Dating Dead Men (22 page)

“Pacific!” Dylan squawked over the headset, in case I was in doubt about which coast we lived on.

“Who cares?!” I cried, nearly wild with communication frustration, but what could I do? For that matter, what were the Swedes doing, racing toward the coast on a diagonal that I guessed to be Lincoln Boulevard? Were the cops after them, or had the cops lost interest when Olof and Tor left the airport? And where were Doc and Joey?

These questions fell right out of my head when the left side of the plane tilted earthward and the right side skyward until we were completely upside down, another of my least favorite things in life. I was incapable of letting go of my windshield death grip long enough to make the thumbs-down gesture, or even work out whether thumbs-down still meant thumbs-down if one was upside down. Fortunately, this new nightmare was short-lived and I was right side up before I could lose consciousness.

I energetically pumped both thumbs down for a full thirty seconds, wishing I could turn around enough to make eye contact, or goggle contact, with Dylan. He seemed to have gotten the message, though, because we dropped altitude abruptly, until we were barely higher than the palm trees.

And once again, there was the convertible.

My spirits shot up and I could have kissed Dylan. It wasn't by chance after all that we'd found the convertible a second time—this man knew the way to my heart. Olof and Tor were pulling off Lincoln now, onto a tiny street that fed into the marina. They raced down a narrow alley, parked their car, and walked onto a slip, as we circled leisurely above them. What were they doing there?

It was unlikely they'd decided to go fishing. And then I remembered. Carmine. He'd said he lived on a boat.

But he'd also said the Swedes were dangerous, that they would kill for the diamond, that I didn't want to be dealing with them—

As if hearing my thoughts, a man came onto the deck of a boat, a man in shirtsleeves, with a dark tan and white hair. Carmine himself. I held my breath. Was I about to witness an execution, as my brother had? I waited for the gun, the shot—

But they didn't shoot him. Olof and Tor reached the big man, and kissed him, on both cheeks, exactly the way Jean-Luc had kissed me. The European way.

The Mafia way.

Was Carmine working for them, and not for his cousin the Weasel? Had he sold out the Weasel to the Weasel's own mob?

I was still struggling with the implications of this twenty minutes later, back on the ground at Santa Monica Airport.

“I owe you a picnic,” Dylan said, helping me climb out of the plane. “Didn't like the look of those clouds.”

“No problem,” I started to say, then stopped. I checked my watch. We'd been together less than two hours, meaning that Dr. Cookie might not qualify it as a date. “I suppose we could picnic here in the hangar,” I said, but without much enthusiasm. I was too worked up to sit around eating ham sandwiches.

Dylan must've picked up on this. “Rain check,” he murmured, and sent me back to my car with a quick peck on the cheek.

Which freed me up to worry about a more important date. The one I had to keep with Carmine.

chapter twenty-eight

“Y
ou are
not,
” Doc said, “meeting Carmine tonight. It's the transmission, by the way.” He peered into the Rabbit's engine. “Hold that flashlight steady.”

I held my temper in check and redirected my aim toward what I assumed to be a transmission. We were in the alley behind Plucky Chicken. Through the open doorway we could see Luis working his deep fat fryer and singing along with Cher on the radio. Beyond him were Ruby and P.B. at the counter, chowing down.

“Carmine is working with Olof and Tor,” I said. “Don't you see the opportunity here?”

“Nope.”

“Since Olof and Tor committed the murder,” I said patiently, “Carmine is likely to know about it—details—how they did it and why. The kind of information cops listen to, the kind that produces search warrants and arrests,
un
like anonymous phone tips.”

“The cops are already on it,” he said, still tinkering. “While you were up in the air, Airport Authority was calling the sheriff's department to report a suspicious vehicle driving onto runways. I talked to my contact, Dambronski, the rookie up in Ventura County, and told him to check it out. He's driving down to L.A. tonight after his shift.”

“Check what out?” I yelled. “We got nothing on these guys, no motive, no—”

“If you think,” he said, straightening up to make eye contact, “that I'd let you walk into a meeting with a guy who thinks you've got a half-a-million-dollar diamond on you, when in fact you've got squat, you can just—”

“Let me?” I shined the flashlight in his eyes. “How are you going to stop me?”

Doc wrested the flashlight from me and pointed to my engine. “I don't have to. Your car's in for the night, and you,” he said, “have a date.” He aimed the light at the ground, into a shopping bag full of shoes, accessories, and something silky and red.

“Oh, for God's sake,” I said. “A date? I'm not going on a date. I've got my brother in there obsessed with exhuming his friend Stevie, which I somehow have to talk him out of—he's probably scaring Ruby, by the way.”

“She's not scared. Eleven's a bloodthirsty age. Listen, I told Fredreeq you'd had enough for one day, but she said you were a pro and wouldn't dream of missing a date. His name is Phig. He'll pick you up here in the alley, to be safe.”

I was reminded that in Doc's mind, “date” was a euphemism for “john.”

Keep it together, I told myself. Find a phone, cancel— “I'm sorry, did you say Phig?” I asked.

Doc smiled. “With a ‘Ph.' By the way, what happened to Dylan?”

“Who knows? He landed the plane and took off. Look, I'm going to run over to the shop and—”

“Can't. It's locked up for the night. I installed the security system I found lying around in the back room, so one touch and you'll set off alarms.”

I clenched my teeth. “My apartment, then.”

“No time. He'll be here in ten minutes, you can change in the bathroom here.”

The idea that ten minutes in the bathroom of Plucky Chicken was all I needed to prepare for a night of seduction was so ludicrous, I was bereft of speech.

“And don't worry about P.B.,” Doc said. “We okayed it with his doctor to keep him overnight. I'm taking him to a late show at the Avco.”

Knowing P.B.'s aversion to movie theaters, I could only stare.

“Ruby's spending the night at my lawyer's in Mandeville Canyon—he's my best friend, she's known him all her life. We would have gone there earlier, but he just got back from Rome.” He paused. “She's not happy about it. Mostly because Margaret's not invited, but also, she likes it here.”

The thought of Ruby leaving, of Doc having other friends and places to go, hit me in the stomach, momentarily knocking the fight out of me. But only momentarily.

“Whatever you did with that security system,” I said, “undo it. It's my shop, I'll program the thing myself, since you obviously won't be around to—”

“Wollie,” he began, but whatever else he had to say was lost, as a pair of headlights pulled into the alley. “Get down,” he ordered, pulling me behind the Rabbit.

A car came to a stop, ten yards from where we crouched, the engine still running. My heart was pounding and Doc's breath was warm against my cheek.

“Wollie?” came a plaintive voice, calling into the night. “It's Phig, your date!”

         

P
HIG
S
MITH, UNLIKE
his moniker, was perfectly normal looking, except for a head of hair so yellow it seemed the result of food coloring. Studying him from the passenger seat of his BMW, I couldn't imagine how Fredreeq or Joey had approved him, unless he'd been wearing a large snood at his interview. And whatever happened to number one on the List, A Good Name? Clearly, our date standards were going to hell in a handbasket. But so were the couture rules. I'd traded Tiffanie's too tight, mile-high, suitable-for-a-drag-queen stilettos for the three-inch Miu Miu pumps I kept in the back of the Rabbit. Cheating, yes, but I had a long night ahead and didn't want to be crippled at the end of it.

When we pulled in line for the Regent Beverly Wilshire valet parking, I knew I was in for at least twenty minutes more of Phig, judging from the pack of vehicles crowded under the awning-covered walkway that separated the main hotel from its ballroom annex. And Phig was a talker, a yellow chickadee of a man, chirp-chirp-chirping, requiring of me only the occasional “uh-huh” and “wow.” I spaced out momentarily, seeing my dates as animal greeting cards: Dave the hyena, Cliff the Clydesdale, Jean-Luc the Afghan hound . . . Then I snapped out of it, returning to the problem at hand: how to meet Carmine at Jerry's Deli in an hour.

Thirty-two minutes later, Phig and I joined the crowd headed down a black, white, and gold hallway toward the Grand Ballroom and the Friends of The Bill fund-raiser. Progress was slow, due to celebrities being interviewed every few feet. When things ground to a halt behind Sharon Stone expounding on the Bill of Rights, I'd had enough.

“Phig,” I said, “I need a bathroom.”

Phig sighed. “We're not connecting, are we? You haven't heard a word I've—”

“Basketball,” I replied. “March Madness.”

“Before that.”

“Computer programming,” I said. “Golf, rap, walks on the beach—look, I'm not kidding, I'm desperate to powder my nose. I'll meet you in the ballroom.” Not waiting for a response, I turned and fought my way against the human flow of traffic, ostensibly toward the ladies' room, in fact toward the pay phones.

The mahogany alcoves were all occupied. Repressing a scream of impatience, I lined up behind the person I judged to be the fastest talker, edging out a man in a yarmulke. Smiling at him apologetically, I noticed his name tag. Rabbi Zev Rabinowitz.
Rabbi
. Hmm. “Excuse me, Rabbi,” I said. “This may seem like an odd question, but do you ever serve Häagen-Dazs at your synagogue?”

He frowned. “Hamantaschen?”

“No, Häagen-Dazs.”

His brow cleared. “Ah, the ice cream! Well, as far as the laws of kashrut—”

“Yes, thank you, sorry, must go,” I said, suddenly catching sight of Phig, heading toward the ladies' room, clearly in search of me. I ducked behind a marble column, then doubled around, making my way back toward the exit.

It was slow going, my dress du soir being a Chinese red silk number, its skirt so narrow it had all the freedom of movement of a body cast. With mincing steps, my Miu Miu heels making little click click sounds on the marble floor. I trotted outside, past valet parkers, into the main hotel. Hearing a “Hey! Wait up!” behind me, I picked up the pace, racing across the marble floor of the Regent Beverly Wilshire like a terrier in heels.

Phig grabbed me outside the gift shop. “Whoa, Nellie. Where to?”

“I—have a problem with that bathroom,” I said. “I prefer the one in here.”

“That whole annex is an architectural afterthought,” he said. “Nothing to compare to the Michael Pennington ceiling fresco in the—”

“Listen.” I stopped and faced him. “I'm extremely sorry, but I have a family emergency and I have to leave, right this minute.”

Phig stared, the remains of a smile sticking on his face. “You're ditching me?”

“No, not at all, it's just that I have to go do this—thing, and—”

“How are you getting there?” he asked, eyes narrowing. He still held my arm.

I looked away. “My grandmother's picking me up in front of the hotel,” I said.

“When did all this happen?”

“Just now. I had a bad feeling and I used someone's cell phone to call home.”

His voice hardened. “You're lying.”

I looked at him, and sighed. “You're right, I'm lying. The truth is, I'm in trouble with the Mafia. I should never have come here tonight, I'm supposed to be meeting a man at Jerry's Famous Deli in half an hour, and if I don't show up, things could get ugly. Of course, if I do show up, things could get ugly. Still, I have to go.”

Phig looked at me searchingly, eyes unexpectedly dark under those yellow eyebrows. “Well, then,” he said. “I suppose I'll have to drive you.”

         

J
ERRY
'
S
F
AMOUS
D
ELI
was so well lit, surgery could be performed there, and because of its close proximity to Cedars-Sinai, one could often find a couple of nurses and residents in a nearby booth qualified to do it. What I needed tonight, I thought, looking around, was a brain transplant, to turn me into someone who could lie credibly, talk tough, and squeeze information out of a big lug like Carmine.

My nerves were unraveling at the sheer thought of what I had to pull off, but what choice did I have? We needed the cops. With Olof and Tor on the streets, everyone I loved, including me, was in danger. And once those two were behind bars, the cops could stop investigating the hospital. They might never interview P.B., never find out he witnessed the murder. “You keep your mind on your brother,” Ruta said, “and you'll be brave.”

“Hey, Blondie.” The big, white-haired man heaved himself into the booth opposite me, breathing heavily from the effort. “You got the goods?”

Here we go, I thought. “Yes, I do.” I nodded. “You got a gun?”

“A what?”

“Gun,” I repeated.

He looked confused. “Was I supposed to bring one?”

“No.” I said. “That's why I'm asking. I need to know you're not armed. Do you mind just—taking off your jacket?”

Sighing, Carmine stood. He wore a worn tweed suit with a red tie and a pale lemon button-down shirt that showed off his suntan. He removed his jacket, did a lumbering pirouette, pulled his pant pockets inside out, and winked. “Wanna frisk me?”

If his body had private places that could harbor guns, I didn't want to know about them. I shook my head.

“Suit yourself. Where is it?”

“The merchandise? In the car. Perfectly, perfectly safe.”

“Safe? In valet parking?” he said incredulously. “Nothing's safe with the spics.”

Spics
. I winced. “No, it's across the street with my girlfriend. Before I give it to you, though, I need to know what's in it for me. Not money—I want information.”

Carmine glared at me, then snapped his fingers so loudly my whole body jerked. A waitress approached, and without a glance at the large, laminated menu, he rasped out, “Pastrami on a kaiser roll, mayo, lettuce, tomato. Shrimp cocktail to start, and a pilsner.”

For some reason, I realized it was Holy Thursday. The Last Supper.

“Coffee,” I said.

The waitress gone, Carmine snapped, “What the hell you talking about, information?”

I cleared my throat. “I'm talking about what happened at Rio Pescado last Friday. Who shot that patient—you or your friends Olof and Tor?”

Carmine choked, a single, violent hack that turned his face red. “You wired?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You wearing a wire? Stand up.”

Hesitantly, I eased myself out of the booth and stood, smoothing down my dress. There was a slit down the front, beginning at the mandarin collar and ending at my solar plexus. The lower half of the dress was so tight, it showed the indentation of my belly button. “As you see,” I said, “I'm not wearing much of anything.”

Carmine made a twirling motion with his finger. “Turn around.”

I turned, avoiding the appreciative gaze of four Sikhs at an adjoining booth. Then I sat. I did not invite Carmine to frisk me.

I must have passed muster. Nabbing a shrimp cocktail from the passing waitress, Carmine gave it his full attention: he plucked a shrimp with his big paw of a hand, coated it in sauce, popped it into his mouth whole, and after some oral machinations, spit the tail onto the saucer. It was the most frightening display of foodplay I'd seen since Date Six had knotted the stem of a maraschino cherry with his tongue.

Apparently, it was my move. “Look,” I said, and leaned across the booth until his focus went from his shrimp to my chest. “Unless you can tell me what happened in the hospital driveway, I'll hold on to the merchandise until I find someone who knows.”

His eyes met mine. Heavy bags underscored them, suggesting all sorts of things he did instead of sleeping. Unable to hold his look, I watched his mouth and the dab of cocktail sauce residing there like blood. Finally, I stood up.

“Okay, then, I guess I'll just have to—”

“Sit.”

I sat.

Carmine picked at the saucer of shrimp tails and proceeded to snap them casually, with tiny clicking sounds. “What do you want to know this for?”

“It's a Catholic thing,” I said, silently apologizing to all practicing Catholics. “Stevie, the man who died, was a friend of the family. His priest thinks it might have been suicide, in which case Stevie couldn't be buried in hallowed ground. Which would bring great shame upon generations of—” I paused, unable to think of any surname except Jones or Smith, “—Stevie's family.”