Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) (20 page)

FIFTY-FIVE

Franny laps at her last-call martini like a thirsty Labrador. “Ever see that old Jack Nicholson movie
Chinatown
?” she asks.

“Not more than twenty times,” I say. “I think Robert
Towne won an Oscar for it.”

“Who’s Robert Towne
?”

“He wrote it. An original screenplay.”

“Oh. Well, then,” she says, “you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. They, I mean
he
, repeats the line a bunch of times in different parts of the movie. ‘It’s Chinatown, Jake,’ like there’s nothing Jake can do, things are unknowable in that part of the city.”

“Towne was writing about the dark side of people’s souls, not geography,” I say. “You never know what goes on inside a person’s heart.”

“Exactly,” she says. “That’s what I mean, too. Austin, you cannot believe what goes on between certain powerful friends in New Jersey. Really.”

“What are you talking about?”

Franny stares again out Clooney’s floor-to-ceiling windows. The lights of cargo ships blink on a black, invisible sea.

“Franny?”

She plants her martini glass a little too hard on the bar. The stem breaks at its base, and Franny lets the top half fall and crash as well. “
Me
, Austin. I’m talking about
me
.”

Ms. Strawberry
bursts into tears, stands to leave and eventually hugs me for emotional support. Perhaps persuaded by the electrifying sensation of Franny’s chest pressed against me, I decide information time is over. What the hell is she talking about, Chinatown?

I work on something clever to say
, then decide to skip my tendency of overemphasizing verbal intercourse.

Show
her how you feel, ace, don’t tell her.

When she lets go of her hug,
I slide my hand farther around Franny’s waist and pull her against me. When I bend down to kiss her, Ms. Strawberry doesn’t turn away and our lips come together like pancakes and maple syrup. Tender at first, I let my passion build, slowly, until our tongues are doing a tango.

My
mouth is numb when the kiss is over. Franny’s whole body relaxes against mine. She tilts her head up and whispers. “Want to follow me home?”

I kiss her neck. “I might be persuaded.”

The bar check has been paid, including a nice tip for the disappointed bartender. Franny’s stuffing a lighter and a pack of Marlboros into her purse. Big Daddy’s revving up with thoughts of a midnight ride.

“Listen,” she says, “I
forgot something. The reason I came, actually. Be a nice man and go wait for me in the parking lot or take a pee? I have to talk to someone. Two minutes.”

Where did this come from? And who the hell is she going to talk to. There’s only one table
of customers left in the dining area, no one in the bar but us and one older man. “I’m not allowed to meet him?”

“He’s very shy.”

“So it is a he?”

“A trooper friend. I have a subpoena for him in my purse. Now go wash your face
or wait for me outside. I need a couple of minutes.”

I glance at the
bow-tied geezer across the bar. If he’s getting paid by the State Troopers, it’s a pension or as a nursing home informant. “He’s already here?”

“Yes. Now give me five minutes of privacy. Please?”

Curiosity rules this stockbroker’s heart—remember Luis’ letter to his sister?—and when I leave Franny in the sunken bar area, duck out Clooney’s front entrance into the sparsely populated parking lot, I make a sharp left turn instead of heading for my Camry. The air smells of wet sand and decaying seaweed.

The restaurant’s beachfront lights are o
ff because Clooney’s outdoor deck hasn’t opened yet, so when I slip around the building, stand on the sand in front of those floor-to-ceiling windows, I can stare unseen into the lighted restaurant. Clooney’s last diners are asking for their check, and Franny still sits alone at the bar. In the rectangular box of the big windows, it’s like I’m watching television.

For the
first time, I notice the late, lingering diners include Mr. Vic’s daughter, Carmela Bonacelli. She’s laughing, showing off that figure in a black dress with tiny straps.

My
gaze returns to Franny. She’s digging in her purse, doesn’t see the person walking up behind her, at least not until the new arrival takes possession of my empty stool. Large, dark eyes, long black hair and—like Ms. Strawberry, Franny Dahler-Chapman—this new woman wears a black sleeveless dress. Did everybody come from a funeral?

The new arrival is Gina Farascio, and s
ide by side, Franny and Gina look like salt and pepper shakers, the hair color separating light from dark.

Slowly, like she hates giving her prize away, Franny extracts a
thin, square container from her purse and hands the parcel to Gina.

What was that
?

Max
imillian Zakowsky

Pressing his back against the wall, Max slides down on his haunches to wedge himself into a dark corner
of the basement. He needs to make himself as small as possible, but coiled and ready, too—able to jump like a spider.

When he first
began working for Bluefish, Max used a more direct manner. He would walk straight up to the mark, tell the man his time was up, then knock him down and finish explaining.

Most times, the mark let Max do whatev
er Max was supposed to do. Beat the guy up, sometimes break a bone. But often the mark would run, and Max would have to chase him. Max hates to run, Max being too big to run fast for long, plus things always seemed to get in his way. Couches. Cars. Other people. By the time he caught a running mark, Max was usually too pissed to hold back. Twice he killed when he was not supposed to. Also, once or twice, maybe three times now counting that Mexican bartender, the mark actually got away.

Max
takes a series of long, slow breaths. His body relaxes, gravity working on his big muscles to drop him even lower into the basement corner. Experience had taught Max to hide and relax. Guarantee yourself surprise and the ability to strike first. His own record was clear: Once Max got his hands on someone—like his dead friend Jerry always said—forget about it.

FIFTY-SIX

The lady’s house ranks as ancient so it’s no surprise the original pine floorboards creak. But do I detect a certain rhythm...as in footsteps? Hope I didn’t make too much noise going through her dirty clothes, finding this DVD.

I sit back on the blood red living
room sofa and hold my breath to listen. A grandfather clock tick-tocks in the foyer. The oil burning basement heater pops and rumbles. And yes, there...bare or stocking feet pad quickly toward me down the hall.

I stuff the DVD under my laptop, gasp when she joins me in the living room. Oh, my. And oops.
Oh, my
because she’s wearing nothing but white athletic socks.
And oops
because she’s using both hands and all ten red-nailed fingers to grasp a pump-action, single-barrel shotgun.

“You found the
DVD, didn’t you?” says Gina Farascio.

“DVD?”

“I
know
you found it. Wrapped in my black dress.”

My lips move without sound.

“I just checked the bathroom,” Gina says. “You rifled the hamp
er, found the black dress. So I
know
you’ve got my DVD.”

I take a long, deep breath.

Gina racks a shell into the firing chamber.

I lift my
computer and offer her the DVD.

“Play it,” Gina says. “We’ll solve the murder together.”

I slide the disk into my Mac and wonder if I’m really going to view what the
Branchtown Sun
calls the “MISSING HOTEL MURDER VIDEO.”

On screen,
Ann Marie Talbot cracks open her hotel room door. Gina’s digital image rushes past the startled Talbot, knocking her flat.

I turn from the laptop. “So it
was
you.”

Gina raises the
pump-action level with my nose. “Watch the video.”

I suck an extended breath. Instead of blowing my head off right now, Gina apparently needs a short refresher course in homicide. Okay. Take your time, dear. In fact, I don’t mind studying the course material, too, maybe even take a little Q&A afterward.

Or write a five hundred page essay.

On my computer screen, Gina’s image finally stops kicking a motionless
Ann Marie Talbot. And I do mean finally. It must have taken Gina several minutes to release all of her jealousy, her sense of betrayal.

Oh, my.
Maybe Gina’s
not
quite satisfied. On screen, the former Ms. Cleopatra and reining Ms. Shotgun drops a knee onto Talbot’s chest. Her hands lock around Ann Marie’s throat, the throttling action energetic to say the least.

My belly rolls
over like sewer backwash. This is worse than ugly. I’m watching a real murder.

Gina pokes me with the shotgun, fo
rcing me to watch her on screen.

I look and see Gina’s image hop through a
sliding glass door onto Talbot’s hotel room balcony. She comes back seconds later carrying one of those Japanese-style, cast iron grillers. The barbecue coals inside the hibachi already glow white hot.

The
hibachi was never mentioned in the newspapers, but I’ve wondered since Franny showed me that autopsy report. I remember asking myself what a “charcoal burner” was doing in Talbot’s hotel room. Sounds like a basic and serious violation of fire codes.

“Franny was having a barbecue?” I say.

Gina gazes intently at her own image on the computer screen. “Steaks for her and my husband. Although Tony didn’t stick around for dinner.”

I suppose my plan is to delay Gina for as long as I can, pray for the cavalry.

“Wait. Tony
knew
he was going to see her that evening?” I ask. “And you followed him to the Martha Washington?”

“Yeah
. I heard them screwing through the door, then fighting over whether or not he should stay. When Tony left her room, I hid down the hallway so he wouldn’t see me, then went back.”

“You were in a jealous rage, huh.
”

“
Ann Marie and I are old friends. Screwing my husband was a really shitty thing to do.”

I feel my forehead bunch int
o wrinkles. “Old friends? You mean that story you told me about Franny being a mob party girl with Ann Marie was really
your
story? It was you and Ann Marie?”

“All three of us,” Gina say
s. “We were young, in school, attracted to the bad guys and their big rolls of money. Poker Pals, Tony and his friends called us. We were popular for years, even after a couple of us tried marriage. Tony’s guys knew us well, knew we were smart and could be trusted, so they eventually decided we should have jobs aiding and abetting their businesses, put us on the payroll.”

“Ingenious,” I say. “So
Ann Marie took accounting classes, earned her C.P.A. and went to work for the AASD. Franny joined the New Jersey State Troopers after law school. But how about you, Gina? Where did you hook up?”

Her mouth twists into something only resembling a smile. “Tony decided I’d be best suited for something else.”

“What?”

Gina’s finger slides
to the shotgun’s trigger. “Keep asking questions, you might find out.”

“You’re a
hit-man
—I mean, hit-woman? Oh, come on.”

Gina shrugs. “
More odd jobs than anything, carrying weapons into places men can’t or surprising people who need some encouragement to repay a loan. Sometimes it’s a combination.”

I need to line up an inventory of questions like icy b
ombs for a snowball fight, keep them coming until that cavalry arrives. Could be a long wait.

“Where d
id the DVD come from?” I say. “And how did Franny get it?”

“I’m tired of your
questions. Stand up.”

“Oh, come on, Gina. What’s your hurry
? Who was bugging Ann Marie’s room?”

Her big
almond-shaped eyes stare at me. “Bluefish put in the recording equipment. Talbot was working for him. They were hoping to catch
you
screwing her.”

“But I’m single.”

“She’s an AASD official investigating your firm. The potential scandal would’ve made you think about cooperating with Bluefish and his friends.”

“So after the murd
er, Franny got the DVD from who? Detective Mallory?”

“I don’t kn
ow,” Gina says. “Mallory or Bluefish or Max, whoever had it then. I just told her to get it for me.”

I’m almost out of snowballs. “But wasn’t Franny working for Bluefish? Pretending to be after him, indicting him, but really setting
things up so he’d be acquitted? Why would she give you the DVD?”

“With Blu
efish dead, her only options were me or the cops.” Gina pushes the shotgun closer to my face. “Now stand up. We’re going to walk slowly through the kitchen, down the stairs past the basement and into the cellar. I need you to help me carry something.”

I shake my head
doubtfully. “You mean that shotgun’s too messy to use in the pretty basement or the living room.”

She shows me a real smile this time. Nasty and cold, but real.
She says, “Stand up.”

I stagger to my feet and head for her kitchen.