The Remake (9 page)

—Except she’d been working for Pike all this time and he wasn’t much better, except that he was a man. At least Janine wouldn’t “accidentally” grope her in the screening room. Casey wasn’t exactly a feminist, but she wouldn’t take shit from anybody, and she would probably like having a woman for a boss. Except Janine Wright could make Gloria Steinem long for a return to traditional values.

Sure. Casey would get off the plane, hate her job, miss him like hell, and be back by Monday morning, at the latest. Sure she would. And while he was waiting, R.J. could flap his arms and fly to the moon.

The day closed in on him. R.J. hadn’t thought about Murray Belcher, Janine Wright’s dead lawyer, for days. But now, for no reason, just to stop thinking about Casey, it was all he could think about. He thought of Mary Kelley’s description of Murray’s death. A bad way to go. Even a lawyer didn’t deserve to go out like that. Even Janine Wright’s lawyer.

R.J. half-expected Boggs to come for him, drag him away downtown for more of Kates’s dull incompetent questions.

He would have welcomed it this once. Something to do, something to take his mind off things. But even Boggs stayed away and he was left to himself. Frankly, he didn’t much like the company.

Finally fed up—with his office, with his inability to concentrate or do any work, with himself and everything else—R.J. stood up, kicking his chair across the room. He stomped into the outer office, fighting into his coat.

“Go home,” he almost yelled to Wanda.

“Sure thing, boss,” she said, careful not to put any expression in her voice or on her face.

Even as he slammed out of the office R.J. had to appreciate her just a little bit. By God, she even knew how to deal with him when he was like this.

He decided to walk home and felt a savage release in fighting through the crowds on the sidewalks. He went out of his way to bump into people a little harder than usual, hoping some idiot would be dumb enough to call him on it, to turn and snarl at him. Hoping to find somebody in a mood as bad as his, somebody who would be willing to stand and wing punches for a while.

But New Yorkers are used to the moods of other New Yorkers, and they gave him room on the sidewalk, barely glancing at him as he slammed through.

Five blocks from his apartment a door opened as he passed it and he stopped dead.

A smell came out at him, an old familiar smell, like the perfume an old girlfriend used to wear.

From inside he could hear a jukebox, some Michael Bolton tune wailing. Somebody laughed and a couple of other people joined in. They sounded happy.

R.J. looked in the open door as a fat, red-faced man brushed past him on his way out. There was a brace of neon signs inside, a warm glow in the room, the smell of beer and popcorn and happy people. R.J. wanted to go inside and have a drink, sing along with Bolton, swap stories with the
comfortable-looking people inside; wanted it so bad all of a sudden his hand started to tremble.

It would serve her right, he thought. Serve her right if I got stinking drunk.

And he recognized that thought for what it was—the alcoholic trapped inside him, struggling to get out and take control again. Knew that thought for what it was and still stood there for a long moment, as the door swung slowly shut.

Then the rectangle of light on the pavement vanished. The music and laughter were cut off. The warm glow was gone and he was alone on a cold sidewalk. R.J. stuck his hands in his pockets, lowered his head, and turned away. But he could still feel the place pulling at him the last few blocks.

It was around seven by the time he got in to his apartment. His snotty cat, Ilsa, was perched on top of the answering machine, which meant there had been a call. R.J. stuck a plate of cat food on the linoleum by the refrigerator and Ilsa glided over to it and started smacking away.

Sure enough, the light was blinking. R.J. hit Play and in a moment Casey’s voice filled the room.

“It’s me,” she said. “I didn’t want to bother you at the office.” That was just like her; work came first for Casey, and she hated like hell for anything to disturb her work. She assumed everybody else felt the same way.

“I’m here, I’m fine, the plane didn’t crash. I’m staying at the Beverly Hilton until I get settled.” A pause. “It’s quite a place.” Another pause. “Gotta go. Talk to you later.” And then just line hum for a moment until the dial tone came back on and the machine hung up.

R.J. tried to imagine what her face had looked like when she spoke to him down the long wire. He couldn’t. Maybe there had been some small touch of softness there around her mouth. Maybe a hint of nostalgia in her eyes. Most likely, though, just the same cool amusement.

He tried to picture her in the overstated tackiness of the Beverly Hilton. Compared to the Pierre, it was a fat drunk in
a madras suit, Shriner’s hat, and a tie with glowing red light-bulbs. Still, it was kind of tasteful by L.A. standards. It shouted money, but it was old money for Hollywood, at least thirty or forty years old. Maybe Casey would fit right in, with her ironic detachment.

R.J. almost smiled at the thought. But she had left no room number, no invitation to call back, and that took the smile out of him.

R.J. sat heavily in the chair beside the answering machine. Ilsa was still making smacking noises at her dish. I should probably eat something, too, R.J. thought.

But he wasn’t hungry.

CHAPTER 11

R.J. ended up in a restaurant, anyway. Even though he wasn’t hungry.

He sat beside the phone for ten or fifteen minutes. He replaced Casey’s message twice more, just to hear her voice.
Jesus, I’ve got it bad,
he told himself. He rewound the tape, drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair for a minute. R.J. knew he had to do something to break the mood or he would end up down in that warm-looking bar.

He hated like hell to think about going that way again. He’d lived inside a bottle too long, fought too hard to crawl out of it. If he had even one drink now—Well, he was sure he could quit again but it was hard, too hard to think about. Some people could tell their troubles to strangers over a glass of beer. For R.J. the stuff was poison.

Poison. That goddamned lawyer. Murray Goddamn Belcher. Without consciously thinking about it, R.J. realized he’d been turning the thing over in his mind. Something bothered him. Who murdered a guy three thousand miles from
home? Sure, German tourists got killed in Florida. But this was different. Poison.

That meant somebody hated the guy. Enough to kill him in a bad way. A sneaky way. Hated him enough to plan ahead and get poison and figure out how to get it to him—in a hotel room? Why not at home in L.A.? Easier to plan—and who knew Murray Belcher in New York?

R.J. didn’t really know. Maybe it made sense. Maybe Murray had lots of enemies in New York. Maybe all over the country for Christ’s sake. But it didn’t add up.

Or maybe it did. R.J. didn’t know enough to be sure.

For the first time, he wanted to.

R.J. picked up the phone and dialed Angelo Bertelli.

“Hiya, copper,” he joked when Angelo picked up. “This is your favorite hard-boiled gumshoe.”

“No kidding? Columbo, calling me? Hows about that!”

“I need a couple of hints on something, Angelo. You want some dinner?”

“Hey, I could do that. Say Ferrini’s, half an hour?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Ciao.”

R.J. shrugged on his coat and headed out, feeling better. This wasn’t really his problem, but doing something was better than sitting around stewing. Besides, if he was still the leading suspect after all this time, Kates was never going to solve this thing. And that meant R.J. was going to have it hanging over his head for the rest of his life.

Ferrini’s was a cozy place down on Mulberry Street. Angelo liked it because Ferrini liked Angelo. And just incidentally they made the best marinara sauce in Manhattan. R.J. took a cab down to the restaurant. He was taking a lot of cabs lately. He wondered if that meant something. Maybe he was getting old. Maybe he was lonely, so lonely he needed to hear the surly Pakistani babble of a New York cabdriver.

Whatever. R.J. paid off the cabbie on the sidewalk in front of Ferrini’s and went in.

It was a dim joint, depending mostly on candles for light. The decor was low key, homey. None of that chianti-bottle-with-a-candle-in-it crap, but real southern Italy home-style. Anyway, that’s what Angelo said. R.J. hadn’t been inside all that many southern Italian homes, so he couldn’t say.

“Ah, Meesater Ehbrooks,” Ferrini crooned as R.J. hit the door.
“Buona sera.
Meesater Angelo he’s await.” He beckoned toward the back. “Please?”

R.J. followed Ferrini to a table in the back, separated from the other tables by a small aisle leading to the kitchen. Angelo was already there, sipping a glass of Peroni
b
eer. “R.J.!” he called out, and then to Ferrini,
“Acqua minerale, per favore.”
Ferrini bowed and smiled at Angelo and said something in Italian, too fast for R.J. Angelo said something back and made a hand gesture. Then Ferrini laughed and zipped off to the kitchen.

“You two weren’t laughing at my haircut, were you?” R.J. said as he slid into a chair.

“Naw, that’s a much louder laugh, and he brings out all the waiters to look. We was just laughing because we’re Italian and we’re talking.” He shrugged. “It’s a culture thing. Don’t go getting paranoid on me, R.J.”

“Tough to avoid.” R.J. sighed. “Every time I turn around lately I bump into your buddy Boggs.”

Bertelli shook his head. “I know, I know. Kates has this bee in his bonnet, and he can’t get no honey from it, but he’s afraid it’ll sting him if he lets go.” He spread his hands and shrugged. “Whaddya gonna do?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” R.J. said. Angelo opened his mouth, then closed it again as Ferrini set a liter of chilled mineral water in a green bottle in front of R.J.
“Grazie,”
R.J. said.

“Prego,”
Ferrini murmured and quickly left the table.

“Angelo,” R.J. said, unscrewing the cap of the bottle and pouring a glass full, “my ass is in a sling. I thought this might die down when Kates woke up, but he’s still sleepwalking and
it’s getting on my nerves. He’s still after me and it’s a couple of weeks now. That means he’s not going to let go, and since I didn’t do it that means five years from now he’ll still be trying to nail me for Murray Goddamn Belcher.” He sipped the water. “So I figured maybe I should take a look at this thing.”

Angelo blew out a big breath and shook his head. “R.J., you’re like a brother to me,” he started.

“Aw, cut the crap, Angelo, isn’t that what the mob guys say before they pull the trigger?”

Bertelli pointed a finger at R.J. and dropped his thumb. “Goombah, if they found out I was feeding anything to the principal suspect in this case, my ass is grass.”

“So I am still the principal suspect?”

“Bet your ass you are, R J. And I shouldn’t have told you that much. Sorry. I tried to steer the investigation another way, and now I’m not allowed near the case anymore.” He shrugged again. “There’s nobody else they like at all. Belcher is in town for like two days, nobody else raised their voice at him. Just you. They got you in the room with the guy, fighting with the guy, mad enough to do something, smart enough to know how—” Angelo shook his head. “Sonofabitch, the more I think about it, the more I like you for it, too.”

“Knock it off, for Christ’s sake, Angelo.”

“Sorry, R.J. But they got enough to keep an eye on you, keep hassling you. They don’t got enough to arrest you or they would’ve already.” Bertelli wagged a finger at R.J. “Sometimes I think the L.T. don’t like you much.”

“No shit,” R.J. snorted. “So what can you tell me?”

“I think I know how you did it,” Bertelli said.

“Tell me. I forgot already.”

“The poison was in the food, from room service.”

“Then I am pretty good,” R.J. said. “They run that hotel tighter than Fort Knox. How’d I manage it?”

“You are good, R.J. Very cute. Listen to this.” He held up a finger and waved it in the air as he talked. “Waiter comes off the elevator with the cart. Turns the corner—Hey. Some asshole opened up the hall window. It’s nicking freezing in here. So the waiter leaves the cart—the food might get cold, huh?—goes down the hall, maybe forty feet. Shuts the window, comes back to the cart, delivers it, goes back downstairs.”

“The waiter checks out?”

Angelo nodded. “Cleaner than the Pope’s ring finger. He’s been working there twenty-six years. Deacon of his church, six kids—like they wrote the part for some old Perry Mason or something.”

“All right,” R.J. said. “Then it has to be the window.”

“Bingo,” said Bertelli. “So I get out there and I poke around on the fire escape. It’s a tough climb, but it’s doable. But there’s no footprints. No bloody glove, no white Bronco, nothing. But he doesn’t have to come in that way, it could be just a distraction. Whatever. I would bet the ranch that whoever it was came in, opened the window, went back down the hall, and hid around the corner. He waits for the waiter to go close the window, dumps in the poison, and he’s outta there.”