It was around seven by the time he got in to his apartment. His snotty cat, Ilsa, was perched on top of the answering machine, which meant there had been a call. R.J. stuck a plate of cat food on the linoleum by the refrigerator and Ilsa glided over to it and started smacking away.
Sure enough, the light was blinking. R.J. hit Play and in a moment Casey’s voice filled the room.
“It’s me,” she said. “I didn’t want to bother you at the office.” That was just like her; work came first for Casey, and she hated like hell for anything to disturb her work. She assumed everybody else felt the same way.
“I’m here, I’m fine, the plane didn’t crash. I’m staying at the Beverly Hilton until I get settled.” A pause. “It’s quite a place.” Another pause. “Gotta go. Talk to you later.” And then just line hum for a moment until the dial tone came back on and the machine hung up.
R.J. tried to imagine what her face had looked like when she spoke to him down the long wire. He couldn’t. Maybe there had been some small touch of softness there around her mouth. Maybe a hint of nostalgia in her eyes. Most likely, though, just the same cool amusement.
He tried to picture her in the overstated tackiness of the Beverly Hilton. Compared to the Pierre, it was a fat drunk in a madras suit, Shriner’s hat, and a tie with glowing red light-bulbs. Still, it was kind of tasteful by L.A. standards. It shouted money, but it was old money for Hollywood, at least thirty or forty years old. Maybe Casey would fit right in, with her ironic detachment.
R.J. almost smiled at the thought. But she had left no room number, no invitation to call back, and that took the smile out of him.
R.J. sat heavily in the chair beside the answering machine. Ilsa was still making smacking noises at her dish. I should probably eat something, too, R.J. thought.
But he wasn’t hungry.
CHAPTER 11
R.J. ended up in a restaurant, anyway. Even though he wasn’t hungry.
He sat beside the phone for ten or fifteen minutes. He replaced Casey’s message twice more, just to hear her voice. Jesus, I’ve got it bad, he told himself. He rewound the tape, drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair for a minute. R.J. knew he had to do something to break the mood or he would end up down in that warm-looking bar.
He hated like hell to think about going that way again. He’d lived inside a bottle too long, fought too hard to crawl out of it. If he had even one drink now—Well, he was sure he could quit again but it was hard, too hard to think about. Some people could tell their troubles to strangers over a glass of beer. For R.J. the stuff was poison.
Poison. That goddamned lawyer. Murray Goddamn Belcher. Without consciously thinking about it, R.J. realized he’d been turning the thing over in his mind. Something bothered him. Who murdered a guy three thousand miles from home? Sure, German tourists got killed in Florida. But this was different. Poison.
That meant somebody hated the guy. Enough to kill him in a bad way. A sneaky way. Hated him enough to plan ahead and get poison and figure out how to get it to him—in a hotel room? Why not at home in L.A.? Easier to plan—and who knew Murray Belcher in New York?
R.J. didn’t really know. Maybe it made sense. Maybe Murray had lots of enemies in New York. Maybe all over the country for Christ’s sake. But it didn’t add up.
Or maybe it did. R.J. didn’t know enough to be sure.
For the first time, he wanted to.
R.J. picked up the phone and dialed Angelo Bertelli.
“Hiya, copper,” he joked when Angelo picked up. “This is your favorite hard-boiled gumshoe.”
“No kidding? Columbo, calling me? Hows about that!”
“I need a couple of hints on something, Angelo. You want some dinner?”
“Hey, I could do that. Say Ferrini’s, half an hour?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Ciao.”
R.J. shrugged on his coat and headed out, feeling better. This wasn’t really his problem, but doing something was better than sitting around stewing. Besides, if he was still the leading suspect after all this time, Kates was never going to solve this thing. And that meant R.J. was going to have it hanging over his head for the rest of his life.
Ferrini’s was a cozy place down on Mulberry Street. Angelo liked it because Ferrini liked Angelo. And just incidentally they made the best marinara sauce in Manhattan. R.J. took a cab down to the restaurant. He was taking a lot of cabs lately. He wondered if that meant something. Maybe he was getting old. Maybe he was lonely, so lonely he needed to hear the surly Pakistani babble of a New York cabdriver.
Whatever. R.J. paid off the cabbie on the sidewalk in front of Ferrini’s and went in.
It was a dim joint, depending mostly on candles for light. The decor was low key, homey. None of that chianti-bottle-with-a-candle-in-it crap, but real southern Italy home-style. Anyway, that’s what Angelo said. R.J. hadn’t been inside all that many southern Italian homes, so he couldn’t say.
“Ah, Meesater Ehbrooks,” Ferrini crooned as R.J. hit the door. “Buona sera. Meesater Angelo he’s await.” He beckoned toward the back. “Please?”
R.J. followed Ferrini to a table in the back, separated from the other tables by a small aisle leading to the kitchen. Angelo was already there, sipping a glass of Peroni beer. “R.J.!” he called out, and then to Ferrini, “Acqua minerale, per favore.” Ferrini bowed and smiled at Angelo and said something in Italian, too fast for R.J. Angelo said something back and made a hand gesture. Then Ferrini laughed and zipped off to the kitchen.
“You two weren’t laughing at my haircut, were you?” R.J. said as he slid into a chair.
“Naw, that’s a much louder laugh, and he brings out all the waiters to look. We was just laughing because we’re Italian and we’re talking.” He shrugged. “It’s a culture thing. Don’t go getting paranoid on me, R.J.”
“Tough to avoid.” R.J. sighed. “Every time I turn around lately I bump into your buddy Boggs.”
Bertelli shook his head. “I know, I know. Kates has this bee in his bonnet, and he can’t get no honey from it, but he’s afraid it’ll sting him if he lets go.” He spread his hands and shrugged. “Whaddya gonna do?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” R.J. said. Angelo opened his mouth, then closed it again as Ferrini set a liter of chilled mineral water in a green bottle in front of R.J. “Grazie,” R.J. said.
“Prego,” Ferrini murmured and quickly left the table.
“Angelo,” R.J. said, unscrewing the cap of the bottle and pouring a glass full, “my ass is in a sling. I thought this might die down when Kates woke up, but he’s still sleepwalking and it’s getting on my nerves. He’s still after me and it’s a couple of weeks now. That means he’s not going to let go, and since I didn’t do it that means five years from now he’ll still be trying to nail me for Murray Goddamn Belcher.” He sipped the water. “So I figured maybe I should take a look at this thing.”
Angelo blew out a big breath and shook his head. “R.J., you’re like a brother to me,” he started.
“Aw, cut the crap, Angelo, isn’t that what the mob guys say before they pull the trigger?”
Bertelli pointed a finger at R.J. and dropped his thumb. “Goombah, if they found out I was feeding anything to the principal suspect in this case, my ass is grass.”
“So I am still the principal suspect?”
“Bet your ass you are, R J. And I shouldn’t have told you that much. Sorry. I tried to steer the investigation another way, and now I’m not allowed near the case anymore.” He shrugged again. “There’s nobody else they like at all. Belcher is in town for like two days, nobody else raised their voice at him. Just you. They got you in the room with the guy, fighting with the guy, mad enough to do something, smart enough to know how—” Angelo shook his head. “Sonofabitch, the more I think about it, the more I like you for it, too.”
“Knock it off, for Christ’s sake, Angelo.”
“Sorry, R.J. But they got enough to keep an eye on
you, keep hassling you. They don’t got enough to arrest you or they would’ve already.” Bertelli wagged a finger at R.J. “Sometimes I think the L.T. don’t like you much.”
“No shit,” R.J. snorted. “So what can you tell me?”
“I think I know how you did it,” Bertelli said.
“Tell me. I forgot already.”
“The poison was in the food, from room service.”
“Then I am pretty good,” R.J. said. “They run that hotel tighter than Fort Knox. How’d I manage it?”
“You are good, R.J. Very cute. Listen to this.” He held up a finger and waved it in the air as he talked. “Waiter comes off the elevator with the cart. Turns the corner—Hey. Some asshole opened up the hall window. It’s nicking freezing in here. So the waiter leaves the cart—the food might get cold, huh?—goes down the hall, maybe forty feet. Shuts the window, comes back to the cart, delivers it, goes back downstairs.”
“The waiter checks out?”
Angelo nodded. “Cleaner than the Pope’s ring finger. He’s been working there twenty-six years. Deacon of his church, six kids—like they wrote the part for some old Perry Mason or something.”
“All right,” R.J. said. “Then it has to be the window.”
“Bingo,” said Bertelli. “So I get out there and I poke around on the fire escape. It’s a tough climb, but it’s doable. But there’s no footprints. No bloody glove, no white Bronco, nothing. But he doesn’t have to come in that way, it could be just a distraction. Whatever. I would bet the ranch that whoever it was came in, opened the window, went back down the hall, and hid around the corner. He waits for the waiter to go close the window, dumps in the poison, and he’s outta there.”
“What did he dump it in?”
“Plate of prosciutto.”
R.J. frowned. “There were two other people in the suite—Janine Wright and her daughter, Mary.”
“Yeah, I know. But Belcher ordered the prosciutto. Wright and the kid weren’t even eating.”
“But the killer wouldn’t have to know that. He might have just been watching for a chance.”
“And hoping he got the right one?”
“Maybe not caring which one he got.”
Angelo made a face. “Sorry, R.J. I can’t buy it. Poison is usually pretty personal.”
“Sure. Like that stuff in the Tylenol bottles a few years back.”
Angelo smiled. “That was some nut getting off on killing strangers. This is different.”
“It’s always different, Angelo. What else can you tell me?”
“I shouldn’t have told you that much, R.J. Except you plied me with liquor.” He drained his beer glass and set it down. “I’ll tell you this, though. First, there ain’t much more to tell. And second—” He smiled again and his teeth shone in the candlelight. “—Kates wants you for this so bad he can taste it. Watch your ass, R.J.”
And that was all R.J. could get out of him. They had their excellent dinner and talked about other things—the Knicks, local politics—but that was it. A small piece of R.J.’s mind stayed on the poisoning of Murray Belcher, and he went home full of marinara sauce and dissatisfaction.
Monday morning R.J. was not feeling a whole lot better, but at least he was starting to get used to feeling bad. He woke up early and as he stared into the shaving mirror, he told himself it was time to get a grip on himself. The face that looked back at him was slack, puffy, doughy-looking.
R.J. was no yuppie, but he hated to get soft. So he did his whole series of exercises—sit-ups, push-ups, crunches—and then ran a mile downtown and back again.
As always, getting his blood going like that made him feel alive, smart, ready for anything. He almost caught himself singing in the shower.
R.J. had a quick breakfast of a bagel and orange juice and headed for his office. For once he beat Wanda there by a good quarter of an hour. She came in a few minutes before nine and almost jumped out of her skin when she saw him.
“Jesus, boss,” she said. “I thought you were a mugger.”
“I may try that if business doesn’t pick up,” he told her. He set a cup of coffee on her desk. “Here you go.”
Wanda eyed him suspiciously. “What’s this?”
“It’s coffee.”
She still seemed scared to touch the mug. “You never make coffee.”
“This morning I made coffee. Go ahead, drink the stuff.”
She picked up the mug and took a careful sip, making a face right away. “My God, boss. Now I know why you never make coffee.”
R.J. gave her a hurt look. “It’s from imported beans,” he said.
“If anybody on Ellis Island tasted this stuff, they’d deport it again,” she told him.
“That shows how much you know. They haven’t brought anybody through Ellis Island for years.”
She sipped again and made an even worse face. “This stuff tastes plenty old enough.”
But before he could fill up his lungs and hit her with a snappy comeback she flung a white paper bag at him. “It’ll probably go down easier with one of these,” she said.
R.J. opened up the bag. “Cinnamon rolls,” he said. “Doll, I just promoted you to special executive assistant.” He took a big bite and a sip of his own coffee. It tasted all right to him.
After the cinnamon roll, the coffee, and even the verbal sparring with Wanda, R.J. began to feel that this might not be a completely awful day. Okay, he was a murder suspect and Casey was gone. But life went on and he had a job to do.
A few minutes after nine he settled himself at his desk with more coffee—ignoring Wanda’s looks—and dialed Kelley’s parole officer in Connecticut.
They’d told him the party he wanted was an H. Gillam. After three rings, a bored-sounding woman answered. “Gillam,” she said.
“My name is R.J. Brooks, Ms. Gillam,” R.J. said, swallowing the last bite of cinnamon roll. “I’m a private investigator in Manhattan.”
Ms. Gillam gave a long sigh. “Okay,” she said.
Great, R.J. thought. Nine A.M., and it’s attitude time already in Connecticut. But out loud he said, “I’m trying to confirm the whereabouts of a William Kelley.” After a short pause with no response, he added, “I was hoping you could help me.”
“Uh-huh,” said Ms. Gillam.
R.J. began to think that maybe he was wrong, maybe this really would be a terrible day after all. He didn’t know this woman from Adam and here she was pulling the Go-Ahead-Make-My-Day crap on him. R.J. was on the point of trying something cute, like asking for her supervisor’s name, when all of a sudden Ms. Gillam giggled.
“Hello?” said R.J.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I tried to hold myself together, but this is just—” and she giggled again.
“What is?” R.J. asked. Hostility he could at least understand. It was one of the perks of his tough trade. But parole officers are supposed to be tough, too, and to have one giggle at him was disturbing. He didn’t know what to think.
“What was he really like?” Ms. Gillam asked.
R.J.’s head was spinning. Maybe there was something wrong with the coffee, he thought. “What was who really like? Kelley?”
“No. You know,” she said coyly.
“Uh, no. No, I don’t know.”
“Your faa-ther,” she bleated.
Well, thought R.J., you never know where you’re going to find one. He was only a little surprised that she had recognized him by his name alone. But it was happening more and more. As for the rest of it, well—
He’d been plagued by his father’s fans his whole life, and the most he could say about them now was that it didn’t bother him anymore. He’d gone through a phase where the mention of his father’s name made R.J. furious, then fiercely protective, then paranoid, bitter, amused, and finally tolerant. R.J. knew who he was now, and he wasn’t competing with his old man, and the only thing about the whole fan business he still found interesting was who turned out to be one. Like a Connecticut parole
officer who was supposed to be tough.
“He was a great guy,” R.J. said, giving her stock answer number seven, “but he drank too much.”
“Maybe that was part of his greatness,” Gillam offered.
“Sure,” R.J. said. “Booze makes you smart, everybody knows that.”
“Because he really was great,” she went on, ignoring him. “The greatest. Unbelievable. But you know that. Whoo,” she said with another giggle, “I can’t believe I’m talking to you.”
“I’m having some trouble with it myself.”
“Because I have seen your picture in the papers over here and you look just like him, did you know that?”
“No, I never noticed that,” R.J. said. It didn’t matter; she just kept rolling.
“And I have always thought, whoo. That is one sexy man. Your father, I mean, not you.”
“Yeah, I know. Not me.”
She rattled on for another ten minutes. When she finally wound down, R.J. knew that her first name was Heidi, she was divorced with two kids, lived in Torrington, Connecticut, had a birth mark that you wouldn’t hardly notice unless, you know; she went bowling with a church group on Wednesday nights, was paying for braces for both kids, and her car was in the shop again.
R.J. also managed to get out of her, finally, that William Kelley was also living in Torrington, in a small apartment over a block of shops downtown. He had a job as a clerk in a convenience store on the edge of town and seemed to be settling down into life outside prison about as well as could be expected. “He still says he’s innocent,” Ms. Gillam told R.J.
“You think he is?”
“Aw, they all say that. They’re all innocent.”
“Well, thanks for the information,” R.J. said.
“No problem. Let me know if you get over this way. We could have lunch.”
“Sure,” said R.J., gritting his teeth. “Thanks again.”
“I mean it,” she said, but R.J. hung up before she could make dinner, or offer to do a tango for him with a rose in her teeth.
And there it was. Case solved. It was too easy. He had it all on a slip of paper in front of him: 713 Oak Street. R.J. had never lived in a town that had a street named Oak Street. Or if it did, the city fathers were just kidding. There were parts of Los Angeles that played some pretty cruel jokes with street names.
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