Homicide Related (38 page)

“You have sixty seconds,” he said. “You call this number if you want to talk.” He rattled off his cell phone number. “If I don't hear from you, I call the cops. I'm sure they'll be interested in what you were doing back behind Jay-Zee's. I hope you've got a good story.” He pressed end and stood there, holding his cell phone, wondering if he had done the right thing.

He counted to ten.

Eleven.

Twelve.

Thirteen.

His cell phone rang. He checked the read-out.

“You know where to find me?” Ron Malone said.

“Yeah. The gold building downtown.”

“There's a food court under it. Meet me there at noon, in front of the sushi counter. We can talk.”

Dooley bet the food court would be jammed with office workers at noon—probably thousands of them. How would he recognize the guy? But he couldn't ask—he'd just told him he had pictures. If he had pictures, he should know what Ronald Malone looked like.

“I heard there's a restaurant at the top of that building where you can get a twenty-five-dollar hamburger. How about we meet up there? I'll even make the reservations.”

“I think I can handle that,” Ron Malone said. “Noon. Be there.”

Dooley closed his cell phone and headed back inside. Warren was just about to go into math class when Dooley found him.

“I need to talk to you,” he said.

“But the bell—”

“Warren, I need a favor.”

Warren glanced over his shoulder into the math classroom. Dooley saw the math teacher—the same one Dooley had—up at the board. The teacher glanced at Warren before zeroing in on Dooley.

“I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important,” Dooley said. “And there's no one else I can ask.”

Warren cast a nervous glance into the classroom, but he followed Dooley down the hall to the boys' bathroom where Dooley scrawled some numbers on a piece of paper and told Warren what he wanted him to do.

“You might get Rektor up your ass for skipping—”

“I'll tell my mom I had an allergy attack,” Warren said. “I'll get her to write a note.”

Just like that. Without even asking what it was all about. Dooley didn't understand Warren, but he sure was glad that he knew him.

Dooley left first, taking the back stairs and cutting across the athletic field to the bus stop.

Dooley squirmed as he rode the elevator up to the top floor of the office tower. People got on and off every other floor or so, and Dooley noticed that none of them was dressed in jeans and sweatshirts. He started to worry about what it would be like at that restaurant with the twenty-five-dollar hamburgers. What if some snooty maitre d' wouldn't even let him in? He'd look like a complete idiot.

He got off the elevator on the top floor. The entrance to the restaurant was right there. He crossed to it and approached a man in a black suit who was standing behind a little podium that had a big book open on it with names written in it. The man inspected Dooley's jacket and sweatshirt and jeans before looking at Dooley. He waited for Dooley to speak.

“I'm meeting Mr. Ron Malone,” Dooley said. “He has a reservation.”

The man in the black suit took another look at Dooley's jacket and sweatshirt and jeans. Then he raised a hand and flagged a waiter. The man in the black suit told him Malone's name, and the waiter looked at Dooley's jacket and sweatshirt and jeans.

“Follow me,” he said.

Dooley followed the waiter past the maitre d' and across a big room filled with tables and booths and with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides. The tables weren't all jammed together like they were in most restaurants Dooley had been in. They were spaced out so that the people who were eating could talk to each other without the people at the neighboring tables hearing everything they said. They had white linen table cloths, and there were delicate little flower arrangements in the middle of each one. The waiter led Dooley toward a booth on the far side of the restaurant. Dooley stopped and stared at its occupant—a man with wavy black hair, generous lips, and piercing blue eyes. He was wearing a charcoal gray suit with a pale blue shirt and dark-blue-patterned tie. His right hand was wrapped around a glass of water, and Dooley could see that he'd had a manicure, either that or he spent more time on his nails than most girls did. He looked up at Dooley and held him with his eyes, his lips curled into the semblance of a smile. It was obvious he was loaded, with money, with confidence, with balls. Jesus, and this was the guy Jeffie had tried to snow?

The waiter had reached the booth and turned to locate Dooley. Dooley continued on to the table. The waiter stood aside so that he could slide onto the upholstered bench across from Malone. He set a menu down in front of Dooley.

“Don't get too comfortable,” Malone said as the waiter withdrew. He slid out of the booth and motioned for Dooley to do the same. “This way,” he said, indicating a door off the main dining room.

Dooley hesitated.

“You come with me or you walk away,” Malone said.

“Your choice.”

Dooley followed him. The door opened onto a corridor.

“In there,” Malone said.

There
was the men's room.

The place was deserted. Opposite a row of urinals were four stalls. But these were more like little rooms, with walls that went right down to the floor and right up to the ceiling.

“The one at the end,” Malone said.

It was the wheelchair-accessible stall. Malone nudged Dooley inside. He came in with him and shut the door.

“Hey,” Dooley said.

“Strip,” Malone said.

“What?”

“You called me and said you were Jeffrey Eccles,” Malone said. “That's that kid who was found murdered. I read all about it. He was known to the police. It said in the paper he was a drug dealer.”

“You said you didn't know him. If that's true, what are we—”

“Don't give me that shit,” Malone said. “I'm here, aren't I? But how do I know you're not a cop? How do I know this isn't some half-assed cop sting operation?”

“Sting operation?”

“How do I know you're not trying to set me up?”

“I'm not a cop,” Dooley said.

“Did the cops send you here?”

“No.”

“Prove it,” Malone said. “Strip. No strip, no talk.”

Shit.

Dooley pulled off his jacket. He yanked his T-shirt and sweatshirt up over his head.

“Okay?” he said.

“The rest of it,” Malone said.

Dooley pulled off his boots. He unbuckled his belt and then hesitated.

“Go on,” Malone said. It seemed to Dooley that he was enjoying himself.

Dooley kept his eyes on Malone's as he unzipped his jeans and lowered them. Malone went through Dooley's pockets, paying special attention to Dooley's cell phone. He seemed to know what he was looking for and he obviously didn't find it because he handed the phone back to Dooley, who stuffed it into his jeans pocket. Finally Malone said, “Let's have lunch.”

He leaned against the door of the stall and watched as Dooley got dressed again. He didn't even check before he opened the door and strode out. Thank God there was no one else in the room.

Dooley followed Malone back to the booth.

Malone slid into his seat. Dooley saw that a drink had arrived for him while they were in the men's room. It looked like scotch. A double. Malone took a sip.

“So,” he said, caressing the glass, “why am I talking to you? What do you want?”

Dooley looked at the amber liquid in Malone's glass. He wished he had a drink, too, to take the edge off.

“I want what Jeffie wanted,” he said.

Malone looked evenly at him for a moment. Dooley wondered what kind of business he was in. A cold one, he decided, something to do with money and all the crap you had to do to make a lot of it.

“I believe you said something about pictures,” Malone said.

Dooley nodded.

“Do you have them with you?”

“First we make a deal,” Dooley said. “Then you get the pictures.”

“In other words, you don't have them with you.” Malone smiled at Dooley. “There
are
no pictures.” He said it smoothly, as if there was no question about it.

“Yeah, there are,” Dooley said. “Jeffie told me he saw you back behind Jay-Zee's. He took pictures.”

“Jeffrey was mistaken about seeing me,” Malone said. “And since he was mistaken, there are no pictures. He admitted as much to me.”

He came across like a smart guy, but there was just one thing.

“If you weren't there like Jeffie said you were, and if there are no pictures, why did you agree to meet me?”

Malone picked up his glass, swirled the liquid around in it, and took another sip.

“I was curious. I knew Jeffrey slightly. I think you know how. He knew that I have money. He knew I liked to enjoy myself. Instead of being discreet as someone in his business should be, he tried to take advantage of me. He tried to blackmail me, if you can believe it. Then I read in the paper that he died.”

“He was murdered,” Dooley said.

“And the next thing I know, you pop out of the woodwork. I wanted to see what you would do, how you would play it. I wondered what kind of person imagined he could squeeze money out of me with such a ridiculous bluff.”

Yeah, confidence and balls.

“Well, I guess now you know, huh?” Dooley said.

“You're wasting my time,” Malone said.

“I sure don't want to do that. So maybe I should be a good citizen and go have a talk with the police.”

Malone laughed.

“You think that's funny?” Dooley said.

“Forgive me, but you don't seem the type to go running to the police.”

“Yeah, well, I didn't used to be. But now I try to do the right thing.”

“Like blackmailing me.”

“Like telling the cops that right before he died, Jeffie went to see you—to try and blackmail you, just like you said.”

“He was bluffing. He was an idiot.”

“He was murdered. And I think he was murdered
because
he tried to blackmail you. Okay, so maybe he didn't have pictures. But he did see you behind Jay-Zee's. He saw who you were with.”

“You think
I
killed Jeffrey?

“You have an alibi for when he was murdered?”

Dooley didn't like the way Malone kept smiling at him.

Was he wrong about this guy?

“What possible motive would I have for killing Jeffrey Eccles? As I've already said, he was mistaken about what he thought he saw.”

“Was he?” Dooley said. “So it won't matter to you if I tell the police what Jeffie told me? You're that sure no one else saw you that night, no one else saw who you were with? You're sure no one saw your car? You're sure that if the police start looking into it, they're not going to find anything? Because one thing I've learned about cops, they're not as dumb as some people think they are. You want to take that risk? Your alibi for that night is solid?”

A cell phone trilled—not Dooley's.

Malone dipped into his jacket pocket.

“If you'll excuse me,” he said.

Dooley snuck a peek at his watch. Right on time.

“Pizza?” Malone was saying, annoyed now. “You have the wrong number.” A pause. Then louder, pissed now, his sharp eyes even sharper, like knives, so that it wasn't hard to see him pressing a lit cigarette into warm flesh: “What are you—deaf? I just told you. You have the wrong number.” Dooley felt his belly clench as he watched Malone flip the phone shut and drop it back into his pocket. He wished it was his hand wrapped around that glass instead of Malone's. He wished he could raise that glass and smash it right across Malone's face.

Malone turned his attention back to Dooley. “What is it that you want? Money?” He nodded as if, of course, it was. “It's always about money, isn't it?”

“You know what they say,” Dooley said. “You do the crime, you have to pay—one way or another.”

Malone seemed to like that. He raised his glass in a salute to Dooley, swallowed the rest of the scotch, and then he held the glass up, a signal for the waiter to bring him another one. “How much do you want?” he said.

“Twice what Jeffie asked for.”

“Twice?”

“Twice the crime, twice the price,” Dooley said.

“Twice the crime?” Malone said, amused. “Correct me if I'm wrong, but no one has established that I committed any crime at all.”

“That's the point, right?” Dooley said. “You don't want anyone to establish that.”

The waiter brought a fresh drink for Malone and took away the empty glass.

“You're wasting your time and mine,” Malone said, swirling the ice in the amber liquid. “I'm not paying you anything. I have no reason to.” He leaned back in his chair, manicured, polished, smug.