Lassiter 08 - Lassiter (15 page)

Much was still familiar. The crew dragging equipment carts, wheels clacking across concrete slabs. The smell of sawdust and fresh paint. Cables snaking along the floor, lights blazing, a makeshift dressing room with lighted mirrors, the girls pasting on their eyelashes. A metallic, air-conditioned
chill in the air, goose bumps everywhere, nipples poking through flimsy lingerie.

Some things had changed, Ziegler knew. OSHA inspections, condoms, accounting departments with payroll deductions for taxes. Taxes! The party had become a business.

The crew looked younger, but maybe he had gotten older. Unshaven kids, earbuds plugged into their iPods, zoning out on the latest shit music.

Today’s set was a bedroom—big surprise—propped up on a platform of two-by-fours. Klieg lights were just clicking off, a sizzle in the air. Leonard Newsome bent over awkwardly and struggled getting down from the platform. A touch of arthritis, maybe. His beard had gone silver, his thin hair tied back in a ponytail.

Time, Ziegler thought, is a ball-busting mistress who will bend your body and break your will.

“Lens, how they hanging?”

“Lemme buy you some coffee, Charlie.” Newsome directed him to what passed for a craft service table. A sheet of plywood balanced on two sawhorses. A stained coffeemaker and a basket of pretzels. Two actresses in thongs and open bathrobes were sipping coffee and whining about an actor with a bent penis.

“Like it wants to sneak around the corner, but I don’t have a corner.”

“I know him,” the other one said. “They call him ‘Roto Rooter.’ ”

“Girls, why doncha go out for a smoke?” Leonard told them.

“Smoke? Do I look like I’d put a cigarette in my mouth?”

Lens rolled his eyes but kept quiet. The girls took off, shooting dirty looks at the men.

“What’s up, Lens?” Ziegler poured himself some coffee that could flush a clogged drain.

“A woman showed up at my condo yesterday asking about a girl from the old days.”

“Amy Larkin, looking for her sister?”

Lens nodded. “I was playing pinochle in the card room. I don’t even know how she found me.”

“The woman’s an insurance investigator, Lens. She’s not stupid.”

“No shit. She asked what I remembered about Krista.”

“What’d you say?”

“Told her, too many years. Too many girls.”

“Thanks, Lens.”

“Hell, it’s damn near true. I hardly remember any of them unless they gave me a dose.”

“What else she want to know?”

“That’s where it got hairy. Wondered if you ever shot snuff films.”

“Jesus.”

“Told her, hell, no, not your style. Asked if I ever went to your house for parties, and I said sure. Asked who else was there, and I said I’m just a photographer. I don’t see anything that’s not in the lens.”

“That end it?”

“She wanted to look at all the old films and videos, track down actors who worked with her sister. I told her there were a couple thousand titles and no one ever used their real names. It’d be like looking for a pubic hair in a haystack.”

All Lassiter’s fault, Ziegler thought. Giving the woman hope, stirring her up.

How the hell can I put a stop to it?

“I’d watch out for this woman, Charlie.”

“Whadaya mean?”

“You remember Kandy Kane, Charlie?”

Ziegler cracked a smile, thinking about the day Kandy bit into Rex Hung’s scrotum and spit out a testicle. It was Rex’s fault, slipping it in her back door when Kandy’s contract specifically forbade it. “Sure, I remember Kandy. So does One Nut Hung.”

“I was looking through the lens at Kandy, just a second before she chomped old Rex. Same look on Amy Larkin’s face when she mentioned your name.”

Ziegler was processing that when he heard his name called, as if being paged in a hotel lobby. “Charles W. Ziegler!”

A short, trim man with a set of headphones draped around his neck approached.

“What the fuck are you doing on my set?” Rodney Gifford demanded.

The guy had directed most of the Charlie’s Girlz videos and was as miserable a prick as ever told an actress to spread wider and moan louder. A
dozen years ago, Gifford had bought Ziegler out, wildly overpaying for the studio. Instead of blaming his own stupid-ass self, he carried a grudge against Ziegler.

“Relax, Gifford. I come in peace.”

The director waltzed over to confront him. “Closed set, Ziegler!” Raising his voice to impress the crew.

“Why, you shooting
The Da Vinci Code
?”

Gifford seethed. “You never understood the craft.”

“What’s to understand? Suck, fuck, and pop.” Charlie looked to the growing crowd for agreement. “Your problem is, you complicate everything.”

Gifford was dressed as if Calvin Klein might pop in and ask him to pose for an ad. Even now, at fifty-something, he played the role of preppie with an artistic bent. Pleated khaki pants, loafers without socks, a black silk shirt, tinted glasses, and that exaggerated glide in his stride.

Gifford had gone to film school and thought he was Ingmar Bergman. His interiors always had odd angles, quick cuts, and shadowy lighting, when all the whackers wanted were brightly lit close-ups of winking twats. “Off my set, Ziegler.” Gifford pointed to the door.

“I’m leaving, Gifford. Only came by to say hello to an old friend, and that ain’t you.”

“Bullshit. I know why you’re here. It’s that Larkin woman asking questions.” Gifford smiled maliciously, his teeth bleached as white as a porcelain toilet. “You can’t bury your past, Ziegler.”

“What do you know about it?”

“I got a call yesterday from an Amy Larkin. Ever hear of her?”

“What’s your point?”

“Enterprising woman. She got my unlisted home number. Asked me to lunch.”

“So?”

“I had the salad nicoise. Want to know what we talked about?”

“Fuck you, Gifford.” Ziegler wouldn’t give the prick the satisfaction of asking.

“The woman thinks you’re scum, Charlie. I applaud her good taste.”

“Fuck you twice.”

Most of the crew were paying attention now. A topless Lolita type in a plaid cheerleader’s skirt put down her book—
Sudoku for Dummies
—and watched the two men.

“Maybe I should have told her what I know,” Gifford said, in a teasing tone.

“You don’t know shit.”

Gifford moved closer and whispered, his breath smelling of coffee and peppermints. “I was at your house that night, Ziegler. I know exactly what happened to Krista Larkin.”

Granny was preparing chicken-fried steaks and yammering about the money I owed her for posting my bail. I was not hungry. Maybe because I’m not partial to beef dipped in milk and eggs and then fried. Maybe because I was worried about Amy.

“Exactly what did she say to you?” I asked.

“Told you three times. I bailed her out of the Women’s Annex before I got you. Figured you’re more used to jail than she is. She said she’d be over for dinner because she favored my cooking.”

“That’s it?”

“She said to thank you for everything.”

“Jeez, Granny. You didn’t tell me that before.”

“So?”

“It sounds like good-bye.”

I tried calling Amy, got her voicemail.

“You gonna mash those taters, or do I have to do everything around here?” Granny said.

I picked up the masher and went to work. I heard the front door open and called out Amy’s name. But it was Kip, shuffling into the kitchen, sniffing around the stove. “Chicken-fried steak again. Jeez.”

“Wash up,” Granny said.

“I’d rather have meat loaf wrapped in bacon.”

“And hush up.” Granny never took backtalk from me and wasn’t going to start with my nephew.

“You make a rhubarb pie, Granny?”

“Didn’t have time, and if you want to know why, ask your jailbird uncle.”

Kip turned to me, and I saw the shiner, a purple welt under his eye.

Shit. Not again
.

“Carl Kountz?” I asked him.

“Baseball practice. He clocked me at second base on a force out.”

“Clean play?”

“Not really. He didn’t bother to slide.”

“You have words with him?”

“I told him to lay off, and when the coach wasn’t looking, he hit me again. Hard.”

“Granny, don’t put those beefsteaks in the frying pan just yet,” I said. “Kip and I are gonna hit the bag for a bit.”

It was the third time we’d worked on kickboxing. For a skinny kid, Kip had a snappy left, and his right cross was coming along. I gave him an up-from-under bolo punch because he thought it was fun. Then we worked on front and side kicks. He was a quick learner. Coordinating the punches and kicks into a smooth rhythm would take longer.

Csonka lay in the grass, licking his balls, then watching us a moment, then licking his balls again. Priorities.

I told Kip to speed up his combinations. Sweat dribbled down his face, and the
pop-pop
of leather against bag became louder, the timing more consistent. We were twenty minutes into it when my cell phone rang. It had to be Amy.

But it wasn’t.

“Lassiter, you like sushi?” Charlie Ziegler said.

“More than chicken-fried steak. Why you asking?”

“I’m inviting you to dinner. The gentlemanly way. No Ray Decker, no armed escort. Just come on over for sake and sushi.”

Thunder boomed to the west, and the first flashes of lightning crackled the night sky. The wind picked up. Kip kept on punching and kicking.

“Why?”

“Castiel told me what happened today outside the Grand Jury. If a reporter had been there, it would be bad publicity for both of us.”

“For you, maybe. A lawyer who goes to jail for his clients is a hot commodity.”

“Don’t be a dick, Lassiter. I’m making peace here.”

“Yeah?”

“I haven’t been totally honest with you.”

Fat, warm raindrops pelted me.

“I want to make this right,” Ziegler said. “I want to tell you everything.”

Wind gusts drove the rain sideways, stinging Amy’s face. She retreated from the pallet of rebar into the unfinished house. From there, she could still keep watch on Charlie Ziegler’s mansion next door. A modernistic three-story structure of interconnected tubes with a metallic skin, the mansion resembled a ship at sea. How many millions did he spend on the place, money grubbed from the oppression of young women? God, how she hated the man.

She had come here as soon as she’d been released from jail. Two nights ago, she had sneaked onto his patio and crept right up to the windows, checking out the security. No cameras, no dogs, no guards. She had peered through the floor-to-ceiling glass of the solarium and watched Ziegler watering his flowers.

Orchids!

Orchids and Ziegler. Like a diamond necklace on a hog.

She pressed her face to the window. She was so close to the man who murdered her sister she could hear him whistling to himself. His day of reckoning was near, she thought. She sneaked back through a row of shrubs, razor-sharp leaves piercing her unitard and drawing blood from her thigh.

Amy knew she had gone off the deep end today. Snapped. She hadn’t planned the stunt at the Grand Jury chambers. The actions just exploded from her without premeditation or planning.

Out of control. So not me
.

When Lassiter seemed to be making progress, she’d put away the pistol. She had let him try to work the system. But the State Attorney, supposedly his friend, was in Charlie Ziegler’s pocket. Sure, Lassiter had fought for her and had been Tasered, cuffed, and arrested for his effort. He’d proved his valor but also his weakness. He was outmanned and outgunned. Ziegler was too well connected.

And he’s guilty! Why else would he be going to these lengths to stop us?

Lassiter had been leaving messages all afternoon on her cell. A new strategy, something about a statewide police agency. She should give him one more chance. If he failed—finally and unequivocally—she could always go back to Plan One.

The gun
.

The Sig Sauer lay waiting, deep in her suitcase, back at the motel. She had fantasized about walking straight up to Ziegler and jamming the barrel into his forehead. Turn his skull into splinters, his brain into mush. Then maybe—she wasn’t sure yet—taking a second shot, into her own temple.

Yes, Dr. Blasingame, I do have suicidal ideations
.

A lightning bolt crackled the sky and hit the bay, the
boom
echoing across the open water. She was soaked through to the skin, but not cold. The rain was warm as blood. She dug into her straw bag, found a pack of Winstons and lit up. Smoking again. What would her shrink say?

“You have an addictive personality, Amy.”

Yeah, just like Krista. Addicted to drugs and danger.

“At some level, you blame your sister for your own troubles,”
Dr. Blasingame had told her.
“But you love her and that causes dissonance.”

The shrink said she suffered from post-traumatic embitterment disorder with paranoid tendencies. It was similar to a stress disorder, but instead of fears and anxiety, she burned with anger and hatred.

“You’re seething with thoughts of revenge, Amy.”

So? Someone kills your sister, embitterment and revenge sound pretty damn rational.

Another lightning bolt struck, this one over land. The thunderclap shook the unfinished walls. She heard car tires squishing on the street, saw the glow of headlights cutting through the rain. There had been no traffic
for the last half hour, except a big gray Hummer. A mammoth gas-guzzler, but maybe perfect for a night like this. The Hummer had gone around the block twice, then disappeared. She squinted through the rain and saw this was a different car, slowing as it approached Ziegler’s house. For a moment, it looked like Lassiter’s ridiculous old Cadillac convertible.

The car pulled into Ziegler’s driveway.

No, it can’t be!

Amy crept up to the construction fence to get a better look, the rain soaking her. She watched the driver get out of the cream-colored Eldorado, his face lit by a street lamp.