Lie Down with the Devil (23 page)

She floated across the carpet, and sank onto the largest of the sofas in front of a cluttered glass coffee table. The clutter consisted mainly of bottles, nail varnish in several different shades, polish remover, clear plastic containers of orange sticks, files, and cotton balls. Until Strathmore returned to the roost, it looked like the agenda had been doing the nails while listening to music.

I located an ornate phone on a gilded table. A leather folder nearby looked like a menu.

“And you wish to talk about Sam?” She had slipped her shoes off and was scrutinizing her toenails. The polish looked good to me, but she soaked a cotton ball in acetone and started removing it.

I nodded, then said yes, out loud. She wasn’t looking at me.

“Make it champagne then, please.”

“Will I get my money’s worth?” Her intonation was still vaguely French, but not so much as I recalled. I wondered if her accent had faded or if she only made the full effort with men.

“Oh, you’ll get what you want.”

I ordered a bottle of overpriced bubbly, hung up,
and shoved a chair close enough that I could study her eyes. When she glanced at me, I said, “I don’t want you to tell me what I want to hear.”

“Bullshit. Everybody wants to hear that.”

“I’d prefer the truth.”

She gave a silvery practiced laugh. “And which truth is that,
cherie?
I have stories for all occasions.”

“I don’t have time to play games.”

“Oh? And what kind of game do you play, coming here? Is Sam with you? Maybe you’re getting married in the Elvis chapel? Maybe you want me to be a bridesmaid?”

A wineglass with a lipsticked rim sat on a low table by the stereo. She’d already had a drink or two, which was a good thing, I decided.

“Which color are you going to use?” I said, holding up a vibrant crimson, then a soft pink.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you choose for me?”

“What does Strathmore like?”

“I haven’t known him long enough to say.”

We went back and forth like that, whiling away the time until the champagne arrived. I didn’t want any waiter interrupting. His arrival didn’t take long. When the penthouse suite wants champagne, the penthouse suite gets it right away.

I can’t say that the waiter was surprised to find two women in the room. He was a fiftyish Latino with eyes that made me think he hadn’t been surprised since he was five years old. He did the whole routine, displaying the label, popping the cork, catching the fizzy liquid expertly in crystal.

I paid cash, added a healthy tip, and saw the man out the door. By the time I got back to my seat, Solange was pouring herself a second glass.

“Please, turn the music up a little,” she said.

It took me a moment to find the volume adjustment. The piano was firmly in charge, playing a progression of quick, trilling notes that ran lightly up and down the scale. Solange had closed her eyes to listen more closely.

“You like this piece?” I asked.

“I love it. I adore it. I used to play Chopin quite well. Does that surprise you?”

“No.”

“Bullshit. Of course it does. You think you know me because you have an idea of who women are who sleep with men for money. I was once a student at a conservatory. Very promising, they all said. You don’t know me.”

“I never said I did.”

“Look, why don’t you pack up and go home? I won’t tell him you came here. Trust me, you don’t want to ask questions; you don’t want to know. Men come here, they do what they do, and they leave it here. It’s time out, playtime, free play, whatever. It’s got nothing to do with you, nothing to do with what your life will be. There’s this place and then there’s the wife at home and the children and the parent-teacher groups and painting the house, yes? It’s like Tina Turner says, you know? ‘What’s love got to do with it?’ Love’s got nothing to do with what goes on here. It’s like a business.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it’s like a business.” I fanned ten fifties out on the coffee table.

The money made her eyes grow warier.

“Solange,” I said, “I don’t know you. You could be a concert pianist with a worldwide reputation. But you don’t know me either. Okay? We don’t need to know each other.” I tapped my index finger on the spread of bills.

“Why—?”

“You don’t want to know why.”

“What is it you want?”

“Christmastime,” I said. “From December nineteenth to the twenty-fifth. Was Sam here? With you?”

She hunted around the room until she found her bag, a small clutch made of deep blue leather. Her calendar was leather-covered, too, and slim. She guarded it so I couldn’t see the pages and I wondered whether she kept it in some sort of code.

She looked at me with speculation in her eyes.
“Cherie
, if you were about to divorce the man, I could understand. But you are not married to him yet. You will not collect one dime on this, no matter what I say.”

“But you will. If you answer.”

“He was here. With me. Yes, he was here, and then he came back, right at the beginning of March, just— what, not a month ago—yes. He asked me about December, too.”

“Your glass is empty.” I poured her more wine and asked about other dates. Then we talked about classical music. She told me how she hadn’t been quite good enough, how she felt sick to her stomach before she performed. It took time, but I didn’t want to be direct; I thought she might lie if she sensed I valued her information too much. Slowly, I led her back to the night of December 20. The night Danielle Wilder was killed. She seemed very sure of the date, of the fact that Sam had definitely been in Vegas.

“Which hotel? Here? The Bellagio?”

“He moves around. Most guys like one place, but he likes to move. Always a nice room, but never the top of the line. Keeps it toned down, not showy. I don’t mind. Some men are just dazzle and no guts. You ought to marry him. Someone should.”

“Would you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“In December? Where did he stay?”

“At Caesar’s, I think. When I close my eyes, I see a lot of marble.” She’d seen three-quarters of a bottle of champagne. “Yes, Caesar’s Palace.”

“And then, in March, you said he asked you about the December trip?”

“Just to see whether anybody had questioned me about it.”

“Had they?”

“No. But he said, if they did, I should say I remembered nothing. I shouldn’t talk about it. That’s what he said: Don’t get involved. As though he would have to tell me that. I go on a limb for no one. He was very sweet. He didn’t want me to get in any trouble. He said I might want to disappear if anyone started asking. He gave me money.”

“If who started asking?”

“I assumed a man. Should I be frightened of you?”

“No.”

“Cherie
, you don’t think he’s fooling around with another man? Sam? So what are you after here? I may be a little drunk, but I’m not dumb.”

If she was drunk, I’ve never seen a woman handle it better. There was nothing sloppy about her; she just downed the golden liquid like it was ginger ale and never missed a brushstroke on the nail varnish.

“Did Sam tell you who might be asking?”

“I’m certainly not dumb enough to name any names.”

“Did he give you a hint?”

“You don’t name names around here.”

I circled around and went at it again and again. I don’t think she knew who Sam was worried about. If
she had, she’d have spilled it, just to get rid of me. She didn’t want me in the room when Strathmore came back, that’s for sure.

I gave up on her at a quarter to one.

Hours later, after visiting Caesar’s, New York New York, the Mirage, the Venetian—practically every hotel and every hotel detective on the Strip—exhausted and stinking of cigarettes, I got ready for bed.

I could still hear the echo of Solange’s voice:
“You ought to marry him
.”

Marry a man who’d proposed marriage to me at the beginning of March, then flown to Las Vegas to spend a few days and nights with a tawny-haired showgirl.

I was hearing her accented voice for maybe the twentieth time when my cell rang. The impulse to ignore it died as soon as I double-checked the unfamiliar number.

Gravel crunched as I turned onto the winding road, and I welcomed the noise, willing it to keep me awake. Stay with the crunch, I ordered myself, flicking a strand of hair off my nose. Stay away from the silent grass, the lurking ditch.

Paolina’s summons had grabbed me and shoved me on board eight hours before the flight I’d considered my earliest possible return; after her call, I’d have rented a private jet if I’d had the money. I’ve never been good at relaxing in metal cylinders, so I hadn’t slept on the plane.

The collegiate buildings rolled by, red brick, yellow brick, old and older still. I negotiated the abrupt turn into the parking lot and rolled the rental to a stop. I used the rearview mirror to determine that the shadows under my tired eyes were seriously dark, decided it couldn’t be helped.

As I fumbled with the unfamiliar door handle, I heard the snick of another door opening. Mooney emerged from the nearby Buick and I blinked, wondering how I could have missed the vehicle’s presence.

“Bring the handcuffs?” I made it light, but I scanned the area for undercover units as I spoke.

He folded his arms and gave me a look. “Where in hell have you been?”

“I can’t talk now. Later. Paolina called and—”

“Paolina will wait. She’s still not sure she’ll see you.”

My turn to stare at him.

He said, “Yeah, I got her to call you. Actually I told her to leave word at the desk that she wanted you to come, but she couldn’t sleep and— Anyhow, she found an unattended phone.”

“Excuse me? You used a sick kid to—”

“I’m trying to keep you out of a cell. Fat lot of good you’ll do her in jail.”

“You didn’t tell her—”

“I didn’t. And I didn’t bring backup either.” He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“I tried to talk to you, Moon. Weeks ago.”

“And I should have listened, but I didn’t. Let’s get out of the cold, okay? I had my reasons.”

He was right about the cold. The wind tore at my thin jacket.

I said, “Paolina first.”

“Talk first.”

“No way.”

“You’re stubborn as a goat.”

“Mule.”

I got to see my little sister only by Mooney’s good graces, with Mooney present, for less than half an hour, and while she barely spoke, Paolina looked better. Her hair was shinier, her eyes more expressive, her gestures less restricted, looser, as though something deep inside her had relaxed for the first time since her kidnapping ordeal began.

The best thing, the terrific thing, was that she played
me a tune on the pipes I’d sent her, a tune she remembered from Colombia. Her fingering faltered on the seven slender reeds, but her pitch was true, and I found the accomplishment miraculous for a girl whose instrument is percussion. When I asked whether I could bring my guitar sometime, try to play along, she didn’t say no. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t say no.

Moon stayed with her while I spoke with her doctor, and I’ll admit I was jealous. She seemed to prefer him to me, after all we’d been through. Part of me realized that was the problem: all we’d been through. I knew another component of the problem as well: Paolina was looking for a man to replace her lost father. Knowing didn’t make the ugly green monster pack up and fly away.

Aaron Eisner met with me in his perfect room. I wondered whether the glossy plants were the same ones I’d admired last time or whether they’d been replaced by some service that whisked in lush substitutes in the middle of the night while the cleaning staff polished the spotless windows.

“How is she?”

“We’re trying to help her identify and manage her anger.”

“Without cutting herself.”

“She is not cutting herself here.”

She wouldn’t have access to a blade, so I wasn’t sure he should take much credit for that.

“How do you do it? Identify and manage anger?”

“Mainly through talking therapy.”

I had been yanking my hair and unaware of it. My hand froze in midair.

“We try to encourage her not to swallow the anger. So it won’t fester and come back to her years from now. Or never go away. Things were done to her—”

“Physical things. In Colombia?”

“I can’t break her confidence. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t sound sorry.

“Paolina told me you’ve taken the initial steps to become her legal guardian. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“It might be better if it were done sooner rather than later.”

“Is her mother—?” I was glad when Eisner interrupted, because I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Disruptive? Crazy?

“Her mother wants her released immediately.”

“Can you stall her?”

“I would have to state unequivocally that Paolina is a danger to herself or others.”

“And that would do what?”

“She’s a juvenile, but she’s old enough to be in the shady region. The records might alter her chance of returning to a public school environment. Safety issues are—”

“For Christ’s sake, she’s not going to shoot up some high school cafeteria.”

He said nothing and I realized that there wasn’t much he could say.

“What does Paolina want?” I said. “Is she happy here? Is she okay?”

“She feels safe here,” he said.

“She played me a song on the pipes.” I don’t know why I said it. It forced its way out of my mouth. If I hadn’t said it, I think I’d have started to cry.

“Did she?” Eisner said. “That’s a very positive sign.”

Mooney was waiting when I got out and he started right in on me, flinging the same questions he’d opened with before, as though I owed him answers.

“Where in hell have you been?”

“Las Vegas.”

“Sudden urge to play the slots? Hey, are you okay?”

I must have nodded, but I don’t think I did it very convincingly.

“Come on, let’s get outa here.”

The next thing I knew I was seated in a cafeteria-like place, a lunchroom in another building on the McLean grounds, and there was a steaming mug of coffee near my right hand. I picked it up, took a tentative sip, and said, “December twentieth, the night that woman died—”