“I know you don’t. I’ll just repeat what I said yesterday.
Surely you want the real killer to be caught as much as I do.”
“The real killer is caught.” He reached down and scratched his crotch through his jeans.
“Then humor me,” I said. “How much money was Rebecca Gibson going to make over the next year?”
That seemed to catch him off guard. “I don’t know,” he said. He slapped the basketball and did an over-the-shoulder hook shot that missed the hoop by at least a foot.
“Take a guess.”
He grabbed the ball as it careened off his office door. He moved like a sixteen-year-old trying to impress the girl next door. “Anybody’s guess. The new album takes off, she picks up an award or two. Best estimate, maybe a million, million-three, maybe million and a half. Worst estimate, low six figures.”
“What’s your cut of that?”
His nonstop motion ceased for just a moment, and he glared at me, insulted. “My cut is whatever salary I take out of this place. MFA Incorporated gets a twenty-percent management fee from all its clients. And, by the way, we work our butts off for that commission.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t. I only ask because I’m trying to gauge how much everyone’s lost.”
“A shitload,” he said. “The world’s lost a shitload.” He flung the ball in a wide arc toward the hoop again. This time, the ball sailed through the net without touching metal.
“Swish!” he called. “She was a great talent.”
“Let’s assume that Slim didn’t kill his ex-wife. If you had a list of suspects that included everyone she knew, who would you pick out of the lineup?”
Mac Ford’s face darkened, although in the dim light it was hard to tell, especially with the two-day growth of beard and the mop of scraggly black hair that draped down over his forehead after that last jump shot.
“That’s a dangerous game, man,” he said. “Unfounded accusations can get you in trouble.”
“Nobody’s accusing anybody. But the way I see it, you’re the second biggest loser in this whole affair. Rebecca Gibson lost her life.”
“Hey,” he said, letting another one fly to the hoop, this one swishing nylon as well. “I’ve still got my health.”
“Minus a pretty good-sized fortune Rebecca Gibson was going to make for you over the next few years.”
“Okay, okay,” he said. He leaned against a wall and scratched at his chin. “The way I see it, nobody benefited financially. We’re all losers. So it had to be revenge or passion or something like that. An old lover. For that matter, a new lover.”
“Would that be Dwight Parmenter?”
“Maybe. If I was checking everybody out, I’d sure add him to the list.”
“Is he one of your clients?”
He snorted. “Dwight? Hell, no. Dwight ain’t got the fire in his belly.”
“But he might have enough fire in his belly to beat Rebecca Gibson to death with his bare hands.”
“Them’s two different kinds of fires, bud.”
“What about this guy Pinkleton? The guy who was her road manager.”
“Yeah, she canned his ass a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it? She told me she was going to. Said he’d been hitting the nose candy kind of hard and equipment had been disappearing. She figured he was ripping it off and selling it to buy dope.”
“Isn’t that something you would handle? Firing Pinkleton, I mean?”
“Becca was a control freak. I handled her contracts, money, billings, accounting, tour schedules, dealing with the battalion of idiots a major act has to deal with. But when it came down to the nitty-gritty of putting a show together, who played what and when and where and how loud, Becca did it all herself. Anybody who tried to tell her what to do got slapped down, hard.”
“So you thought she was hard to deal with, too.”
Mac Ford crossed back in front of me and fell back into his chair so hard it rolled back and slammed into the wall behind him. He grabbed the now dead cigar out of the ashtray, then lifted his legs and let them fall with a thud onto the desk.
“You just had to know how to handle her, that’s all. I never had any trouble with her.”
He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a disposable butane lighter, then fired it up and relit the cigar with the three-inch-long flame. He inhaled deeply, taking the smoke into his chest like it was a cigarette, then sighed as he exhaled a stream of blue toward the ceiling. Iron lungs, I guess.
I thought for a moment. “So if you were drawing up a list, you’d put Dwight Parmenter and Mike Pinkleton at the top?”
“Yeah, that’d have to be it. You can take it to the bank, bud; if Slim Gibson didn’t kill Rebecca, then one of them two others did.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me that might lead somewhere?”
He thought for a second. “Nope, that’s about it.”
“Okay,” I said. “I guess that’s all I need for now. Like I say, I’m just following a trail to see where it goes. Thanks for helping me out. Can I call you again if I need anything else?”
“Hey, bud, you call me anytime. Grab one of those cards off the desk. It’s got my home phone number. And you be careful, you hear? Anybody that can beat the dogshit out of somebody as hard as he did Rebecca ain’t going to be shy about doing it again.”
“That’s already occurred to me,” I said.
He didn’t look like he was going to make any attempt to crawl out of that chair, and I didn’t feel like leaning across his desk through the smoke to beg for a hand-shake. I stood up and pocketed one of his cards, then turned for the door. As I opened it I caught a glimpse of him reaching for the remote control. He punched a button, and this time the room was filled with a raw, rocking beat that had the momentum of a runaway locomotive.
When I closed the door, the roar inside Mac Ford’s office was muffled almost completely. Alvy Barnes sat at her desk, typing something into a computer. She turned and smiled at me.
“Get everything you need?”
“For the time being,” I said.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a couple of business cards. “I meant to give him one of these. Can I leave it with you?”
“Sure.”
“There’s another one there. You keep it. Like I told Mac, I’m just trying to find out anything that will lead me to the truth. If you think of anything that might help, will you give me a call, too?”
She brushed the two cards into the center of her desk drawer. “Glad to.”
“Thanks. It was good to see you again,” I said, turning to leave. “By the way, how does he get any work done in there with all that noise?”
Alvy shook her head. “Beats me. I’ve been working here two years, and he does that every day. He has a great mind, but it works in mysterious ways.”
I walked down the long hallway alone, then down the stairs. Next to the receptionist’s desk, I stopped and listened. I was directly below Mac Ford’s office. Amazing, I thought, these old buildings are really solid.
Outside, I settled into the Mazda and managed to get it cranked up. The traffic on Music Row was backed up so far I couldn’t get out of the parking lot, so I turned and went down the driveway and into the alley, figuring I’d exit out onto a side street. Behind Mac Ford’s building, like a lot of buildings on the Row, there was a private parking lot carved out of what had once been somebody’s backyard. Signs warned strangers not to park and threatened towing to Siberia. Other signs marked off slots by name. The center parking space, the one closest to the back entrance of the building, had a sign that read RESERVED: MAC FORD.
A silver Rolls-Royce was parked in the slot. I don’t know much about Rolls-Royces, only that they cost a hell of a lot and are real nice to look at. I don’t know what year or model this one was, but I recognized the insignia.
On the back of the Rolls was a mounted vanity plate: TRUSNO1. It took me a second to figure it out.
Trust no on
e.
My office building seemed especially dusty and seedy in the bright morning light, although damn little sunshine managed to filter in. Down the hall on the first floor, a door opened and a fat, balding man with thick glasses and khaki pants pulled up to his sternum looked out into the hallway. From under his right armpit, a shoulder holster with a Smith & Wesson .38 dangled loosely.
“Hi, Mr. Porter,” I said as I passed.
“Hello,” he said, ducking back into his office and closing the door. Mr. Porter was a gem dealer, had been in the building since the late Forties, and had seen life evolve from Ozzie and Harriet days until the time when he had to carry a pistol inside his own office. I’d seen him maybe three times since I’d rented my office. He never seemed to have any customers, never seemed to leave the place. I wondered if he lived there.
I trotted up the stairs to the second floor and turned the corner toward my office, then stopped. I reversed direction and went down to the end of the hallway and rapped on Slim and Ray’s office door.
There was no answer, no sound from inside, so I went back to my office. Occupancy in the building had dropped off lately, with our two offices the only ones rented on the second floor. Maybe I should move, I thought. This old building wasn’t exactly the most prestigious address in the city. On the other hand, it was one of the most affordable.
I unlocked my door and went in. The red light on my answering machine was blinking away. I pulled my coat off and hit the playback button, then grabbed a pencil to write down numbers.
Six messages; what a pain.
Lonnie was number one. “Just checking in,” he said, followed by a message from Marsha saying she’d tried to reach me at home last night and was I okay? Ray was number three, asking me to call him at home. Number four was a hang-up. Five was Mrs. Hawkins saying she hadn’t seen me home in a couple of days and was I okay?
Blast, I thought, I could use a message from Phil Anderson about my check from the insurance company, not to mention a new client every now and then.
Message number six began with silence and I thought it was another hang-up, then an old familiar voice came on.
“Nice place you stayed at last night, you son of a bitch. Trying to hide from me? That it? Well, you keep right on trying, bubba, ’cause there ain’t nowhere you gonna hide from me. You got that? Nowhere.”
I felt myself turning cold from the inside out, and like a kneecapped figure skater training for the Olympics, I found myself asking the age-old question.
Why me?
I began working my way down the list, first with an answering-machine message to Mrs. Hawkins to reassure her I was still around. I resisted the urge to think she was only keeping track of a tenant. She was a genuinely sweet old lady who seemed to consider me more of an adopted son than a paying customer. Then I tried Lonnie’s number, with no luck there, either, and left a quick message telling him I’d drop by that night on my way home if he was around.
I tried once again to get Phil Anderson on the phone at the insurance company, but this time even the secretary got a little smart with me.
“I’m sorry, he’s not available,” she said as soon as I identified myself. I felt her unspoken at least not to you.
“When will he be available?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, just the slightest little teaspoon of screw you in her voice.
“Would you mind checking?”
“I can’t disturb him. He’s in conference. If you’d like to leave a message …”
Yeah, I thought, I’d like to leave him a message. How about: Fuck you, Phil. Strong letter to follow.
“If you’d just tell him I called,” I said.
“I’ll give him the message.” Click.
I growled out loud, then dialed Ray’s number at home. It rang four times and an answering machine came on. Impatient and tired of having the phone glued to my ear, I started to hang up, then decided to at least leave a courtesy message.
“Ray,” I said after the tone, “it’s me, Harry. Just returning your—”
“Harry!” he burst in, yelling so loud it hurt my ears. “Don’t hang up!”
“Screening our calls, are we?” I said.
“Have to. It’s these damn reporters. They’re still calling two or three an hour. Damn pain in the ass.”
I decided not to remind him that I used to be one of those pain-in-the-ass reporters. “No problem. What’s up?”
“Well, we think we might have found Slim a lawyer. You know a Herman Reid?”
I quickly ran through my mental database of lawyers. “Yeah, saw him in court once. Top-notch fellow.”
“I talked to him this morning. He’ll take the case, but he wants ten grand up front.”
I whistled. “Justice ain’t cheap, is it? Can you raise that kind of money.”
“I cleaned out my savings account and maxxed out the cash advances off my credit cards. I’m close. Few hundred more ought to do it.”
I marveled at the lengths Ray was willing to go to help out his partner. “He’s lucky to have you,” I said. “I wish I had the cash to help you out, Ray. But I’m kind of strapped.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re doing more to help this way. Slim’s innocent and we’ve got work to do,” Ray said. “Have you had any luck?”
“Not much,” I answered. “I’ve been snooping around, just seeing where it leads. I need to get in touch with a couple of guys, if you’ve got addresses and phone numbers.”
“Let me get my black book,” he said, his voice fading as he pulled the phone away from his ear. I heard a rustling in the background, then: “Okay, shoot.”
“That other singer in the roundtable Sunday night, Dwight Parmenter.”
“The current boyfriend …”
“You got it.”
“He lives in an old house with a couple of other guys down off Music Row.” I copied down the address and phone number as Ray read it off.
“The other guy, that fellow Rebecca fired a couple weeks ago. Pinkleton, Mike Pinkleton.”
“Oh, Jesus, Harry, be careful. That guy’s rough as a corncob. Last I heard, he was living in a motel up on Dickerson Pike. You know where the Sam’s Club is near I-65?”
“Yeah, great part of town.”
“Okay, it’s down Dickerson Pike from there, toward town. On the right, the big motel with the neon American flag out front. I think it’s called the College Inn or something like that.”
“Like one of those motels down on Murfreesboro Road? You know, the ones where the rooms rent by the week?”
“Exactly,” he said. “Hookers, transients, outlaws on the run. Human garbage.”
“C’mon, Ray, human garbage has feelings, too.”
He snorted. “Wait’ll you see some of Pinkleton’s feelings.”
“I got to run. You going to be in the office today?”
“Later this afternoon. I’m trying to scrape together the last of the lawyer money, then I’m going to go see Slim. You hear they impounded his bank accounts?”
“How can they do that?”
“The courts can do anything.”
“How’s Slim going to pay his bills, keep his house note up?”
“I don’t know,” Ray said, the weight in his voice heavy, stifling. “He may lose it all. Maybe Herman Reid can get the court to unfreeze the assets before it’s too late.”
“We’ve got a little time,” I said. “It takes, what, three months to foreclose on a house?”
“Something like that.”
“If I’m going to use the time we’ve got, I got to get moving, pal. Hang in there.”
I may hate guns, but I’m not exactly defenseless. If I’m going to hang around an outlaw strip searching for somebody who might just be a murderer, then I was going to use whatever I had to take care of myself.
I took the stun gun out of my pocket and fired it off a couple more times. Inside the right-hand bottom drawer of my desk, the deep, double-sized one, there was
a pair of handcuffs, a pocket-sized can of Mace, and a fiberglass nightstick with a little extra weight in the end. I folded the handcuffs together and stuck them in my back hip pocket. They were cold and hard against my butt, but comforting in a strange sort of way. I slipped the Mace into my left pants pocket. Carrying a nightstick openly wasn’t the coolest idea in the world, so I tucked it up under my coat as I left.
Heavily loaded and armed, I crossed Seventh Avenue and retrieved the car. I tucked the nightstick down between the console and the driver’s seat, where I could yank it up in a flash. Then it was through the downtown traffic, past the construction on Second Avenue, up First Avenue, and across the river.
East Nashville slipped on like an old, comfortable sweater as I left the downtown congestion behind me. I headed out Main Street, past the empty grass lot that had once been the sprawling Genesco factory, then around the curve onto Gallatin Road. I left the main drag shortly after and made my way through the side streets to my apartment.
I needed a change of clothes, and if I was going to be out in the field for a while, I figured I’d better ditch the coat and tie. I transferred all my pocket clutter into the jeans, then pulled out the olive-drab field jacket I’d bought at Friedman’s Army Surplus when I was on stakeout in Louisville. The stun gun and the Mace can went into the field jacket’s large side pockets.
Outside, Mrs. Hawkins was bent over a flower bed on the other side of her new garage with a trowel in one hand and a huge clump of dirt in the other. I started calling to her as I went down the stairs so as not to scare her to death, and managed to get her attention as I hit the driveway.
“Harry,” she called. “Where have you been?”
I stooped down next to her in the flower bed. “I left you a message. Didn’t you get it?”
“Oh, that darned machine. I forgot to check it. Pesky contraptions, telephones.”
I smiled at her. “They ought to be outlawed.”
“Looks like you’ve been busy.”
“Very. As a matter of fact, I’ve got to be off now.”
“I’m glad things have improved,” she said. “Sometimes I feel guilty taking rent from you when you’re short of money.”
Denton - 03 - Way Past Dead Page 19