A Mighty Fortress (16 page)

“Lingerie?”

She nodded as if it weren’t a big deal. “I’m a single mom, Milo. My daughter is the love of my life.”

“I’m not judging.”

Her eyes didn’t believe me. “Her dad moved to California before she was even born and got killed a year later. You don’t know what it’s like working yourself through school and raising a kid. So I used to dance. After I’d finished school, I started to worry, you know, about people seeing me. So I went into private entertainment.”

“For Pilka?”

“At first, yes.”

“How does Mattie fit in to this?”

“Mattie worked for Pilka. But it was Don who introduced us. He pushed me to apply to work for Mattie a few years ago.”

“What a nice guy.”

“Don’t worry, he asked me to return the favor. Too many times.”

“I bet he did.”

She finally took a drink of water. “But it’s not how you’d think. He didn’t want sexual favors. He just wanted information.”

It was beginning to dawn on me just how much information Don Alexi apparently controlled in this ordeal. “Information about Pilka?”

She shook her head. “Pilka and Scalzo, but more Scalzo.”

“So, when did you go to work for Scalzo?”

“Who said I did?”

“Well, what was the other night?”

She stared at her clasped hands, as though they were covered with something I couldn’t see. “I guess you could say it was an interview. I’ve been flirting with the idea of going to work for Chad for a while now, or so he thought.”

“But you were really just undercover for Alexi?”

She sighed slowly. “I guess you could say that. He wanted to know what Chad and Evie were up to.”

“Evie?” I played dumb.

“The brunette with us.”

“How’s she fit in to this?”

“She used to work for Don before she went to work for Chad. Don never got over it. I think he wanted her back.”

“Well, you all seemed pretty chummy Sunday night.”

“What can I say? A few bottles of wine and a few grand will do that to a girl.”

It’ll do a lot more than that, I thought. “Listen, Kara, let’s cut to the chase. Who do you know who’d want Chad dead?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea. Don hated him more than anyone I know, but he, I don’t know, he seems too stupid to do that.” She was perceptive, all right. She sighed again.
 

“But you think he hated Chad enough to kill him?”

“You have to keep all this between us, Milo.” She waited for me to agree. I said nothing but she seemed desperate enough that the silence was enough for her to keep going. “I stayed loyal to Don through all of this. But Don hated Chad. He thought he was some kind of usurper.”

“What exactly did Don want you to find out about Chad and Evie?” I asked.

“More about their new venture.”

“Was this a venture with Pilka?”

“Kind of,” she murmured.

“Kind of?” Frustration crept into my voice.

“Chad was using Pilka’s business, but running a side business.”

“Was he paying Pilka for it?”

“I don’t know.”

“How about Pilka? How do you think he’d react if he found out that Chad was leaving him out of something like that?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t put anything beyond any of these guys.”

I was beginning to feel the same way. “And what did you find out about this new venture?”

“Chad promised I could double, triple what I was making for a date.”

“What’s the rub?”

Her face turned sullen. “You had to be videotaped.”

“Videotaped? Like porn?”

“Private porn, as I understood it.” She waited a moment for that to register, and then she continued. “All these men, you see, they grew up watching porn as teenagers. Having a woman just doesn’t do it for them anymore. They want to see themselves on the screen, doing it like that.”

“So that’s the new venture?”

“Not exactly. This has been going on for years. But Chad had a new idea, and he wanted to recruit me for that, too. That’s what the meeting Sunday was all about. But they really never discussed it around me. We were supposed to go party after dinner, but Chad left all of a sudden. I figured it was because of that subpoena you gave him.”

I flashed back to Scalzo taking his anger out on my face and nodded. “So who was the guy with the ponytail?”

“All I know is his name’s Brian, and he’s from Miami.”

“You catch his last name?” I asked.

“Blane or Blare or something like that.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Sunday night… or I guess you could say early Monday morning.”

“And you never saw Evie after you left the restaurant?”

Kara rolled her eyes. “Like I said, she didn’t show.”

“This Brian guy, were you with him all night?”

“As far as I know. I mean, eventually I fell asleep, but I never noticed him leaving or anything.”

“Where was he staying?”

“The Hyatt near the airport.”

“He still there?” I asked.

“I doubt it. He was supposed to fly out last night with Chad. That obviously didn’t happen.”
 

I asked her if she knew where they were supposed to go.

“L.A., as far as I knew. To meet some of his connections.”

“So you left Armani’s around nine and left the Hyatt the next morning. Have you talked to Evie since the restaurant?”

“When she didn’t show up, I tried calling her a few times. It went right to voicemail.”

“Have you tried since then?”

She shook her head.

“Will you?”

She nodded.

“You think she’d have any reason to go after Scalzo?”

“You mean, would she kill him?” She seemed baffled by the question.

“I’m just saying. I met her in his apartment Sunday morning, so maybe they were seeing each other. Maybe she took it for more than it was and got pissed when he sent her on a date with this Brian guy.”

That got a chuckle out of her. “You don’t know Evie very well.”

“Admittedly, I don’t know her at all.”

“Evie was
not
the type to get hung up on a guy. She had no reservations, no loyalties. She was seducing every guy she saw. It was all about power to her.”

“You got her number on you now?” I pressed.

She let out a little smirk. “What, you interested in a good time?”

“Try her,” I said, sterner than I intended.

She shrugged and hit a button on her phone. She listened a moment and then set the phone down. “It’s not working.”

“Her number’s dead?”

She nodded. “Out of service.”

“Give it to me anyways. I can try a few searches with it.”

 
She picked the phone up again and told me the digits. I typed and saved them in my notes app.

Just then, the waitress arrived with my food. I reached for the syrup and asked Kara if she was sure she didn’t want anything.

“I’m really not hungry.”

I set the syrup down and realized I wasn’t either. Unfortunately, this case was continuing to make me lose my appetite, too.

Back home, I spent some time doing research on the computer. I started by running a search on Sal Barton, looking for an obituary or any news about his death. I found nothing. Google returned a link to the website for Sal’s investigation company. I dialed the number and in no time I heard Sal’s voice speaking over an old analog recording. It sounded like Sal was reading from a script. The answering machine beeped, so I left a message. “Sal, it’s me, Milo. Just wanted to give you a call since we didn’t get to talk long the other day. Let me know how you’re doing, buddy.” I hung up and wondered if anyone would ever hear that message.

Having struck out with Sal, I returned my attention to the Scalzo case. I started by running a reverse search on the cell number Kara had given me for Angie or Evie or whatever the hell her name was. I started generally, typing the number in Google. I was surprised to find no direct hits. I ran more focused searches through Facebook too, which also yielded nothing. That meant I’d have to fork over a little more money to Accurint. A few minutes later, the search told me that the phone was owned by a company with a suite address in Miami. I gave them a call and found out they were a prepaid phone carrier. I wasn’t going to get anything out of them without a subpoena.

I checked the time. I had a favor to ask Hector, but he wouldn’t be home for a few hours. I was about to give up and take an afternoon siesta when my phone rang. It was Mattie. “Get over here, Porter. You’re not going to believe what I’ve got.”

He was right.

Mattie was waiting in the parking lot smoking a cigarette when I arrived. “What the hell took you so long?” He flicked the butt into the shrubs.

I followed him inside without answering. We entered the conference room where I’d reviewed the file the day before. He had a little thirteen-inch TV set up on the conference table. He lowered the lights and flipped on the DVD player.

“I hope you’re not showing me your new commercial,” I said.

He was all business. “Shut up and watch this.”

The grainy screen appeared. A gray-haired man with a broad muscular chest relaxed on an oversized couch. His pants were around his ankles.
 

“That’s McSwain,” Mattie said.

“
Our
McSwain?”

“The one and only.”

A brunette entered the view of the camera. I couldn’t see her face, but it didn’t take much imagination to realize that she was Angie or Evie—whatever her name, she was definitely the girl I’d met in Scalzo’s apartment. She got on her knees and quickly got to business. McSwain, meanwhile, rolled his head back and closed his eyes.

And with that, it was past time for me to look away. “I get the point.”

Mattie raised the remote. “What, you don’t want to see the money shot?” I guess the way I held my head told him all he needed to know, and he turned off the TV. “Don’t worry, you couldn’t see it anyway.”

Once the lights were back on, I started thinking about the ramifications of the video I’d just seen. I wondered whether this was the surprise Kara had said everyone had been waiting for. “Where did you get this?” I asked.

He held up a small media envelope. “It came in the mail today, with a note attached.” He showed me the little post-it:
Thank me Later
.

“You have any idea where that was taken?”

Mattie nodded. “No doubt it was Pilka’s lingerie shop.”

“Well, this leaves no doubt that McSwain knew what was going on in his place. Produce it to his attorneys, and he’ll probably cave.”

“We can’t just produce it. His lawyers will go ape-shit. He’ll probably accuse us of blackmail and illegal video interception or something.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Mattie’s eyes drilled into me like a rig drilling for oil in Texas. “We need to talk to McSwain directly. No lawyers. Just the parties.”

“So you’re going to have Pilka call him?”

“Pilka doesn’t even know about this yet. Alexi and I agreed to leave him out for now.”

“What, Don knows about this?”

Mattie nodded. “Pilka doesn’t care about this case. Only Don does. He’s the only one I can trust with this.” His eyes flickered. “By the way, how’d your interview with Pilka go?”

“Fine.” I wasn’t in the mood to offer information right now. “Back to this video. Are you planning on having Alexi talk to McSwain?”

He looked incredulous. “You met Don Alexi. I don’t see him persuading McSwain of anything but washing his hands.”

“And he’s the one you trust?”

Mattie shrugged. “That’s the world we live in, Porter. As you can see, I don’t have many choices. And you
are
working for me, right?” I knew where Mattie was going with this, and I didn’t like it. “I need you to talk to him.”

“Sorry, Mattie. I’m not taking a hit for you for extortion.”

“I don’t expect you to. You’re smarter than that. You can get around it and still make the point clear.”

“No thanks.”

“Please, we have no choice,” he moaned.

Meanwhile, I realized Kara had entered the room, and she didn’t look well.

“What do you mean?” I said. “The trial’s Monday. Kick his ass at trial.”

“Without this, we don’t have a leg to stand on.” I’d never seen such desperation in his eyes. And I didn’t get it. Pilka acted like he could care less about this case. “Just talk to him, Milo. Please.”

I knew it was time to meet Mr. McSwain; I just wasn’t sure that I would go as far as Mattie wanted me to go. “I’ll talk to him,” I said. “But no promises about the video.”

He took out the DVD, put it back in the case, and handed it to me. “You know what to do with this.”

I wasn’t sure that I did, but I took it anyways.

He told Kara to show me out, so I followed her back through the dark hallway. Once we were out of earshot, she turned and raised her eyes to ask what was going on. I waved the DVD. “Have you seen this yet?”
 

She shook her head, and I handed it to her.

“Watch it as soon as you can, and then run it out it to me.”

“Where?”

I waited in my car just around the block. Ahead, I could see the parking garage at Hyde Park Village, where wealthy women carried shopping bags to their cars, dressed immaculately and somehow never breaking a sweat in the heat. I counted two dozen such women, all shopping alone, during the five minutes it took Kara to show.

Kara, on the other hand, did not appear immune to the heat. She looked blotchy again, and had broken a sweat during the short walk from the office.

“Where the hell did that come from?” she asked through my open window.

I took the DVD case back from her and placed it in my glove box. “Wilcox just gave it to me. You recognize anyone in it?”

She leaned against my car. “That was obviously Evie.”

“What about the guy?”

“I have no idea. Never seen him before.”

“What about the location. Was that Pilka’s shop?”

“I think so.”

“You
think
?”

“It’s hard to tell for sure, but I think so.”

“I thought Scalzo did the video recording, and he didn’t make the videos at Pilka’s.”

“I did too. Maybe I was wrong.”

“He sure didn’t look like he was posing, did he?”