Chasing the Dime (15 page)

He glanced back at her. He could see the distress in her eyes, like she was looking at a chapter from her own life. A possible final chapter.

‘Did they ever catch the guy?' she asked.

‘Eventually. But not until after he killed four more.'

She shook her head.

‘What are you doing here, Henry? That story has got nothing to do with any of this.'

‘I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just ... following something.'

‘Good way to get yourself hurt.'

‘Look, nobody's going to know you talked to me. Just tell me, what did you hear about Lilly?'

Silence.

‘She wanted to get out, didn't she? She made enough money, she was going to go to school. She wanted to get out of the life.'

‘Everybody wants to get out. You think we enjoy it?'

Pierce felt ashamed of the way he was pushing her. The way he had used her hadn't been too different from the rest of her paying customers.

‘I'm sorry,' he said.

‘No, you're not. You're just like the others. You want something and you're desperate for it. Only I can give you the other thing a lot easier than I can give you what you want.'

He was silent.

‘Turn left up here and go down to the end. There's only one parking space for her unit. She used to leave it open for the client.'

He turned off Speedway as instructed and was in an alley behind rows of small apartments on either side. They looked like four-to-six-unit buildings with three-foot-wide walking alleys in between. It was crowded. It was the kind of neighborhood where one barking dog could set everybody on edge.

When he got to the last building, Robin said, ‘Somebody took it.'

She pointed to a car parked in a spot below a stairway to an apartment door.

‘That's the place up there.'

‘Is that her car?'

‘No, she had a Lexus.'

Right. He remembered what Wainwright had said. The car in the space was a Volvo wagon. Pierce backed up and squeezed his BMW between two rows of trash cans. It wasn't a legal space but cars could still get past in the alley and he wasn't expecting to be there long.

‘You'll have to climb over and get out this side.'

‘Great. Thanks.'

They got out, Pierce holding the door as Robin climbed over the seats. As soon as she was out she started heading back down the alley toward Speedway.

‘Wait,' Pierce said. ‘This way.'

‘No, I'm finished. I'm walking back to Speedway and catching a cab.'

Pierce could have argued with her about it but decided to let her go.

‘Look, thanks for your help. If I find her, I'll let you know.'

‘Who, Lilly or your sister?'

That gave him pause for a moment. From those you least expect it comes insight.

‘You going to be all right?' he called after her.

She suddenly stopped, turned and strode back to him, the anger flaring in her eyes again.

‘Look, don't pretend you care about me, okay? That phony shit is more disgusting than the men who want to come on my face. At least they're honest about it.'

She turned and walked off again down the alley. Pierce watched her for a few moments to see if she'd look back at him but she didn't. She kept on going, pulling a cell phone out of her purse so she could call a cab.

He walked around the Volvo and noticed that blankets in the back were used to cover the tops of two cardboard boxes and other bulky items he couldn't see. He climbed the stairs to Lilly's apartment. When he got there he saw that the door was ajar. He leaned over the railing and looked up the alley but Robin was almost to Speedway and too far to call to.

He turned back to the door and leaned his head in close to the jamb but he didn't hear anything. With one finger he pushed the door, remaining on the porch as it swung inward. As it opened he could see a sparsely furnished living room with a stairway going up the far wall to a loft. Under the loft was a small kitchen with a pass-through window to the living room. Through the pass-through he could see the torso of a man, moving about and putting liquor bottles into a box on the counter.

Pierce leaned forward and looked in without actually entering the apartment. He saw three cardboard boxes on the floor of the living room but there seemed to be no one else in the apartment except the man in the kitchen. The man appeared to be clearing things out and boxing them all up.

Pierce reached over and knocked on the door and called out, ‘Lilly?'

The man in the kitchen was startled and almost dropped a bottle of gin he was holding. He then carefully put the bottle on the counter.

‘She's not here anymore,' he called from the kitchen. ‘She's moved.'

But he stayed in the kitchen, motionless. Pierce thought that was odd, as if he didn't want his face seen.

‘Then who are you?'

‘I'm the landlord and I'm busy. You'll have to come back.'

Pierce started putting it together. He stepped into the apartment and moved toward the kitchen. When he got to the doorway he saw a man with long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. He wore a dirty white T-shirt and dirtier white shorts. He was deeply tanned.

‘Why would I come back if she moved away?'

It startled him again.

‘What I mean is, you can't come in here. She's gone and I'm working.'

‘What's your name?'

‘My name doesn't matter. Please leave now.'

‘You're Wainwright, aren't you?'

The man looked up at Pierce. The acknowledgment was in his eyes.

‘Who are you?'

‘I'm Pierce. I talked to you today. I was the one who told you she was gone.'

‘Oh. Well, you were right, she's long gone.'

‘The money she paid you was for both places. The four grand. You didn't tell me that.'

‘You didn't ask.'

‘Do you own this building, Mr. Wainwright?'

‘I'm not answering your questions, thank you.'

‘Or does Billy Wentz own it and you just manage it for him?'

Again, the acknowledgment flickered in the eyes and then went out.

‘Okay, leave now. Get out of here.'

Pierce shook his head.

‘I'm not leaving yet. If you want to call the cops, go ahead. See what they think about your clearing her stuff out even though you told me she was paid up through the month. Maybe we look under the blankets in the back of your car, too. I'm betting we'd find a plasma TV that used to hang on the wall of the house she rented over on Altair. You probably went by there first, right?'

‘She abandoned the place,' Wainwright said testily. ‘You should have seen the kitchen in there.'

‘I'm sure it must've been just awful. So awful, I guess, you decided to clear the place out and maybe even double-dip on the rent, huh? Housing in Venice is tight. You already got a new tenant lined up? Let me guess, another L.A. darling?'

‘Look, you don't try to tell me my business.'

‘I wouldn't dream of it.'

‘What do you want?'

‘To look around. To look at the things you're taking.'

‘Then hurry up, because as soon as I'm done in here I'm leaving. And I'm locking the door whether you're still here or not.'

Pierce stepped toward him, entering the kitchen and dropping his gaze down into the box on the counter. It was full of liquor bottles and odd glassware, nothing important. He pulled up one of the brown bottles and saw that it was sixteen-year-old scotch. Good stuff. He dropped the bottle back into the box.

‘Hey, easy!' Wainwright protested.

‘So, does Billy know you're clearing the place out?'

‘I don't know any Billy.'

‘So you got the house over on Altair and this place. What other properties are under the wing of Wainwright Properties?'

Wainwright folded his arms and leaned back against the counter. He wasn't talking and Pierce suddenly had the urge to take one of the bottles out of the box and smash it across his face.

‘How about the Marina Executive Towers? That one of yours?'

Wainwright reached into one of the front pockets of his pants and took out a package of Camels. He shook out a cigarette and then returned the pack to his pocket. He turned on one of the stove's gas burners and lit the cigarette off the flame, then reached into the box and rooted around in the glassware until he found what he was looking for. He came out with a glass ashtray that he put on the counter and dipped his cigarette into.

Pierce noticed the ashtray had printing on it. He leaned forward slightly to read it.

Pierce had heard of the place. It was a dive that was so low, it was high. It was favored by the black-clad Hollywood night creepers. It was also close to the offices of Entrepreneurial Concepts Unlimited. Was it a clue? He had no idea.

‘I'm going to take that look around now,' he said to Wainwright.

‘Yeah, you do that. Be quick.'

While he listened to Wainwright clinking glasses and jarring bottles as he packed the box, Pierce went into the living room and crouched in front of the boxes that had already been packed. One contained dishware and other kitchen items. The other two contained things from the loft. Bedroom things. There was a basket of assorted condoms. There were several pairs of high-heel shoes. There were leather straps and whips, a full leather head mask with zippers positioned at the eyes and mouth. On her L. A. Darlings page Lilly did not advertise sadomasochistic services. Pierce wondered if this meant there was another website out there, something darker and with a whole new set of elements to consider in her disappearance.

The last box he checked was full of bras and sheer underwear and negligees and miniskirts on hangers. It was clothing similar to what Pierce had seen in one of the closets of the house on Altair. For a moment he wondered what Wainwright planned to do with the boxes. Sell everything in a bizarre yard sale? Or was he simply going to hold it while he re-rented the apartment and house?

Satisfied with his inventory of the boxes, Pierce decided to check out the loft. As he got up, his eyes came upon the door and he noticed the dead bolt. It was a double-key lock. A key was necessary to open or close the lock from both sides. He now understood Wainwright's threat to lock the door whether Pierce was done with his search or not. If you did not have a key, you could be locked in as well as locked out. Pierce wondered what this meant. Did Lilly lock her clients inside the apartment with her? Perhaps it was a way of ensuring payment for services rendered. Maybe it meant nothing at all.

He moved to the staircase and headed up to the loft. On the landing at the top there was a small window that looked out across the rooftop across the alley to the far edge of the beach and the Pacific. Pierce looked down into the alley and saw his car. His eyes tracked down the alley to Speedway. He caught a glimpse of Robin under a streetlight as she got into a green and yellow cab, closing the door as it took off.

He turned from the window to the loft. It was no more than two hundred square feet on the upper level, including the space of a small bath with a shower. The air up there smelled of an unpleasant mixture of heavy incense and something else that Pierce could not readily place. It was like the spoiled air in a refrigerator that has been turned off. It was there but was overpowered by the incense that held to the room like a ghost.

On the open floor there was a king-size bed with no headboard. It took up most of the available space, leaving room for one small side table and a reading light. On the table was an incense burner that was a Kama Sutra sculpture of a fat man and a thin woman coupling in a rear-entry position. A long ash from a burned down incense stick lapped over the sculpture's bowl and onto the table. Pierce was surprised Wainwright had not taken the piece. He was taking everything else, it seemed.

The bedspread was a light blue and the carpet beige. He went to a small closet and slid open the door. It was empty, the contents now in one of the boxes below.

Pierce looked at the bed. It looked to have been carefully made, the spread tucked tightly under the mattress. But there were no pillows, which he thought was strange. He thought maybe it was one of the rules of the escort business. Robin had said the number one rule was no unprotected sex. Maybe number two was no pillows — too easy to smother you with.

He got down on the carpet and looked underneath the box spring. There was nothing but dust.

But then he saw a dark spot in the beige carpeting. Curious, he straightened up and pushed the bed against the far wall to uncover the spot. One of the wheels was jammed and he had a difficult time, the bed sliding and bumping on the carpet.

Whatever had spilled or dripped on the carpet was dry. It was a brownish black color and Pierce didn't want to touch it, because he thought it might be blood. He also understood now that it was the source of the odor underlying the smell of incense in the room. He got up and pushed the bed back over the spot.

‘What the hell are you doing up there?' Wainwright called up.

Pierce didn't answer. He was consumed with the purpose at hand. He took hold of one corner of the bedspread and pulled it up, revealing the mattress below. No mattress cover or top sheet. No blanket.

He started pulling off the bedspread. He wanted to see the mattress. Sheets and blankets could easily be taken from an apartment and thrown away. Even pillows could be discarded. But a king-size mattress was another matter.