Game Face

by Mark Troy

  “He may have.”

  “He ever tell you about Julie’s trust fund, the one he gets now she’s dead? See, it wasn’t likely he’d divorce her and lose all that.”

  “Let me make something clear, Detective. I had no illusions about where the relationship was going.”

  The waitress brought his coffee. He added four sugars and stirred it. “Yeah, well, can’t get a guy on motive alone. We can’t put him at the scene because plenty of people saw him with you at that roadhouse. You two got some attention with your dance style. Is it always like that?”

  “We don’t always dance.”

  The waitress brought his breakfast. He dug into the pancakes. “Those reports you filed, about the hate letters, don’t give us a lot. I’m gonna have to speak to the sergeant, get the desk officers to be more thorough taking complaints. A whacko fan, shit! Whatever happened to shaving your head and painting your belly?” He put a wedge of pancake into his mouth, chewed it and said, “It’s after curfew, who’s she open the door to? A boyfriend?”

  I shook my head. “A romance novel and junk food on the table? She wasn’t seeing a boyfriend.”

  “Yeah. Nor her husband. We know where he was.”

  I put the envelope and gun in my bag, got up, threw some bills on the table. “I hope you find the whacko fan,” I said.

  “Hey, I say something wrong?”

  * * * * *

  I spent the rest of the day drawing time lines and sifting facts. At midnight I went back to the roadhouse. Roadhouse 27 was so named because if you took a straight line for about a mile due West from the front door, you’d be at the beginning of Runway 27. Even at that hour the planes seemed to come one right after the other. An ear piercing shriek shook the building as I reached it. I looked up at the shadowy underside of a wide-bodied jet on it’s final approach.

  Inside, it was just as noisy, but the source was the club’s sound system. Three or four couples occupied the dance floor which was awash in colored lights. The tune had a swing tempo and the dancers moved around with a great deal of energy.

  I made my way to the bar and claimed a vacant stool. The bartender set a coaster in front of me. He wore the same white shirt, same grenadine stain, bow tie and sleeve garters, as two nights before.

  “Vodka and tonic?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Good memory.”

  “You’re not one to forget. Where’s your friend?”

  “Busy. You remember him?”

  “Hey, I know there was some kind of trouble, because the cops asked me about the two of you.”

  “You said you saw us?”

  “You put on quite a show. I could miss that? Lotta people saw it.” He set a tall drink on the coaster. I pulled out some bills but he waved them off. “It’s covered. Sam, down at the end.”

  I took a quick look where he indicated. An older man raised a beer at me and grinned.

  “He was here that night?”

  “Sam’s always here.”

  I pushed the bills across the bar. “Tell Sam I appreciate the offer, but I buy my own drinks. Where’s your phone?”

  He counted out some change and pointed to a double swinging door. “Through there.”

  The door swung shut behind me, cutting off most of the music and bar noise. I found myself in a narrow hall leading to the restrooms. Between them was a pay phone.

  I fed some coins and punched some numbers. It was picked up on the third ring. “Hi, it’s me. My room in about two hours?” I had to strain to hear the reply because at that moment a jet flew over with a high pitched whine and screech.

  When I got back to the bar, Sam was sitting on the stool next to mine. I took my drink but remained standing.

  “Your lips say ‘No, no,’ but there’s ‘Yes, yes,’ in your eyes.” he said.

  “Then read my lips.”

  “And luscious lips they are. I read a lot on them the other night. On the rest of you, too. ‘No’ never came up. Definitely not.”

  “It’s a new day and a new chapter.” I no longer had a taste for the drink. The music, the lights and Sam leering at me felt like a big hand pushing me down.

  “Listen, you can do better with me than with that other guy.”

  I put down the glass and hitched up my shoulder bag. “You don’t know anything about him.”

  “Short fuckers like him can’t lay off the tall ones.”

  “Now that’s astute.”

  “Listen, you don’t have to be a shrink to figure that guy out. He’s a momma’s boy. Hasn’t got past the tit-sucking stage. He comes in with older, taller women where he gets those tits up close to his face.”

  “You’ve seen him here before?”

  “Got your attention now? Yes, indeedy. When was Valentine’s, four weeks ago? He was running true to form — a woman about your age, a nice looker with a good set of what counts. I’m not springing anything on you, am I? You look like you know the game.”

  Valentines! Right before I started doing Dennis. Yes, we had played a series here that weekend. But Julie was not my age. She was somewhere between me and Dennis. “Did the police talk to you about this?”

  Even under the colored bar lights, I could see his face go pale.

  “Why would the police talk to me?”

  I shrugged. Casually let my blazer fall open just enough so he could see the butt of the gun on my hip.

  “You a cop? You undercover? Jesus!” He drained his beer and scuttled away.

  “Where’s he going?” asked the bartender.

  “Back to his wife, I hope.” Suddenly the bar didn’t seem as oppressive as before.

  * * * * *

  Dennis showed up at two o’clock, like a train running on time. He had his hands inside my robe and his mouth at my cleavage before I could close the door. I pushed him off — not an easy thing to do — and sent him sprawling across the bed. “Settle down. We have to talk.”

  I refastened my robe and gave him a beer from the ice bucket. Room service had brought them a few minutes earlier.

  “What’s there to talk about? I’m mad for you; you’re mad for me. Let’s jump in the sack.”

  “I need to know who killed Julie.”

  He gave me his cockeyed grin. “It wasn’t me, Babe, and it wasn’t you. We were together.”

  “And a lot of people saw us.”

  “Lucky them. I’d say we were inspiring.”

  “Was Julie filing for divorce?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I think she was trying to make a clean break. She was going to dump a team and a husband at the same time.”

  He sucked on his beer. “We were patching things up. Besides, what’s the deal? I didn’t kill her.”

  I sat down in a wing chair by the window, the better to be near my gun which I’d stashed between the arm and the cushion. “Your call from Roadhouse 27 bothers me. Why did you call her?”

  “Hey, I was just playing along with the game.”

  “You knew she’d be in — it was after team curfew. If she doesn’t answer, something’s wrong, yet you showed no concern about it.”

  “I was with a sexy woman who was making my head spin.”

  “Big mistake to leave that message, Dennis. You knew someone was going to kill her. You called for confirmation. We left the bar right after your call because your alibi was established.”

  Dennis slid off the bed. “You’re wrong, Babe. We left because you were making me hot enough to burst. I’m about to burst now.” He sank to his knees in front of me and spread my robe. “Let’s go away, Val. You and me. Julie left me set pretty good.”

  “What about Sherri?”

  “What about her? It won’t take long for the police to figure it out.” His warm breath was raising gooseflesh on my thighs.

  “She could implicate you.”

  “In what?” He raised his brown eyes to me “I didn’t hire her.”

  “You manipulated her into killing Julie. You played her, just like you play
ed me for your alibi.”

  “I didn’t play anybody. If she imagined something between us, she was only deluding herself.”

  The bathroom door swung open. Dennis jumped to his feet and fell back against the bed. Sherri stood in the doorway.

  “Liar,” she screamed. “You said you loved me.”

  I pulled my gun from the cushion as her hands come up, gripping a shiny automatic.

  I had my gun on her, screaming, “Sherri! Don’t!”

  Dennis was pleading, “For God’s sake, Sherri,” his hands out in feeble protection.

  Sherri fired three times. One shot went through his hand. All of them went into his chest. Dennis rolled off the bed.

  * * * * *

  Steve Lebeaux said, “You convinced Sherri Costello she needed to hear what Dennis had to say. You know she had a gun when you hid her in the bathroom?”

  “No.”

  “But you figured she killed Julie so she must have had one.”

  “In hindsight.”

  Lebeaux shook his head, “I thought we were looking for a whacko fan. I never thought it would be a whacko coach.”

  “She wasn’t whacko. She loved Dennis; Dennis said he loved her. She had a good thing with him. Julie found out and tried to end it in the only way she could; she asked for a trade and was about to file for divorce. It meant Dennis would be out a lot of money and Sherri would be out Dennis.”

  “What tipped you to Sherri?”

  “Sherri asked me to cover the body, but the body was on the other side of the bed. If she hadn’t gone in the room, how could she know how Julie looked?”

  “Sherri says the killing was Dennis’s idea.”

  “Probably was. But as coach Sherri had the best opportunity and was the least likely suspect. She’s a take-charge kind of person. Dennis couldn’t have done it.”

  “Okay,” said Lebeaux, “what does a successful woman like Sherri Costello see in a weasel like Dennis Ramos?”

  “Dennis was a train on a line that didn’t run regularly anymore.”

  “Huh?”

  “You wouldn’t understand. Wrong equipment. Am I free to go?”

  “Yeah, I can’t see how you’re involved except as an alibi and you didn’t know about that. I can’t say I’m sorry the way it ended. We have Sherri for two murders. I doubt we’d have gotten anything on Dennis, so I guess Sherri did that part of the job for us.”

  He fumbled awkwardly with his hands. “Listen, now it’s over, I was thinking, unless you have to go back right away, we could get some coffee.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Some drinks.”

  I looked down at his hands. Big, strong, a thin strip of fish-belly flesh circling the third finger left hand. “No. I’m through hopping on trains for awhile.”

  “Guess I’ve got the wrong equipment to understand that, too. But here’s something you can clear up for me. You told me you like your chances with a first shot. If you had the drop on Sherri, why didn’t you shoot? Dennis would still be alive.”

  “I was wrong about that first shot. So sue me.”

  END

  Home Wreckers was originally published in Nefarious - Tales of Mystery, 1999

  KILL LEADER

  Paula Evangelista’s weapon was her fabulous arm speed. On this day, at Oahu's Dolphin Bay Resort, it was on display. She leapt high in the air, swung her fist through the top of the arc, and crushed the volleyball over the net. It exploded in the sand, centimeters from the hands of a diving Karen Szymanski. Another kill for “Vengelista.”

  My weapon was a Colt .357 magnum with a two inch barrel. It was not on display. I wore it holstered in the small of my back beneath an oversized tank top. The gun was canted so that the grip nestled against my left kidney. I could get to it before you could say “Sarah Connor.”

  As captain of Team Sandblasters, Paula was the all-time kill leader on the beach, averaging twelve kills a game in each of her four years before blowing out her knee. She had a generous sponsor, an apparel contract, and a modeling portfolio. She had the kind of career women athletes of my generation, not that many years older, could only dream about.

  Now, in her sixth and comeback year, she had someone who wanted her dead.

  My job was to see it didn’t happen. I had spent two days before the tournament checking out hotel staff, studying the layout and walking the beach. Now all I could do was wait on the sidelines like a part of the team. Stay alert and hope somebody in a powerboat offshore didn’t have a scope on her.

  The first game went to Szymanski and Cooper on Team Salon Style. The players returned to the shade of the awnings on the sidelines. Paula’s body glistened with sweat except for some dull ovals of sand on her knees and thighs. She paced back and forth beneath the awning, furious, pausing only to swig from a squeeze bottle, her carotids writhing like snakes.

  “How many kills?” she asked.

  “Nine,” said the coach.

  “And Szymanski?”

  With Paula out of competition the previous season, the title of kill leader had gone to Szymanski, a rookie. This was their first meeting.

  “Eleven.”

  Paula slammed her water bottle to the sand. “Truck!” she yelled.

  In the world of women’s volleyball, profanity gets you a red card; crushing balls gets you acclaim. Paula kicked her discarded bottle, sending it skittering into the sun, and selected another bottle from her cooler.

  “You have to set me higher,” she said to Janet Abbott, the other half of Team Sandblasters.

  “Your knee,” said Janet.

  “I’ll worry about my knee. You just do your job. You’re setting the ball like it’s made of China.”

  “Nothing wrong with my sets. The problem is you. This sweatshop psycho is getting inside your head.” Janet turned to me. “Can’t you do something?”

  I said, “Paula, the psycho’s my problem. I’ll deal with it.”

  She wheeled on me. “Like you can. Psycho calls anytime she wants and you don’t even know who she is. She knows you though. She told me exactly what you’d be wearing today. She even knows your gun’s under a yellow tank top.”

  Shit! Another message and Paula had not told me about it. Guarding Paula was one surprise after another. Difficult client? Like doing public relations for Phil Spector. If I didn’t admire Paula’s athletic skills, I’d quit her.

  “When did she call?”

  “About an hour before the match. You were out making puppy eyes with that security guy.”

  My face burned. “What exactly did the caller say, Paula?”

  “She said, quote, Don’t count on Val Lyon to protect you, unquote.”

  “She used my name?”

  “Yeah. She used your name. So what’s that mean? She has inside information?”

  “It means nothing.”

  “What if the psycho’s not out there but in here? She could be Szymanski or Cooper. She could even be Janet.”

  I stared at her. “I didn’t mean it to sound that way,” she said.

  The ref whistled the start of the second game. The four women trotted onto the court while I puzzled out this latest piece of information. Paula had gotten five calls, including the one I’d just learned about. The woman sounded young, according to Paula, with no ethnic or linguistic nuances in her voice. On the first call, the woman had said that “we” were going to get her. Over the next three calls, she had revealed that “we” were an international group whose aim was to rid the world of child labor and sweat shop conditions; that the group had nothing personal against Paula who was merely a corporate symbol. The connection between Paula and sweatshops was obvious: A rash of articles in the news magazines and a story on Sixty Minutes had exposed horrific conditions in Sandblaster Sportswear’s overseas plants.

  David Hino, head of hotel security, called on my cell phone. “Tough day on guard duty?”

  I looked around, saw him up by the hotel — blue shirt, white slacks, dark hair, Samoan tattoo
circling his thigh. The tattoo, I’d gotten a peek at — well, more than a peek — the night before. “You heard?” I asked.

  “Hunh uh. I read the faces. Makes me happy I’m a simple hotel dick. She’s not satisfied with security?”

  “She got another call. It put her on edge.”

  “We’re doin’ all we can. Everybody passed through the metal detectors.”

  “The caller knew me, what I’m wearing, where my gun is.”

  “And you’re thinking what?”

  “That it’s somebody close to the players.”

  “Maybe. Don’t need a spy in the dressing room to figure where you carry your piece. You’re gonna pack it in your swimsuit bottom? No, it would ruin the line.” I straightened. A good line’s important. He said, “I still worry about do-good troublemakers.”

  The second game ended with a win for Sandblasters. Paula was in better spirits as she ducked under the awning, though she still trailed Karen Szymanski in kills. She sat with Janet to talk strategy.

  I continued to scan the crowd for troublemakers and then it hit me: There were no troublemakers; no demonstrators; no picketers. If the group intended to make a statement, why weren’t they drumming up publicity for their cause? Had we been hoaxed?

  I turned back to Paula just as she took a drink from her water bottle. She made a face at it, spat violently and then turned to me, eyes wide in terror. She got to her feet, clutching her throat, took a step forward and fell to her knees in the sand. Janet screamed.

  * * * * *

  “Formaldehyde?” whispered Paula. She was propped up in the hospital bed, her face the color of the milk in the glass on her tray.

  “Formalin, actually. Heavily diluted,” said the doctor. “Even so, had you consumed the full liter, you could be dead or at least very sick. Luckily you had only a mouthful. I’m keeping you here tonight for observation.”

  She had minor chemical burns in her mouth. When the doctor had gone, Paula said, “Who could drink a liter of something that tastes like that.”

  “That’s been bothering me,” I said. “An effective poison should be odorless and tasteless. My guess is our psycho didn’t want you to die.”

  “Why formalin?”

  “I asked around. It’s used in the preparation of some types of clothing.”

  “So this has to do with Sandblasters and sweatshops?”