Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (119 page)

Ah, well. It looked like Ramen noodles again tonight. Tara took the steps down to the basement level, slipped into her car, waited until it warmed up. While she waited, she turned up the CD—Kay Starr singing
“C’est Magnifique.”

When the car was finally warm, she put it in reverse, backed up, her mind a clutter of hopes, opening-night jitters, stellar reviews, wild applause.

Then she felt the bump.

Oh my God,
she thought. Had she run over something? She put the car in park, pulled the hand brake, and got out. She walked behind the vehicle, looked beneath. Nothing. She hadn’t run over anything or anybody. Thank God.

Then Tara saw it: she had a flat. On top of everything else, she had a
flat.
And she had less than twenty minutes to get to her job. Like every other actress in Philly, probably the world, Tara waited tables.

She glanced around the parking level. No one. Thirty cars or so, a few vans. No people.
Shit.

She tried to combat the anger, the tears. She didn’t even know if there was a spare tire in the trunk. The car was a two-year-old compact and she hadn’t ever had to change one of its tires before.

“Having a problem?”

Tara wheeled around, a little startled. A man was getting out of the white van a few spaces down from her car. He carried a bouquet of flowers.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.” He pointed at her tire. “Doesn’t look too good.”

“It’s only flat on the bottom,” she said. “Ha-ha.”

“I’m really good at these things,” he said. “I’d be happy to help.”

She looked at her reflection in the car window. She was wearing her white wool coat. Her best. She could just imagine the grease on the front. And the dry-cleaning bill. More expense. Of course, she had long ago let her AAA dues lapse. She had never once used it when she was paying for it. And now, of course, she needed it.

“I couldn’t ask you to do that,” she said.

“It’s no big deal,” he said. “You’re not exactly dressed for automotive repair.”

Tara saw him sneak a covert glance at his watch. If she was going to snag him for the task, it had better be soon. “Sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble?” she asked.

“No trouble at all.” He held up the bouquet. “I have to deliver these by four o’clock, and then I’m done for the day. I have plenty of time.”

She looked around the parking level. It was all but deserted. As much as she hated to play the helpless female—she knew how to change a tire, after all—she could use the help.

“You’re going to have to let me pay you for this,” she said.

He held up a hand. “I wouldn’t hear of it. Besides, it’s Christmas.”

Good thing, too,
she thought. After she’d paid for her parking she’d have a grand total of four dollars and seventeen cents. “This is very nice of you.”

“Pop the trunk,” he said. “I’ll be done in a minute.”

Tara reached in the window, flipped the trunk lever. She walked to the back of the car. The man grabbed the jack, pulled it out. He looked around for somewhere to put down the flowers. It was an enormous bouquet of gladiolas wrapped in bright white paper.

“Do you think you could you put these back in my van for me?” he asked. “My boss would
kill
me if I got them dirty.”

“Sure,” she said. She took the flowers from him, turned toward the van.

“—gale,” he said.

She spun around. “I’m sorry?”

“You could just put them in the back.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

Tara walked over to the van, thinking that it was things like this—little kindnesses from total strangers—that all but restored her faith in people. Philly could be a tough town, but sometimes you wouldn’t know it. She opened the back door of the van. She expected to see boxes, paper, greenery, florist foam, ribbons, maybe a bunch of those little cards and envelopes. Instead she saw … nothing. The interior of the van was immaculate. Except for the exercise mat on the floor. And the coil of blue and white rope.

Before she could put the flowers down she sensed a presence. A close presence.
Too
close. She smelled cinnamon mouthwash; saw a shadow just inches away.

When Tara turned toward the shadow, the man swung the jack handle at the back of her neck. It connected with a dull thud. Her head rattled. Black circles ringed with a supernova of bright orange fire presented themselves behind her eyes. He brought the steel bar down again, not hard enough to knock her cold, just to stun her. Her legs gave way beneath her and Tara collapsed into strong arms.

The next thing she knew she was on her back, on the exercise mat. She was warm. It smelled like paint thinner. She heard the doors slam, heard the engine start.

When she opened her eyes again there was gray daylight coming through the windshield. They were in motion.

When she tried to sit up he reached over, a white cloth in his hand. He placed it over her face. The medicine smell was strong. Soon she drifted away on a beam of dazzling light. But right before the world went away, Tara Lynn Greene—the
fetching
Tara Lynn Greene—suddenly realized what the man had said back at the parking garage:

You are my nightingale
.

27

Alasdair Blackburn was a taller version of his father, around thirty, broad-shouldered, athletic. He was dressed casually, wore his hair a little long. He spoke with a slight brogue. They met in Callum’s office.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “I had an errand.” He shook hands with Jessica and Byrne. “Please call me Alex.”

Byrne explained why they were there. He showed the man Kristina’s photograph. Alex confirmed that Kristina Jakos had worked at Stiletto.

“What is your position here?” Byrne asked.

“I’m the general manager,” Alex said.

“And you do most of the hiring?”

“I do all of it—performers, waitstaff, kitchen staff, security, cleaning, parking attendants.”

Jessica wondered whatever had possessed him to hire her friend Chet downstairs.

“How long was Kristina Jakos an employee here?” Byrne asked.

Alex thought for a moment. “Perhaps three weeks or so.”

“In what capacity?”

Alex glanced at his father. Out of the corner of her eye, Jessica saw the slightest nod of Callum’s head. Alex might do the hiring, but Callum pulled the strings.

“She was a performer,” Alex said. For a moment his eyes shone. Jessica wondered if his relationship with Kristina Jakos had gone beyond the professional.

“A dancer?” Byrne asked.

“Yes and no.”

Byrne stared at Alex for a moment, expecting clarification. None was offered. He pressed harder. “And what exactly would be the
no
part?”

Alex sat on the edge of his father’s massive desk. “She was a dancer, but not like these other girls.” He waved a dismissive hand at the monitors.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll show you,” Alex said. “Let’s go up to the third floor. To the Pandora Lounge.”

“What’s on the third floor?” Byrne asked. “Lap dancing?”

Alex smiled. “No,” he said. “This is different.”

“Different?”

“Aye,” he said, crossing the room, opening the door for them. “The young ladies who work in the Pandora Lounge are performance artists.”

THE PANDORA LOUNGE
on the third floor of Stiletto was a series of eight rooms, divided by a long, dimly lit hallway. On the walls were crystal sconces, fleur-de-lis velveteen wallpaper. The carpeting was deep blue shag. A table and gold-veined mirror stood at the end. Each door had a tarnished brass number.

“This is a private floor,” Alex said. “Private dancers. Very exclusive. It is dark now because it does not open until midnight.”

“This is where Kristina Jakos worked?” Byrne asked.

“Yes.”

“Her sister said she worked as a receptionist.”

“Some young ladies are a bit reluctant to admit that they are exotic dancers,” Alex said. “We put whatever they choose on the forms.”

As they walked down the hall, Alex opened doors. Each room was dedicated to a different theme. One had an Old West motif, complete with sawdust on the hardwood floor and a brass spittoon. One was a replica of a 1950s diner. Yet another had a
Star Wars
theme. It was like walking into that old movie
Westworld,
Jessica thought, the one about the exotic resort in which Yul Brynner played the robot gunslinger who went haywire. A closer look, in brighter light, would have revealed that these rooms were a bit shabby, and that the illusion of the various historical settings was just that, an illusion.

Each room had a single comfortable chair and a slightly elevated stage. There were no windows. The ceilings held an elaborate network of track lighting.

“So, men pay a premium price to get a private performance in these rooms?” Byrne asked.

“Sometimes women, but not often,” Alex replied.

“Can I ask how much?”

“It varies from girl to girl,” he said. “But the average is about two hundred dollars. Plus tips.”

“For how long?”

Alex smiled, perhaps anticipating the next question. “Forty-five minutes.”

“And dancing is all that goes on in these rooms?”

“Aye, Detective. This is not a bordello.”

“Kristina Jakos never worked the stages downstairs?” Byrne asked.

“No,” Alex said. “She worked up here exclusively. She had just begun a few weeks ago, but she was very good, very popular.”

To Jessica, it was becoming clear how Kristina intended to pay her half of the rent on that pricey town home on North Lawrence.

“How are the girls selected?” Byrne asked.

Alex walked down the hallway. At the end was a table bearing a crystal vase full of fresh gladiolas. Alex reached into a drawer, retrieved a leatherette portfolio. He opened the book to a page with four photographs of Kristina. One was Kristina in an Old West dance-hall costume; one was of her in a toga.

Jessica produced a photograph of the dress that Kristina had worn in death. “Did she ever wear a dress like this?”

Alex looked at the photo. “No,” he said. “This is not one of our themes.”

“How do your clients get up here?” Jessica asked.

“There is an unmarked entrance at the rear of the building. Clients enter, pay, and then they are escorted up by a hostess.”

“Do you have a list of Kristina’s clients?” Byrne asked.

“I am afraid we do not. This is not something that men generally put on their Visa cards. As you might imagine and understand, this is a cash business.”

“Is there someone who might have paid more than once to see her dance? Someone who may have been obsessed with her?”

“This I do not know. But I will ask the other girls.”

Before heading downstairs, Jessica opened the door to the last room on the left. Inside was a replica of a tropical paradise, complete with sand, beach chairs, and plastic palm trees.

There was an entire Philadelphia beneath the Philadelphia she thought she knew.

THEY WALKED TO
their car on Locust Street. A light snow fell.

“You were right,” Byrne said.

Jessica stopped walking. Byrne stopped with her. Jessica cupped a hand to her ear. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite hear that,” she said. “Could you repeat that for me please?”

Byrne smiled. “You were right. Kristina Jakos had a secret life.”

They continued up the street. “Do you think she might have picked up a suitor, refused his advances and he went off on her?” Jessica asked.

“It’s certainly possible. But it sure seems like one hell of an extreme reaction.”

“There are some pretty extreme people out there.” Jessica thought about Kristina, or any dancer, up on a stage, with someone sitting in the dark, watching, planning the girl’s death.

“True,” Byrne said. “And anyone who would pay two hundred dollars for a private dance in an Old West saloon probably lives in a fairy-tale world to begin with.”

“Plus tips.”

“Plus tips.”

“Did it strike you that Alex might have had a thing for Kristina?”