Vixen (7 page)

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Abe Melikian was another Saturday workaholic, in his office and busy with a client when I rang up. I told the staff member I spoke to to let him know I had news for him and would deliver it in person within the hour.

Runyon checked in as I was about to leave the agency, with the news that Cory Beckett had brought Frank Chaleen along with her to Belardi's. The woman was brazen as hell. Lied in her teeth to me about not knowing Chaleen, then as soon as I was gone, called Chaleen in to help her fetch her brother home.

As Tamara had predicted, Melikian didn't want us to do any more investigating. He was upset that we'd probed into her background as much as we had. He already knew that Kenneth Beckett had been found and Cory was bringing him back well ahead of his trial date because she'd called to tell him so, and why the hell hadn't I notified him right away myself instead of going to her apartment and harassing her?

I tried to explain about her background, her ties to Vorhees and Chaleen, the lies and manipulations we'd uncovered, but I might as well have been talking to a statue. He refused to consider that she might be anything other than the selfless sister she pretended to be; kept defending her and her intentions. Kenneth Beckett was unstable, he said, parroting what she'd told me; the kid's sudden run-out proved that, didn't it? The story he'd told Runyon was “a load of drug-raving bullshit.” Cory had her brother's best interests at heart, was doing everything she could to keep him out of prison.

Old Abe was hooked, all right. So deeply hooked that I couldn't help wondering if she was sleeping with him, too. He was always paying lip service to family and family values—he'd been married thirty years, had two grown daughters and a son in high school—and I had taken him for a straight arrow. But when a sexy piece half a man's age makes herself available to him, the temptation for some can be too strong to resist. Not for me, and never with a woman like Cory Beckett—that's what I told myself. I hadn't succumbed in her apartment, but how could I be absolutely sure I wouldn't under different circumstances?

I said, “Okay, Abe. Have it your way. We'll back off.”

“Damn well better. Beckett's back, I'm not gonna lose my bond—case closed. You want any more business from me, stay the hell away from Cory and her brother.”

So that's the end of it, I thought. Kenneth Beckett gets convicted or acquitted at his trial, his sister goes right on lying, manipulating, using men to her own ends, and we forget the whole sorry business and move on. Case closed.

Only it wasn't.

No, not by a long shot.

 

8

KENNETH BECKETT

He didn't know what to do.

Scared all the time now. Scared of the trial, scared of going to prison, but mostly scared of Cory.

She didn't trust him anymore. Made him give her his car keys, wouldn't let him go out alone after dark, locked him in his room at night when she went off with Mr. Vorhees or that bastard Chaleen. She said it was just until after the trial, for his own safety, even though he'd promised he wouldn't skip out again like he had when she flew to Las Vegas with Mr. Vorhees and left him all alone. Well, maybe it was for his own good, but did she have to treat him like he was a snot-nosed kid? Or worse, a half-wit the way Chaleen did?

She wouldn't confide in him anymore, either. Or give him a hint of what her plans were. She had secrets again. Her and Chaleen. Ugly secrets, crazy secrets. He was sure of that much.

She was out with Chaleen now, in the middle of the afternoon. Hadn't said that was where she was going, just said she'd be out for a while, but he'd heard her on the phone through her bedroom door before she left and it was plain enough who she was talking to.

He didn't understand it. What did she want Chaleen for? She had a good thing going with Mr. Vorhees, a decent guy to work for, a guy who treated her right—bought her things, gave her money to help pay the rent on the apartment. Mr. Vorhees treated him decent, too, never talked down to him. Tried to get his wife to drop the theft charge, but Cory said the woman was too full of hate to listen to reason. Sure, Mr. Vorhees was still married, but legally separated, and Cory'd had affairs with married men before—“I don't subscribe to society's moral standards,” that was always her excuse. Besides, she said, it was different with Mr. Vorhees because he loved her and she loved him and they were going to get married after his wife was out of the picture. So why was she risking everything by sneaking off and letting Chaleen do it to her, too?

She'd turned into a different person since they moved to San Francisco. Most of the time they'd lived in Marina del Rey and Newport Beach, she'd been loving and kind and caring, but now she was back to being the wild thing she'd been when that other bastard, Hutchinson, got his hooks into her. Or maybe she'd been that way all along, just didn't let him see it.

He didn't like that Cory at all. Lying to him. Telling people he used drugs when he never had. Making him do crazy, hurtful things like being arrested for stealing Mrs. Vorhees' necklace and then not explaining why, just saying over and over, “Don't worry, Kenny, don't I always do what's best for us?”

No, she
didn't
always do what was best. She'd done a lot of crazy stuff he knew about and probably some he didn't. Like messing with that damn rich teenager in L.A. for money. And all the sick shit with Hutchinson. And treating poor Mr. Lassiter so bad he'd ended up killing himself. That wasn't her fault, she said, she had no idea he was suicidal, but it
was
her fault. Sneaking around with other guys, taking money she wasn't supposed to have, fighting with the man all the time. Maybe she'd even planned it. There was something kind of funny about the night Mr. Lassiter died, too—Cory making him say he was there with her in the house when it happened, when she and Mr. Lassiter had been alone together. The lie was to keep people from getting the wrong idea, she'd said, and he believed her, but still it bothered him whenever he thought about it.

All these things preying on his mind scared him, made him nervous as hell. He couldn't sit still, just kept prowling the apartment. It wasn't so bad when Cory went away at night and locked him in, not that she had to do that—he knew he had to stay in the city now, he was resigned to it, so he just watched TV or read one of his nautical books until she came home or he went to sleep.

But it was different when he was by himself like this during the day, free but not free. He could go out if he wanted to, but the trouble was, he had nowhere to go. Well, down to the yacht club to look at the boats, Cory was okay with that, but he had to tell her ahead of time in order to get the bus fare. She wouldn't let him have any money otherwise, and he didn't have any now. The only other thing he could do was walk around the neighborhood, up and down the steep hills, and all that did was make him more nervous, more restless.

God, he wished he had somebody to talk to besides Cory. A friend he could unload his troubles to, who'd understand what he was going through and maybe give him an idea of what to do. He might've been able to talk to Mr. Vorhees, but Cory wouldn't let him on account of that damn necklace. Even somebody like the guy who'd found him at Belardi's might be okay if he wasn't a detective—he'd told Mr. Runyon more that day than he'd ever thought he could tell anybody, it had just come spilling out of him. He'd had a couple of casual buddies in Newport Beach, but they were just guys who worked in the marina like he did, guys he could have a beer and talk boats with. Up here he didn't even have anyone like that. Hadn't made one single friend in San Francisco. Except for Cory he was alone, all alone.

Cory, Cory, Cory!

Her bedroom door was unlocked. He went in even though he wasn't supposed to without permission. The sexy perfume she'd put on for Chaleen was sweet in the air, sickening sweet. It made him think of her and that bastard together in bed, Chaleen sweating and grunting on top of her, and he felt like gagging. He shoved the ugly images out of his mind.

What were they planning? He thought it might have something to do with Mrs. Vorhees, a way to stop her from testifying against him and sending him to prison, and he hoped that was it, but at the same time he was afraid of what it might be.

He moved around Cory's room, the master bedroom. She'd always made a big deal out of him respecting her privacy, but he couldn't stop himself from invading it now. He didn't really believe there was anything here that'd give him an idea of what she and Chaleen were up to, but how did you know for sure unless you looked?

He opened the drawer in the nightstand next to the king-size bed, and the first thing he saw was a package of condoms she kept in there. Right away he slammed it shut again and went over to her vanity table. Those drawers were full of cosmetics, and the ones in the red Chinese dresser were stuffed with silky underwear in the bright colors she liked. The walk-in closet was packed, too: racks of expensive shoes, coats, suits, dresses—five times as many nice clothes as he owned. Different size cartons and boxes jammed the shelf above. What was in them?

He took one down, opened it. Fancy round cloth hat with a tiny brim. Nobody wore hats anymore, did they? He'd never seen Cory in this one or any other. He put it back, took down another carton. New cowhide boots that probably wouldn't fit on the rack. He exchanged that carton for a smaller one with an Emporio Armani label on it. See-through nightgown. He put that away quickly, reached for a small, square box in one corner. Something hard wrapped in a cloth.…

His breath sucked in when he saw what it was. New, too, brand new, and so small and cold he almost let go of it, the way you would a live thing that might suddenly bite. He stared at it, the fear and confusion in him growing.

“Kenny!”

He jumped at the sound of his name, swung around. She was standing in the bedroom doorway, her face clouded with fury. He'd been so focused on what he'd found he hadn't heard her come into the apartment—she always walked quick and silent like a cat.

“Oh, God, Cory—”

Her expression darkened even more when she saw what he was holding. She came fast to where he was, snapped, “Give me that,” and snatched it out of his hand, then slapped him across the face, hard. “What do you think you're doing in my bedroom, pawing through my possessions? You know how much I hate that.”

He fingered his stinging cheek. “I'm sorry, I just … I…”

“Now I'll have to lock my bedroom door, too, when I go out so you won't sneak around in here anymore.”

“Cory, why do you have a—”

“Never mind. It's none of your concern. Forget about it, forget you ever saw it. You understand me, Kenny?”

“… Yes.”

“All right. Now get out of here. Go to your room and stay there.”

In his room, he lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling. His hands felt damp, clammy. His cheek still burned where she'd slapped him.

Forget about it, she'd said. But how could he?

A gun. Jesus, what was she doing with a gun?

 

9

JAKE RUNYON

It was a couple of minutes past seven on Wednesday evening when Runyon pulled up in front of Bryn's brown-shingle house on Moraga in the outer Sunset. Lights glowed behind the front windows, which meant she and Bobby were home now. She never wasted electricity when the two of them were out. He scooped the shopping bag from the passenger seat, went up and rang the bell.

Bryn opened the door, evidently without checking through its peephole. She was smiling, but the smile dimmed when she saw Runyon. Expecting someone else, he thought, and her first words confirmed it.

“Jake. What are you doing here?”

“Dropping off Bobby's birthday present.”

“Oh, you remembered. Well, he'll be pleased.” Not her so much, though, he thought; the smile was almost gone now. “But you should have called first. You always have before.”

“I did call,” Runyon said, “around five-thirty. No answer. I thought you might have taken the boy out for an early dinner to celebrate.”

“No, we were at Safeway. Why didn't you leave a message on my cell?”

“Didn't think of it. Didn't think you'd mind if I just dropped in.”

“I don't, only…” She shook her head. “Never mind. Come in.”

Inside, in the hallway light, he saw that she wasn't as casually dressed as she usually was when she intended to stay in. Starched white blouse, green patterned skirt, a cameo locket at her throat, and a gold bracelet on one wrist. Ash-blond hair neatly combed and decorated with a ribbon that matched her skirt. Lipstick, too, and a little eye makeup. The scarf covering the stroke-frozen left side of her face was the paisley one Bobby had picked out, in Runyon's company, for her last birthday.

He said, “If you're going out again, I won't keep you.”

“We're having dinner here. I'd invite you to stay, but … well, it's not a good time.”

“Company coming?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Four-beat. “Robert.”

Runyon was silent.

“He called and asked if he could come,” Bryn said with a defensive note in her voice. “He has presents, too, and after all, he is the boy's father.”

And the man who had divorced Bryn when she suffered her crippling and disfiguring stroke, the man who had used his attorney's influence to take Bobby away from her and into the clutches of the unstable woman who'd been his mistress, the man she claimed to hate and had fought bitterly, with Runyon's help, to regain custody.

He said only, “Sure.”

“Robert's been nice to the boy, much kinder than when Bobby was living with him.” The defensiveness was more pronounced now. “It's hard to believe, but he's changed since Francine was murdered. Oh, he's still arrogant, still the typical lawyer, but the nastiness and cruelty … they seem to be gone.”