Hit on the House (9 page)

Mulheisen shrugged. “I don't know. But you . . . how did you and Lande . . . ?”

“I met him in Las Vegas. I was working the gamblers in one of the casinos. I used to be in the chorus, but by this time I was bringing drinks to the big winners. I wasn't too old for that.” She smoothed her shirtfront and smiled.

Suddenly she jumped up and went to a cabinet in the corner of the room. She took out a cut glass decanter and a glass, into which she poured a robust measure of whiskey. She turned to Mulheisen and hoisted the glass with a mocking gesture. “It's a little early, but”—she glanced out at the dark rain—“it looks plenty late enough.” She drained the glass. “Whew! I needed that,” she said. “You?”

Mulheisen frowned, then said, “All right.”

He walked across the room to her. She poured for both of them. “
Nastrovya
,” she said. “That means ‘nasty day.’ “ She drank half of hers.

Mulheisen sniffed the glass. “What is it?”

“Whiskey, dope.”

“Yeah, but what kind?” He tasted it gingerly. It was some kind of blended rye.

“Who knows? It's something he buys.” She refilled her glass and carried it back to the coffee table. Now, sitting back, she threw her arms along the back of the couch on either side. The stress on the buttons made the shirt gape.

Mulheisen eyed her from across the room. The whiskey had a metallic, artificial tang. He had a fleeting memory of visiting a friend's house after school and sampling the father's forbidden whiskey. This was a moment much like that—perhaps it was the same whiskey.

“You must have known I had a crush on you, Mul,” she said after a spell of silence.

Mulheisen shook his head with a sad smile and set the whiskey aside. “No, and I'm not sure I believe that. Anyway, that's past. Now you're married to Lande.”

“Yes, and I'm faithful to him, although I shouldn't be, obviously.” She gazed at Mulheisen frankly. “I can imagine a situation in which I wouldn't be.”

Mulheisen refused this lure. “How long have you been married?” he asked.

“Six years . . . three months.”

“He was a gambler then?”

“He was gambling, anyway. I don't think he's really very interested in gambling. I carried some drinks to his table. He was winning. Management likes winning players to drink. But he kept winning, and I kept bringing the drinks, and finally he tossed in his cards and said something like, ‘Guys, I can't stand it! Dis broad is too pantageous!’ “ She laughed.

“Pantageous?” Mulheisen frowned. “Pantages?” He had a vision of the old Pantages Theatre on Mack Avenue, now long torn down, and a whiff of velvet ropes and carpets and popcorn caught him.

“I think so,” Bonny said, tilting her head as if catching the same long-lost odor. “Like the theater. It's one of Gene's words. I suppose he means fantastic or outrageous or glamorous, perhaps.” Then she shrugged. “Anyway, we went off to his room, so the boss was happy.
It was fun. ‘Little David was small, but, oh my,’ “ she sang, a little shakily. “Not as small as he looks, actually. Afterward he wasn't like most of them. He wanted me to stay. I could see he really liked me. He was from Detroit, too. We talked about Detroit.”

She looked thoughtful, picking up her glass and downing the rest of the whiskey. “It's funny to talk about Detroit when you're someplace else.”

“Really? Why would you say that?”

“Well, you know,” she said, “you run into these people and you both are like ‘Isn't it great? We're not in Detroit!’ Even if you're in, maybe, Buffalo.”

“What's so great about Buffalo?” Mulheisen asked.

“Nothing,” Bonny said. She got up and went to the cabinet for another drink. “Refill?” she asked. “No? Well, it's just that you're always happy that you're not in Detroit, but still there's some kind of feeling, you know . . . some kind of shared emotion. You've both survived Detroit.” She drifted back to the couch.

Mulheisen watched her curiously. She seemed to flicker in and out of character, humorous and wry one moment, then somber and apologetic. She was getting tipsy.

“What about this computer business?” he asked.

“What about it? He's a whiz.”

“Well, what is it? Does he sell them?”

“He sells them,” she said, “but it's more than that. He sets up programs for people. He does pretty well at it.”

“Where is his office? What kind of place is it?”

“It's in a little whatayacallum—a terrace? A bunch of offices in a motel kind of building, around a parking lot? There's a dentist and a record shop and a real estate office . . . that kind of thing. It's over on Nine Mile. He's got a secretary and a couple of guys who sell and schlepp things around.”

“This secretary,” Mulheisen said, “could she be . . .”

“No.” Bonny laughed. “Alicia is not
the woman
. This girl is not having an affair with anyone, Mul. She's the sweetest thing imaginable, and really, I suspect she actually runs the business. But she's definitely not Gene's type, and anyway, it's not her voice on the phone.”

“If this Alicia runs the business, what does Lande do?”

“Well, I mean she runs the day-to-day business. Gene does all the important stuff. But other than that he golfs. Don't be so surprised. He's a terrific golfer. He's nuts about it. I bet that's where he is now. At least, I hope so.”

Mulheisen glanced out the window. The rain still fell. “In this?” he said. “I didn't know any courses were open yet.”

“He has his own course,” Bonny said. “It's out your way. Briar Ridge?”

“You mean he owns a course?” Mulheisen was startled. It had never occurred to him that an individual could own a golf course. He couldn't remember any Briar Ridge. “Is it new?”

“Pretty new,” Bonny said. “I've only been out there a couple times. I tried to golf but it didn't work. Did you ever try it? It's crazy. I mean, the little ball sits there, perched on that little wooden thing . . . You'd think you could knock it over the edge of the world . . . Gene does! But they give you these clumsy, odd-shaped clubs to hit with . . . It's crazy. Gene can hit it out of sight, though.” She was quite clearly proud of his ability.

“Who does he play with?”

“You mean regularly? I don't know, there are a couple of guys. He'll play with anybody. And when he isn't playing, he's working on the course . . . unless he's got a job that Alicia and the guys can't handle. He plays with people he meets out there. He tells me all about it. To hear Gene tell it, none of them knows the first thing about golf. And they cheat!” She smiled sadly then and said, “You may have noticed . . . Gene doesn't have a . . . well, he doesn't really get along with most people very well. He's kind of abrasive, I guess.”

Mulheisen didn't rise to this either. “What about his friends?” he asked.

“That's just it,” Bonny said; “he doesn't really have any friends. Oh, he talks about this guy—'my buddy,’ he says—or another guy—'my pal'—but it's not real. They never come over to dinner . . . They don't call. She calls.” She grimaced, then went on, “Maybe he's the kind of guy who doesn't need a lot of friends. But I think he'd like one friend. A man should have friends, shouldn't he?”

“Most people have friends,” Mulheisen agreed. He glanced out the window and tried to imagine a lonely Lande out in the cold rain, lugging his bag of clubs through the squishing grass. He suppressed a shudder.

“He likes you,” Bonny said.

“Me!”

“Oh, yes. He admires you. He wants to help you. Also, I think he knows about us.”

“Bonny, there's nothing to know about us,” Mulheisen said.

“He's heard me talk about you. He knows we were . . . well, friends, in high school. And then after you got him out of that awful jail and then we had dinner . . . Mul, it would be wonderful if you could just be . . .” She faltered when she saw Mulheisen's cold expression.

“Let's talk about the calls,” Mulheisen said.

Bonny launched into a long tale about the woman. She called at least once a week, usually more often. It had been going on for at least six months. She never even pretended to leave any kind of business message. If Bonny said that Gene wasn't in, she would hang up and then call back every hour until Gene showed up. Then there would be a cryptic conversation—“Yes, no, when?”—and so forth. Then Gene would go out. Not every time, but often. Sometimes he just hung up and made no further comment. If Bonny asked who it was, he would say, “Nobody.” They would go on with their evening as if nothing had happened.

Mulheisen wanted to ask if Bonny didn't ever get angry and demand an explanation, but he knew she wouldn't. Not the complaisant, wounded-looking Bonny. This Bonny now, sitting across the room from him with her frank, nearly cynical manner was something new. He wondered if she was this way only with him. He didn't think so—something seemed to have happened to her.

Sometimes lately Gene would be gone all night, she told him. When that happened, he usually came home for breakfast, or it might be in the very early hours, and he would slip quietly into bed with her. She would pretend to be asleep even though she usually laid awake. At any rate, he never said where he'd been, although in the morning he might apologize for not getting home. He acted as if he'd been out on
some business matter, though what kind of business kept a man out all night? The computer business wasn't conducted at night.

Mulheisen felt as gloomy as the day. Lande was such a crude, insensitive kind of guy, he thought, he probably didn't even realize that Bonny was in agony.

“He's really a nice man,” she said.

Mulheisen was silent.

“I know most people find him . . . difficult,” she said. “But except for this . . . this thing with the woman, he's very kind. Really. I have nothing to complain about—he's a good provider.” She gestured around her at the nice apartment. “Mostly, it's like we're on a honeymoon. We go out to the show, to dinner . . . Sometimes we take little trips.”

“Where to?” Mulheisen asked.

“We went to the Cayman Islands over Christmas. We stayed at a terrific hotel, right on the beach. Of course, part of it was business.”

“Business? In the Cayman Islands?”

“Well, we went out to one of the other islands, to look at a site for a golf course. Gene has been thinking about building another course. He loves golf so much and he's gotten to know so much about it from developing Briar Ridge he's thinking of becoming a golf architect. He spent a lot of time talking to bankers down there.”

Mulheisen felt unutterably sad. Lande a golf architect? How could a woman be so deluded? he wondered. Even grateful to such a coarse little thug? Was it just that he'd taken her out of the marketplace, as it were? And how could she tolerate his blatant infidelity, his carelessness toward her? What did she get from it? Was Lande some kind of great lover? A piece of ass? He felt he had to help her.

“What can I do, Bonny?”

“Oh, I don't know, Mul. It's just great talking to you, being able to tell somebody about it. There's probably nothing you can do. I just thought . . . since you're a detective . . . maybe you could just find out for me who this woman is, this Germaine. That's all.”

Mulheisen felt helpless. “What good would it do?” he asked. “I mean . . . if he wants to stop, he'll stop. What's the use? Do you know anything else about her? Where did you meet her?”

“It was at a party. Gene had these partners in the golf course—he
bought them out. So to celebrate he threw a big party out at the club—all catered. It was terrific! She was there. I don't know who she was supposed to be with. She was flirting with Gene. Somebody said she was a singer. She's tall, dark haired, about thirty . . . kind of stacked. I could tell he liked her.”

“Can you remember any names? Who was at the party?”

“Well, there were a lot of people, but I'd never met most of them. The partners . . . there was . . . let's see . . . I think one guy's name was Etcheverry, something like that. And a guy named, uh, Frank . . . Frank . . . Oh, I can't remember.”

“Can you call anybody?” Mulheisen asked. “I mean, I'd like to help you, but . . . Really, Bonny, it's not the kind of thing I do. I can't investigate people for no reason.”

Bonny got up and poured another drink. She sat down again and drank a little of it. Then she said, “I think somebody said she was a friend of Sid Sedlacek's.”

Mulheisen digested this in silence for a good long while, then said, “And her name is Germaine?”

Bonny nodded.

Mulheisen watched her. At last he rose, saying, “Find out who else was at the party. Call me.”

She followed him to the door and stood by—expectantly, he felt-while he pulled on his raincoat. She handed him his hat and raised her face. He managed a more-or-less casual embrace with a kiss on the cheek.

It was still raining, perhaps harder now.

Nine

A
t approximately the same moment but half a continent apart, Mulheisen and Joe Service drove to similar establishments. In Detroit, as Bonny had described it, the terrace on Nine Mile Road resembled nothing so much as a motel—a U-shaped single-story brick building that provided space for several shops and parking within the ample arms of the U. The Ninemile Plaza was practically identical with the La Cienega Center in Orange County, but while it was pouring rain in Detroit, in California the sky was milky white with a high overcast, and the air temperature was eighty-three degrees Fahrenheit, thirty degrees Celsius, according to the rotating sign by the Bank of America branch. There were other differences as well: in Detroit, a dentist's office, a vacuum cleaner sales office, and the Polski Pierogi sausage shop; in Orange County, a pet shop, the Golden Samurai martial-arts academy, and a lawn- and tree-grooming service. Each complex boasted a computer shop (Doc Byte in Detroit, Computerama in California), a video-rental shop, and a hobby shop—in Detroit the hobby shop featured model trains; California's counterpart was a toss-up between supplies for amateur painters and beer- and wine-making equipment.

Mulheisen parked his old Checker directly in front of Lande's Doc Byte shop, which was sandwiched between the hobby shop and the dentist. He wondered if the dentist was annoyed by Lande's sign—perhaps
not. It must have made many people smile, as Mulheisen did now, and remember. A sucker for model trains, he couldn't resist going into the hobby shop first. Although he didn't indulge in the hobby, a friend of his had an elaborate layout of Grand Trunk trains that took up most of the friend's basement. What Mulheisen particularly liked was trolley cars. It had something to do with riding the old interurban that ran to Mount Clemens when he was a child. He was delighted to find an HO-gauge model that reminded him greatly of the Detroit, Monroe and Toledo Short Line cars he had seen many, many years ago. It was made in Germany and cost fifty dollars. He bought it, thinking he might convince his buddy, Fred, to add it to the layout. To that end he also bought the requisite track and some streetlights.

It was still pouring, an absolutely miserable day, though not to Mulheisen; he found it quite agreeable somehow. He tossed the bag of models into the car and ducked into Doc Byte. There was a display room with several computers and printers set up on modern-looking desks. One of the terminals was displaying a constantly changing picture—an experimental automobile in various stages of design and from different angles and perspectives, all in striking colors and accompanied by explanatory captions. There was nobody in the shop. Mulheisen looked about until he noticed a window at the back and what appeared to be the office. He peered in. An extremely heavy young woman, twenty-five or so, was industriously scanning listings on a computer terminal. A telephone was clamped between her cheek and her shoulder, and she was talking all the while. She glanced up at Mulheisen and beckoned him toward a door off a small corridor.

He found his way into the office and stood there, dripping, while for another three minutes she conducted an unintelligible conversation. At last she said, “Okeydoke, I'll order it,” and hung up. An absurdly tiny head was perched on enormous shoulders. She had no visible neck, and her bosom projected out before her, resting on the desktop. It must have been a struggle for her to see the keyboard on which she typed.

Mulheisen glanced at the name plate on the desk and said, “Miss Bommarito? I'm Sergeant Mulheisen, Detroit police.” He held up a laminated plastic identification card for her to read.

Her dark eyes widened, but a look of comprehension flickered across her face, and she said, “I bet it's about that shooting the boss almost saw.”

“That's right,” Mulheisen said. “Is Mr. Lande in?”

“You gotta be kidding. It's nearly four. Did you have an appointment?” She began to straighten up her desk and heaved herself laboriously to her feet to file various pieces of paper and reshelve some catalogs. She looked to weigh at least 250 pounds on a frame no taller than five feet two. She wore a neat woolen jumper over a silk blouse, and her legs were like tree stumps, tapering to tiny feet in flat-heeled shoes. Her arms seemed to be inflated; they projected out from her roly-poly body, ending in dainty hands that almost twinkled. Her pretty little head peeped out of the gross body like some kind of fairy trying to stay afloat in a vat of flesh. Long, rich black hair cascaded over her shoulders. She seemed to bounce and roll around the cramped office.

“His wife said he might be golfing,” Mulheisen said dubiously.

The woman glanced through the window that gave onto the showroom. “In this rain? Well, why in heck not? He's crazy enough for it. But I doubt that even Gene would be out in this. You might get him at the Eastgate Lounge, over on Cadieux. He sometimes goes bowling when it's raining . . . Well, he calls it bowling, but there's a couple guys there who play a little cards in the afternoon. Whoops! Maybe I shun't have said that.”

Mulheisen attempted to allay her fears with a grin that had less than an encouraging effect. “When is he in?” he asked, glancing around.

“Oh, he's in and out,” the woman said loyally. “Gene's not much for strict office hours, never was. He gets more done than the average guy, but he hates regular hours.”

“So . . . business is good, then?”

“Great! We got more'n we can handle.”

“Is it just you here, Miss?”

“No, we got a couple of salesmen, but I sent them home an hour ago. Nothing's happening today I can't handle, what with the rain.”

“What exactly do you do here?” Mulheisen asked. “I mean, what is the business?”

“Well, as you can see,” she said, “we sell computers—everything from lap models to mainframes. Are you into computers, Sergeant?”

“I'm afraid not. But I guess I'll have to get with it sooner or later.”

“You can't avoid ‘em anymore,” she agreed. “But the thing about Doc Byte is we devise systems for customers, mostly small businesses. Anything up to small factories. You see, a dentist's office has different needs from a tool ‘n’ die. We tailor-make systems.”

“Is that what Lande does?”

“Pretty much. He's some kinda genius about it, though he doesn't really know that much about conventional computers.” Alicia Bommarito laughed. She was quite charming, with her lovely little face beaming and her long, lustrous veil of hair swirling as she moved about. “I know that sounds weird, but it is weird. What he knows is all the theoretical stuff and how to get machines to do what he wants ‘em to, but if it comes to just what any given stock model is all about, you better ask me. Gene'd just confuse you. Salesmen, and even run-of-the-mill programmers are a dime a dozen nowadays. Gene sets up special deals and invents systems. A genius.”

“I see,” Mulheisen said, and he had a pretty good idea of what she meant. In Detroit it was not uncommon to find, say, a tool-and-die partnership in which one of the partners was the expert machinist, the tinkerer and innovator, and the other was the salesman and office manager. Separately these partners would probably not prosper, but combined they were formidable. Obviously Lande had found a way to dispense with the sales-and-details partner, thanks to a competent manager like Miss Bommarito and perhaps because of the oversupply of young, well-trained computer hands.

Whatever the details were, Mulheisen could see that Lande had at least won the staunch loyalty and support of his office manager. If Alicia Bommarito was as competent as she seemed, she was invaluable. He hoped Lande appreciated her. Idly he wondered what Lande paid someone like her.

“You like this kind of work?” he asked.

She seemed surprised. “Who wouldn't? A boss like Gene! He's never on your butt—pardon my French—and the pay is great. You pretty
much make your own hours, and no union dues either. I'm closing up now because of this muck. Course, sometimes you haveta work till eight. But it's great.”

She unplugged the coffee maker and rinsed the utensils, setting them to dry on paper towels. All the while she chatted informationally about the constantly changing computer trade. Mulheisen lounged about, hands in pockets, nodding and asking a few questions from time to time. At one point he casually opened a door off the overcrowded office and looked into a small room that appeared to be a kind of warehouse. It was stacked with large cardboard boxes on which were emblazoned the logos of various well-known electronics firms.

“This must be shipping and receiving, eh?” he called over his shoulder to Miss Bommarito.

She stopped her bustling and looked at him disapprovingly. “I don't think you should be poking around like that,” she said. “Don't you need a search warrant or something?”

“What for?” Mulheisen asked. He switched on a light and wandered about the chilly room. “You aren't hiding anything, are you?” She stood in the doorway while he glanced at the work counter with its bills of lading on clipboards, a telephone, a couple of utility knives, and various items of packing equipment—tape, twine, labels. He peered at a pile of cartons on a pallet, all of them with electronics logos and shipping labels that read Corporate Banque, Ltd., 129 Belsize, George Town, Grand Cayman Island.

Miss Bommarito stood by the light switch. “You'll have to leave now, Sergeant. I'm closing up.”

“You sell computers to the Cayman Islands even?”

Miss Bommarito flicked off the light, and Mulheisen shrugged past her into the office. She hit the rest of the lights and allowed him to hold a tent-size trench coat while she stuffed her thighlike arms into it. She shooed him to the door.

There were few cars left in the parking lot. Mulheisen peered out at the now-drilling rain and said, “Can I give you a lift, Miss?”

“I'm parked out back. Is there any message for Gene?”

“No, I just had to check out this witness report. Thanks a lot. You've been very helpful.”

“Witness report,” she sniffed, “Gene didn't even see the shooting.”

“Well, we have to check it out. Thanks.”

Mulheisen dashed to his car and clambered in. Before he could start the car, he saw that the lights had gone out in Doc Byte. He pulled out onto Nine Mile Road and then turned down the next side street and parked. Sure enough, a few minutes later a brand-new Corvette slunk out of the alley behind the complex and turned toward Nine Mile. Miss Bommarito wore a broad-brimmed hat, and Mulheisen almost didn't recognize her behind the fogged windows. One would never have suspected that an eighth of a ton of flesh was hidden in the low-slung interior of that gleaming red car.

Mulheisen reckoned the cost of that car at thirty thousand dollars or more. Alicia Bommarito must be paid more than most office help, he thought. He wished he'd seen her getting into the Vette; that must have been a feat.

J
oe Service parked his rented Tempo in the La Cienega Center parking lot and swaggered into the air-conditioned offices of Hello Central, an answering service, relishing the agreeable chill on his bare arms. He wore a golf shirt and slacks. He removed his dark glasses as a young woman came through the doorway at the back of the office. She was Asian, with long black hair, about twenty-two.

Joe flashed a friendly grin and said, “Hi, I'm just shopping for an answering service.”

“Oh, great,” the woman said, smiling back. “Is this a personal or a commercial service?”

“Well, both. I'm self-employed.”

“Oh, right.” The woman slid a tablet of forms along the counter and picked up a ballpoint pen to take down the essential information. “Name?”

“Humann. With two ens. Joe Humann.”

“Humann?” She wrinkled her little nose with amusement. “That's neat. What do you do, Mr. Humann?”

“I'm a consultant.”

“Unh-hunh. What kind of consulting?”

“It's like locations,” Joe said, getting into the spirit of things.

“Locations? Like movie locations? Really? Great!”

“Yes. I'm on the road a lot, naturally, and I don't really need an office, see. Well, I have a kind of office in my house—I live in Malibu. But the answering machine is getting like wiped out. It just can't handle the volume anymore. So I figured I need something more, like, professional. Do you answer the phone as if it was my office or something?”

“Sure. What's your company name?”

“Well, I don't really have a name. I mean, I like use my own name. But maybe I should have a real business name.”

“Oh, sure,” she said, “that'd be more professional. See, then I—or one of the other girls, whoever's on duty—could say, like, ‘Good morning, Humann Enterprises,’ or whatever. Actually, that's kind of cute.”

“Hey, I like it,” Joe said cheerfully. “But how about Humann Resources?”

The woman laughed. “That's great!”

“You don't think it's too corny?” Joe asked. He slipped the sunglasses back on so he could look the woman over. She was attractive, athletic looking, with a slim build. He thought she might be Japanese, but not wholly. He was delighted with her easy manner.

“I don't think it's corny,” she said. “It's kind of an informal business, isn't it? I didn't even know there was such a business, but I guess there'd have to be, wouldn't there?”