Racing the Devil (29 page)

“Did you tell the police all this?” I asked.

“Hell, I don’t talk to cops.”

“Today you do.”

“The hell I am.”

“The hell you aren’t.” I gave her an icy smile. “See, it works like this. You tell Frank Campanella everything you just told me, and probably they’ll just leave you alone. Frank works Homicide. He doesn’t care if you turn tricks. But if you don’t tell, things will start to get very interesting. Cops hauling your ass in to the station at the drop of a hat. Could get very hard to make a living.”

I didn’t know if I still had that kind of pull, but whether I did or not, it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that she believed I did.

If looks could kill, I would have spontaneously combusted. “You threatening me?”

“You bet your sweet ass I am.”

I dropped her off at the police station with Frank’s card and the hundred bucks. She wasn’t happy about it.

AN HOUR LATER, I SAT BEHIND
the desk in my office, considering Shannon’s description of the man who had paid a thousand dollars for my DNA and fingerprints. A blond man, about my height and build. I thought of the possibilities. Ben Carrington, not blond. He could have worn a disguise, but my instincts told me he wasn’t involved. I typed his name into my favorite search engine and did a brief background check that raised no alarms.

D.W. Shorter and stockier than I and not blond. He had access to my schedule and personal information. He might even have known Tex’s birthday, but I couldn’t see him in the role of predator. Safe, reliable D.W., murdering people? I wasn’t sure I liked him, but the idea was ludicrous.

Eric the Viking. Funny, how he’d shown up just as I was being framed for murder. I deleted Carrington’s name and did a search for Eric’s. There were about a dozen hits. Art shows, gallery openings. He’d been at an open house the night Amy was killed; photos of the event were posted on his studio’s web site. Too bad. I would have liked to nail the little shit to the wall.

Samuel Avery, or whoever he was. He was hiding something, but a nearsighted witness on a foggy, moonless night would have had a hard time confusing him with me. He could have been pulling strings, though. Had he hired or persuaded someone to murder Amy and impersonate me?

Walter was a manipulator, and if Avery was Walter, he’d had thirteen years to perfect his craft. He had plenty of motive—three-quarters of a million dollars’ worth. And then there were the photos. Who but Walter would want to incriminate me with those particular pictures?

Then there was Valerie’s ex. Or not-so-ex. I pulled out the pamphlets I’d gotten from Avery and skimmed them until I found a photo and blurb for Sonny Vanderhaus, a mastering engineer at AudioStyle recording studio. An Internet search showed that he was a busy boy, working full-time at the studio and hosting a nighttime radio show on weekends. The show was live, which meant that, unless he could be in two places at once, he had an alibi for Amy’s murder. Still, his relationship with Avery kept me from crossing him off the list.

A quick search through one of the databases I subscribed to showed a six-year gap in his activities, and I made a mental note to find out if he had a record.

I moved the cursor to exit the database. Paused. The program’s final question taunted me.
Do you want to make another search?

I typed in my brother’s name and stared at the screen some more. What did I think I could learn? Financial problems? Hell, who didn’t have those? An old arrest record? What difference would it make?

The words looked stark against the screen.
Randall James McKean
.

Even to consider it was a breach of trust. I cleared the screen and exited the program.

I
’VE GOT SOMETHING FOR YOU,”
Jay said. “But this one’s going to cost you.”

“That good, huh?”

His smug expression said it was.

“Okay, what’s it going to cost me?”

“Dinner at Amerigo’s. And I want to go dancing.”

I groaned. “Jesus, Jay. Dancing?”

“We can go someplace with line dancing. I don’t care. We don’t have to slow dance or anything.”

“You want me to take you to a gay bar?” I tried to wrap my mind around this. “Me?”

He laughed. “It will be an educational experience.”

I gagged and gasped, rolled around on the couch and pretended I was dying, but he didn’t relent. Dinner and dancing it was.

To be honest, I knew he would give up the info for nothing if I asked him to. But I also knew how bummed he was about Eric the Viking. He could use a little cheering up.

All the same, I hoped Randall wouldn’t find out.

Or Frank.

Or pretty much anybody else I knew.

“I’ll take you,” I finally agreed. “But I won’t dance.” It was as good a compromise as he was going to get, and he knew it.

I wasn’t sure what a straight guy was supposed to wear to a gay club, but Amerigo’s Italian restaurant was upscale, so I dressed up for the occasion in a dark gray suit and a silk tie with tigers on it. I knotted the tie with a pang of regret. Maria had bought it for me, and the last time I’d worn it, she was the one who had tied the knot and smoothed the tie flat against my shirt.

Jay’s suit was the color of ash. One corner of a silk handkerchief protruded from his suit pocket. He looked ironed and creased, like he had just stepped out of
GQ
. He gave me an approving nod as we went down the driveway to the car. “What a waste,” he said. “A tragedy for gay men everywhere.”

“Let’s not get carried away,” I said, and he laughed.

At dinner, he ordered a vegetarian pasta dish, while I settled on grilled salmon with new potatoes and grilled vegetables. I don’t eat red meat when Jay’s around. Once I ordered lamb and thought he was going to vomit.

“All right,” I said. “You’ve got your dinner, and I promise to take you dancing. Now, give.”

“Her name is Shirleen Roystan. She and Calvin married thirteen years ago. Divorce papers filed two years later.”

“No unmarked grave, then?”

“No unmarked grave.” He handed me a slip of paper with an address and phone number on it. “This is where she lives. I guess someone will need to call her.”

“I’ll pass it on to Frank and Harry.” This was one thing I didn’t miss about the job.
I regret to inform you
. . .

A familiar voice interrupted my thoughts. “Hey, Jared! Jared McKean!”

I turned to face the owner of the voice and found myself face to face with Louis Wilder. Lou was about my height, but stockier, with short red hair cut in a buzz and a broad, square face with a thick neck. His shoulders strained at the jacket of his double-breasted suit. He would have looked more natural in cleats and a football jersey.

“Hey, Lou.”

Jay stepped aside, as if announcing we were not together. Which in a way, made it look even more like we were.

Lou’s eyes darted from me to Jay, then back again. I saw the question in his face, but he didn’t ask it. Instead, he said, “I been trying to call you.”

“I got your message. Sorry I haven’t been able to catch you.”

He shuffled his feet, cleared his throat. “I heard about that little mess you got yourself in.”

Only Lou would call being arrested for murder a little mess.

“Yeah. I’m working on it.”

“Well, I thought you should know. I did a job on you awhile back.”

“What?”

“I had a client, wanted me to follow you, find out where you went, what your routines were, all that stuff. Wanted to know everything. He was real interested in what went down with you and Ashleigh Arneau last year.”

“Was he?”

“Yeah, well, this guy wants to know all about what happened, how serious you were with Ashleigh. He wants to know where you go on Friday nights. He wants to know how often you see your kid. Everything.”

“And you did this?”

“Hey, man. A job’s a job. Somebody hires you to shadow me for a couple of weeks, you gonna turn it down?”

“I’d want to know why. But yeah, I’d probably turn it down.”

He flushed a deep red, laughed a short, harsh burst. “Yeah. Well. Maybe. You’re a better man than me, Cowboy. Anyway, I thought you’d want to know, under the circumstances. I heard Ashleigh Arneau say you were claiming that some mystery chick had set you up. And I thought, hey, maybe he’s right.”

“Who, Lou?” My fists clenched. I took a deep, calming breath and forced them open. “Who hired you?”

“Aw, now, you know I can’t tell you that.” He backed away, hands raised chest-high. “Client confidentiality and all.”

“Lou, I want to know who hired you.” I moved toward him, and he backpedaled as fast as he could go.

Jay caught me by the elbow.

“No, Jared. Don’t.”

I shook him off and said through gritted teeth, “This bastard knows who set me up, and he is by God going to tell me who it was.”

“Sorry, Charlie.” Lou slipped into the crowd with unusual grace for a muscle-bound hulk. “Gotta run. Lotsa luck.”

I went after him like a shark after chum, grabbed him by the back of the collar and spun him around. “You call Frank Cam-panella. Homicide. You call him, you hear? Tell him what you just told me.”

“Take your hands off me, McKean, or people are going to start calling you Captain Hook.” His Neanderthal jaw jutted out, and I knew he meant it. I was past caring.

“Try it, Wilder.”

“Jared . . . ,” Jay started, and clamped his mouth shut.

I shoved my face in close to Lou’s. “Listen to me, you lard-brain, no-neck piece of crap. My ass is on the line here. I’m looking at life in prison, and you know who put me there. You don’t want to tell me, fine. But you get your ass on the phone, and you tell Frank Campanella someone hired you to get information on my personal habits. You
do
it, Lou!”

A vein in his forehead bulged, and for a moment, I thought we just might have to kill each other. Then his jaw unclenched. His muscles relaxed. I felt the stubbornness leak out of him like water from a cracked glass. I sighed and let him go.

“Do what you can, okay, Lou?” I said, suddenly exhausted. “I’d appreciate it.”

He stepped back and gave me a broad smile, smoothing the front of his jacket with his hands. “Well, sure. All you had to do was ask nice.”

He turned and stepped into the crowd we’d gathered, and they parted for him like the Red Sea parting for Moses.

I sank into my chair as the meaning of what had just happened hit me.

It wasn’t Randall.

Randall wouldn’t need to hire a detective. He could have gotten anything he needed from me. Or Jay. Or even Maria.

Even though I’d known it, relief washed over me.

“Well,” Jay said. “That was unique.”

“Sorry.”

He shrugged. “Oh, that’s all right. You’re entitled to the occasional outburst, under the circumstances.”

A young man wearing jeans, a Rolling Stones T-shirt, and a Dodgers baseball cap stepped out of the crowd and spat on Jay’s two-hundred-dollar Italian shoes.

“Jesus hates faggots,” he said, glowering at the two of us.

Jay looked stricken. My right hand curled into a fist, but I knew punching the little bastard would just make Jay feel worse. Not to mention possible assault charges.

Instead, I scowled and said, “As much as He hates bigots?” Then I took Jay’s elbow and guided him across the street to the car.

“I’M SORRY,” JAY SAID
. He was hunched so far over on the passenger side I was afraid he might meld with the door.

“You’re
sorry?” I glanced over at him, then back to the road. “What do you have to be sorry about? I’m the one who nearly got into a street brawl.”

“I wasn’t trying to look like a couple.”

“I know.”

“It just oozes out of me, doesn’t it? I shine like a beacon, even to people with lousy gay-dar.” Gay-dar is the ability to sense when someone is homosexual. It’s short for gay radar, and Jay’s is finely honed. He can spot another gay man from a thousand yards.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t want to embarrass you. Maybe we should go home.”

“I promised you dancing. And I always keep my promises.”

“It’s all right. I don’t mind.” He eased himself away from the door. A good sign, I thought.

“Jay,” I said, “we are going to a dance club if I have to carry you there in a sack.”

He laughed, though without much humor.

“Now, please tell me where to go,” I said. “And make it a gay club, because I don’t want to meet anybody else I know.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said. “You might be surprised.”

It wasn’t as bad as I expected, which is to say, it wasn’t as bad as getting your foot shot off, or even as bad as a root canal. I got hit on more times than I cared to count, which was both flattering and upsetting; I never got hit on that much by women.

“Men are more aggressive,” Jay said when I groused about it. “Even gay men. Don’t worry. I have very good gay-dar, and I promise you, you’re one hundred percent straight.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

He shook his head and pushed away from the bar, went off to mingle with the crowd.

He didn’t ask me to dance, and I didn’t volunteer. Instead, I sat at the bar, fending off advances and watching Jay work the room. Then I saw his back stiffen. I turned my head toward whatever had caught his attention, and there he was.