The Reporter (31 page)

“The interview was supposed to be today. Alison Pollock, the hotel manager, remembered Orson talking about this interview,
but she couldn’t remember the disc jockey’s name. But she says her granddaughter knew who she was. The kid is fifteen, and
she’s a big rock fan. When Mrs. Pollock asked me about Janet Orson’s appointments for today, she recognized the name Zahna
Cole right away.”

“And the granddaughter is the kid who said this Zahna woman is on vacation this week,” Mike finished for him.

“Exactly. Why would someone book an interview during their vacation? And if she scheduled the vacation after she’d set the
interview, why didn’t she cancel?”

“Rock ‘n’ roll DJs are notorious cokeheads—”

“There you go again,” Johnson said, clipping him. “How the hell did you get to be so cynical?”

“Been on the street too long,” Mike threw back. “So you’re saying she probably never intended to interview Orson at all. You
think maybe she just wanted to find out what unit she was in so she could waste her? Damn, we are grasping at straws here.
But that’s all we got,” he said. “Straws.”

“Think we should take a ride out to see her boss, nose around?” Jon asked.

“Yeah, at least the car’s got heat. Lemme see that thing,” Mike said, reaching for the daybook. “I’ll call Pete Capra first.
He mixes with a lot of these media people. See if he knows her.” Cabello picked up the phone and dialed Channel Six.

“Why don’t you call Maxi Poole?” his partner asked. “She’s a reporter—she probably knows who this DJ is.”

“We don’t need to be buddies with Maxi Poole,” Cabello said. “She’s a suspect.”

T
wenty minutes to four. Maxi was pushing it. She should really go directly to the station so she’d have time to check the wires,
be briefed by reporters on their stories, write some of the readers and lead-ins, and get properly made up and ready for the
Six O’clock News.

The northbound San Diego Freeway was already jammed with rush-hour traffic heading for the bedroom communities of the San
Fernando Valley. Strong Santa Ana winds had kicked up so ferociously that her small sports car was swaying against the shifting
blasts. These fierce, dry, dangerous winds, a Southern California phenomenon, whipped up off the desert and came screeching
down through the canyons with stunning force.
Santana
winds, old-timers called them—devil winds. Maxi shivered. If she could make fair time through Sepulveda Pass and down into
the Valley, she would detour over to the address on Sumac Drive and see if Zahna Cole was home. It would be just a few minutes
out of her way.

The wind flung sand and pebbles against the windshield, and cold air forced its way through every seam along the doors and
windows of the low-slung Corvette, causing frigid drafts that cut through the warmth emanating from the heater, and sending
more shivers through Maxi’s slender frame. Why couldn’t she shake the profound feeling of foreboding that accompanied the
chill?

Why, indeed? With the horror that had been going on around her, it was little wonder that the roar of the devil winds seemed
to presage impending evil. She longed for warmth and light back in her world, for order to replace the chaos.

Thanksgiving was coming, and she was planning a trip back home. This year would be really special—the whole family would be
in New York. Maxi’s father was a pharmacist who owned a successful chain of drugstores, and her mother ran a well-patronized
ballet studio and still taught dance. Her sister and brother-in-law and the kids were coming in from Jeddah—Bucky was with
the diplomatic corps based in the Middle East, and Ellie taught English to Saudi children. Maxi didn’t see enough of any of
them, and she’d been looking forward to being home for Thanksgiving.

Normalcy,
she thought. She needed a heavy dose of everyday, family stuff—turkey smells, kids yelling, and football games on television,
news of each of their absorbing lives, and Mom’s little Maltese, Anita, skidding on the marble floors of the old brownstone
on East Seventy-first where Maxi grew up. She yearned to be where she would feel safe.

Daddy hadn’t liked Jack Nathanson. He’d never said as much, but he didn’t have to. Her mother had adored him. Most women did.
On family visits, her mother would fairly hover over Jack, bringing him his favorite Kir over ice with the afternoon newspapers,
and a pâté with truffles she’d buy especially for him because she knew he liked it. And Jack would take all of them out on
the town in a limousine, to dinner at La Côte Basque or Le Cirque, to the theater, where he would always manage to get the
best house seats, and for drinks with New York’s literary elite at Elaine’s. But Daddy saw something else in Jack. He used
to ask Maxi, “Are you happy, honey?” She’d assure him she was, but
she felt he was never quite convinced. Maxi was his baby, and he made it his business to look beyond the man’s charm and urbanity.

Still, nobody really saw all of Jack. During their marriage, Maxi came to realize that her husband was the classic “riddle
wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Even now that he was dead, she found herself trying to understand what motivated him,
and what it said about her. Had she loved him? Yes, she did, until she didn’t anymore. Was she happy with him? Yes, she was,
until she wasn’t anymore. And could she put it behind her now? She’d have to, but she knew that Jack Nathanson had changed
her life irrevocably. Never again would she blithely trust what she heard and what she saw.

And now her heretofore ordered world was upside down and wrenched with violence. People who had been closest to Jack Nathanson
were being attacked or killed. Even his innocent little girl seemed tormented. Maxi had to keep searching for an answer to
this madness.

Ten to four. She had made good time to the Valley. She’d be cutting it close, she knew, as she drove east on Ventura Boulevard
across Sherman Oaks. She would have a quick chat with Zahna Cole, if the woman was at home and available, see if she had any
insights into what happened to Meg Davis’s cross.

Once on Sumac Drive, she studied the numbers; 6420 was a small, dilapidated house badly in need of paint, with a rusted iron
gate set in an iron wall of lethal-looking upright arrows. Still mindful that if the woman saw her coming, if she had time
to think about it for a minute she might not want to talk to her, Maxi continued on past the house, made a U-turn, and parked
at the curb on the other side of the street, a few doors away.

She left her purse, locked her car, and slipped the keys into the pocket of her blazer as she approached the house. She pressed
the bell on the stanchion beside the gate, and waited. Looking up
at the windows, Maxi got the feeling that nobody was home. She rang again, longer this time. No answer.

Well, it was worth a try, she thought. She would come back and try again after the show. Maxi turned away from the forlorn
gate and walked back to her car.

Seated behind the wheel, she was just about to turn on the ignition when a dented black Volkswagen Rabbit roared up the quiet
street and screeched to a halt in front of Zahna Cole’s weathered little house with the peeling paint. Maxi watched as a tall,
gangly woman, dressed in a conservative business suit that looked like it didn’t belong to her, got out of the car and slammed
the door. Maxi knew from Remy Germain’s sketches that it was Zahna Cole. In her rush, the woman hadn’t noticed Maxi sitting
in her car across the street. Maxi watched her quickly unlock the gate, turn and lock it again behind her, then stride across
the tamped-down dirt fringed with straggly weeds that once was lawn, and disappear inside.

Five past four. Maxi had very little time, but it was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up. She’d wait a couple of minutes,
give the woman a chance to catch her breath before she rang her doorbell.

Z
ahna slammed into the house, dropped her shoulder bag on the nearest chair, and glanced around the living room at the battered
furniture, the clutter, the take-out cartons crusted with stale food that littered the floor and tabletops. “Fucking pigsty,”
she grumbled, and bounded for the bookcase next to the inoperable old fireplace that was stuffed with trash. Removing a copy
of Jack Kerouac’s
Desolation Angels,
she reached back into the empty slot for the small Ziplock bag with the jewels. Her beautiful rocks. Carefully, she poured
out one, then another of the little beauties, and dropped them into the glass pipe that she’d fished out of her purse. Might
as well blast off, she thought, flick her Bic and light her fire, do what she had to do, then get the hell out of there.

She wasn’t going to miss this dump. Funny, she thought, back when she would be expecting Jack to drop by at any time, she
really kept the place nice. It was actually cozy, kind of shabby-chic, with the slipcovered couch and chairs in the small
living room, the down comforter and fluffy pillows on the king-size bed. Now she never bothered to make the bed, and she hadn’t
washed the sheets since Jack was killed.

Nice thing about rocks, they’re so clean, she mused, holding
her breath on a huge drag that almost immediately took the edge off, calmed her nerves, then began to stoke her up in an exquisite
way. Wonderful! No needles, no tourniquets, no cooking, straining, no messing with ether, no collapsed veins or spongy nose
cartilage, no feeling sick half the time. No clumsy paraphernalia, just her little glass pipe and a bag of pearls. And you
could pick them up anywhere.

She would have to stock up on the way to the airport, pack a good-size stash for the trip. She had no doubt that she would
find all she wanted in Mexico City, but it might take her a few days to scope out the terrain, and she would have to be careful
for a while. She would cruise Century Boulevard tonight, where she knew she’d have her pick of dealers working both sides
of the street from Hollywood Park all the way to the airport. They were easy to spot, hanging out singly or in groups, leaning
against storefronts, sitting on bus benches, smoking cigarettes, not talking much. Wearing hats. They all wore hats—pimp-style
fedoras, knit pulldowns, or baseball caps slapped on backwards. Some of them were even known to bring chairs out on the sidewalk,
set up a damn office. Now and then the cops would sweep them up, but they would be back on the street doing business in an
hour.

Easy business, too, both ways. “Hey, got a few twenties for me tonight?” she would glide by and ask. “Sure, babe, how many
ya need?” “Three dozen,” she’d say, and the dude’s eyes would light up. That was a big score. Big score for a big trip. “Can
I see whatcha got?” he’d probably ask her on a buy that size, and she’d have six hundreds ready to flash at him. “Let me see
what
you
got,” she’d say, and she would inspect his merchandise.

He would count them out into a glassine bag, and she would put her nose about a foot away and count right along with him or
he’d short her, figure she was a rich white chick from the Westside, and easy. Then, seeing she was watching and she was sharp,
he would probably throw in a couple extra as a bonus, let
her know about it, cultivate her business. The whole transaction would take about ninety seconds.

Nice, neat, and portable. You could tuck the little bag in a zippered pocket of your purse, or throw it in a pouch with your
lighter and pipe, and it looked like a makeup kit. You could do crack anywhere, in your car, in a ladies’ room, behind a tree
if you were careful. She was sure she’d have no problem knocking down a few in the airplane john on the late-night flight
to Mexico City.

Had to pack. That would take no time at the rate she was flying. No big deal, cram a few things in a bag and kiss off the
rest. The important stuff was the money and the jewelry, thank you Janet Orson.

She had the fifty-five hundred bucks in her purse, her windfall from the afternoon outing. And about fourteen hundred in the
little leather box that she’d snatched from Jack’s house on Sunday night. And she’d cleaned out her savings account, thirty-one
hundred, and there was another thousand or so from the bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. A lot of people keep cash in their
bedroom dresser drawers, Zahna knew. She was in grab-and-run mode last night, moving at a million miles an hour, but on a
hunch, she’d quickly opened up the bureau drawers and found the bills, stacked under the paper lining. And while she was at
it, she nailed two more nice watches and a few other trinkets. Back home, she had thrown them into a plastic grocery sack
with her haul from the big house; those goodies she would sell as needed in Mexico.

The two necklaces were truly an afterthought. Opening up Janet Orson’s silver beaded handbag, she’d pulled out a loose bunch
of bills. Then she saw the pearl-and-diamond choker. What was it doing in her purse? she wondered, and her eyes shot to the
dead woman’s neck. Another one! Emeralds, she guessed. Emeralds and diamonds! With one black-gloved hand holding the body
to the floor, she’d planted her other hand firmly around
the necklace and gave it a mighty yank. The clasp flew apart, and she had them both.

Janet Orson. Zahna hadn’t given any thought to what made her swoop down and whack Janet Orson last night. She hadn’t had time.
She’d been on a rocket ride since Sunday, from the minute she’d snatched the cross and gone over to Jack’s house. And killed
Carlotta. A three-day rampage, and it was like she wasn’t even in her own body, she was standing off to the side in a drug-induced
haze, watching her bloody trip on television. Emotionally detached, but she couldn’t turn the program off because she was
the star.

After fleeing from Jack’s mansion on Sunday night, she was totally wired, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t go to work the next day.
She
did
have the presence of mind to call the station and tell them she needed to take some time off. A family matter, she’d told
the program director. Hah! A family she’d never been included in. Jack Nathanson’s serial family, the wives, always in the
light and the warmth, always in the news, always in the money. Janet Orson, Maxi Poole, Debra Angelo. All three of them together
never gave Jack Nathanson as much of what he needed as Zahna did, she was sure.