The Day Trader (33 page)

“What’s the problem?” The bouncer I was talking to earlier pokes his head out of the door, obviously annoyed about being bothered.

“There’s a guy out here looking for Erin,” the woman at the door explains, pointing at me.

I move past the huddled women toward the door, hoping Erin is still inside. “I talked to you earlier tonight, boss,” I say in a friendly tone.

The bouncer squints into the darkness as I come close, but he shows no signs of recognition.

“You got me into the Kitten Closet,” I remind him quietly. I don’t know why I care whether these women hear that I went to the Kitten Closet, but I do.

“Oh, yeah,” he says, nodding. “What do you want?”

The woman who banged on the door skirts around me back toward the group, and they head off. “Is a woman named Erin inside?”

“The club is closed for the night.”

“I realize that. I waited until closing time because I didn’t want to bother her while she was performing. If I could just speak to her for a minute, I’d be very grateful,” I say. “This isn’t about a date or anything like that.” I can see he’s suspicious. He’s probably heard that one a million times. “It’s about something else.”

“What?”

“Just something,” I mumble. “Please tell her I’m here. I only need to speak to her for a moment.” It occurs to me that he’s probably looking for a handout, so I reach in my pocket and pull out a twenty-dollar bill. “This is for you.”

He grabs it. “Wait here and I’ll see what I can do.”

A few minutes later the bouncer pokes his head out of the door again and motions for me to come inside. “Give me another twenty bucks,” he demands as I near the door.

As I slip inside the club I dig into my pocket and produce the cash.

“Stay right where you are,” he orders, pointing at me authoritatively while he walks away. “Don’t move.”

The Two O’Clock Club is empty except for a couple of tired-looking old guys sweeping the floor with big push brooms. The chairs are upside down on the tables and the lights are bright. It’s totally different in here without the women onstage, the music blaring, and men shouting for skin. But it’s no less disgusting.

I recognize Erin when she appears at the far end of the bar, an apprehensive expression on her face. She looks exactly as she did at Melanie’s memorial service. Her face is classic Irish—blue eyes, fair skin, and freckles all framed by dark red hair—and she seems innocent to me in her loose-fitting dress.

“What do you want?” she asks timidly from fifteen feet away, moving hesitantly along the bar.

The bouncer leans against the bar behind her and pretends to read a magazine, but I can tell he’s keeping close tabs on me. “Do you recognize me?” I ask quietly.

Erin looks over her shoulder at the bouncer to make certain he’s there, then back at me. “I’m sorry, I—” She moves a step closer, and suddenly I see recognition in her eyes.

“I’m Augustus McKnight, Melanie’s husband. You came to her memorial service a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, yeah,” she agrees with a heartfelt sigh. “That whole thing was so sad.”

“I wanted to thank you for coming. That was very nice of you.”

“You’re welcome.” She has a high-pitched voice.

“I didn’t have a chance to say that after the service.”

“That must have been very difficult for you.” She moves a little closer. We’re only a few feet apart now.

“It was.”

“Is that what you came here to say?” she asks curiously. “At four o’clock in the morning?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Then what do you want? I’d like to go home. I’m kinda tired, you know.”

I hesitate, still unsure about the best way to approach this.

“Mister, I—”

“I hear you and Melanie were friends.”

Erin’s eyes flash to mine. “How did you hear that?”

“I asked around after I found out she was working here.” I don’t want her to know I got my information from Vincent. She’d probably clam right up. He seems to scare the hell out of people who work here. “That’s what people told me.”

“Yeah, so?”

“I’m trying to find out what happened to her. I understand there was one particular man who was here a lot when she was performing.”

“Are you working with the cops?”

“No, I’m just a husband trying to find out what happened to his wife.” I look into Erin’s eyes and I see compassion. I think anyone who heard my tone just now couldn’t help but feel bad for me. “I just want closure, you know?”

She nods.

“So you were friends?”

“Yeah. I liked her. She was different from the other girls.” Erin shakes her head. “Which is why she never should have come here in the first place. She wasn’t ready for it. She thought she was, but she wasn’t.”

I look down at the cigarette butts and spilled beer on the sticky floor. “I wish she had never come here too.” I glance up quickly. “I don’t mean that as an—”

“It’s all right,” Erin says, allowing herself a sad smile. “I know what you mean.”

“I also heard that Melanie was known as the Vamp,” I say. “And that she had a routine.”

“
We
had a routine.”

I look up. “You?”

“She never did it with anybody but me,” Erin says, almost proudly. “But it wasn’t my idea,” she adds quickly. “She was the one who thought it up. The one who wanted me to do it to her. And it wasn’t anything really out of control either. I mean, I never tied her real tight. She could have gotten out by herself anytime she wanted to. That was all there was to it,” Erin says. “The Two O’Clock Club isn’t that kind of place.”

“What kind of place?”

“The kind of place that gets into all of that underground stuff. You know, the live sex shows. We dance here, but that’s it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She suggested it on the spur of the moment one night a few months ago,” Erin continues, lighting up a cigarette and inhaling deeply. “The people who run the place weren’t real happy about it at first, but it was a weeknight and there weren’t too many people around. And this one guy sitting right up front was tipping us really well. The other guys went wild too, so management let us keep doing it as long as we promised not to get too crazy and not to do it too often. They didn’t want trouble from the cops. I guess there are guidelines about that stuff.”

“You said that this one guy up front tipped you really well?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Was he a regular?”

Erin frowns as she props her elbow against her side and holds the cigarette out away from her body. “He was here almost every night Melanie was,” she finally says, smoke trailing away from her fingers toward the ceiling. “I think Melanie knew him before she came to the club. That was the impression I got from the way she talked, but I don’t know for sure. Like I said, he tipped real well at first. After a while he didn’t throw his cash around as much, but Melanie still gave him special attention. One night she even let him tie her wrists while she stood in front of him, but management freaked out about that and they made her promise never to do it again.”

I feel the fine hairs on the back of my neck beginning to stand up. She let him tie her wrists. “Do you know anything about the guy? Did Melanie ever mention his name?” I’m not going to prompt Erin. Vincent might have been making up everything about Taylor just to get me off him. He saw me go after Taylor at the Grand. He knows how much I hate him.

“She called him David.”

“David?” I ask, disappointed.

“Yeah, but I don’t think that was his real name. She always kind of laughed when she called him that. Like it was a joke or something.”

“Anything else?” I ask.

She takes another drag from the cigarette, thinking. “Stay here,” she finally says. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

The bouncer flashes me a nasty look, like he wants me out of here soon. Fortunately, Erin is back quickly.

“Here,” she says, handing me a blue backpack. “This was Melanie’s.” She opens a flap while I hold it and reaches inside. “This is the guy,” she says, pulling out a Polaroid.

I let the backpack fall slowly to the floor as I take the photograph. It’s a picture of Frank Taylor and Melanie standing alongside a silver Mercedes. A big sleek Mercedes that looks a lot like the one that almost ran me down in the parking garage a few weeks ago. I can’t believe it.

“Melanie asked me to take that picture of them a couple of months ago.” Her lip curls as she glances at the photograph. “I never trusted him.”

“Me neither,” I whisper.

“He and the bald guy were her biggest fans.” She shakes her head sadly. “I told her they were both bad news, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“Who was the bald guy?”

“Just some other guy who was here a lot of the nights Melanie performed too, but he always sat in the back, seemed kind of shy. David was always right up front.” She smiles. “For a while there the bald guy tipped me pretty good too, but he hasn’t been back in a month or so. Come to think of it, neither has the other guy. Not since Melanie was—” Erin interrupts herself and looks away.

“What did the bald one look like?”

“Tall and thin.” She grimaces. “He had bad acne scars on his face too. Real bad.”

“Did he have a beard?”

“No. I wouldn’t have noticed the scars on his face if he did.”

“Did you ever get his name?”

Erin shakes her head. “I never ask nobody’s name. The only reason I knew David’s name was because Melanie told me. Better not to know. That kind of intimacy can get you in a lot of trouble.” She hesitates. “Like it did Melanie. I warned her, but she didn’t listen. Like I said, she wasn’t ready for this place.”

I check the bouncer. He’s finished with his magazine. My time’s running out. “You’ve been very helpful, Erin.” I hand her a twenty-dollar bill and she takes it automatically. “I want to thank you for your time.”

“Sure.” She puts her hand on mine. “Melanie was a good person.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

I expect an immediate no, but that’s not what I get. “You may not want to hear this, mister. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. You seem like a good person too.”

“Tell me. Please.”

“I think Melanie was real sweet on that guy in the picture,” she says, nodding in the direction of the pocket in which I placed the photograph. “At least in the beginning.”

“I think she was too,” I agree, my voice hoarse.

“See, I knew it would—”

“It’s all right,” I assure her.

“But it wasn’t like that in the end.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the last few weeks she was here they were arguing a lot. I saw them a couple of times late at night on the street near where she had parked her car.”

For once, Vincent might have been telling me the truth. “Go on.”

“David was yelling and shouting at her. I mean, going crazy. Finally she ran to her car and peeled off. It was the same both times. She didn’t know I was watching either time, but I was worried about her. I told the manager about it,” she recounts sadly, “but he didn’t do anything.”

“What were they arguing about? Were you close enough to hear?”

Erin looks around. “I don’t want to get in trouble,” she says, lowering her voice even though the bouncer and the guys sweeping the floor couldn’t possibly hear her. “I don’t want to have to talk to the cops. Some detective was here asking a lot of questions after Melanie died, but I was able to avoid him.”

“What did the detective look like?” I ask quickly.

“He was a black guy. Big,” she says, making a sweeping gesture with her arms. “I didn’t talk to him. I’ve got a record,” she admits quietly.

“I understand,” I say. “But did you hear anything? It’s very important for you to tell me if you did.”

She nods. “There was some kind of deal Melanie had agreed to go into with David. Like a business transaction or something, and when it was done, they were going to collect some big money. It didn’t sound like it was on the up-and-up, but I don’t know much about that stuff.”

Erin’s voice fades. Frank Taylor admitted the night he came to my house that he was broke, and I never did get an honest answer from Melanie about why we were taking out the insurance policies on each other. If I had died, Melanie would have received a million dollars, which would have been one helluva dowry if Melanie and Taylor were planning all along to get married.

I’m suddenly struck by another thought. An ironic one. If I don’t get the proceeds from her policy because of those slayer statutes, Frank Taylor will. As Scott Snyder told me yesterday, Taylor was secondary beneficiary on Melanie’s policy. So, in effect, Taylor always had a pretty good chance of getting his hands on a million dollars of insurance proceeds no matter who died—Melanie or me.

CHAPTER 20

After giving Erin an extra hundred bucks left over from Melanie’s secret stash, I check into a motel a couple of miles from my house. I’m not that worried about Mary, but Reggie seemed pretty concerned so I’ll listen to his advice. After all, he’s a cop and he doesn’t strike me as the type to get worked up over nothing. It’ll be interesting to see if Mary shows up at Bedford tomorrow and, if she does, how she acts. If I go in, that is. I’m not sure I will.

I haven’t returned Reggie’s call yet. I’m worried about what he wants. I’m not certain, but I have a hunch. That’s the real reason I check into a motel.

It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, and though I’m dead tired and crawled into bed immediately after checking into the motel at six this morning, I haven’t been able to fall into that deep sleep that restores your energy. I keep rolling around on the bed, trying to get the pillows right, but it isn’t working. It’s not a bad motel, as motels go. It’s quiet and the mattress is pretty comfortable, even if the sheets smell like smoke in what’s supposed to be a nonsmoking room. I just can’t stop thinking about how Vincent lied to me about Melanie all these years, and how he was so willing to use me as a front for his insider trading scheme. How Melanie lied to me about what she was doing at night, and with whom she was doing it. How Frank Taylor could smile and shake my hand at an office party while he was screwing my wife every chance he got. How people have been lying to me and manipulating me all my life. And it all started with my father.