Eats to Die For! (18 page)

“Of course not, Mr. Beauchamp,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “You can have seconds if you wish.”

“That would be outstanding,” I replied. I went back to eating and a second later a realization hit me like a fist to the head.

It was something Dan had said repeatedly, and it wasn't so much what he was saying, but the way he said it. It was my name; several times he had called me “Mr. Beauchamp,” and each time he had
pronounced it correctly
. To me that strongly implied he had not simply read by name off of my confiscated driver license, but had been instructed in its pronunciation by someone I know.

The list of possible someones was short: Louie, Ricky or possibly Zarian. Zarian was a long shot, frankly, and Ricky had already started to forget how to pronounce my name while still talking to me, which left Louie as the prime suspect.

While that indicated she was still alive and safe, it did not tell me on which side of this abduction was she working?

After finishing my meal, and going so far as to apologize for getting a spot of brown gravy on my pristine white shirt, an act of contrition that also seemed to please Dan, my tray was taken from the table by a uniformed busboy and my guard asked me to follow him out of the cafeteria.

Instead of going back to the elevator to return to my cell, we went down another hallway, this one adorned with photos of Palmer Hanley, both candid shots and stills from the few movies he'd made. There was even one from
Zombie Castle
with him and Mantan Moreland…or what should have been Mantan Moreland. But in this shot while Mantan's body was still there, his head had been replaced by the visage of comic actor Billy Gilbert, who was white! I couldn't even imagine why the Temple authorities deemed that necessary.

“That's our illustrious founder,” Dan commented.

“Billy Gilbert?” I asked, innocently.

“Who? Oh, you mean the other actor. How glib. No, Palmer Hanley.”

“Yes, I'm familiar with Mr. Hanley's work.”

“Really?”

I felt fairly certain he was waiting for me to make a caustic remark about the quality of work (or lack thereof) left behind for posterity by Palmer Hanley, but I restrained myself and simply nodded.

Other photos showed an older Hanley on horseback, on a boat, seated at the head of a conference table, and getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which I was pretty sure was also bogus.

At the end of the hallway was a large double door, like you find in a hospital, and going through it led to what looked like a hotel corridor, with numbered rooms. Dan stopped at one labeled “22” and knocked on the door, and then inserted a key and opened it. Inside was a comfortable looking suite, like one might find at any quality Hilton or Hyatt.

Then Dan called out, “I'm not alone.”

A second later Luisa Sandoval, dressed in a white “Visitor” blouse and pressed black slacks, walked out from another room.

“I believe you two know each other,” Dan said, as Louie stared at me, her mouth open.

“We've met,” I said.

“Good. I'll leave you now.”

“Wait,” she said, as he turned to leave the apartment. “What are we supposed to do in here?”

“Talk things over,” Dan replied, exiting the suite and locking the door behind him.

Once he had gone Louie ran up and put her arms around me. “Dave, I'm so sorry I got you into this mess.”

“It's okay, Louie.”

“It's not okay! You don't know what's going on!”

Putting my mouth close to her ear, I whispered, “Don't say anything else. I'm pretty sure this place is bugged.”

She started to say “Bugged?” but I covered her mouth and looked around. Searching for a hidden mic was impractical, as someone would surely come into the suite long before we had checked behind every wall hanging and under every lamp and through every piece of furniture.

“Bathroom,” I whispered.

“It's that way,” she whispered back, pointing.

“No, I mean let's go there to talk.”

She led me to the bathroom, which, as I had hoped, had a switch for a fan. A nice, loud fan, which would obscure anything we said.

Just to make sure, I also turned on the water in the shower. Since we were apparently no longer in California, the drought wasn't a concern.

But even after turning on the faucets I spoke in a whisper. “Louie, they put us together because they think I found your notes on your investigation of Burger Heaven. They think we'll talk about it and reveal where you hid them, and then they can go get them.”

“How do you know I hid my notes?” she whispered back.

“Pure surmise. But Zarian thinks you did, too.”

“How do you know Z?”

“Technically, I'm working for him. What did you do with your notes?”

“I copied them on a stick.”

“Where is it?”

She told me, and I actually hit my head for my own stupidity at not figuring it out, and then regretted it, given my head's other recent abuse. At least I felt certain no one else would ever find it, either.

“Dave, I'm sorry I had to get you involved in this,” Louie said.

“Don't stress over it. But I'm afraid I have bad news. It's about Regina Fontaine.”

Now she looked wary. “You know Regina?”

“I met her. Louie, Regina was murdered.”

She stepped back from me, her face suddenly turning the color of plaster. “My god.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I know how close you two were.”

“There was no reason to go after Regina!”

“She became a threat to them. At least they believed so.” At this point there was no reason to explain who I thought
they
were.

“Regina was your source for the story about Burger Heaven putting something in the meat, wasn't she?”

Louie nodded. “She contacted the paper because she thought something funny was going on. She didn't tell me at first about her connection with the Temple, but I found out. Then I began to put two-and-two together. Oh, god. Regina never did anyone any harm.”

She looked up at me. “Wait a minute, what do you mean you know how close we were?”

“I, uh, found a photo in your dresser.”

“You
what
?”

“I'm sorry, but you were missing and I was investigating, and that's what I turned up. I apologize for the invasion of privacy, but I was only trying to find you.”

“And now you have.”

“And now I have.”

“And now I suppose you want me to tell you all about our relationship. Will it turn you on if I do, Dave?”

“You don't have to tell me—”

“It was something that happened, that's all.”

“Did you sleep with her to get information from her?”

“I hardly had to. Regina was lost. She was searching for something in her life, anything, and she reached out to me, and then became dependent on me, and…you know, I don't have to tell you anything about this.”

“You're right, you don't,” I said. “But at least tell me this. Who took the picture for you?”

“What do you mean who?”

“Is there another person involved in this?”

“Like a
ménage à trois
, you mean? This is turning you on, isn't it?”

“I need to know if there's someone else I should be worrying about right now, that's all.”

Now she adopted a seductive look. “Sure that's all?” I remained silent and she said, “Okay, fine. No, nobody took the picture. We put the camera on the table and set the timer. Satisfied?”

“Yeah.”

“Dave, it was just one of those things. If you play your cards right, I'll tell you all about it sometime. Right now I think we need to figure out how we're going to get out of here.”

“I have been thinking about that, and I think I've got an idea.”

So much thinking from such a little brain
, I heard Robert Mitchum say. Shut up, Mitch.

“It had better be good.”

“What if we stage a show for them?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Assuming someone
is
listening, or maybe even watching us through a hidden camera, we start discussing the case and where your notes are hidden, only it's all bogus. We give them false information.”

“But if we give them any information, even if it's false, won't we be jeopardizing our lives?”

“They can't do anything to us until they find your notes, and if we keep giving them false information, they won't find them,” I argued.

“Maybe you're right,” she said. “But what do we say?”

“We'll make something up. If Ricky weren't already in trouble or maybe even captured himself, I'd say you should claim to have given them to him.”

“Who's Ricky?”

“Ricky, Ricardo.”

She gazed at me uncomprehendingly. “You want me to say I gave my notes to Desi Arnaz? I thought he was dead.”

“What? Oh, Ricky Ricardo. I can't believe I didn't realize that before.”

“Dave, you're not making any sense. Who is Ricky Ricardo?”

“Come on, Louie, your brother, Ricky. Remember?”

A strange, dark expression enveloped her face and she fell silent.

“What's the matter?” I asked.

“I remember Ricky, Dave,” Louie finally said. “I remember him very well. I remember the last time I saw him, too. I was nine.”

“Nine? How can that be? The photo of the two of you—”

“It was at his funeral, Dave. My brother Ricky died when he was eleven.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“I don't believe it,” I muttered, too softly to be heard over the sounds of the fan and the shower.

Unless my schizophrenia, if that's what it really was, had expanded to including completely hallucinating dead people instead of simply hearing their voices, I had been chumped by someone pretending to be Louie's brother, someone who knew enough about her to know that she had a long dead male sibling, and someone with enough smarts to dummy up a photograph of himself with Louie and plant it in her apartment as a proof of his story.

That implied two things: one, that the person that I knew as Ricky Sandoval was nowhere near as stupid as he pretended to be; and two, that he was up to his neck in this mess, if not behind it altogether.

In fact, it had probably been he who had had clubbed me over the head, drugged me, and then brought me here. He certainly looked strong enough to carry my unconscious body.

“Which means he also must have been the one who killed Regina,” I said aloud.

“Who are we talking about?” Louie asked.

“The guy who claimed to be your brother. He's probably also the one who killed Avery.”

“Hold on a minute. You're not talking about that junior stalker who lives next door to me, are you? You're telling me he's been murdered too?”

I nodded. “What's more, I think I heard it taking place, because that's when I was in your apartment looking around.”

“How did you get in?”

“Well, the first time the manager let me in and—”

“He did
what
? Jesus Christ!”

“He only did it once and it took a lot of convincing,” I said. “The last time I was there I had a key.”

I thought it best not to mention my balcony-to-balcony flying squirrel routine.

“The last time? Am I subletting to you now and don't realize it? Where the hell did you get a key?”

“From Ricky, at least from the guy who told me he was your brother. Now that I think about it, he's probably the one who tore your place apart looking for—”

“Who did
what
?”

“Someone tossed your apartment looking for your notes.”

“This just gets better and better!” she cried. “This is starting to sound like a bad thriller movie! I don't believe this shit is happening!”

“I think it's happening because they know you have the power to stop the Temple, or at least make things uncomfortable for them, and they just can't let that happen. Maybe the reason it seems like a bad conspiracy thriller movie is because the guy who founded the Temple only did bad movies, and they're paying homage to him.”

“They've known everything all along,” she said. “I thought I was uncovering all this groundbreaking information, and they've been ahead of me the whole time, probably laughing. But god, why did they have to kill Regina? And that kid next door? He was a dweeb, but he didn't deserve to die.”

Louie's eyes bored into mine. “I'm next, aren't I? They're going to kill me, too, aren't they?”

“Not if I can help it. But what did you discover about the Temple that's so damaging they're going to these extremes?”

“I found out what really happened to Palmer Hanley, the guy who started this operation.”

“He's been dead for years. Oh, jeez, don't tell me they killed him too!”

Louie smiled and shook her head.

“They did not, because he's not dead. Palmer Hanley is still alive and being held prisoner by the Temple.”

Now that was news. “Are you sure?” I asked.

“I've uncovered enough information to at least open an investigation into it. If I ever get the chance to publish it.”

“Where is he?”

“That I don't know, but I was told they're just waiting for him to die, and then they'll quietly plant him somewhere, and nobody will ever know.”

“But why bother to fake his death? I mean, if he's still alive, why not use him as the spokesman?”

Crazy, am I
? the near-hysterical voice of Colin Clive, “Dr. Frankenstein,” crowed in my head.

“Oh, I get it,” I said. “He's senile, right?”

“Apparently not,” Louie replied. “Apparently he's perfectly sharp and reasonably fit for an old man, but he's repudiated what the Temple has become. If they ever let him out, he'd be the one to blow the whistle for the entire cult.”