had to use the john. I motioned for Claire and Boulton to join me.
“Erwin and Waingrove had to use the john at the same time,” I said.
“Erwin?” Claire peered through the palms. I ate my olive. I ate another olive. I ordered a single martini.
“Miss Hill, we have work to do.” She tapped the finger burdened with the rock on top of her walking stick.
“It’s this chill I have.”
“I could think of a better way to warm you up,” Boulton said softly under his breath.
Erwin came out of the men’s room and went right back out the door marked EXIT.
“Stay with him,” Claire said to Boulton. He moved quickly and gracefully, I thought, toward the door.
“Come along, Miss Hill.”
I finished my single, paid for my drinks, and followed Claire toward the ballroom. She opened one of the doors, and we were greeted by about three hundred people chanting, “Profit! Profit! Profit!”
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