Strip (31 page)

“Here’s what happened, as I understand it. Soon after you and I met at Wash, one night you were in line for a concert somewhere in Hollywood. Two men came up to you and started a conversation. One of them had bright red hair, and the other had dark red hair. Do you remember them?”

She was frozen with the hairbrush in her hand, her eyes wider. “Go on.”

“You talked with them for a while. There were other women in line, and they talked to a couple of them too. At some point one of them asked you if you happened to meet a guy who was new in town and who had been spending a lot of cash. You gave them my name.”

She reddened. He watched the pink begin just below her collarbone, then move up her neck to her cheeks and forehead. “There were two red-haired guys. And I did mention your name. I … have no excuse at all. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. What I was doing was flirting.”

“With two guys?”

“I wasn’t interested in two guys. I wasn’t necessarily interested in either one. There were other guys in the line for the concert too, all kinds of people. I was out in public, and I wanted to seem nice, and I wanted to seem to be one of those people who goes to the right places and knows lots of people. They asked if I knew anybody like you, and I said yes. I really hope this hasn’t harmed you. Can you please say it didn’t, so I don’t have to stand here waiting for some horrible thing to come up?”

Carver sighed. “Those two were Jerry and Jimmy Gaffney. They’re a pair of thugs. They work for a man named Manco Kapak, who owns Wash, the club where we met, and a couple of strip clubs in the Valley, and a few other businesses. He’s basically a gangster. About a month ago he got held up while he was making a night deposit at a bank. He and his people figured it was somebody too new in town to know who he was robbing and too dumb not to spend the cash. In other words, me.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry. It didn’t seem as though their reason for asking could be anything like that. They were so normal, like anybody.”

“I know. That’s probably why he sent them. He also has two guys with tattoos all over their necks and the backs of their shaved heads, and a Russian who looks about seven feet tall.”

“And they’re after you? Oh, Joe. I feel just terrible.”

“All I can say is that I’ve never robbed anybody. And I like to think that if I were to start now, I’d be smart enough not to pick the kind of businessman who has leg-breakers on the payroll. The reason I was spending cash when you met me was that I had pretty much maxed out my credit cards moving here from South Carolina, but I had closed my bank accounts there and had taken a lot of it in cash.”

She stared into his eyes with determination. “I’m going to do my best to undo this,” she said. “I’ve got to make it right.”

“I didn’t come here to get you to do anything. In fact, if gangsters could be talked out of what they wanted to do, we wouldn’t need police. I just wanted you to know why I hadn’t called.”

“I usually leave at eight-fifteen—ten minutes from now, but I don’t care if I’m late for work. I’ll call these people and tell them they’re wrong.”

“Staying home to do that isn’t necessary. These guys are all-night people. You can’t call them up at eight-fifteen
A.M.
and expect them to have a rational conversation. They don’t get up before noon.”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “Of course. That makes sense.”

“Please. Go to work. If you want to call later and plant some doubt in their heads about me, that would be all to the good. But I’m here because I didn’t want to leave you under the impression that I was a robber.”

“No,” she said. “I never thought you were. I didn’t think anybody was talking about robbers when I mentioned your name. All I can do now is try to fix it.”

He moved to her door. “I’d better be going now. You need to go to work, and it’s best if I do all my errands in the morning before those guys wake up.” He grasped the doorknob and gave a little wave.

“Call me?” she said.

“I’ll try.”

As he walked out to the front door, he wondered whether he had overdone it at the end. Playing on someone’s guilt was a delicate thing. Just going a tiny bit too far would make her sympathy vanish. He should have sounded more eager to call her. She had harmed him, and any observation that proved he had deserved it would be a reason not to bother to make up for it. He hurried back to her door before it closed. “What I mean is, I’d absolutely like to see you the minute I’m sure that it won’t put you in danger.”

He felt better as he went out the main door at the foyer. Guilt only worked if it came from her own sense of responsibility. He walked back to his car studying the apartment complex. He searched for places where a man could watch Sonia Rivers’s apartment without being noticed. He had checked the area from his car when he had arrived, just to be sure that one of Kapak’s men had not anticipated that he might visit. But the view from the sidewalk was much closer and more complete. He could see the places where a man on foot could lurk. He noted the four most likely without changing his pace.

Carver got into his car and drove. The other girl the Gaffneys said had mentioned his name was Sandy Belknap. He didn’t know her as well as Sonia, even though he’d seen her on more occasions. Their talk had always been breezy and superficial. He knew that she worked at a Toyota dealership on the way to the airport and lived somewhere in Manhattan Beach. He stopped at a gas station that had a pay phone. Her number was unlisted, but he found the right number for the Toyota lot and dialed.

“My name is Joe Carver. I’m trying to reach Sandy Belknap. Is she in this morning?”

“No, I’m afraid she’s not coming in today.”

“I wonder if you could possibly give me her number.” He knew the receptionist would never do it, but he also knew that salespeople didn’t want to miss calls.

“Please hold and I’ll see if I can connect you to her personal number.”

There was a series of clicks and dead seconds, and then he heard a ring signal. The phone was snatched up immediately. “Hello? Joe?” It was Sandy Belknap’s voice, but it sounded oddly distant and unclear.

“Hi,” he said.

“This is a surprise,” she said. “I haven’t seen you around lately. What have you been up to?”

“Do you have me on the speaker?”

“I’m sorry. Most people don’t notice, but it keeps my hands free. I was just getting dressed.”

“Just give me a second to picture that.”

She laughed. “It’s okay, but only if you have me wearing a nun’s habit or a space suit.”

“That ruined the moment.”

“It’s supposed to. So what’s up? We’ve missed you at the clubs.”

“Who’s the rest of ‘we’?”

“The girls. Nobody’s that fun lately. That’s the consensus.” There was a hum in the background, as though someone were whispering to her.

“Is somebody there?”

She didn’t answer directly, but he heard a distinct irritation in her voice. “Just a sec. Let me turn the TV off.” He heard a change in the sound as she turned off the speaker and picked up the phone. “Hi. Still with me?”

“Yes,” he said. “Let me tell you the reason I called. Since the last time I ran into you, I’ve been having trouble. There’s a powerful man named Manco Kapak. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him.”

“Manco Kapak? No. What an odd name.”

“He owns Wash, on Hollywood Boulevard, and a couple of strip clubs in the Valley.”

“That’s who owns Wash?”

“Yep. What happened was that he was out late depositing money in his bank’s night drop, and a guy robbed him at gunpoint. He got mad. He sent a few of his goons out to find the robber. So they asked a lot of people—mostly girls in clubs—if they knew somebody who had just moved here and was spending a lot of cash. I think you might have seen two of them. They’re both tall, with red hair.”

“Oh my God.” It was quiet, just above a whisper.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Just what you’re saying. It’s so scary. They think you did it?”

“Yes. I’ve been trying to find out how they even heard I existed.”

“I … can’t imagine.”

“It doesn’t matter how, I guess. I just wanted to call you in case the rumor reached you. I’ve never robbed anyone in my life. It’s true I was new in town when I met you, and I guess I was spending more cash than I usually would, so it might seem odd to people who didn’t know me. I had just flown in and paid to have my furniture shipped, and put a lot of other charges on my credit cards. But I had cash from closing my bank accounts in the East.”

“Look, Joe. We really should talk.”

It was the kind of statement he had been waiting for to confirm his suspicion. Next she would say she wanted to meet him someplace at a particular time to discuss the past relationship they’d never had and the future that would never come. “That’s really all I wanted to say. I’m on a pay phone and I’m out of change. If you hear any of those rumors, please tell people I’m not a thief, I’m a mass murderer. That way they won’t want to get near me.”

“Oh, I will. I promise.”

It took Sonia Rivers three calls before she got the right number for Manco Kapak’s house. It rang a few times, and then a man’s voice came on. “Mr. Kapak’s residence.”

“May I speak to Mr. Kapak, please?”

“I’m sorry, miss, but Mr. Kapak isn’t at home right now. Can I take a message?”

“My name is Sonia Rivers. I think there’s been a misunderstanding, and I’d like to correct it as soon as I can.”

“My name is Richard Spence. I’m Mr. Kapak’s assistant. If you tell me, I’ll be sure your message gets to him as soon as possible.”

Sonia hesitated for a second or two, until she felt the awkwardness increasing. She had to talk or hang up. “A month ago, two men who work for Mr. Kapak began talking to me while I was waiting to get into a concert. One of them asked if I happened to know a man who was new in town and who had been in clubs spending a lot of cash. I thought—I don’t know exactly what I thought—maybe this was somebody they knew and they were going to tell me something funny about him, or they had met a man like that but didn’t know his name, or something. So I said the name of a man I’d met in a club a couple of days before. I just heard that Mr. Kapak was told I thought this was the man who had robbed him. I never thought that, and never meant it that way. It never even occurred to me.”

“I understand,” said Spence. “And just to make sure I get the story straight for Mr. Kapak, what is this innocent man’s name?”

“Joe Carver.”

“Joe … Carver,” he said, pretending to be a man at a desk writing things down. “Do you have an address or anything for him?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then, your name and address, just in case the police would like to talk to you?”

“Sonia Rivers.” She recited her address and phone number. She marveled at herself for doing it, but this man seemed so bright and businesslike.

“Thank you, Miss Rivers. I have no idea whether this Mr. Carver was a serious suspect or not, but you can never be too careful with someone else’s reputation.”

“That’s just how I feel,” said Sonia. She detected in herself an unexpected curiosity about this man, and realized that she had been stalling to give him time to say something to reveal more about himself. “Well, goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

She should have been in her cubicle at work, staring out the part of the window she could see from her desk. Today there was a thin copper-colored smear of smog hanging near the tops of the tall buildings of Los Angeles, all in a little clump in the center of the million low buildings that covered the basin. She decided the man she had spoken to was probably nothing as interesting as a criminal. Kapak owned several businesses. Of course he would have a few dull, serious people like Spence to run things for him. She wondered if she should go in to work late, but the moment had passed. She took off her gray suit and hung it up for tomorrow.

At Kapak’s house, Spence moved from the kitchen to the small maid’s quarters where he had been sleeping. He picked up the backpack that still held the disassembled .308 Remington, pulled his .45 pistol from under the pillow, and put it into the backpack too. He looked at the address he had written down, went out the back door and locked it behind him.

A half hour later, Spence had found Sonia Rivers’s apartment. The only reason Sonia would have made the call to Kapak’s house today was if her relationship with Joe Carver had improved since she’d talked to the Gaffney brothers a few weeks ago.

He studied the neighborhood and began to search. In another half-hour he had found a vacant apartment with a clear view of the windows along the side of Sonia Rivers’s apartment building. He went in and used a lock pick to defeat the cheap doorknob lock, then stood at the window. From his second-floor window he could see down into her apartment. In the front was the living room, then the smoked glass of the bathroom, then the two bedroom windows near the back. As he went through the vacant apartment, he found an easy chair with torn upholstery in the living room, undoubtedly left by the last tenant. He moved it to the window and tried it, then looked around for a few more minutes before he decided to go out and buy a cup of coffee for the wait. On his way out, he unlocked the door to save time on his return.

A
T
10:15
A.M.
Lieutenant Slosser stopped his unmarked car in front of Kapak’s long, low house. Kapak pushed his door open and slowly swung his feet to the curb as he had seen frail old men do, then stood. “Thanks for the ride.”

“If you hear anything else that might be useful to us, give us a call,” Slosser said.

“Joe Carver. If you can find Joe Carver, this will be over.”

“Maybe,” Slosser said. “But usually, in my experience, if somebody you never heard of makes a full-time job out of making your life miserable, usually he’s working for somebody else—somebody you know.”

“He’s the one I’m sure of. I’ll take my chances on people who might be telling him what to do.”

“We’ll see.” Slosser’s window closed and he drove off. Kapak turned and went up the walk to his house. He liked the lush plantings of palms and bananas, bamboo and eucalyptus, bougainvillea and ferns and orchids around the house. Now and then the gardeners would surprise him with a new planting of something colorful and exotic.