Tightrope

by Teri White

  She shivered a little, but otherwise didn’t move.

  “Take it off, bitch, or I’ll rip it off.”

  They had the routine down perfectly.

  She began to pull the slip off. When the piece of silk and lace was almost over her head, Toby reached out and yanked until Hannah-the-Senator’s-Wife was sitting there naked. Except for the damned pearls, of course. Toby, still standing directly in front of her, ran two fingers around her neck, caressing the surface of the pearls more than that of her warm, scented flesh. He wondered what the necklace would go for.

  Her breathing grew fast and labored.

  “You look to me like a broad just asking to be raped,” Toby said, still whispering, still guiding his fingers along her skin. Technique was what made them glad to pay for his services. He always seemed to know exactly what it was a woman wanted from him, whether that meant roughness or tenderness; sex that was quick and clean, or screwing that was sweaty and dirty. Whatever they weren’t getting at home, he supposed.

  Hannah was watching him, her eyes made unnaturally bright by both passion and contact lenses.

  “A little rape in the afternoon. Beats the hell out of tea with the ladies in Sacramento, right, baby?”

  She made an unintelligible sound that was somewhere between a groan and a sob.

  Toby smiled and leaned against her until they both fell back onto the bed.

  10

  Lars made still another recon through the hotel lobby. His eyes moved constantly, checking out the endless flow of people around the marble arches. Underneath the crystal chandeliers, everyone looked tanned and successful. Most of all, these people all looked like they belonged. It was a private club and there wasn’t any room in it for the bastard son of a Cleveland barmaid.

  Lars self-consciously smoothed the front of his blue knit shirt, the one with the alligator on it. This was what it seemed liked everyone had been wearing the last time he was in the country, but now it seemed, what the hell was that word, déclassé. The fact that he felt uncomfortable here made him angry. To hell with them, he thought. All it took to join their damned special fraternity was money, and pretty soon he’d be a member in good standing.

  He’d been hanging out in the lobby of the Beverly Wilshire for almost two hours now, watching and trying to remain inconspicuous. So far, except for a redheaded actress he remembered from some old television sitcom, nobody looked familiar.

  But, he reminded himself, it had been a long time. If three years had passed since he’d last seen Dev, it must be four at least since Tobias Reardon’s path had crossed his. He and Reardon were friends, too, good friends, but it was different from the relationship he had with Dev. More edgy or something. Maybe the difference had to do with the fact that Devlin Conway had class; he’d been born with it. Reardon, on the other hand, was, like himself, a street fighter from way back. Though they liked each other, there was always a degree of mistrust between them. Born of deeply ingrained memories, it could not be overcome, even by genuine affection.

  Despite the years, though, when Lars finally did spot Reardon, he recognized the other man right away.

  It happened on El Camino Real, the private, cobblestone street that connected the two lobbies of the hotel. Lars was standing under one of the authentic gaslights, finishing a cigarette, when he saw Reardon coming toward him.

  He was wearing tight jeans, a white V-neck sweater that had to be cashmere set off by a single thin gold chain around a very tanned neck, and shiny loafers with no socks. His brown hair was cut long and his eyes were hidden by large mirrored sunglasses.

  Lars watched him move quickly but gracefully through the crowd. Amazing, but the damned gutter rat seemed to fit in very nicely. Still, there was something a little different in his carriage, maybe a slight tension to his spine that set him apart.

  Lars waited until Reardon was past, then fell into step just behind him. “Hear you been screwing around with my wife,” he said softly.

  Toby stopped abruptly and his shorter form seemed to brace itself slightly. Then he moved again. “Fuck off,” he muttered.

  “You haven’t changed a bit, you bastard.”

  He stopped again, turning this time so he could see who was speaking to him. After a moment, he grinned. “Shit. What rock did you crawl out from under?”

  Lars shifted the heavy ashtray closer and then took a sip of the too-sweet drink he’d ordered in the hotel pub. They hadn’t said much yet. Toby seemed to be waiting for him to make the first move. That was symptomatic of their relationship—neither man wanted to give an inch, risk handing the other an edge. Street kids playing king of the hill.

  Lars smoked and drank for another minute or so, deciding just how best to play this scene. “You seem to be doing okay,” he said finally.

  Toby shrugged. “I get along.”

  Lars almost smiled. More games. Toby didn’t want him to think he was a failure, but then again, just in case Morgan was leading up to a request for money, he didn’t want to come off like he was rolling in the stuff. “Well, getting along is good,” he said thoughtfully. “But would you be interested in doing much better?”

  Toby drank with a kind of practiced ease; the practice showed. “Which means?”

  “Which means making a lot of money.”

  “What’s your definition of a lot of money?”

  “A million dollars. Just for you.”

  A faint and sardonic smile flickered briefly beneath the disconcerting mirrors. “Okay. Who do I have to shtup?”

  Lars smiled, too, and shook his head. “Nobody. You can keep your cock in your pants on this deal. And once it all comes down, you won’t be fucking anybody unless you want to.”

  “I already do that. Mine is a very selective clientele.”

  Lars took another sip of the drink, beginning to get used to the sticky taste. Then he reached across the small table with one hand and lifted the damned Ray-Bans so that he could see the shrewd hazel eyes he knew were hidden there. “A few lines starting to show up, lover boy. Well, we’re all getting older.” He dropped the glasses back into place.

  Toby frowned.

  “Well?”

  He looked around the room. “See that broad over there, Lars? The one in the grey suit?”

  Lars looked. “I see her.”

  “She’s married to one of the most powerful men in the state. That’s an aide to the governor she’s having a drink with now. But just a little while ago, she was upstairs being royally screwed by yours truly.”

  “God. She looks old enough to be your mother.”

  “No, not really. But the point is, I do my act for her and she hands me two hundred dollars. Plus, this time, a hundred dollar Christmas bonus.”

  “I once saw a trained seal do his act for a couple of dried fish. At least your pay is better.”

  “Fuck you, Lars.”

  He grinned. “Hell, no, I can’t afford you.”

  “That much money, man, for what amounts to jacking off. It’s a simple life. No hassles, no danger, and all the free booze I can drink.”

  Lars shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. “Hey, Tobias, if you’re happy, fine. I was only making the offer. I just thought it would be good to get the three of us together again.”

  “Three? You’re saying that Devlin Conway is in on this?” Toby sounded surprised.

  “Sure.”

  “Sure, he would be,” Toby said softly. “You two were always tight.” He frowned again, looking across the room at the broad. “Okay, Wolf, what’s going on?”

  The old nickname brought a smile to his face. He leaned across the table confidentially. “Remember our diamonds?” he said softly.

  This time, Toby lowered the glasses himself and peered at Lars. “Sheee-it,” he breathed, sounding, even after twenty-five years away, like the son of an Oklahoma dirt farmer.

  11

  Spaceman was halfway through his cheeseburger by the time Blue came into the restaurant. Al
though, in truth, “restaurant” was probably a rather glorified term for this particular eating establishment. Owned and operated single-handedly by Joe Spinoza, a retired cop, the food that was served up in the diner was most often praised with the word “filling.” But it was right next to the cop shop, the prices were right, and Joe always had a kind word for his customers. There were days, many days, when a cop needed a friendly face more than haute cuisine.

  As Blue entered, he shut the door with considerably more ferocity than the job required and came over to the counter.

  Spaceman put the remains of the burger down and twisted on the stool to look at his partner. The blond settled next to him, carefully straightening the crease in his grey slacks, and folded his hands on the counter. Neither man spoke.

  Joe pulled himself away from the soap opera on his omnipresent television and came over. “Hiya, Maguire. What can I get for you today?”

  Blue pretended to study the grease-stained mimeographed menu that never changed. “Grilled cheese,” he said at last. “And some skim milk.”

  “Comin’ up.” Joe turned half of his attention to the grill. The other half was split evenly between the unmarried, pregnant, drug-addict daughter of the town doctor on the soap and whatever Spaceman or Blue might say.

  Spaceman maneuvered a french fry through the watery red pool of catsup on his plate. “So what’s going on down at stiff city?” he asked.

  Blue grimaced before giving the expected reply. “Kind of dead.”

  Spaceman grinned, not at the tired line, but at the fact that Blue had actually said it.

  Joe, however, laughed out loud. He loved the cops who came in, delighted in their gruesome, stale jokes about the work they did. He was generous with the food and also with the advice he liked to dispense.

  “Seriously,” Spaceman said. “Did you see her?”

  “Her?” Said with elaborate blandness.

  “Sharon, of course.”

  “Oh. I saw her. She did the post.”

  Spaceman lifted his burger again, took a bite, chewed vigorously, swallowed impatiently. “When the hell are you going to tell me what’s going on between you two?”

  “Nothing’s going on.”

  “Obviously. That’s what I mean.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” Blue poured the milk from its wax carton into the plastic tumbler and took a sip. “Maybe we should talk business. If I need any help with my love life, I’ll write Dear Abby.”

  “If you’d rather,” Spaceman said somewhat huffily.

  “I’d much rather.” Blue contemplated the television for a moment, watching Cathy Rigby McCoy talk perkily about sanitary napkins. “Something occurred to me a little while ago.”

  Spaceman, almost despite himself, had developed a certain respect for Maguire’s mind during their partnership. The man not only had a master’s degree, but he also had the smarts not to let that fact keep him from thinking. “What occurred to you?” Spaceman asked around the last bite of cheeseburger.

  “About the Hua killing and Marybeth Wexler.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Both of them were shot once in the back of the head.”

  “Believe it or not,” Spaceman said with an edge, “I had noticed that myself.”

  Joe set a plate in front of Blue. “Execution style, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Ms. Patrolperson of the Year already pointed that out,” Spaceman said.

  Blue unfolded the paper napkin. “I’m not saying much of anything yet. Except that maybe we’ve been so busy thinking about Marybeth’s damned roommate that we’ve missed the big picture.”

  “Ah, the big picture,” Spaceman said. He slid open the plastic door on the dessert case and took out the last piece of day-old, supermarket apple pie.

  Joe was getting interested now, leaving the knocked-up druggie to fend for herself. “You’re thinking mob, right? Now there’s a theory I could really get my teeth into and run with.”

  “Why don’t we run it up the flagpole and see who salutes?” Spaceman said with a grin.

  Blue was concentrating very hard on the charred sandwich. “I’m glad you’re so amused by murder,” he muttered.

  Spaceman felt a little guilty; there wasn’t much sport involved in bringing down a wounded animal. Blue, he realized, was really bothered by the Wexler broad’s death, seeming to feel some sense of responsibility for the murder. That guilt, added to a certain feeling of uncertainty about his own abilities as a detective, made Maguire easy prey. “Murder isn’t funny,” Spaceman said.

  “Just my theories about it, right?”

  “What’re you bellyaching about, Blue? Just tell me what the hell it is you’re thinking. Who would be interested in executing a gook restaurant owner and a cheap tramp like, uh, Wexler?”

  “I don’t know who. Or why.” He reached inside his pocket and pulled out an envelope. “But I just picked up the ballistics reports on both killings.”

  Spaceman gave him a dirty look. “You couldn’t have just said that in the beginning?”

  “And ruin the suspense?” Now Blue grinned as he dropped the envelope onto the counter. “Anybody like to make a stab at what these reports say?”

  Spaceman sighed. “Let me. Wexler and Hua were offed by the same goddamned gun.”

  “That’s very possible. Both of them were taken out with nine-millimeter ammo. The bullets might have come from the same weapon. Maybe a Browning or a Luger. Could be a Walther. You figured that out nicely. Anybody ever tell you that you’d make a great detective, Kowalski?”

  “Not lately.” Spaceman took a bite of the pie and chewed the sticky cardboard glumly.

  Hell, things kept getting worse and worse, and he hadn’t even started his Christmas shopping yet.

  Blue spent the evening addressing Christmas cards. As he worked on those, he also worked on a special bottle of Caussade Armagnac. Behind him, the television flickered on silently with some ridiculous holiday special. Noise was provided by the usual drone of the scanner.

  Blue was startled when, soon after ten, the phone rang shrilly. He carefully licked one more envelope, sealed it, and then reached to answer. “Hello?”

  “Hiya, Blue, it’s just me again.”

  The funny thing was, Blue felt no sense of surprise at all. It was almost as if he’d just been killing time with the damned cards and the Armagnac, waiting for the call. “Who is this?” he asked, but the question was strangely passive, without any heat or even the real expectation of a response.

  And, sure enough, there was no answer. Instead, the voice said, “I was just sitting here thinking about the old days. Do you ever think about those days, Loot?”

  Blue lifted the crystal snifter and took a careful sip of the warm, light Armagnac. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Selective amnesia is what they call that, good buddy.”

  “I’m not being selective and I didn’t say I’ve forgotten anything. I just don’t understand, is all.”

  “Who does? I mean, who the hell does? Besides, all that stuff about the old days is boring, right? The past is so fucking boring.”

  There was a long stretch of silence across the wire. He inhaled the faint aroma of wood and earth and truffles held captive within the snifter. He was about ready to hang up.

  “Man, it is snowing like hell out there.”

  Snow. Blue seized on that. “Out where?”

  “In my frigging backyard, of course.” The voice laughed, then sobered as suddenly. “Christ, we could have used some of this snow back then, right, Loot? It was so damned hot. You must remember how hot it was.”

  “Yeah …” Blue pressed the glass against his forehead.

  “You want to know what I think?”

  He didn’t want to know. Definitely not. But he heard himself say, “What?”

  “Sometimes I think that we all died in that place. We all died, but somebody fucked up and forgot to tell us. So now we’re just fucking
ghosts walking around, pretending to be alive. You ever feel like that, Loot?”

  Blue shook his head.

  Then he hung up.

  He poured some more Armagnac and drank it, watching his hand shake.

  12

  Lars took another long pull on the bottle. This was good beer, Aass Bok, and he was enjoying it. In fact, he was enjoying the whole evening. It wasn’t often he got the chance just to relax and be like other people. But with his feet propped on the railing of the small, trim boat named the Homeport, he could gaze out over Marina del Rey and think about the good life.

  Toby emerged from the cabin with two more beers and a couple of sandwiches. He set the bottles and the plate down before sitting again.

  “I had no idea there was so much money in sex,” Lars said, indicating the surroundings with a lazy wave. “Maybe I would’ve become a lover instead of a fighter.”

  Toby grimaced. “The bank owns more of this thing than I do. But someday …”

  “Someday soon.”

  “Maybe.” Toby picked up one of the sandwiches and took a bite. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment.

  “Of course, with the kind of money we’re talking about here, buddy, you can get a boat that will make this one look like a garbage scow.”

  “I like this boat fine,” Toby said mildly. He leaned back in the canvas deck chair and stared at Lars. The sunglasses had been discarded finally, replaced by horn-rims that his rich female clients probably never saw. They made him look rather like an intense grad student. “I might be interested in this, Lars. Maybe. But I want the bullshit to stop. Probably Devlin Conway will fall for whatever line of fast talk you lay on him, but he always was a sucker for you. I want the straight dope and I want it now.”

  Lars smiled. This was what he liked best about Toby; there was a minimum of crap to go through, once they quit sparring around. “Okay.” He paused to watch a couple of women in shorts walk by on the dock. “I’ve been in touch with some connections in the local Vietnamese community. They tell me that the diamonds—our diamonds—are being brought into this country very soon. In fact, they might already be here, though I hope not.”