“The what?”
Roxie shook her head. “I posted a comment on the video saying that I lost my cat and the one in the video was him.”
“Oh.”
“Can we go?”
“Wild horses couldn’t stop me.”
The ride to the apartment didn’t take long, and they were standing in front of the building when a slight man wearing flowing linen pants and a yellow polo jersey came rushing up, his clogs clacking against the uneven cement sidewalk.
“Roxie?” he asked, out of breath, his voice high pitched and lilting.
“That would be me,” she said.
“Oh, fabulous. I’m Terry. I’m so happy you got in touch.” He gave Black a shy look. “Who’s your friend?”
“Black. I’m the other half of Mugsy’s family,” Black said, his voice flat.
“Charmed,” Terry said, and then led them to his ground-floor digs. He swung the door open and stepped cautiously inside, and then froze. Black and Roxie peered over his shoulder at Mugsy, who had one of the stereo wires in his mouth, happily chewing it to pieces. The sofa was a wreck, the carpets scratched to pieces, and everything of any value had been placed behind the glass doors of a tall cabinet, presumably to keep Mugsy away.
“Oh. My. God. Mugsy!” Roxie exclaimed, holding her arms out, and Mugsy spat the wire out disdainfully and scampered into her embrace.
“Look at him. He’s so happy to see me!”
Terry and Black exchanged a look normally reserved for battle-weary soldiers on some forgotten front before their final charge out of the trenches into enemy fire. Roxie turned to Terry, Mugsy purring in her arms, and beamed.
“Thank you so much for rescuing him. Where did you find him?”
“My partner and I were parked on Pico. He has a little red beemer convertible. Anyhow, we came out of the shop we were in, and there was…Mugsy…in our car.”
“He’s got a taste for fine coachwork. You’re lucky anything was left of it,” Black said.
“It was like he’d chosen us. With no collar on, we had no way of contacting anyone, so we decided to bring him home. At first it was fun watching him go nuts, but that became…well, it got tiring after a while. I think we’ve decided we aren’t cat people.”
“After the first couple of grand of destruction, most do.”
Terry looked away and cleared his throat. “Speaking of which, he’s done a lot of damage. I was hoping you could help offset some of it...”
“Offset it?” Black asked, playing dumb.
Terry shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. “You know. Maybe put some cash toward helping replace at least a few of the most ruined items.”
“What were you thinking? I frankly wasn’t prepared for this...”
Roxie glared black daggers through his heart. Black ignored her. She looked about to say something, but caught the almost imperceptible shake of his head and bit her tongue.
“Well, just that chair cost five hundred dollars,” Terry said, pointing at a ruined lounger that looked like a grenade had detonated in the seat cushion.
As if sensing Black’s reluctance, Mugsy sprang from Roxie’s soft embrace and darted behind the sofa. An audible scratching sound emanated from it, and Black winced, as did Terry.
“You know, if it’s a matter of money...” Black began.
“I was thinking almost a reward. That’s customary when one’s reunited with a loved one, right?” Terry suggested.
Black decided to deliver the first body blow. “The problem is I’m broke. I mean, Roxie here adores the fat destructive bastard, but the truth is that it costs me an arm and a leg just to feed him. Look at him. He’s the size of a small cow. Never mind what he’s done to my office furniture and my car. Unfortunately, she’s not the practical one in our relationship, so while we’d both love to give you some money, there’s none to give.” He paused, listening as Mugsy tunneled to China behind the sofa, and then went in for the three-fingered death punch. “What I was going to say is that you’ve got such a nice home, it would be a shame to take him away. Much as Roxie adores him, we have Mugsy’s well-being to consider. What kind of life is it living in a cold, empty office most of the time? I was thinking it would be better for everyone if he stayed here, with you, where he could stretch his legs, so to speak.”
Terry couldn’t have looked any more shocked if Black had dropped trou and urinated on the couch.
“No. I mean absolutely not. He’s your cat. You need to take him,” Terry sputtered. “He can’t stay here.”
“See, that’s the problem. Roxie wanted to make sure he was someplace safe. We didn’t come over to claim him...more to reassure ourselves he would be well looked after. I meant it when I thanked you for rescuing him. You took him from a marginal life into your home, where I’m sure he’ll flourish. God bless you, Terry. I mean it. You’re a saint.”
Roxie’s face could have been crafted out of marble. Getting into the spirit, she nodded and echoed Black. “A saint. It’s obvious he’s happy here. Bless you.”
Terry’s eyes bugged out of his head and his face flushed. He obviously wasn’t sure when or how the discussion had gone wrong, but he was now positive that he’d badly misjudged the situation, and began backpedaling.
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. He can’t stay. Mugsy’s not our cat. He’s yours.”
Black sighed. “Mugsy’s nobody’s cat. He was a stray that adopted us. Just as he adopted you. It’s always a kind of miracle when our furry friends do that. Like a gift from the universe. One you can’t reject, I’ve found...much as I would have liked to.”
“Look, surely we can work something out...”
“No, I think he’s found his new home. Thanks for letting us stop by and see him. We’ll both sleep much better tonight knowing he’s here, safe with you.” Black took two steps toward the door.
“Wait. Why won’t you take him back?”
“I told you. He costs a fortune. Just the food alone. Maybe not for someone like you. But we’re barely getting by. Believe me, it’s a relief to know he’ll be well cared for and that I won’t have to decide whether to pay the light bill this month, or cover whatever Mugsy shredded in the office. Not that he’s a bad cat. He’s a creampuff. As you’ve seen. It’s just...when you’re barely making it, more mouths to feed are the last thing you need.”
Terry gave Black the bleak look of a chain gang prisoner, then fished in his back pocket for his wallet, beaten. “I...I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. But I’m afraid he can’t stay with us any longer. Maybe I can make a small donation to his feeding fund? To ensure he’ll get what he needs while you...readjust to having him?”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” Black insisted, waving both hands. Roxie looked about to explode, but stayed quiet.
Terry withdrew a fifty-dollar bill and held it out. “Really. I mean it. I couldn’t bear to think of Roxie and Mugsy apart after seeing them together.”
Black looked hesitant, and Terry extracted a second fifty to go with the first. “Please. Take the money. And Mugsy. It’s the right thing to do.”
Black exhaled noisily and shrugged before reluctantly taking the money. “That’s so generous of you. I don’t mean to complain, but with a little one on the way, the expenses have mounted to the point where Mugsy...well, you know what it’s like.”
Roxie rubbed her perfectly flat stomach and beamed at Terry.
Terry peered at the couch before glancing at his watch. “Yes, well, it was all in a day’s work.” Terry hesitated. “Look, I…I don’t mean to be rude, but I absolutely must be running along. Would you mind terribly if we said our goodbyes?”
“Oh, no. Absolutely not. Again, thank you so much. You made our week,” Roxie said. “Mugsy. Come on, Mugsy baby. Come to Mama.” Mugsy inched from behind the sofa, flecks of stuffing stuck to his rotund face, and waddled to Roxie, who scooped him up.
Terry forced a tentative smile. “I hope you’re very happy together.” He gave Black a look of commiseratio
n. “Just get him…home, where he belongs.”
In the car, Roxie rubbed Mugsy’s considerable belly while the paunchy feline eyed the Eldo’s pristine red leather upholstery and purred. She shook her head. “I’ve seen some brilliant acting in my day, but that was breathtaking. If I didn’t know what a cheapskate you were, I’d have sworn you were telling the truth.”
“It helps that I was.”
“No.”
“I’ll admit walking away from Mugsy gave me more pleasure than finding a thousand bucks in one of my old suit pockets.”
“I wouldn’t have let you.”
“I know. And now I feel kind of bad. But only kind of.” He grinned and gave Roxie a sidelong glance. “By the way, the hand on the abdomen was a great touch.”
“I was so touched by your mention of the little one...”
They chuckled together, then Black grew serious. “Maybe I should go give him back the money,” he said. “I mean, it was funny at the moment, but it feels wrong now.”
Roxie shook her head. “Over my dead body. That’s more than I made at my last two gigs. Hand it over. That’s Mugsy’s college fund.”
Black gave her the hundred dollars before eyeing Mugsy with distrust. “Roxie? Under no circumstances let go of him. I’m serious. I can’t get the interior of this car replaced. It’s a classic.”
“Is that a euphemism for ‘wreck’?”
“I’m serious.”
“Fine. I have no intentions of ever letting go of him again.”
Black smirked. “I don’t know. I’m going to bet your back gives out from the weight eventually.”
“I think he’s slimmed down.”
“Yeah. He looks like a smaller bowling ball with legs now. Oh. Wait. No, he doesn’t.”
“Can’t you just once in your life be nice to him? This is an emotionally charged moment.”
“That was me being nice.”
“No wonder he hates you.”
“You said he doesn’t.”
“Haven’t we had this conversation before?”
Black smiled to himself as he put his turn signal on in preparation to swing into traffic.
“It just never gets old.”
Chapter 33
Back at the office, Mugsy seemed utterly unfazed by the level of grief he’d caused – completely expected, given his nature. Roxie doted on him like he’d survived a head-on collision, any thoughts of doing actual work abandoned now that her baby was back. Black watched the display for a few minutes and returned to his office, taking care to close his door lest the destructive feline get a gander at his new throne.
As Black read more of the articles on Moet, flipping back and forth between them and the dossier Roxie had prepared on B-Side, a growing sense of anxiety spread through his gut. He was missing something important. Both Reggie and Moet were convinced that B-Side’s material was stolen from Blunt, and both had even gone so far as to say that they’d heard demos with Blunt performing the songs. Could there be some truth to the notion that this was all about stolen tunes? Black reviewed what he knew so far. B-Side swore that he hadn’t stolen Blunt’s material. Which meant nothing. Blunt was dead, and dead men didn’t talk, so in that respect it was the perfect crime. And in Black’s experience, people lied early and often, especially when there was big money at risk. If whoever was controlling Blunt’s estate could prove that the songs currently making millions for B-Side were Blunt’s, then that songwriting money would be the estate’s, not B-Side’s – a career-cratering disaster by any measure.
If that were true, and there was no way of knowing for sure, then it made Sam’s deal with B-Side that much more sketchy. A manager never would get a slice of the songwriting and performances…unless that manager had supplied the material.
The light bulb went on over Black’s head with an audible snap.
But why would Sam want to kill B-Side? Could Sam be such a sleaze that he would actually murder his own client to boost sales?
Or was there something more going on? Black thought about it. Who had actually died? The roadie and the three speedboat crew. The groupie had lived. And B-Side had survived that poisoning, too.
Black had been assuming that the boat incident was another murder attempt. But what if it was actually what Stan believed, namely an unfortunate engine spark that ignited the fuel? Those did happen with some regularity on gas-powered boats.
What if the entire production had originally been orchestrated by Sam, or Sam and B-Side, to boost the album’s popularity, and had simply gotten out of control? There was still the dead roadie to contend with. But…what if that had been an accident? If Sam, or B-Side, had somehow rigged the mike, and the plan had been to shock B-Side, but not have him die…what if the whole thing had been a giant publicity stunt gone wrong? With a corpse, suddenly a harmless way of getting headlines had taken an ugly turn there was no coming back from. So they’d had to keep it up. Because it was certainly working. Album sales had gone ballistic when the attempt on B-Side had broken in all the pubs, and he’d gone from a modest seller to an overnight sensation. The stuff Roxie had assembled on his career had chronicled his rise. First someone took Blunt out…and now they were after B-Side. It was pure media gold.
The problem was that there was no way of knowing whether the theory was a flight of fancy or an accurate representation of reality. Or whether it was a scheme Sam was working on his own, or whether they were both in it together. Black wasn’t sure there was any foolproof way of determining the truth, but his instinct said that he should start with Sam. B-Side hadn’t blinked when he’d probed him at the barbeque, which meant he either wasn’t behind it…or was the kind of sociopath who could go around killing people in cold blood for financial gain. Which meant he should have been running a multinational pharmaceutical company or a major bank that financed wars and mayhem instead of rapping, but one played the cards one was dealt.
Which left Black with the unenviable task of having to give Sam the third degree to see if he’d crack. Black circled his options over and over, and it all kept coming back to that. If he didn’t confront Sam, he’d never know, and if the killing kept on he’d never forgive himself.
He reluctantly lifted his cell to his ear and dialed Sam.
“Black. What do you need?” Sam’s clipped voice demanded.
“A few minutes of your time. Today.”
“I’m really busy.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“Damn. Can you make it here within half an hour? I can see you between one and two o’clock. Five minutes. Either that or it has to be late tonight. I’ve got another marathon day going on.”
“Sure. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
Sam didn’t wait to hear anything more, and Black wasn’t surprised at the dial tone in his ear. They understood each other. Black was the cockroach that some upstart rapper had insisted Sam hire, and Sam was being gracious allowing him any access at all. Employer and employee. Or maybe master and servant. Black smiled at how that was about to change, and imagined the expression on Sam’s face when he figured out that he wasn’t above being labeled a suspect in Black’s investigation.
When he arrived at Sam’s offices he was directed to the reception-area sofas by the receptionist, whose demeanor hadn’t thawed a single degree since his original visit. After the expected wait, he was shown back to Sam’s office. Sam looked up from a file he was reading and raised an eyebrow by way of greeting.
“Thanks for fitting me in,” Black started.
“We’ve got about six minutes. What’s on your mind?” Sam asked.
“I’ve been nosing around in the case, and there’s a troubling aspect that keeps coming up, over and over. I thought I’d ask you point blank so I can put it to bed and move forward with more promising lines of inquiry.”
“Fine. Shoot.”
“There’s a persistent rumor that B-Side’s material was pilfered from Blunt’s.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed and he set th
e file down, suddenly uninterested in its contents. “That’s just the typical career assassination crap that his rivals throw out to muddy the water and sully his name.”
“Yeah, that’s sort of what I thought, too. The problem is that I’ve heard from a couple of people who are fairly reliable that they had actually heard Blunt’s demos for his second album – just home studio stuff, apparently – and that several of B-Side’s biggest hits were actually Blunt songs.”
Black watched Sam for any hint of reaction, and saw a slight tightening around his mouth and a nearly instantaneous sidelong glance. Sam stood and began to pace, the Los Angeles skyline in the background, the day a relatively clear one.
“I don’t suppose any of these ‘fairly reliable’ sources actually have any proof, though, do they? No recordings or anything that would back up their libelous claims?”
“Slander.”
Sam seemed momentarily disoriented. “What?”
“Slanderous claims. Libel would be if they’d made them in writing. Slander would be oral.”
“Thanks for the English lesson. But my question still stands.”
“No, there’s no proof. Other than their word.”
“Which is meaningless. Let me guess. One of them is Moet?”
“Good guess. But who they are isn’t important. The real issue is whether it could be true. Because if it is, then it takes the case in a different direction. In other words, to catch the killer, we need to understand what’s driving him or her, and if there’s any truth to these rumors it would mean that the motive could be something I’ve discarded until now.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Black.”
“I thought that might be the case.” Black rose and turned to leave. “Oh, one more thing. I also heard that you’re getting a slice of B-Side’s songwriting royalties in addition to your management fee. Any truth to that?”
Sam’s face froze. Black had seen mummies with more warmth.
“My deal with my talent is absolutely none of your business, Black. I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you’re treading on very thin ice now. How dare you even hint that there’s anything questionable in my dealings with B-Side.”
BLACK Is Back Page 20