Revenant Rising (17 page)
Near the corner of 57
th
Street, the client insists on having a look at the small showcase windows of Tiffany & Co., where, just as feared, he attracts another group of gawkers. This fresh challenge compels Laurel to stand closer to him than she’d like and crowd with him against the nearest bulletproof window to block at least one angle of view.
Colin Elliot is as unbothered by this situation as would be the eternally unflappable David Sebastian, whereas she’s approaching full flappability.
“It’s all right, we’ll outlast ’em,” he murmurs, his mouth grazing her ear as she shrinks deeper into a raincoat that’s suddenly not drab enough.
She’s again asked to choose a favorite from a field of glittering objects. Although she begrudges doing so—this does constitute indulgence—she’s again honest about her choice. But she must have made that choice too obvious because an excited buzz goes through the spectators before they lose interest and disperse.
Laurel loses her nerve when they make the turn onto 57
th
Street. The two crosstown blocks between them and the Russian Tea Room appear endless and open to ambush. She repeats the earlier argument about the Tea Room, adding that it’s routinely staked out by paparazzi even though she doesn’t know that for a fact.
“Okay, okay . . . I’m convinced, and I’m sorry I ever got you into this,” he says. “Can we go someplace else . . . please?”
The only place she can think of is his hotel—as in he should repair there without her and order room service. “Your hotel,” she hears herself say. “Do you know the Oyster Bar at your hotel? It’s at the rear of the building and fairly low profile. I’ve heard that some of the hotel regulars don’t even know it’s there.”
“You’re talking to one. Lead on,” he says with way more enthusiasm than called for.
“Very well. We can cut through Bergdorf’s to Fifty-eighth behind the hotel and zip in through the street door rather than through the lobby.” She deadens her delivery to eliminate anything resembling enthusiasm from her response. She’s only doing her job, after all, and she doesn’t have to be happy about it—not as happy as he is, anyway.
He’s twice as happy when he’s introduced to the Oyster Bar of The Plaza Hotel with its dark paneling, frosted windows and many touches he says put him in mind of an especially posh pub at home. He admires the copper-clad bar that dominates the room as the maitre d’ leads them to a dark corner table where they’re undisturbed long enough to order beers and a dozen Blue Points each.
Then, while the maître d’ has his back turned, a trio of matrons from another corner table make their approach and Laurel is on her feet the second she hears one of them utter the client’s name and refer to the Icon telecast.
“I ask you.” Laurel meets them head-on. “Do I look like the sort of person who would be seen in public with a rock star? Really!”
The intruders are dumbfounded into a fast retreat; the client is dumbstruck for several moments after she resumes her place at the table.
“Bleedin’
hell
.” He finds his voice, then studies her for another several moments during which she decides she’s gone too far. But she hasn’t. He laughs. At length. Takes a swallow of beer and hits her with another one of those paralyzing smiles.
“You’re gonna be fine, Laurel. You’ll be just fine. Anyone can see you’ve got
all
the makings.”
She doesn’t ask what that means, but does agree to share another dozen oysters with him. Halfway through their consumption, she’s caught giving him the eye.
“Allow me to help you with that,” he says, tugging on one of his ear-lobes. “Virgin they are, never been pierced, and none of my distinguishing marks are tattoos or needle tracks. Hair’s natural, so are eyes and teeth. Other than a watch, I don’t wear jewelry of any sort. I generally bathe and shave once a day, more often if called for. I’m sober for the most part and don’t smoke anathing but cigars.” He says all this in a monotone, as though he’s been through it countless times before. “I’m not much of a primper and my preening I confine to the stage,” he drones on. “I’m not a picky eater and I snore and fart and belch just like regular blokes. And you may have already noticed I have large hands and feet . . . That about cover it, then?”
She prickles from rebuke that may or may not have been intended. “You know,” she says around a mouthful of oyster, “you could have that information printed on handouts and save a lot of time and trouble.”
“Yeh, I could, if I planned on ever offering it to anyone again.”
“I . . . see.” For someone allegedly possessed of all the makings, that’s the best she can do.
Groomed and dressed for the day, Nate Isaacs pauses in the kitchen of his Fifth Avenue triplex long enough to prepare a strong jolt of Nescafé Gold in a go-cup. Last night’s fuck buddy was not a sleepover and Mathilde, the cook-housekeeper, won’t arrive for another hour, so there’s no small talk to tolerate.
Coffee in hand, he leaves by the service entrance where he gathers up the morning papers, a couple of weeklies, and the overnight pouch from London—plenty of reading material to choose from for the ride downtown.
On the way downtown in a cab hailed by the doorman, he leafs through the
USA Today
, first up for being easiest to absorb with the least potential to inflame. He skims three sections of predigested news before anything jumps out at him.
Under a
Los Angeles Times Syndicate
dateline, he reads that an unspoken wish has come true: Cliff Grant, the dark prince of the paparazzi, is no more. Grant was murdered—no big surprise—and his body lay undiscovered for two to three days before a neighbor investigating an accumulation of newspapers on Grant’s front porch detected a foul odor and summoned the authorities.
Nate pauses reading to estimate when the murder most likely took place and picks Monday, the day of the Institute Awards presentation, a red-letter day for paparazzi, which somehow makes his death seem even more like justice well served. In the company of other likeminded celebrants, Nate might fist the air and raise a cheer; alone, he indulges an interior jubilation that fast fades when he resumes reading.
Grant’s was a particularly grisly demise. According to the medical examiner his head was cleanly removed from his torso with the precision of an executioner
.
Nate sucks in air he doesn’t let out until he’s read far enough to learn that Grant’s head was found with the body. A lesser gasp prepares him for the remainder of the account.
Much of Grant’s notoriety came at the expense of Colin Elliot, recently resurgent rock superstar, and Elliot’s late wife, Aurora, both of whom were plagued by the obsessive attentions of the unrelenting paparazzo at one time or another. Over the years Grant was twice charged with intent to distribute pornography and with numerous failures to comply with restraining orders. There were no convictions. Police presently are without suspects and not yet able to establish if anything is missing from Grant’s cluttered Venice Beach home. Sophisticated camera equipment and video monitors, standard targets for theft, were found smashed at the scene. A fire possibly started to conceal the crime burned itself out without damaging the structure or alerting passersby
.
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” Nate mutters, inviting the cab driver to agree that all news is shit these days. Nate grunts an unintelligible response that distances the driver and reads the entire story again. As the core facts sink in he takes encouragement wherever he can find it. Colin Elliot could have been referred to as a lot worse than “resurgent” and a lot more could have been said about the late wife.
He saves the rest of the material to read in private. At the landmark building housing his 49
th
Street offices, he pays the driver and sprints through the beginnings of a hard rain to a triple set of brass doors opening into a marble-clad elevator lobby that’s uncrowded this time of day. His floor is underpopulated as well. He has only the office manager–executive assistant to ignore on the way to his private office where he closes the door behind him, downs the last of the cooled coffee, and pores over the rest of the morning papers for further mention of the bizarre death in California.
“Exultant” may be too strong a word for the way he feels after finding no other reports of Grant’s death, but it’ll do for now. He quick leafs through the weeklies knowing a clipping service will already have caught any mention of the Elliot name—in any context. He dips into the contents of the overnight pouch knowing he’s too distracted to give more than a once-over to the prospectuses and quarterly reports that were of critical interest when requested. He pushes everything aside and grabs the phone.
In situations like this Bemus nearly always rates the first call, but that priority can be let slip until additional info is obtained. The bodyguard’s not going anywhere, as was promised Tuesday when he reported in to say he’d been furloughed. Bemus will wait indefinitely for further instructions, so the first call goes to a paid contact at the Royal Poinciana Hotel in Beverly Hills.
After mumbled apologies for waking the assistant manager at five-something California time, and repeated thanks for the manager’s cooperation earlier in the week, Nate cuts to the chase: “Did anything unusual occur while Colin Elliot and his bodyguard were guests there on Monday?” he asks.
Nate is told that the only incident of note during the always-hectic period preceding the Icon hoopla was a minor assault and robbery that took place in the employees’ parking lot. The contact goes on to say that there were no witnesses and it was assumed both parties were of a local ethnic fraternity with their own brand of omertà because no charges were filed.
Nothing there to be concerned about; Nate ends the call and initiates another, this one to a contact with covert connections at the Pacific Division of the LAPD.
This contact is less tolerant of being roused at the crack of dawn. But after a prologue of grousing and cursing, he agrees to share what he knows. For a price, of course. According to this source, Cliff Grant’s murder, despite its savage nature—or maybe because of its savage nature—is not considered that much of a standout by those investigating it. As the reasoning goes, Grant’s neighborhood has long been rife with drug dealings and warring gangs are a steady presence in the community.
The contact continues, “All they’re sayin’ so far is that the perp may have had a specific ax to grind ’cause of the trashing that went on at the crime scene, and some are sayin’ it may not’ve been the plain ord’nary execution it appears to be, that there was rage involved.”
“Keep me in the loop, okay?” Nate hangs up cheered that there wasn’t so much as veiled reference to Colin Elliot during the exchange.
The following call is to a local number that’s answered by machine. Nate observes the ritual, states his name knowing the PI will then pick up. Nate engages him for a standard background check and a week’s worth of monitoring. He spells out Laurel Chandler’s name for the freelance gumshoe, states her place of employment, advises that the investigation may have to include the tri-state area, and requests that all activity be conducted as discreetly as possible.
Then, on a whim, he gets in touch with a stringer for the
New York Celebrity Journal
. A brief discussion establishes that some well-placed tabloid exposure could nicely augment a word-of-mouth campaign to discredit the Chandler chick.
The next-to-last call is to Amanda Hobbs, whose name and number he was careful to catch yesterday when sniffing around the Chandler chick’s office on the pretense of looking for Colin.
Finding little Ms. Hobbs at work and picking up ahead of standard business hours comes as no big surprise. During yesterday’s brief exchange she struck him as perpetually bright-eyed and bushy-tailed—ready for anything—so that should be the case now.
It is. And, without seeming either overeager to accept or annoyed by short notice, she agrees to have lunch with him today. He picks the Sea Grill at Rockefeller Center for being convenient to both and not the sort of place he usually frequents.