“Just some coffee.”
“That’s all?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“The same for me, then.”
Kelly Dorff slumped into the corner of the booth. The fur-trimmed hood of her jacket pillowed her shoulders, and hair parted in the center framed a narrow face. The rims of her green eyes looked as if she’d either been crying or smoking dope.
“Are you wearing a microphone?” she asked sullenly.
“No.” Elaine had to smile. “This is just you and me.”
“Sorry. I feel like everything I do, they want to know about it.”
Elaine had debated calling Vincent Hooper for clearance in speaking to Kelly Dorff. Aware of her resolution not to call him at all, she had decided to tell him later. Or not, depending.
Kelly unzipped her jacket and took it off, folding it on the seat. Her collarbones showed at the neckline of a thin pullover, and her hair fell to cover her small breasts. She hesitated in reaching for her purse. “Do you mind if I have a cigarette?”
“Go ahead.”
The purse was leather with brass trim, an expensive make. Battered and scuffed now, but still good. She lit a cigarette from a book of matches and slid the ashtray closer.
“How is everything with you?” Elaine asked.
She exhaled smoke. “How am I? Oh, simply marvelous, thank you. Did you ask about getting me off this case? I called you two weeks ago, and you never said one way or the other.”
“Well, it’s really up to the DEA,” Elaine said, “but I did mention to agent Hooper a week ago that you had cooperated fully, according to the terms of your plea agreement. I don’t know what else they could want you to do.”
“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. If anybody ever finds out—Oh, my Go-o-ood. Kelly Dorff, a snitch for the narcs? Good-bye. I might as well shoot myself.”
“I suppose the music business isn’t very forgiving.”
“Oh, generally people don’t care what you do, but this? Uh-uh. I should have taken my chances in court. The guy I was with jumped bond, did you know that? And I’m stuck in this nightmare.”
Eight months ago Kelly Dorff had given a ride to her German boyfriend at two o’clock in the morning, a condo in Coconut Grove to a club on South Beach. A patrol officer had spotted her running a stop sign. The boyfriend threw a kilo of heroin out of the window. Kelly claimed she didn’t know he had it, but he said it was hers. At the station a narcotics detective recognized the name of Kelly’s employer, Coral Rock Productions, and called the DEA.
Kelly was staring out the window. The sun had gone down, and the road was a steady stream of taillights. Elaine could see a pale face reflected in the dark glass. When the waitress came with their coffee, Kelly turned around and picked up the little metal pitcher. She asked Elaine if she wanted cream. Elaine said please, and Kelly poured as if the pitcher were sterling silver and the cups were porcelain. Yet the girl had ragged nails and a ring through her left nostril.
“Did Vincent send you to talk to me?”
“No. Tell him if you want,” Elaine said.
“Shit, I’m not going to say anything.” Kelly laughed. “I saw him last night at the studio. Victor Ramirez. I think he gets off on it.” She stirred her coffee. “Are they going to give us the studio master tapes?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard about that.”
“They have to. The band is working on the songs, over and over, and in the back of my mind I’m afraid it’s for nothing. We need the tapes, Elaine. You’re the prosecutor. Tell Vincent Hooper he has to give them to us.”
“Kelly, that’s really not up to me.”
Letting her head drop back on the booth, Kelly closed her eyes. “God, I’m so tired of this. They take more and more and more. First they said they just wanted to know about Miguel. So I said okay. I didn’t know Miguel, except that he was Martha’s boyfriend. Then they wanted me to look around Rick’s office because I was working there. Oh, it wouldn’t be much, just take a little peek. And then I have to tell them who Rick talks to, where he goes. It’s horrible. But if I say no? What do we have for Miss Dorff behind door number one? Minimum mandatory ten years in prison!”
That wasn’t likely to happen, Elaine knew, but she couldn’t make promises. She said, “I heard you broke up with the man you’ve been seeing. The lawyer?”
“One of the breed.”
“What does that mean?”
“Oops. I forgot you’re one too.” Kelly put her fingers over her mouth.
“Did you ever tell him about your arrest?”
“Of course not. He’s like totally straight.”
“Straight?”
“You know. Thinks he’s so fuckin’ perfect. No smoking, no bad words. Wears these preppy clothes.” She laughed. “Washes out his bottles and peels the labels off before he puts them in the recycling bin. Uses shoe trees. My grandfather used shoe trees.”
“Not the kind of man to keep grass in his nightstand, I suppose.”
“I never saw any.”
Elaine nodded. “So if you had told him about your arrest—”
“What could I have said? I’m spying for the DEA? Right. He’d have told Rick, and then Vincent Hooper would have found out and he’d break my neck.”
“There’s no way—”
“Oh, please. The DEA shoot people. I think about that every time I see his ugly face.” Kelly stared at the ashes she tapped off the end of her cigarette. “We need those tapes. He’d keep them just to be the son of a bitch he is.”
“Fine, I’ll ask agent Hooper about the tapes,” Elaine said.
“Swear.”
“All right, I swear. Why are they so important to you?”
“Because we’re making a demo out of them.”
“A demo. I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s for the talent scouts from the record companies. There’s this guy from Capitol Records who says he’ll come to our concert if he likes our demo. We’ll have three songs on it—if we can ever decide which ones.” She exhaled. “Martha’s into rave. The drummer has a background in salsa. Our new bassist likes thrash metal. And me? Well, I’m more toward alternative, but I like blues.”
She picked up her cigarette from the ashtray. The calluses on her fingertips were smooth, but gave her slender fingers an almost spatulate shape. She saw Elaine looking and held up her hands. The smoke curled as she turned her palms one way, then the other. The muscles and tendons moved in her arms. The nails on the thumb and first two fingers of her right hand were worn down, and the cuticles were ripped.
“Ugly,” she said.
“They’re strong,” Elaine said. “How long have you been playing guitar?”
“Since I was thirteen. I started on my brother’s Fender Telecaster. He didn’t like it, so he made our mother buy him a new Stratocaster, and he gave me the old one. I begged for a guitar, but no daughter of hers was going to play rock and roll.”
Kelly lit another match. When it was burning brightly, she lowered the tip of her left forefinger into the flame till it went out. She studied the burned spot, her eyes going a little crossed. She brushed some soot away and tossed the match into the ashtray.
“My brother had a band in high school, and I liked the drummer. I thought the best way to get his attention was to learn to do what they did. They tolerated me. I was cute. My brother and his friends got drunk and smoked pot, and I practiced. I stayed in my room for hours and hours playing, headphones on so nobody could hear how bad I was. But I kept doing it, and one day I was as good as they were. Better. After that they didn’t want me around. The band broke up after the bass player committed suicide. My brother got kicked out of about six private schools—we’re from Baltimore. I don’t know where he is now.”
“Your parents are living?”
“The last I heard. My dad’s a doctor, a big deal at Johns Hopkins, but such a shit. He more or less wrote me off. My mother’s in Montreal with husband number three or four
. She’ll send me money when I get completely desperate, as long as I beg and do the daughter routine. They sent me down here to go to school. That didn’t work out too well. I got into the club scene and started playing guitar again, mostly to scream my guts out when I felt like screaming. I was in about five different bands and sang backup on a couple of albums that went nowhere. At first Mayhem was myself, a bassist, and a drummer. Then this girl I met at the clubs, Martha Cruz, wanted to join, so I said sure. I was working part-time at Coral Rock, and Rick heard us and wanted to be our manager. He made some changes in our sound. I thought he was out of his mind, but it worked. We’ve done some gigs, and people like us. So now we’re doing a demo.”
Elaine said, “And after that you’ll get a record contract?”
“Ha! I wish. We could record with one of the companies down here, but Rick wants a deal with a major label. He almost makes me believe it could happen. We wouldn’t get rich, necessarily. People think, oh, you got signed. Next stop, MTV. Well, MTV pays the band like five bucks each time they play your song, which sucks unless you’re some huge name. And the label takes back every dime they spent on us, right off the top. Publicity, road expenses, promotion—everything. We’ll go on tour and all sleep in the same hotel room, bust our buns for a couple of years, then it’s over. But you never know. We might take off. I think, God, if it does work out. This band is probably the last one I’ll be in as lead guitar that has any chance of making it. I’m twenty-six. For a guitarist, that’s getting into my prime, so if it’s going to happen, it better be now. I don’t expect a lot. A car that runs. My own house. Is that too much to ask for, a place where you can paint the walls any color you want? I could go back to school. Maybe even have kids before I’m too old.” She exhaled smoke and crushed out her cigarette.
“Maybe. Maybe. Everybody wants to be a star. Martha especially, and if you ask her she’ll tell you, ‘I am going to be a star.’ She’s young, you know? I’ve been in the business almost ten years, but this is her first real band, and she thinks it’s easy. Miguel just bought her a synth, a MIDI board, and a computerized notation system for—God, what was it?—about forty thousand dollars. I nearly freaked.”
Elaine asked, “What’s he like? Miguel Salazar.”
“Scary. Sexy.”
“I’ve seen photos. He’s not all that good-looking.”
“You don’t think he’s hot?” Kelly’s mouth twisted into a smile. “If you saw him in person, you would.” She sat back with her coffee. “I don’t like to be around him. Well, I guess that’s because I know who he is, right? He’s got Martha like this.” She made a fist. “Jesus, I’ll be glad when this is over. You’re going to put him in jail, aren’t you?”
“I hope so.”
“What about Rick? He’s not like Miguel. What are you going to do with Rick?”
“I … really can’t talk about that,” Elaine said. “Let me ask you, as long as we’re here. What about that conversation you overheard between Rick and Dan Galindo? They mentioned a deal with Miguel Salazar. Is that what you heard?”
“That’s right.”
“What led you to assume it involved laundering drug money?”
“Because that’s what Dan said. He used those words. Launder. Money. Drugs. Rick’s doing a deal with Miguel and doesn’t want to get screwed. He wanted Dan to talk to Salazar about it, sort of make sure they all understood the terms.”
“Mr. Galindo specifically mentioned ‘drug money’?”
“That’s what I just told you.” She dropped her cup back into its saucer.
“And where did this take place?”
“Outside the studio on a break. I’d already gone out to have a cigarette, and they didn’t see me. They passed by, and I could hear them talking. Then they were too far away. I went back inside and pretended I’d been in the ladies room.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about the conversation? The amount of money involved? How the deal is to be transacted?”
“No. That’s all I heard.”
Elaine nodded slowly, making no other reaction. She said, “Were you initially told to gather evidence on Dan Galindo? Or did that come later, after you were already involved with him?”
After a second or two, Kelly’s face flushed. “They didn’t say to seduce him. They sent me to his office with a fake traffic ticket. I was supposed to ask him out for a drink or something, then see if he was working with Rick. Okay, we had sex, but I didn’t do it because anyone told me to.”
“You liked him.”
“I guess so.”
“Were you in love with him?”
“Not really.”
“But you slept with him.”
The green eyes rolled upward again. “Yes, Elaine. Duh.”
“Why did you break off your relationship?”
“Why? Because it was a dead end. I have to work on my career right now. He was a user anyway. He’s a guy, what can I tell you? They get you in bed, then they start looking for a way out.”
Elaine was silent for a while, occupying the empty space of time by aligning the handle of her cup with the edge of the table. As a witness Kelly Dorff would be flayed alive by a defense lawyer with half a brain.
“I don’t quite understand something. You say that Dan is so straight he won’t keep a joint in his house, but he was talking with Rick Robbins about laundering drug money. That doesn’t seem to fit.”
“Well, you don’t have to be into drugs to want to make money off it. I’ve met a lot of people who would surprise you.”
Elaine carefully phrased her next question before asking, “Did anyone—Vincent Hooper or anyone else—ever suggest to you that if you found evidence against Mr. Galindo, the DEA would treat you more favorably?”
Kelly pushed her hair behind her ears. “They never said that.”
“But did it occur to you?” Elaine waited for an answer.
“No.”
“If Mr. Galindo is involved in money laundering, and we can prove it, he would go to prison. Do you feel that would be appropriate?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you testify in court as to what you heard?”
“You said you wouldn’t make me testify.”
Elaine shook her head. “Our agreement had to do with Rick or Miguel. If you have new evidence about Dan Galindo, that’s another matter.”
“Well, I’m not going to court.”
“You will if I have a subpoena issued,” Elaine said.
“You promised I wouldn’t have to. I can’t!”
“I told you and your attorney that you probably would not have to testify against Mr. Robbins or Mr. Salazar. Are you prepared to tell a jury what you heard Mr. Galindo say last night?”
Kelly bit down on her lips, making them disappear for a moment into a thin line. “If I said it didn’t happen, would you still call me as a witness?”
“If the conversation did not actually take place, then no. I’d have no reason to put you on the stand,” Elaine said.
The unblinking green eyes seemed enormous. “You know Dan, don’t you?”
“He was a prosecutor in my office.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“We worked together.” Elaine added, “Yes, I know him.”
Kelly sat back in the booth, smiling. “Right. I was so dense.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve been sitting here trying to remember something that Dan told me, and voilà, it finally clicked. Dan said he had a friend, a really great woman friend, at the U.S. attorney’s office. She got him a job where he is now. Was that you?”
“Kelly, please. I’m trying to determine the truth here, that’s all.”
“Ooooh, sneaky, Elaine. What if I told the DEA? What if I told them that you wanted me to change my story to keep your friend Dan out of jail?”
“That is not so!”
Kelly lurched forward, fists on the table. “Then you better tell them to get off my back. I want o
ut of this. Now!” Her face had gone white with fury.
The people at the next table were listening, turning around in their seats.
Elaine whispered, “It isn’t up to me!”
“Liar. What are you doing here?” Kelly grabbed her matches and cigarettes and dumped them into her purse and picked up her coat. “Making sure I’m all right. Just a little chat to see if I need anything. Bullshit. You’re all users. All of you!”
“Kelly, sit down.”
She bumped the table going out, and coffee sloshed into the saucers.
CHAPTER 12
Charlie Dunavoy played piano sometimes at the Northside Club, a little place in a strip of storefronts on the north end of Miami Beach. Strings of lights twinkled in the windows, where posters announced upcoming gigs. A sparse crowd was listening to Charlie and a stand-up bass. By nine the place would be packed with people waiting for the main show. A jazz combo would be playing later. Elaine had read it on the handwritten events calendar. A stack of them lay on the bar.
The bartender said that Charlie’s set had just started. Elaine asked her for a vodka tonic with lime.
Charlie was at the piano. The spotlights lit up the white V of his shirt under a dark jacket and shone on the sideman’s bald head. The bassist was old and black, and kept his eyes closed behind his glasses. He hummed along with the music, head bobbing, hands moving on the strings. Elaine didn’t know the name of the tune, only that she liked it. She sat at the end of the bar, her back to the adjacent empty stool. She wanted no company. Not many single women in here, mostly middle-aged couples and a few stray men. Even sitting alone at the bar, she knew she wouldn’t be mistaken for a hooker. She wore very little makeup, she dressed plainly, and didn’t do a damn thing to her hair except have it trimmed every month or so. She brushed the sides back, fluffed the top, and ignored the few gray hairs among the light brown ones. With her habit of staring straight back at people when they spoke to her, nobody was ever surprised when she told them what she did. I’m a federal prosecutor. Boo.
She listened to the music and had another drink. She tried not to look past the stage at the narrow hallway in the back. The bathrooms were down the hall, a telephone booth between them. She could drop in a quarter, punch the right numbers. Vincent Hooper lived in North Miami, not so far away. He would look at his beeper screen and see the code to call his voice mail. He might come over and have a drink with her.
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