The Caesar Clue (The Micah Dunn Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

“I need a license number,” I said. “Can you run it for me?”

  “Tomorrow,” he yawned, and I realized he’d been sleeping. “Can’t it wait till then? I’ve spent the last twelve hours looking for teen-whores that went home to Mommy.”

  “I’d rather not,” I said. “Please, Sal. I’ll owe you one.”

  “Hell, after I fished you out of the river last year, you owe me a couple already. Okay, so what’s the number?”

  I gave it to him, along with the car description.

  “Female cauc driver,” I said. “Age twenty-something. And I’d like to know if there are any wants or warrants.”

  “Is this a criminal case?” he asked suspiciously.

  “I can’t say at this point.”

  “If it is, or if it becomes one, I don’t want to be the goddamn last to know.”

  I thought of telling him about Solly, and about my call from Belinda, but stopping the bureaucratic process once it starts is like getting toothpaste back in the tube.

  “Understood,” I said. “But I really need the person that belongs to that car.”

  “Okay, I’ll call up the night shift and have it run. Will you be at home?”

  “I’ll call you back,” I said.

  I drove to a little Greek place, had a gyro and some black coffee, and tried to make sense out of my meeting with the woman who called herself Belinda. Terrorists used naive young women in their schemes, but even if Belinda wasn’t a Rhodes scholar, she didn’t strike me as very naive, and if Julia Morvant had been her roommate, odds were she hadn’t been a fool, either. Belinda refused to say why her roommate had gone to Jamaica, but I had a feeling she knew: Julia had gone there with some purpose in mind, and then things had gone wrong and she’d tried to get back home.

  My watch said eight, so I went over to the pay phone in the corner, took out my pad, placed it on the shelf in front of me, and dialed.

  “Okay, Micah,” said a weary Mancuso. “Get ready to copy and then let me get back to sleep.”

  I picked up the pencil. “Shoot.”

  “Car and plates match. Car is registered to a Linda Marconi, Apartment 723, fifteen hundred Causeway Boulevard. No outstanding traffic or parking citations.”

  “Thanks, Sal.”

  “Hold up. I’m not finished.”

  “There’s more?”

  “A little. There’s an outstanding bench warrant from city court. Your Miss Marconi failed to answer a complaint for prostitution.”

  A couple of call girls, I thought, as I wheeled through the still tight traffic beading the Interstate. I passed over the canal into Jefferson Parish, my hand on the steering knob, and bit my tongue as a Winnebago borrowed my lane with five feet to spare.

  It explained a name nobody could trace, and a passport she’d probably gotten from somebody in the shadow world. It also explained how my name had come up; I’d done a job for some businessman, or lawyer, or real estate agent, who’d gone to Linda Marconi for solace. When she needed somebody in my line, she’d called her john and he’d been too glad it was just a name she wanted, and not shut-up money.

  The building had a Vacancies sign on the lawn, which said something about the state of the economy, because the structure was a new one, the architectural style Holiday Inn, with windows that looked out over Lake Pontchartrain. Like much of New Orleans, the lake was a phony. When Iberville made the initial exploration in canoes, in 1699, it was an imposing expanse, twenty miles from shore to shore, with a bounty of fish and waterfowl. Nearly three hundred years later it was a muddy agglomeration of sewage and disposable cans. Shell dredging destroyed much of the ecology, and no one in his right mind would eat a fish from the place, if a fish could be found, much less bathe in it. Above the surface, though, the illusion remained, so there were yacht races and motorboat sports, and from a tall building like Linda’s, it was a nice backdrop.

  I parked on the street and went inside. There was a parking garage, but I didn’t want to waste time looking for her car. I wanted to catch her before she’d had a chance to think up a new plan, back her into a corner, and not go away until she told me what was going on.

  The security guard gave me a quick once-over and decided a man with a lame arm wasn’t going to be a problem. I waited for a woman who looked like a legal secretary, big glasses and a set expression, to leave the elevator, and then pressed the button for seven.

  I’d never understood the attraction of these places. Nobody seemed to live in them; they just visited until the lease was up and then found someplace else. But there seemed an abundance of floaters, mostly young people, who enjoyed the life-style.

  The hallway was deserted, but from behind one of the doors a TV was playing. I found 723 and started to knock.

  Then I noticed the door wasn’t completely closed.

  I knocked and rang the buzzer, but a minute later there was still no response. Maybe she’s in the bathroom, I thought, or down the hall, with a friend, but the memory of Julia Morvant sent shivers through me.

  I pushed the door open and went in.

  Faint light from a standing lamp suffused the living room. I closed the door behind me and then spun into a crouch as a figure moved on my left. When I froze, the figure froze, too. I stood up again, slowly, letting my heart go back to normal, and turned up the intensity of the lamp. A mirror, covering the left wall. I’d been scared by an image of myself.

  But besides the two of us, the room was empty. I stepped around the coffee table, where pillows provided the seating. A faint smell of sweet incense hung in the air. Two doors on the other side of the room probably led to the bedrooms, while straight ahead, behind a counter, was the dining area. A picture window looked onto a balcony, framing the lake, with the causeway arrowing out in the distance against the water.

  Nothing was out of order and the same perfume I’d smelled in the bar lingered on the air. But something about it all bothered me.

  I walked to the dining area and stopped. A purse was on the table, and I was sure it was the same purse she’d carried to our meeting. I checked the kitchen, then went back into the living room.

  I didn’t like going into strangers’ bedrooms but didn’t see any alternative. I tapped on both doors and waited, then pushed open the first one.

  The room was dark so I flipped the wall switch.

  Light glowed down from an array of overhead lamps that framed a suspended mirror. In the center of the room was a king-size bed with a quilt. Smaller mirrors lined the other walls, around the closet and bathroom doors. The only other furnishing in the room was a bureau, and on the other side of the bed, a small bookcase.

  I checked the bathroom, but it was empty, so I went out, to the other bedroom.

  The smell of perfume was stronger in this one, and it was less elaborately furnished, just a bed, some records on a shelf, and some clothes on the floor in one corner. This was Linda Marconi’s room, I was sure, and a quick check of the bureau turned up some junk mail and a box of receipts to prove it. The apartment was evidently in her name, along with the utility bills, and some old check registers showed a haphazard attempt to keep track of her expenditures. It didn’t seem a problem, because her income looked to be comfortably in excess of what she paid out. I noted the account number and the name of the bank and kept going. The bottom drawer had been converted into a repository for memorabilia. Mixed in with assorted sex aids were pictures of her as a young girl, pictures with boys, and pictures at the beach. I found high-school love letters, and a letter from her mother, with an Alexandria return address. Linda was a pack rat, and I found an Alexandria High class ring from ‘82 and some old Mardi Gras doubloons. There was also a packet of recent snapshots, mostly pictures from the zoo, as if she were having fun with a new toy, but one showed two young women on a beach. I recognized Linda at once, and when I turned the photo over I saw the names Linda and Julia written in the same childish scrawl I’d found in the check register.

  I held the photo up to the light and stared down
at the other woman. She was in her early thirties, with chestnut hair to the shoulders, and a nice body, suggestively posed for whoever was taking the picture. Her mouth hinted at a smile, but, while Linda wore her sunglasses, Julia’s were perched on her head, as if she wanted the camera to see her eyes. I wondered what the eyes were seeing, then shrugged and dropped the packet of photos in my pocket. I shut the drawer and went over to the closet. Some frilly nighties, and some specialty leather gear. There was a stack of clothes on the floor, and when I moved toward the bathroom I kicked some shoes. Besides being a pack rat, Linda was a bit of a slob, which contrasted with the neat habits of her roommate.

  The bathroom was empty, but a douche bag coiled like a snake from the shower rod. I went back to Julia’s room and started a methodical check of the bureau, writing down the labels from underwear and other possessions, and looking for sales slips. I made a similar check of the closet. Maybe she had a favorite salesperson in whom she confided, someone who could tell me more than I knew so far.

  She had the expected inventory of split-crotch lace panties and high stockings. Also, a varied assortment of condoms, which showed she was no fool. I was hoping to turn up her address book, but she hadn’t hidden it in the bureau or the closet, so I moved to the bath.

  Feminine napkins and tampons were demurely out of sight, in the clothes hamper, but the hamper itself was empty of dirty clothes. I went to the medicine chest. A prescription could turn up a doctor, and I found what I was looking for: a plastic bottle of Elavil capsules, made out to Julia Griffith. I wrote down the prescription number, the name of the pharmacy, the date, the name of the pharmacist, and the doctor’s name, L.V. Laurent. The pills had been purchased last month, and the bottle was still full, so she’d obviously stopped having the problem and seen no need to take the medicine with her.

  I returned to the bedroom. This time I went to the shelf beside the bed. There was poetry by Dickey and Jarrell, and also Houseman and Yeats. The volume of Finnegan’s Wake had some pages still uncut, which I hardly held against her, but the single-volume Shakespeare was well thumbed. I went through the flyleaves, looking for inscriptions, maybe from some john who’d seen her as an Eliza Doolittle to his Professor Higgins. Or maybe from a time when she’d used her real name and added an address in case the book were lost.

  I almost lucked out with Omar Khayyam. There, on the inside cover, was a simple legend in blue ink: To Julie with love, Christmas 1984. From Jenny.

  I put the book back on the shelf, after holding it upside down to see what would fall out. But I wasn’t that lucky.

  The sound of the telephone on the bedside table startled me and I stood listening until the ringing stopped and the answering machine clicked on.

  I turned up the volume to catch the message. It was a man’s voice, giddy from alcohol.

  “Julia, listen, my name is Phil Ander—well, just Phil, okay?” He laughed as if it were all a big joke, but I could sense the nervousness. “I’m in town for two days and I thought maybe we could get together. I’m in Room 450 at the Sonesta. Give me a call. Oh, yeah, Bob from Houston gave me your number.”

  I reran the tape for the last week and got a mix of similar messages, all from men, all leaving only first names: Gus, Ron, Jack. … They seemed to melt together. I wrote down the names and her telephone number, as a matter of course, but I knew I’d find her phone was listed under another name. Then I went to the next room, where Linda had a similar machine. I listened to her messages.

  “Baby, this is Ralphie. The old lady’s outa town and I want some special, you know, like last time. If you ain’t around, how about your roommate?”

  There were some other calls with oblique allusions to the chain gang and the beltway, which tallied with the leather goods I’d found in the closet.

  But I was missing one item: While Linda Marconi might be content to keep things in a cardboard box in the dresser, her roommate seemed just the opposite. For Julia I had no doubt there would be a safety deposit box, maybe several of them, where she kept anything that could identify, incriminate, or otherwise disturb her orderly existence. The problem was I didn’t have time to look for the key.

  The smell of smoke seeping up from under the door told me I had even less time than I thought. I cracked the door and coughed as something acrid hit me in the face. A sickening haze was already starting to fill the room.

  The damn place was on fire.

  4

  It wasn’t as bad as it looked; just a cigarette that had fallen on the rug and smouldered until the synthetic fibers had finally reached flash point and started to release their deadly fumes. I held a handkerchief over my face until I got to the kitchen, then filled a jug up with water and, holding my breath, doused the charred area. I opened the big sliding door onto the balcony and stood over the street, gulping the night air. There hadn’t been enough heat to activate the sprinkler system and for some reason the smoke alarm hadn’t gone off, so I had some time to try to think it out.

  There wasn’t much thinking to be done: She’d dropped her cigarette on the rug, and the only reason I could think of was because somebody had surprised her and taken her somewhere by force.

  I took a deep breath and went back into the smoky room, noting the shower cap over the smoke alarm, probably something the girls had done because of their frequent use of candles. I went out into the hallway and closed the door behind me.

  The security guard in the lobby paid me less attention than when I’d come in, his nose thrust into a paperback thriller. I could have asked if he’d seen her come down with someone, but I didn’t want to get hung up there. Instead, I drove a block to a pay phone and called the number Solly had given me.

  It was answered in true spook fashion, no hello or drop dead, just the number repeated by a man who obviously wasn’t Solly.

  I left a message to call me at the pay-phone number and waited. I could have called Mancuso, but Jefferson Parish was outside his jurisdiction. And he’d already told me he was off the bomb case.

  Three minutes later the phone rang and I picked it up.

  “Micah?” It was Solly’s growl and I acknowledged with a brief description of what had happened, not mentioning the packet of photos I’d taken.

  “Jesus,” he snorted. “Well, you done good, boy. Hang in where you are. Don’t move.”

  I didn’t. I went back and sat in my car in the parking lot, watching the traffic slide past.

  Two women, both high-class hookers, one dead, the other taken. Worse, each had just contacted me. Somebody had been following Linda Marconi and had seen our meeting at the bar. But how had they gotten onto her? A phone tap? A coldness started to creep through me. The only tap that made sense was on my own line. I made a mental note to have my office swept tomorrow. And if a tap were found …

  A black Fairlane nosed into the lot, shoving hot air out of the way ahead of it, and Solly Cranich got out. He’d changed from his suit to a loose guayabera like my own, but the shirt couldn’t conceal the bulge on his right hip.

  “Micah,” he said, crushing my hand with his paw. “Look, we’ll take it from here on. The honcho says thanks, he owes you.”

  “Sure. Just one thing, Solly: She didn’t have a bomb, did she?”

  He gave me a funny, sideways look. “You mean the Morvant woman?”

  “That’s right.”

  He shrugged. “Well, it was just an idea.” He managed a gruff chuckle. “Another government theory bites the dust.”

  I nodded. “Well, do me a favor, will you? Since I’ve gotten dragged into this, I can’t exactly just drop out. Mind keeping me up to date?”

  Solly frowned, and then his face loosened up and he gave a wink. “No problem,” he said under his breath. “You deserve it.” I started away, but his voice caught me. “Micah, look, keep the lid on, okay?”

  I drove back to my place. This time there was a message from Katherine.

  “Micah?” Her voice came through static and I strained to hear. “Lis
ten … going okay … calling from Valladolid. Everybody’s off drinking, but I was thinking about you. I can’t stand it. Isn’t that crazy? I feel like a high-school girl. I’ll try again tomorrow. Love you.”

  The recorder beeped and I sighed. She was at Ek Balam, the famous site that had been responsible for our meeting. I tried to visualize her in the field, her jeans dirty and dust smearing her face under the straw hat, but I had trouble replacing the image of her when we’d met, in demure short-sleeved blouse and pleated skirt.

  I tried to force her out of my mind, thinking instead of the Marconi girl. I opened my desk drawer and stared down at the . 38 Detective Special. No. Guns were a last resort. I never carried except when I was out late, in certain parts of the city no sane person should have gone, and even then I was outgunned. I slammed the drawer shut and walked down to Jackson Square. They had barricades around the Cabildo, from the fire that had nearly destroyed it last year, and I remembered how close the fire had come to the cathedral. I went into a cafe and found a pay phone, where I dialed a wire man named Sessoms.

  He listened to my suspicions and promised to come the next day, early. “Meantime, I wouldn’t use the phone,” he said. “’Less, of course, you got something you want ’em to hear.”

  I walked back slowly, enjoying the descending cool of night. It was a Monday and the Quarter was moribund. A few tourists passed, swinging cameras, along with a couple of sailors. The streetwalkers had taken the night off, but then, everybody deserved to rest sometime.

  Back at my apartment, I bolted the door and settled down to read a history of yachting. Two hours later I was ready to go to sleep. But first I went back into the front room, took the revolver out of the drawer, and put it beside my bed.

  I’d almost finished my morning exercises when Gerald Sessoms knocked on the door. I was glad for the interruption, because after a hundred sit-ups and some other routines that didn’t require two arms, I was down to the point of trying some isometrics with my left. The doctors said there was nerve damage and it was true I couldn’t feel anything, but I kept forcing myself to place it next to the other one on the chin-up bar, or against solid obstacles, because I was deluded enough to think that one of these days the muscles would get the message, and then the nerves. But doing the exercises meant I had to think about it, which was why I was glad when Sessoms knocked.