Further Adventures of Carlotta Carlyle (4 page)

“Give it back,” Marcia said. She held out one hand, made an impatient waving motion.

“Hey, you don't need it, Marcia,” I said. “You've got plenty more. In all those safe deposit boxes.”

“I'm going to count to five—” she began.

“Were you in on the murder from day one? You know, from the planning stages?” I asked. I kept my voice low, but it echoed off the walls of Mooney's tiny office. The hum of everyday activity kept going in the main room. Nobody noticed the little gun in the well-dressed lady's hand. “Or did you just do your beau a favor and hide the loot after he iced his wife? In order to back up his burglary tale? I mean, if Justin Thayler really wanted to marry you, there is such a thing as divorce. Or was old Jennifer the one with the bucks?”

“I want that coin,” she said softly. “Then I want the two of you”—she motioned to JoAnn and me—“to sit down facing that wall. If you yell, or do anything before I'm out of the building, I'll shoot this gentleman. He's coming with me.”

“Come on, Marcia,” I said, “put it down. I mean, look at you. A week ago you just wanted Thayler's coin back. You didn't want to rob my cab, right? You just didn't know how else to get your good luck charm back with no questions asked. You didn't do it for money, right? You did it for love. You were so straight you threw away the cash. Now here you are with a gun pointed at a cop—”

“Shut up!”

I took a deep breath and said, “You haven't got the style, Marcia. Your gun's not even loaded.”

Mooney didn't relax a hair. Sometimes I think the guy hasn't ever believed a word I've said to him. But Marcia got shook. She pulled the barrel away from Mooney's skull and peered at it with a puzzled frown. JoAnn and I both tackled her before she got a chance to pull the trigger. I twisted the gun out of her hand. I was almost afraid to look inside. Mooney stared at me and I felt my mouth go dry and a trickle of sweat worm its way down my back.

I looked.

No bullets. My heart stopped fibrillating, and Mooney actually cracked a smile in my direction.

So that's all. I sure hope Mooney will spread the word around that I helped him nail Thayler. And I think he will; he's a fair kind of guy. Maybe it'll get me a case or two. Driving a cab is hard on the backside, you know?

Miss Gibson

I hate to travel except by car or cab. Even then I like to call the shots, do the driving. If you see me on board an airplane, someone else is surely footing the bill. If you find me flying first class—United #707 to Denver, connecting first class to United #919 to Portland, Oregon—you can be absolutely certain that the lady paying the freight is Dee Willis.

You remember Dee, the pop/blues singer who snatched seven Grammys after twenty years of hard-luck bar gigs. The hot new songbird with—can it be? is it possible?—a shred of dignity, a smidgen of integrity. Stubborn as they come, Dee couldn't be bothered following trends. She just kept on doing what she always did. Never dumbed down her act for an audience. The fans had to catch up to her.

Hell, even I have to admit it: Dee's got more than a few remnants of tattered integrity. She supports good causes, sings her heart out at benefits for sick musicians and AIDS-infected kids. I tend to choke on her acts of kindness because I've been jealous of Dee as long as I can remember: first and always for her sweet soaring soprano; second, because some time ago she ran off with a Cajun bass player, my then husband, Cal Therieux.

No surprise that her hastily scrawled plea hadn't been enough to make me abandon my Cambridge, Mass., digs. Neither was her promise of primo plane and concert tickets. Only a carefully negotiated fee had me peering nervously from the Boeing 737's pitiful excuse for a window.

Dee owns one item I'd rather have than anything you can name, and I certainly do not speak of my ex-husband, who's no longer a member of Dee's band and was never her “possession” to give or to take. Twenty-five years ago, Dee studied at the feet of the Reverend Gary Davis, the blind bluesman who wrote holy spirituals and, when the spirit moved him, played such hymns to human weakness as “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down.” The Reverend was so taken with Dee that he willed her Miss Gibson, his favorite guitar. Dee hardly plays Miss Gibson anymore, what with her stock of custom-made electrics and glittering Stratocasters. I'd treat Miss Gibson right, give her a better home.

The vision of the Reverend Davis's Gibson keeping company with my old National Steel guitar had me up above the clouds, grasping the armrests, trying to fly the plane via mind control.

Ridiculous. I took six deep breaths, accepted the futility of telekinesis, and lapsed into fitful sleep.

I switched planes at Denver's International Airport, wandering into a nearby ladies' room, where I splashed my face with cold water, shook out my red hair, glared at the mirror, and hoped the lighting was bad. A mother of twins maintained serene calm while one offspring vomited and the other wailed.

While we were waiting to take off for Portland, a guy across the aisle asked the flight attendant for a Bailey's-on-the-rocks. I hadn't indulged during the Boston-to-Denver leg in spite of the free flow of liquor, but Bailey's sounded like such a good idea I decided to join the party.

Bailey's was my dad's home tipple of choice. At bars, it was a shot and a beer, like the other Irish cops. Even after my folks split, Mom kept a bottle for him. She drank schnapps. Peppermint. Disgusting.

Many Bailey's later, the jolt of the plane's wheels smacking the Portland landing strip made me grind my teeth. I didn't relax my jaw till the damn thing slowed. Out of control, that's how airplanes make me feel.

Dee Willis always had style, now she's got the cash to go with it: a guy in full livery waited at the gate with
CARLYLE
printed neatly on a signboard. Broad-shouldered and burly, he resisted conversational gambits and stood at attention until the luggage carousel disgorged my bag. Hefting it, he gawked at its pathetic lightness, staring me down with narrowed eyes, as if he wanted to ask why I couldn't have carried my stuff on board and saved us the twenty-minute wait.

I saw no reason to explain that I needed to check my luggage because it contained a Smith & Wesson 4053, two magazines, and sufficient ammunition to turn an aircraft fuselage into Swiss cheese. I'm no U. S. marshal, just a private investigator: I can't carry on planes. To carry at all, I'd have to check in with the Portland cops, explain my mission, and get a temporary license.

I'd told Dee to hire somebody local. Seems like I've been giving Dee good advice all my life and she never takes one word to heart.

“Stalker.” she'd said in her increasingly urgent phone calls. At every concert in every city, always seated in the same section, wearing colorful western gear, almost like he wanted her to notice him, wanted to stand out in the crowd. Always too damn close.

Ron, Dee's longtime lead guitar, and some of the other guys in the band had braced the man one night. He hadn't seemed fazed, hadn't backed off an inch. Showed up at the next performance bold as brass—and now he, or somebody, was sending wilted flowers, sending nasty letters. She'd FedExed a sample, of a semilyrical nature:

Our lives are linked with chains of steel
,

Chains of steel, my Lady Blue
.

Saw a chainsaw in a hardware store
.

Thought of you, babe. Thought of you
.

Block print in a Neanderthal hand. Cheap ballpoint ink. Unsigned. Hardly Dee's favorite fan mail. And no proof that the “stalker” had sent it.

Dee was set for three shows in Portland due to a venue screw-up. She'd been scheduled to play one date in a major arena; her manager had discovered the booking error after the tickets went SRO. Not wanting to disappoint the legions who'd finally made her a star, she'd rented a smaller hall. Intimate. Close to the audience. Close to the stalker. She was scared.

Bodyguard, I'd advised.

You, she'd insisted. We'd discussed terms, including Miss Gibson. Then the tickets came. For the planes and all three shows.

Great seats.

“I thought it didn't snow in Portland,” I muttered as the chauffeur and I struggled through gusts of icy wind layered with Makes as soft and wet as soapsuds.

“First blizzard since '89,” he grumbled. “Just for you.'

“You drive in snow much?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said, brushing ineffectually at the windshield with a gloved hand.

In the terminal I'd noticed folks standing around, eyes glued to picture windows, staring with wide-eyed wonder at a paltry six inches Bostonians would have shrugged off with a laugh. I felt a jolt of pity for these two-season folk—rainy and dry—wished I had a shovel to offer the driver instead of a handgun.

I blinked bleary eyes, figured that since the flight had landed after one in the morning, it was now past 4:00 a m. Boston time. The little sleep I'd enjoyed on the Denver leg had been more than countered by the Bailey's binge. I could barely stand upright in the slashing wind.

I was grateful when the chauffeur opened the passenger-side back door, understanding when he didn't wait politely to close the door behind me. I heard the lid of the trunk open, felt a brief stab of regret, Separated from my luggage again.

I drive a cab part-time when I can't make enough PI money to crack my monthly nut. My eye went automatically to the front visor. No photo, no license. Not to worry, I told myself. It's not a cab; it's a limo. No regulations, most cities.

I halted, one foot poised on the shag carpet. The front door locks were shaped like tiny letter
T's
. The rear locks were straight, smooth, and short, like the filed-off jobs in the backseats of patrol cars.

I engineered a quick reverse, backing into a pile of slush that soaked through my thin boots. “Have a scraper in the trunk?” I asked as casually as I could manage, trying to come up beside the chauffeur.

He gave way. “Jeez, I dunno. You wanna look?”

The leather soles of my boots slipped on the slick stuff coating the pavement. I had to concentrate on my footing. No excuse, just the truth. When the “chauffeur” tackled me high, midback, he had no trouble flipping me head over heels. I barely had the presence of mind to tuck my head to my chin. If I hadn't, I might have snapped my neck as the huge trunk lid came slamming down.

Thank God and the Ford Motor Company for the depth of Lincoln Town Car trunks. Ditto for the plush carpeting. My head thunked against my soft-sided duffel.

Dammit. Yes, I was jet lagged, half drunk, in a strange city at a beastly hour, but Dee had described her “stalker”: heavyset, big as a small refrigerator, built on the same square lines as my “chauffeur.” I cursed and cursed again Uniforms'll get you every time; you
trust
a guy in livery, a guy-parading your name on a signboard.

The engine revved far too quickly for my assailant to have cleared the windows properly. As we fishtailed into motion I tested the limits of my confinement, reaching out with my right arm, then my left, pushing the trunk lid with both arms, then both feet, in ease the latch had failed to catch. No such luck.

Seven plus two. I thought. Seven plus two.

I drive an old Toyota, but as a car freak in good standing, I pore over
Consumer Reports
New Car Yearbooks at newsstands or libraries, anyplace I don't have to fork over cash. Seven plus two is the way
CR
indicates a huge trunk, one with room for seven pullman cases and two weekenders. I spent a while pondering the word “pullman,” which reeked of ancient railroad lore, and rubbing my head. Cubic feet, as in amount of available air, would have been a better measurement considering my predicament. Dual exhausts on a new Town Car. I hoped they were working well, discharging their fumes behind the car, not underneath it.

Lying on my back, I approximated the position of a helpless turtle. My duffel bag, probably less than “weekender” size, was next to my head. My knees grazed the top of the trunk. The darkness was total, absolute. We careened around a corner and I found myself unwillingly shifted to an even less comfortable angle.

Did the Lincoln Town Car possess a trunk pass-through to the backseat? I didn't think so. Most of those are found in cars with less trunk capacity. I tried a crab-crawl deeper into the trunk, felt around for some doodad that might lead to the passenger compartment. Lots of effort; no result. Except sweat.

It was going to have to be the duffel bag, maneuvering it, opening it, locating the 40 in its silica-lined case, finding a magazine, loading it. Not shooting off a round by mistake. I imagined one ricocheting through the trunk till it found a soft, cozy home in my body. Imagined igniting the gas tank. Even if the slug miraculously missed me and any flammable fluids, I'd wind up stone-deaf from the enclosed explosion.

We turned a corner too fast I tried to anchor myself, but I slid to the right, away from my bag.

The “stalker” had an ally in Dee's camp. Deeply embedded there. Dee's no loudmouth, no idle gossiper. She doesn't share her plans with roadies or groupies. Would she have told anyone I was arriving? Left a note by the telephone? Had someone overheard her call a travel agent? Had she relegated the duty to some gofer who'd been suborned by the stalker?

Who'd want to stop Dee? Scare Dee off the circuit?

She'd never harbored a female backup vocalist, didn't tour with a regular opening act. Nobody in her entourage would cherish delusions of replacing Dee Willis.

Her recording company might hire a goon to get her offstage and into the studio. Dee doesn't cut many albums; she likes the rush of live performance. Says she's the leader of a road hand and proud of it. Her last two CDs went platinum practically overnight. More studio recordings might make a mint for some MCA/America exec.

Would an entertainment giant hire a thug to frighten one of their stars? Not much I'd put past those L.A. suits.