Vixen (10 page)

At a distance she had a slender, regal bearing, and a kind of pale, patrician beauty, but as she advanced toward me I could see the signs of dissipation. She was on the near side of forty, but already the skin on her high cheek-boned face had lost its firmness and you could see the beginnings of puffy folds under her chin. The regal bearing was an illusion, too; her movements were the stiff, careful ones of the practiced drunk intent on simulating sobriety. The too-red mouth had a kind of crooked laxity and it wasn't smiling.

She stopped about three feet from where I stood. Her arms were down at her sides and she kept them there: no offer of a handshake. She looked me up and down for maybe fifteen seconds. Nothing changed in her expression, and it was too dark in there to read her eyes, but I had the impression she didn't much like what she saw. The first words she spoke confirmed it.

“Private detective,” she said, the way you'd identify a large bug. Cold voice, careful enunciation without a trace of slur. “Who sent you?”

“No one sent me, Mrs. Vorhees.”

“I suppose it was Cory Beckett,” she said, as if I hadn't spoken. “That's whom you're working for, isn't it?”

“Not any longer. I was retained by Ms. Beckett and her brother's bail bondsman—”

“To do what? Help keep her brother from going to jail for stealing my necklace?”

“In a way, yes.”

“What way?”

“That's privileged information.”

“Privileged,” she said, making it sound like a dirty word. Then she said, “That poor young fool. He didn't steal the necklace, she did. She's the one who should be facing a prison sentence.”

“If you know that for a fact,” I said, “then why are you pressing the charge against him? Why not just drop it?”

Fleeting smile, small and mean. “She's the one who hid the necklace in his van, to save herself. And I intend to see that she pays for it, one way or another.”

“Why do you hate her so much?”

“That's none of your business. You just go and tell her what I said.”

“There wouldn't be any point in it. As I told you, Cory Beckett is no longer my client.”

“Then what are you doing here, bothering me?”

I took a breath before I said, “Candidly, Mrs. Vorhees, it's because of an apparently legitimate concern for your welfare.”

“My welfare?” Long, dark stare. “Are you threatening me?”

“Of course not. Exactly the opposite.”

“The opposite of what? You're not making sense.”

“Look, this isn't easy for me. I'm trying to explain the best way I know how. My associates and I have uncovered certain credible information that leads us to believe your life may be in danger. We felt it our duty to make you aware of the threat.”

“… That's a ridiculous statement.”

“No, ma'am. It isn't.”

“For God's sake! What information?”

“I can't tell you that. It's hearsay and we have no proof as yet to back it up.”

“So you expect me to believe my life is in danger just because you say so? I don't know you. I don't know anything about you.”

“I've been a detective for thirty years and my agency is considered one of the most reputable in the city. If you'd like a list of references—”

“Jesus,” she said.

Then, abruptly, she stepped around me and went straight to the sideboard. Glass clinked against glass, no small amount of liquid gurgled. Whatever it was she poured, she tossed it off in a single flip of her wrist and backward toss of her head. She refilled the glass before she turned to face me again—right up to the brim.

“In danger from whom?” she said, as if there had been no interruption in the conversation. “Not my husband, surely. He doesn't have the balls.”

“I'm not in a position to tell you that.”

“The Beckett whore, if I don't drop the charge against her brother?”

“I'm sorry—same answer.”

“Damn you. You stand there claiming somebody wants me dead, but you won't say who or why.”

I could feel my face heating up. This was going badly. I should have known it would; I should have stayed the hell away. “Legally and ethically, I can't make unsubstantiated accusations against anyone. All I can do—”

“Do you want money? Is that it?”

“No. All I can do is make you aware of the potential danger—”

“How much, goddamn you?”

“This isn't about money, Mrs. Vorhees. I'm just trying—”

“Oh, yes, sure. Just trying to be a good Samaritan. Well, that's a crock of you-know-what.”

There was nothing I could say to that.

She knocked back half of her second drink, then came toward me again. Her face was splotchy now, the lipstick smeared; even in the pale lamplight I could see the anger like pinpoints of firelight in her eyes.

“Who?” she said in low, strained tones. “Who wants me dead?”

“I'm sorry, I can't give you any names.”

“Names, plural. More than one person?”

I didn't say anything.

“The Beckett whore and who else? Her brother?”

“No.”

“Damn you, then
who
?”

I could not just keep on standing there like a dummy. The urge to get the hell out was strong, but I'm not the kind of man who runs away from a difficult situation. All I could think was: She has a right to know, dammit. Give her something, let her figure it out for herself. But I knew I was making a mistake before all the words were out of my mouth.

“I'll say this much. When we were employed by Cory Beckett, there was a situation in which she brought along a friend to help her. A close friend, evidently, given the circumstances. His name is Frank Chaleen.”

It rocked her. Her hand jerked enough to slop a little of the remaining whiskey over the rim of her glass.

“Frank? Frank and that slut? I don't believe it.”

“The operative who was present can confirm it if you like.”

“He's having an affair with her, too? She wants me dead and he's colluding with her? Is that what you're trying to tell me?”

“I've told you all I can, as much as I know to be fact.”

“Meaning draw my own conclusions? Well, I won't draw them—I
don't
believe it.” She looked half wild now, her face twisted out of shape. “You're a goddamn liar.”

“No, ma'am, I'm not—”

“Liar!
Liar!”

And all in one motion, with no warning, she threw the glass at me.

I was half-turning away from her and I didn't see it coming in time to dodge. The heavy crystal bottom edge slammed into my forehead, just above the bridge of my nose, with enough force to jerk loose a yelp of pain and knock me cockeyed. I staggered backward, banged into an end table and sent an unlighted lamp crashing to the floor. I went down after it, hard on my side on the rough-weave carpet. My vision was still out of whack; I swiped a hand across my forehead, felt an open stinging gash and the stickiness of blood mixed with whiskey. The liquor stench made my gorge rise.

Dimly I heard the maid come running into the room, calling out querulously in Spanish. Margaret Vorhees told her to shut up, go get some towels, look at all that damn blood. The maid hesitated, said something about first aid; there was a brief argument, the words all jumbled together through a sharp buzzing in my ears. I twitched around on the floor, still trying to swipe my vision clear so that I could see. More sounds flowed around me, but no more voices, and when the room finally swam back into focus I saw that I was alone.

I shoved up onto my knees. My right hand was smeared with diluted blood; little streams of it spilling down around my nose kept trying to screw up my vision again. I caught hold of the table and hauled myself upright, but I had to keep leaning on it for support, woozy and wobbly, aware now of a blistering, throbbing pain across my forehead into both temples.

I was still standing there, trying to pull myself together, when the maid hurried back into the room. She made concerned noises at me in both English and Spanish, only some of which penetrated—asking if I was all right, if I needed a doctor. I managed to say yes and then no, and let her take my arm and guide me to one of the couches and sit me down. She'd brought a first-aid kit and an armload of wet towels; gently, she sopped up most of the blood around the wound and on the rest of my face, said something that sounded like “not too bad,” and then went to work with an antiseptic that stung like hell and some gauze and adhesive tape.

By the time she was done, the dizziness and disorientation were gone and I was all right except for the headache. Margaret Vorhees hadn't put in an appearance, and wouldn't, but not because she was contrite or ashamed. She just didn't want anything more to do with me, with or without the blood. There was nothing I could do about the glass-throwing incident and she knew it. It was her house, I hadn't been invited, and I'd upset her with vague and unsubstantiated claims. The hell with me.

Yeah, and the hell with her, too.

I felt like the damn fool I was for coming here.

Pretty soon I tried standing up, and that was all right; then I tried walking a little and that was all right, too. The maid was down on her knees now, scrubbing at the spatters of blood and whiskey on the carpet—orders from Mrs. Vorhees, no doubt. She gave me a sad, sympathetic look underlain with something that might have been bitterness or exasperation, or maybe both. I thanked her in Spanish, and she said,
“De nada, por favor.”
She would have dutifully gotten up to show me out if I hadn't made a stay-put gesture and told her I could find my own way.

Outside in the car, I peered at myself at the rearview mirror. Christ. The area around the bandaged wound was puffy and already starting to discolor. The maid had gotten most of the fluids off my face, but there were still spots and streaks here and there. On my shirt, tie, and jacket, too. It looked as though I'd been in a fight and gotten the worst of it. Hell of a time explaining this to Kerry, I thought, after my promise to keep myself out of harm's way.

But that concern became irrelevant in the next minute or so. It didn't matter what had just happened to me; it was simply no longer important.

I keep my cell phone turned off when I'm in somebody's home or office; I sat there a little longer to make sure I was okay to drive before it occurred to me to check for messages. There was one on my voice mail, from Kerry. A message that slammed me harder and did more damage than Margaret Vorhees' crystal tumbler; that really ripped the day apart, turned it dark and bleak and far more painful.

“The on-duty doctor at Redwood Village just called,” she said. Very calm, very controlled, as if she were holding herself in rigid check. “Cybil had a massive stroke this morning. She died before they could move her from the clinic to the hospital.”

 

12

TAMARA

The first time the guy called asking for Bill, she had no idea who he was. Just an unfamiliar voice on the phone, kind of tight and demanding. She told him Bill wasn't there and probably wouldn't be available the rest of the week. He said, “I have to see him,” and she said, “I'm sorry, that's not possible, may I take a message?” No message. Was there something she could help him with? Evidently not. He hung up on her without giving his name.

The second call came a few minutes later, while she was taking a short break to drink her second cup of coffee and brood a little. About Bill and Kerry and the death of Kerry's mother, mainly. He'd called her with the news last night. She had never met Cybil Wade, but she knew how close Kerry and her mother were from the things Bill had told her. She felt bad for both of them. Old people died every day and Cybil Wade had had a good, long life, but that didn't make it any easier for her family to deal with.

Man, they'd had so much crap in their lives, Kerry especially the past couple of years, and now this. Wasn't right that bad things kept happening to good people while the bastards in the world went right on sailing along on untroubled seas.

Thinking the word “bastard” led her straight to thinking about Horace again, like continually picking at a splinter or a scab. He wasn't one of the worst, but he still ran with the pack. Damn the man! She couldn't make up her mind what to do about him.

Why hadn't he stayed in Philadelphia instead of coming home to the city and slithering back into her life? Well, she didn't have to have let him, never mind how contrite he was or pretended to be. Didn't have to start sleeping with him again, either, for God's sake. What a weak, stupid mistake
that'd
been! Same old silver-tongue Horace, talk the panties right off a girl even after she vowed not to let it happen.

Never mind, either, that he was still the best lover she'd ever had, maybe the best she would ever have. It was just sex now, wasn't it? Sure it was; she didn't love him anymore, not the way she had before he dumped her for another cellist in the Philadelphia orchestra. Served him right that Mary from Rochester dumped him for some other guy after he'd gone and put a ring on her finger.

Sex, no matter how good … well, it just wasn't as important as it had been when she was living with him. She was older now, smarter (most of the time, anyway), she had responsibilities and a job she loved, she didn't need or want Horace complicating her life and maybe messing it up again. She'd told him that, and he swore he'd never hurt her again, he was a changed man. Maybe fact, maybe bullshit. Whatever, he wouldn't go away and leave her be. And she couldn't seem to just say no, just tell him adios, and lock the doors every time he came sucking around.…

This was what was going through her mind when the phone rang and the same dude as before started another rap about needing to see Bill ASAP. He sounded even more tight-assed this time, as if he were upset about something and working to keep himself under control.