by Lisa King
“Marginal character? This is someone Martin liked and trusted.”
“His judgment wasn’t infallible. And that was before the heart attack, when he had a use for an unprincipled slacker like Zeppo.”
“Stop running him down!” Jean yelled. “He’s a better man than Martin ever was, and Martin was good enough for you!”
Diane looked at her coldly. “At your worst you remind me of my mother, all urges and appetites with no sense or restraint.” She stood up. “This investigation is over. You’d better go. There’s no dealing with you once you’ve lost your temper.”
Stung by Diane’s words, Jean stomped out of the house feeling wounded and enraged and drove home.
CHAPTER 29
Jean hadn’t fought with Diane since they were roommates, and never about anything so serious. It really hurt that Diane would compare her to her despised mother.
This was turning into a hell of a week. She’d infuriated and alienated her lover and her good friend, solved an attempted drowning and maybe a thirty-year-old murder, been groped by a prominent artist and nearly run down by a prize-winning author, found out a terrible secret, and had glorious sex, all because of Zeppo.
Jean decided she needed some uncritical lust, so she called him, but his cell was off. He was due at her place at seven o’clock, a couple of hours away. She looked around her apartment and, since she already felt like shit, decided to clean house.
She put some Dandy Warhols on the stereo and got to work. She felt sympathy for Diane in spite of what she’d said about Zeppo. Diane was a very loyal person, and without convincing evidence Jean couldn’t expect her to believe that an old friend had tried to kill Martin.
Jean pulled off the bedclothes and searched her closet for a set of red cotton sheets she’d bought in Milan. Just the thing for tonight. She remade the bed and smoothed down the brightly colored handmade quilt she’d gotten last Christmas. It was her mother’s idea of a joke; her teetotaler parents didn’t approve of her job at a wine magazine, and the quilt’s curving, meandering pattern was called “drunkard’s path.”
Zeppo arrived right on time carrying an overnight bag and a large bunch of flowers—proteas, red anthuriums, and a few other tropical blossoms she didn’t recognize. “Here, Jeannie,” he said. “These seemed like your kind of flowers.”
“They’re beautiful. I love them.” Jean went into the kitchen and put them into a red glass vase. She set the vase on her desk and stood back to admire them.
Zeppo moved up behind her and put a hand on each of her breasts. He kissed the back of her neck, inhaling her scent. She turned around and kissed him, biting his lip, pressing her body into his. As he ran his hands over her, she let desire obliterate the anger, hurt, and uncertainty she’d felt since leaving Diane’s. She pulled off his glasses and dropped them on a table as he tossed his jacket to the floor. They fell onto the bed and made rough, frenzied love with their clothes half on, pausing only to find a condom in the chaos of the bedside drawer. Soon they lay side by side on the quilt, panting and disheveled.
“I missed you,” Zeppo said.
“So I see. I missed you, too. I almost called you last night.”
“Weren’t you with Peter? What happened?”
“We had a fight and he left. For good.”
“Jeez, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause anything like that.”
“You didn’t cause it. It’s been coming for a long time.”
“He’s going to be pissed at me.”
“No, he won’t. He knows whose fault it was.”
“You don’t deserve all the blame. You sure didn’t have to ask me twice.” Zeppo put on his glasses and lay back down on the bed. “After you left yesterday, I slept past noon. I’ve never done that before.”
“You had a pretty intense evening. True confessions, emotional and physical catharsis, the works.”
“Yeah, well, among other things, you cured my insomnia. Hey,” he said, looking around, “you cleaned the place up. It looks great.”
“Thanks. You know, I had lunch with Emory today. He has good taste in restaurants and he wants to see me again.”
“I can’t blame him,” Zeppo said. “By the way, I’ve decided you don’t have to sleep with him to get information.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“He’s pretty good-looking,” he said with studied nonchalance. “You as interested in him as he is in you?”
Jean was usually annoyed by jealousy but decided to go easy on Zeppo. “Nah,” she said. “He’s a little too slick for me.” She told him Simon’s story about Oksana and Spider.
He nodded thoughtfully. “That sounds plausible—Spider didn’t seem too bright. So maybe she had another boyfriend and maybe she took Martin’s money and just ditched Spider.”
“She may have made up the other boyfriend to discourage Spider from coming after her,” Jean said. “Did you talk to that bartender? Rudy?”
“Yeah. I went over to Sputnik and caught him as he was going to work. I bribed him to ask Spider if he’d meet us. He says he’ll get back to me.”
Jean rolled toward him. “Let’s go out,” she said. “I’m starving—all I had for lunch was a salad.”
“OK by me. I’m hungry, too.”
Jean declined Zeppo’s invitation to join him in the shower, knowing she wouldn’t eat for another two hours if she did. She looked through her closet and chose black silk slacks and a low-cut wrap blouse the color of her eyes.
Zeppo came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. She dodged his hands as she went in to take a shower, then dressed in the bathroom, examining herself in the mirror as she combed her hair. Sexy but not slutty. A pair of lapis earrings and a squirt of Opium and she was ready to create a stir.
“Jean, you look fantastic,” Zeppo said when she came out. “Did you make that outfit?”
“Yep.”
“Put on those heels, OK? I promise not to let you get knocked over tonight.”
“All right, I’ll do it for you. But I’m not wearing them to bed.”
They walked to Zeppo’s car. He’d parked in a bus stop close to her apartment and now had a very expensive ticket on his windshield. “Where am I going?” he asked as they slid into the leather seats.
“Let’s try that new Peruvian place in the Mission—they’ve got a great wine list and the food’s supposed to be good.” Jean took off her heels. “These shoes are killing me, but it’s great being six-foot-one, just like Carlotta Carlyle.”
“Too bad you can’t play blues guitar like her.”
“You read a lot of mysteries, too, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I like the way justice is done at the end, unlike real life.”
Jean sensed he didn’t want to delve into his past, so they talked about mysteries until they got to the restaurant.
“We’ll use the valet parking,” Zeppo said. “One reason I love going out in this car is that they always put it right in front with the Bentleys and Ferraris.”
At this early hour the place wasn’t too crowded. The host led them through the room and a few men turned to watch Jean. She was glad she managed it without falling off her heels.
Once they were seated in a booth, Zeppo squeezed her hand. “Hannah will love you—you’re great for my self-esteem.”
“I’d like to meet her someday.”
“That’s another selling point for me. Other guys take their girlfriends home to meet Mom and Dad. I get to take mine to meet my therapist.”
“Look at the family you put together for yourself,” Jean said. “Martin as Dad and Hannah as Mom.”
“Now there’s a picture. I called her last night, by the way, to tell her what happened.”
“What did she say?”
“It blew her away that you figured it all out and came right over and jumped me. Also, she knows I was hung up on you before, and now she’s worried I’ll really lose it. Become your sex slave or something.”
“Now that sounds li
ke fun. Although I don’t know what I could make you do for me that you’re not already doing.”
“If you think of anything, let me know,” he said softly. He put his hand on hers and squeezed, leaning toward her. Their eyes locked for a moment, and Jean suddenly felt warm all over.
“Whew,” she said, pulling back. “We’d better talk about something else.”
“Right.” Zeppo cleared his throat. “OK. What are we going to do about Rivenbark?”
The waiter interrupted Jean’s answer. “Well, there’s been a slight setback,” she said after he’d delivered a bottle of Albarino, a white from Spain, and taken their orders. “I told Diane about the manuscript and Esther.”
“What did she think?”
Jean hesitated, sipping wine. It tasted of almonds and peaches, and showed the varietal’s characteristic bracing acidity. “She doesn’t buy it,” she said. “She thinks you’re making it all up for obscure motives of your own and I’m too blinded by lust to think critically. We had a fight, and she says the investigation is over.”
“Hell. First Peter and now Diane. I’m really screwing up your life.”
“No, you’re not. It was my own fault—I got angry and said some unkind things. So did she.” Jean drank more wine. “I have to work on my temper. It’s my major character flaw.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh Zeppo—”
“No, I mean it. I’m not in sex-slave mode now. I know what I’m talking about. My family was totally repressed. I never knew what anybody really thought or how they really felt, and look what happened. That’s one of the things I like about you—you don’t repress anything. I always know exactly what’s going on, whether you’re throwing a fit or getting off.”
She kissed his cheek. “You’re sweet. But this time I really screwed up. I don’t want to quit any more than you do. As it is, Diane won’t believe that her old pal Hugh could have done it. Lots of people are going to feel the same way. I was wrong to think we could waltz into Hallock’s office with Hugh’s wedding card and he’d arrest a famous author on your say-so.”
“And while we’re sitting here planning what to do about Hugh, he’s planning what to do about us.”
“Last time he waited until we were in the middle of nowhere before he tried anything,” Jean said. “He’s less likely to go after us in the city with people all around.”
“I hope you’re right. The good news is, he probably doesn’t realize we know what it’s all about, so he thinks there’s no hurry.” The waiter brought two orders of scallop ceviche.
“Hey,” Zeppo said as they ate, “how about this: I’ll say I scanned the manuscript so I could try and figure out why Martin kept it. I’ll tell the truth—we just saw the wedding card and realized why it was such a big deal.”
“Good. You can say that if anything happens to us, it’s public. That should hold him off for a while.” They finished their ceviche and the waiter delivered roasted red snapper with coconut rice. Jean tried a succulent bite. She should never diet at lunch—it just meant she ate more at dinner. “Then there’s our next project: Who killed Martin?”
Jean heard the faint opening bars of Valkyries, and Zeppo pulled his phone out. “Hello?” he said. “Hey, Spider. Thanks for calling. We’d like to talk to you. No pressure. Can I buy you a drink?” He listened for a while. “Sure, that’ll be fine. Give us forty-five minutes or so.” He hung up, grinning at Jean. “Spider wants to meet us at that sports bar off 24th Street. I must have convinced Rudy we’re harmless. Or maybe it was the fifty bucks I slipped him.”
CHAPTER 30
The bar was in Jean’s neighborhood, so Zeppo parked legally a few blocks from her apartment—they didn’t want the Jag to get more tickets or be towed during the night.
Even though the place was close to home, Jean had been there only once. It had a shitty wine selection and an obnoxious, largely male clientele. The cavernous, lowceilinged bar was as grungy and unpretentious as Sputnik was sleek and plastic. A large group of young working-class men and a few women watched a basketball game on the many TVs over the bar. The walls were decorated with sports memorabilia and signed photos of famous athletes. Jean and Zeppo were definitely overdressed.
Spider sat alone at a table in the back, away from the TVs, a glass of half-melted ice in front of him. His freshly shaved head gleamed in the overhead lights. Jean and Zeppo made their way past the cheering crowd.
“Thanks for coming, Spider,” Zeppo said. “What’ll you have?”
He looked up, a little bleary-eyed. Probably already drunk. “Red Bull and vodka,” he said.
Zeppo went for drinks and Jean pulled up a chair. Spider wore jeans, a white T-shirt, and an orange and white high school jacket with leather sleeves and a big capital “H” on the front.
“What did you letter in?” Jean asked.
“Wrestling and shot put. You work for Wingo, too?” Spider eyed her suspiciously.
“No, I’m a friend of his widow. Name’s Jean Applequist.”
“Spider Brandt.” His handshake was surprisingly gentle.
Zeppo came back with Spider’s drink and two draft beers. “I think we can help each other, Spider,” he said. “We’re all looking for Oksana. We want to ask her why she visited Wingo.”
Spider stared sullenly into his drink. “Who says she did?”
“Someone at Wingo’s office saw her, and you, too,” Zeppo said patiently. “Come on, we don’t want to get the police involved in this.”
Spider took a big drink. He seemed to be very drunk, and the caffeine wasn’t helping. “Why do you want to know?”
“Wingo paid for information. Maybe she told him something about someone and that person got pissed and killed Wingo. Do you know why she went to see him?”
Spider said nothing, just stared into his drink, rubbing a hand over his shaved head. The people at the bar groaned and someone cursed the referee.
“I know you just moved to San Jose,” Zeppo said. “Moving’s expensive. Money must be tight.” He produced a folded $100 bill, which he slid across the table to Spider. “We can help you out there, too.”
Spider eyed the bill but made no move to take it.
“Simon Emory says Oksana went to L.A. to be an actress,” Jean said, losing her patience. “He says she went with another man.”
Spider looked up. “Bullshit! Emory lies! She’s going to live in San Jose with me. We love each other.”
“What’s in San Jose?” Zeppo asked.
“I’m managing a gym there. I come back here to look for her when I’m not working.”
Jean sipped her beer. Now that she’d shaken things loose, Zeppo could take over.
“Is that why she went to see Wingo?” Zeppo said. “To get money to pay off Emory so she could leave with you?”
“Yeah.”
“What did she sell to Wingo?”
Spider shrugged his muscular shoulders. “She said it was safer if I didn’t know.”
“Was it something about Emory?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“She was going to pay Emory off after work and then come to my apartment. We were supposed to leave that night. But she never showed up. I went to her place and all her stuff was gone. I asked Emory where she was and he told me that bullshit story.”
“If she didn’t go to L.A. and she’s not here, where is she?”
“I think something bad happened to her.”
“Like what?”
“Like maybe the person she told Wingo about went after her.” His eyes began to tear up. “If I find out someone hurt her, I’ll tear them apart.” He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Look, I gotta go.”
“We should keep in touch,” Zeppo said, laying a business card on the folded bill. “Here’s my number. Call if you find out anything. How can we reach you?”
“I’ll call you.” Spider grabbed the card and the cash and dashed
out the door.
Jean and Zeppo looked at each other. “We still don’t know if someone offed her or if she ditched Spider,” Jean said.
“I can see it happening either way,” Zeppo said.
“Yeah, me too. Why would a smart woman like Oksana hook up with such a dope?”
“From what Emory told you, she’s had a really rough time. Maybe because Spider loved her and was good to her.”
They left their beers on the table and went outside, holding hands as they walked uphill into the residential neighborhood above 24th Street. Crossing an empty street, Jean stumbled in a pothole and came halfway out of one shoe. As she bent over to fix it, Zeppo pulled her back toward the curb, nearly yanking her arm out of its socket. An old black Taurus with no lights bore down on them. Jean lost her balance and fell on top of him as the car sped past so closely she could have reached out and touched it. She heard tires squeal as it took a sharp right a block down.
Zeppo sat on the sidewalk with Jean sprawled in his lap. “Are you OK, Jeannie?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “You?”
“Just a sore butt.” He scrambled to his feet and helped her stand. “Heads up—he’s coming back.”
The black car drove slowly down the street. Zeppo pushed Jean into a darkened doorway. They could see the driver turning his head from side to side, looking for them. Jean recognized the same ski mask and bulky jacket worn by the first attacker. A noisy group of young men and women spilled out of an apartment building across the street, whooping and laughing, and a city bus pulled up to a stop on the corner. The black car sped up and disappeared down a side street.
“Saved by the cavalry,” Zeppo said.
“Jesus. I didn’t even see him coming. Did you get the license number?”
Zeppo shook his head. “Nah, I was too busy falling on my ass.”
“Probably stolen anyway.”
“Looks as if Rivenbark has followed us to the city. Let’s go before he tries again.”
Jean took off her other shoe and they hurried to her apartment, cautious and watchful this time. She let them in and looked at the shoes in her hand. “Goddamned heels almost killed me!” She threw them across the room. After locking the door and windows she plopped on the sofa, feeling giddy from another close call. “Well, it’s not a total loss. I’ll give the shoes to a drag queen I know. Those boys love my size elevens. Zeppo, remember telling me if you lose your edge they might as well bury you? I think we’re losing our edge.”