Or She Dies Page 25

  Despite her nod to our colleagueship, I doubted I’d ever had her talent or professionalism. I could no more contain my bitterness than she could her pride. ‘You’re a gifted actress,’ I said. ‘You’ll go far in this town.’

  ‘Too late for that. But I make a living.’

  ‘The cash . . .?’

  ‘A few hours after you left, I delivered the duffel bag to the trunk of a parked car on a quiet street.’

  ‘A white Honda Civic.’

  ‘How’d you know?’

  I shook my head, not wanting to get off track. ‘They told you about me.’

  ‘Little bit. No more than last time.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Last time?’

  ‘There was another guy.’ Now with the accent: ‘He come also to help poor Elisabeta and granddaughter with terrible illness.’

  I stared at her, dumbfounded. ‘Do you . . . Who? Who was he?’

  As quickly as she’d transformed into the world-weary waitress, she’d morphed back again. ‘I don’t remember his name. But he gave me his card. He was big on his business card. I have it here somewhere. . . .’ She crossed to an apothecary cabinet with more tiny drawers than I could count and started searching them.

  I said, ‘You don’t understand what this whole thing is, do you?’

  But she didn’t break focus. ‘Hang on, I know I kept it.’

  After a few more moments watching her open and close drawers, I said, ‘Mind if I use your bathroom?’

  ‘Not at all. The damn thing’s here somewhere . . .’

  The bathroom window looked across a narrow strip of quartz and succulents to a matching window in the neighboring complex. The waiting bathwater thickened the air, misted the mirror. After closing the door behind me, I eased open the medicine cabinet, praying it wouldn’t squeak. No prescription bottles inside, but I found a few in one of the drawers. The neat type read, Dina Orloff.

  ‘Got it!’ she called out triumphantly, mimicking my own sentiment. I gently pressed the drawer closed and turned to go, reaching for the knob. The doorbell shrilled in the tiny condo. I froze, the knob twisted in my hand. The button lock popped open into my palm.

  Through the door I could hear her mutter something. Then a few padded footsteps.

  The door opened with a jangle, and then there were two muffled percussions. A thump of body hitting carpet. Then the door closing, at least two sets of footsteps moving. Dragging.

  My stomach clutched, and I fought not to gasp, not to start, not to do anything but breathe and rotate that doorknob slowly and silently back to its resting position.

  If they’d followed me, then her death was my fault. And, obviously, they’d know I was here. If that were the case, I wouldn’t live long enough for the guilt to seep in.

  Barely audible — ‘Let’s move, let’s move.’

  The bedroom door banged open.

  They were searching.

  Holding my panic at bay, I crept across the bathroom and started turning the crank to open the casement window. The pane made a soft pop as it broke the seal and began to swing outward.

  Now I heard the closet shutters one room over, raked back on their rails.

  A drop of sweat ran down my forehead and stung my eye. I rotated the crank as quickly as I could, but the window seemed to move in slow motion.

  That same voice: ‘Check the bathroom.’

  I tried to swallow, but my throat clicked dryly, wanting to gag.

  Approaching footsteps. The window lazily rotated outward, wide enough for my foot, my calf, my thigh. Judging from the creak of the floorboards, the guy was right outside the bathroom door now.

  I slithered through, the gap still tight enough to mash my nose against the pane. My sneakers grinding the rocks outside, I flattened to the wall, just out of sight of the window.

  The bathroom door shoved open, banging the wall behind. Footsteps.

  The sidewalk was no more than twenty yards away, but a single step on the rocks would broadcast my position. My head was craned to the side, taking in a thin sliver of bathroom floor. I breathed, prayed, willed my muscles still. If he came to the window and peered through the gap, I was dead.

  When the next step creaked the floorboards, I saw the toe of a black boot come into view. Through my terror it hit me that I was probably looking at a size-eleven-and-a-half Danner with a pebble jammed in the tread.

  If they had followed me here, he’d probably think to check outside. But that boot remained, still. What was he looking at?

  Held breath burned in my lungs. Every muscle taut. My unblinking eyes stung. He was maybe four feet away; I could probably reach through the window opening and tap him in the chest. The faintest sound would buy me a face-to-face. My hand curled into a fist. I forced myself to plan an attack in case a face appeared in that narrow window gap. Eyes and throat. Then a wind sprint.

  The boot withdrew silently, and I heard a hand stir the water, no doubt parting the bath bubbles. Then the steps moved away, and it took a few wild and disbelieving moments for it to sink in that he’d gone.

  In the main room, they mumbled, conferred. The front door opened and shut, and then there was a moment of silence.

  But no relief.

  I remained in full view from the street; depending on which way they exited the building, they’d spot me. A gate creaked open around the corner, jarring me into action. I stepped back through the window into the bathroom and plastered myself against the far wall. Waited. And listened for footsteps across the quartz. But none came.

  Sometime after, the held breath burst from my lungs and my whole body shuddered and slid down the wall. I clutched my knees.

  I sat there for ten minutes, or maybe thirty. Breathing. Then I stood, my muscles stiff and creaking.

  She lay about five feet from the front door. No sign of damage, save a neat hole in the fabric above her ribs and a crimson halo beneath her head; one of the shots must have entered her open mouth. The bathrobe had come open, and thrown on her bare chest was a note composed of clipped magazine letters: LyINg bITcH.

  Lonely-hearts scams and death threats and chickens coming home to roost. Another solid cover for a murder that was nothing more than a cold efficiency.

  The more I tried to press forward, the more everything spiraled out of control. I had landed, now, in a whole different order of trouble. I was the lead suspect in Keith Conner’s murder. I had set the cops on the trail of this woman; from their perspective she was a centerpiece in my paranoid delusion. I couldn’t be here, at the scene of her murder. I needed to be across town with newfound submissiveness and an airtight alibi. I needed to flee. But I couldn’t stop looking at her.

  Sprawled on the floor, vulnerable and hopeless, she was Elisabeta again. And again I would have done anything to help her. Beside her, I took a knee, tugged the bathrobe up over an exposed breast. I didn’t know what else I could do for her.

  A single drawer in the apothecary cabinet remained half open. I stared over at it for a time before rising.

  The drawer itself was no bigger than a business card, and sure enough it held a single ivory rectangle of sturdy paper stock. I withdrew it, read the name, and bit down on my lip to hold my shock in check. It couldn’t be. And yet it made perfect sense.

  Moving swiftly, I grabbed a paper towel and used it to wipe the bathroom doorknob and surfaces, and then I stepped back out through that window. I tiptoed through the cacti and veered out onto the street, glancing around and blinking against a bright day that seemed an impossible contrast to what I had just witnessed. My heart had yet to slow. I tossed the paper towel down a storm drain.

  A half block away, I pulled out that card and double-checked the name, just to make sure I hadn’t dreamed it.

  Joe Vente.

  Chapter 42

  He sat in the back of his van in a freestanding swivel chair with stuffing leaking at the seams, facing me and blinking over the business card I’d just handed him, along with an explanation of how I�
��d gotten it. He’d met me at a park off Sepulveda, and I’d only left my vehicle to step into his. I was badly rattled and doing my best not to show it. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the image of that sprawled corpse, those striking blue eyes reduced to glass.

  ‘I don’t . . . I don’t believe this,’ Joe said. ‘You met with her, too? The sick kid? The duffel bag of cash?’

  ‘Yes. And the same people who directed me there set me up at Hotel Angeleno.’

  ‘That’s where that whole thing was leading? Keith’s murder?’ He smacked both palms down on the top of his head, a childlike gesture of agitation. ‘Why us?’

  ‘Think about it.’

  ‘I can’t think right now.’

  ‘We both had grudges against Keith Conner. We both have ongoing lawsuits with him. Paparazzo and movie star? It’s obvious you two can’t stand each other any more than he and I could.’

  ‘So we were both prospective fall guys for the murder?’ Joe whistled, ran his hands through his stringy hair. ‘Jesus, I dodged a bullet.’

  And I’d walked right into one. He could continue snapping invasive photos, a free man, while I scrambled for my life against a ticking clock. The fact that Joe Vente had proven more circumspect than I — that was a bitter pill to swallow.

  ‘What?’ Joe was studying me. ‘You never seen a body before?’

  I followed his gaze. A muscle in my forearm was quivering. I reached over, squeezed until it ached. When I let go, my arm was still. ‘When did you see Elisabeta?’

  ‘A few months ago. I’d been getting these DVDs. Footage of me sneaking around, spying on celebrities. Footage of me getting footage. It was weird as shit, like some French film or something.’

  The overlap with Doug Beeman’s story left me wondering if this was merely another wrinkle in the scam, another ruse within the ruse. Could I know what was real and what was fabricated anymore? I no longer trusted myself, the world. My eyes drifted around the cluttered van, searching out clues that could point to duplicity, gauging the distance to the door handle. But I reminded myself that I’d checked Joe out online, that he was real, or at least as real as anyone got in Los Angeles. Sally and Valentine had interviewed him, too, confirmed his existence. Some of my instincts had to be right; I couldn’t stay this worked up and remain functional.

  He was saying, ‘At first I thought it was a rival, one of the guys I beat out for a payday. I mean, makes sense, right? Then, when it got creepier, I figured some rich star had hired someone for revenge. Some celeb, maybe I took a picture of his kid at soccer practice, someone I caught on the can in a public restroom or something.’

  I tried for casual, covering my jitters. ‘Who’d you catch in a public restroom?’

  He told me.

  I whistled. ‘Crouching Tiger, indeed.’

  ‘Then I got an email like you got, but without the ‘“She needs your help or she’ll die” note. Just an MPEG of a car trunk in an alley. It was under my skin, the whole thing. I had to know what the fuck it was about. I found the duffel. I followed the map, delivered it to Elisabeta. Figured out her story, you know, the grandkid. I floated outta there — it was like heroin. A few days later, I get this call, right? And they lead me to a blueprint that shows where they’ve hidden surveillance crap in my house. Like all over my house. I freaked the fuck out. Pulled all that shit out of the walls and dumped it into some trash can they specified, along with all the DVDs and other shit. That was it for me. They sent me more emails, but I couldn’t do it anymore.’

  I stared at him, spellbound. Joe Vente had served as their rough draft. They’d learned what had worked and what hadn’t. Then they’d honed their strategy, switching the order of events, adding implicit threats, building a more effective ruse.

  ‘So they just left you alone?’ I almost couldn’t believe it.

  ‘I stopped playing the game. What the fuck were they gonna do?’

  I had no answer, only an echo of regret through the hollow of my chest. ‘You’re smarter than I was,’ I said. ‘You had more restraint.’

  ‘Smarter?’ He snickered. ‘Restraint?’

  ‘What then?’

  He rummaged in a bag, came up with what looked like a recording device, a thin receiver rising from the center of a clear, inverted dome the size of a small umbrella. ‘You see this? It’s a parabolic microphone. You aim and click, and it collects and focuses sound waves. I can pick up a whisper at a hundred yards. I can also hook up a device that reads vibrations off glass. Living rooms, vehicles on the freeway, doctors’ offices, the whole nine. What I’m saying is, I know this world. I have it wired.’ He sat back in the chair, crossed his arms.

  I said, ‘I’m not following.’

  ‘I got outgamed,’ he said angrily. ‘I did. It fucked with my head. I lost track of which way was up. It wasn’t about smarts or restraint. I didn’t have the stomach for it. Not for this end of the equation anyway. I’m a hypocrite and a parasite, but at least I don’t fucking lie to myself. So I shriveled up. Leave me alone if I leave you alone. And it worked. Not that it doesn’t haunt me every fucking day, who got the better of me, where it was leading. ’

  ‘At least now you know,’ I said, ‘what was at the end of the trail.’

  ‘The electric chair.’ He’d meant it as a joke, but he read my expression and said, ‘Look, I’m just fucking around. You’ll get off.’

  ‘How? You gonna corroborate my story for me?’

  He laughed. ‘Let’s just say that when it comes to the cops, my word probably counts for less than yours. I’d hurt you more than I’d help you. Besides, I’ve got no evidence. Nothing concrete.’

  ‘Neither of us does.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re out of witnesses. They keep dying.’ He finally put two and two together, and a ripple of fear moved across his face, left it changed. ‘That’s why you came to find me. To warn me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You think they’ll really . . .?’

  ‘I think I wouldn’t want to take the chance.’

  ‘Jesus, I—’ He looked around the van, as if the walls were closing in. His panic sweat clinched for me that he wasn’t in on the scam. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay. I’ve gotten lost before when the heat’s turned up.’ He stuck a thumb in the upholstery, widened the tear. ‘You didn’t have to come find me. Thanks for the warning.’

  I said, ‘Trista Koan. I need an address.’

  He nodded, one pronounced dip of his head, a man used to dealing. ‘I’ll get one for you. Gimme an hour. What’s your cell?’ I gave him the number of the throwaway I’d reclaimed from Ariana. He had me repeat it twice and didn’t write it down. ‘What else?’ His eyes were light green and surprisingly pretty set in that coarse face.

  Those two muffled percussions echoed in my head, making me flinch. The toe of that black boot, barely in view at the edge of the door. Joe was looking at me funny.

  I cleared my throat. ‘I’d like you to call in the location of Elisabeta’s body. Anonymously. I can’t have anything to do with it.’

  ‘Like you said, this broad ran cons and had death threats against her. The cops’re gonna connect the dots to draw the wrong picture or to lead back to you. Either way, they’ll be all over you once she turns up dead. So why report it?’

  ‘What, just leave her body there?’

  ‘Not like she cares.’

  ‘She’s got family, I’m sure.’

  ‘So what? She’ll still have family in a week when the neighbors complain about the smell, but at least you’ll buy yourself a few more days to dig around without the cops up your ass. She fucked with us. It’s not like she deserves better.’

  I said, ‘But her family does. Make the call for me.’

  ‘It’s your jail sentence.’

  ‘Anything else you can give me on Keith Conner?’

  ‘I can give you everything on Keith Conner,’ he said. ‘But that’s my currency, man. What do I get?’

  ‘You say you want to know who fucked
with you. Well, this could be your chance. I’m not even asking you to share the risk.’

  He was back at his fingernails again, but he noticed and set his hands down in his lap. ‘From what I’ve learned, movie stars don’t do shit. Meetings, lots of meetings. Business managers, agents, the Coffee Bean on Sunset. And fucking lunches. You just sort of hang in and hope for some break in the routine, something weird. One day, about two weeks ago, I noticed something like that. Another car following him, keeping an eye. Not one of the regulars. We all know each other. And no one trolls in a Mercury Sable with tinted windows. I call the license plate in to my hook at LAPD, and guess what? The number doesn’t exist.’

  He’d lowered his voice, and I found myself leaning toward him. The smell of the van — peanuts, coffee, spent breath — was making me claustrophobic, but the hook was set and I was going nowhere.

  Joe continued, ‘Now I’m curious. So when it peels out, I follow it. I lose it at a light but find it parked two blocks up at the Starbright Plaza, one of those crappy strip malls on Riverside by the studios. You know, stores downstairs, offices up? I go kick the tires. It’s got a Hertz sticker on the windshield.’

  Hertz again. Just like the car Sally traced the VIN back to.

  He continued, ‘So someone had switched the plates. I check the mall directory, walk around, but there’s a ton of offices and nothing looks suspicious. I stake the car out for a few hours, then get bored and leave.’

  ‘Starbright Plaza?’

  ‘Starbright Plaza. That’s the best I got for you.’

  I pulled open the door, drew in a deep breath of fresh air, and stepped down onto the street toward my car. I’d gotten the key into my lock when I heard the van behind me, sputtering.

  ‘Hey,’ Joe’s gruff voice called out. ‘If you live, I still want that exclusive.’

  When I turned around, he was already chugging off.

  Chapter 43

  A bland-as-hell two-story sprawl, brown wood and beige stucco, named Starbright Plaza. The inadvertent irony was common around these parts, in the slices of neighborhood around Warner Bros., Universal, and Disney. A-List Tires and Rims. Blockbuster Orchard Supply. Red Carpet Motel with FREE cable in every room!