Serpent's Tooth (4 page)

The girl reeked
of mint—hiding her booze breath with Scope or Certs—leaving Decker to wonder if the orange juice glass Rhonda Klegg held in a white-knuckled grip had been laced with vodka. He presented his badge. She examined it carefully, then allowed him inside. The place pulsated with color, throwing Decker’s equilibrium off balance. The slamming door brought him back into focus.

“Sorry about being so paranoid,” Rhonda stated. “Thought you might be the press.”

Decker blinked. “Have people been bothering you?”

“Not since I took my phone off the hook.”

She offered him coffee; Decker nodded yes. Cream and sugar? Straight black was fine.

With trembling hands, Rhonda sipped her orange juice, stared at him. He stared back at a ravaged, ashen face, lifeless blue eyes and thin pale lips. She probably hadn’t gotten much sleep. She looked to be in her mid-twenties. Her hair had been bleached candy-apple red and was tied back into a ponytail. She had a nose-pierce, the helices of her outer ears completely covered with tiny hoops and studs. Lots of chains dangled from the many holes in her earlobes. She was garbed in jeans and a white T-shirt, wore a denim work shirt as a jacket. Her feet were stuffed in lace-up ankle boots.

She finished her juice and said, “I really don’t have any
thing to say.” She held aloft her empty glass. “Get you one of these along with your Colombian?”

“No, thank you. Just a cup of coffee would be fine.”

“Mind if I take another?”

“Of course not.”

“S’cuse.”

She disappeared behind a swinging door painted to simulate a wooden lattice intertwined with blooming pink rose vines. Indeed, Rhonda had used her entire apartment as her canvas, living art done up in the style of classical Mediterranean gardens. Painted boxwood hedges replaced base-board molding. Behind the hedges—on the wall itself—were trellises of ivy and flowering vines, citrus orchards, classical marble statuary, and fountains—all of it serving as a foreground for distant, rolling green hills. Her perspective was outstanding. Decker felt dizzy from the three-dimensional effect. The molding and ceiling had been bathed in light blue hues, tufted with clouds, and populated with gliding blackbirds and a circling hawk.

So distracting was the scene, Decker hadn’t noticed the furniture. But it was there and it made a statement. An old carved English park bench sided by two upside-down garbage cans doubling as end tables. The room also had an Adirondack lounge upon which rested a duffel bag, and two bentwood rockers. Old-fashioned streetlamps had been placed in the corners, and the hardwood floor had become a windblown field of grass—green swaying blades laced with yellow dandelions and clumps of white clover.

Rhonda returned with Decker’s coffee, more orange juice for herself.

Decker thanked her. “Interesting place you’ve got here. You’re very talented.”

She sipped her juice. “Ain’t gonna make
Architectural Digest
, but it suits me.” Her eyes hardened. “Although this town is sure filled with star-fuckers. Think the ex-girlfriend of a homicidal maniac counts?”

Decker was quiet.

“Hollyweird. A penchant for the bizarre. Sure I can’t get you some OJ as in orange juice?”

“I’m fine, Rhonda.” Decker’s eyes fell on the duffel bag. “Impromptu vacation?”

“I’m getting outta here. At least until this thing blows over. Who the hell wants this kind of notoriety?”

A savvy point. Decker placed his mug on an upside-down trash container. “Is that okay?”

Rhonda laughed. “It’s a garbage can. I’m not exactly worried about coffee rings.” She looked him up and down.

“You’re cute. Wanna fuck?”

“No, thank you.”

“I look like shit, huh?”

“You look fine, Rhonda.” Decker took out his notepad. “You know, the sooner we get started, the sooner I’m out of your hair.”

“You’re gonna ask me questions about Harlan?”

“Yep.”

“Why do you care? He’s dead.” Her eyes watered. “They’re all dead. I thought the only things that the pigs cared about were looking good on the witness stand and beating up minorities. You’re real big. I bet you’ve punched around more than your fair share of niggers.”

Decker said, “Me? I shuffle paper.”

“Bullshit,” Rhonda shot out. “You look defensive, cop. Betcha I hit a nerve. See, we all have pasts. So don’t you go judging me like I’m some freak because I hooked up with a nutcase.”

“I don’t think you’re a freak, Rhonda. Right now, I see you as a very vulnerable woman.”

“Where’d they teach you that? Cop Psych 101? You should stick to pounding the shit outta motorists.”

Decker was quiet.

She gave him a long hard stare. “You were there last night, weren’t you? At Estelle’s?”

“I was there the entire night.”

“I saw you on TV. You’re the one who said it looked like your worst nightmare.”

“Glad to be remembered as a sound byte.”

“You’re also in today’s paper—picture, quote, and all.” She glared at him. “You had tears in your eyes.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah, you did. Did they also teach you how to cry in Cop Psych 101? Or was it Cop Compassion 101?”

Decker offered a sad smile. “Wish I conformed to your hard-ass image. I’d sleep better at night.”

Again, her eyes moistened. She rubbed her cheeks, wiped away tears. “I’m real attracted to you. Sure you don’t want to fuck? Might put me in a gabby mood.”

“I’m going to have to pass.”

“You’re married?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t care.”

“But I do. Can we get started?”

“Why do you need to ask any questions if the case is solved?”

“Because there are still lots of unanswered questions—”

“Like
why
he did it?” She gulped her juice. “Hell if I know.” She cocked her hip. “I knew I had bad taste in men. But this…”

“You called yourself an ex-girlfriend.”

“This is true.”

“When did you two break up?”

“You mean, when did I kick him out? ’Bout four months ago.”

“Why?”

“
Why
” Rhonda let out a bitter laugh. “’Cause I got sick of his running around. More than that, I just got sick of Harlan Manz. The man with the plans that never panned out.”

“He was an actor?”

“He was a jerk.”

Decker waited.

Rhonda sighed. “Harlan was a professional
wannabe
. Wannabe actor, wannabe model, wannabe tennis pro, wannabe stud, wannabe this, wannabe that. What he was…was a nothing.”

Decker said, “In his apartment, I saw film posters with his name on them.”

“Yeah, he was a card-carrying member of SAG. Showed it to you at every opportunity. Those films were shelved, never even made it to
video
…what is your rank again?”

“Lieutenant.”

“A big shot.”

“A legend in my own mind.”

Rhonda smiled briefly. “Harlan was…” She sighed. “He was a slacker…a loser with a good backhand. And that’s about it, bub.”

“A wannabe tennis pro.” Decker waited a beat. “So he had tennis ambitions?”

“Maybe. Guy had some talent but not good enough to be pro. He used to teach tennis at a country club—”

“
What
”?

“No joke. The big one about two miles up the road.”

“Greenvale?”

“That’s the one. Greenvale Country Club.”

“This wasn’t one of Harlan’s delusions? You know this for a
fact
?”

“Check it out yourself.” She grinned. “Bet they’ll welcome your inquiries with open arms.”

Decker wrote furiously. “How long did he teach at Greenvale?”

“Off and on for about three years.”

“Off and on?”

“Yeah, Harlan couldn’t hold anything steady. Greenvale took him in for summer work. He taught tennis in the day, tended bar at night. Harlan could maintain in short spurts. I mean the guy was good-looking, had a certain amount of charm. And he was well endowed. Used it, too. He made more than a few lonely women very happy.”

“Married women?”

“I said
lonely
women. ’Course they were married.”

“Lucky he didn’t wind up with a gun to his head.”

“Nah, he wouldn’t do anything dangerous. Greenvale has lots of married women whose husbands are fuckin’ sweet young things. I know because I’ve
been
there. Not the old, lonely, married woman, but the sweet young thing. Lots of rich geezers in this city. Am I shocking you?”

“Not at all.”

“Yeah, you look pretty worldly. You mess around on your wife?”

“No. So Harlan taught tennis to lonely women?”

“No, he taught tennis to anyone who was assigned to him. Women, girls, men, boys.” Rhonda paused. “Occasionally, he’d give a lesson to some hot shit producer or director. Harlan was big on name-dropping. He’d brag to me that
this time
, he really made an impression. Jerk…he just didn’t
get
it. What that poor schmuck wouldn’t have given for the life of a big shot…partying…tennis…doing beautiful, rich women…”

She stared at her empty glass.

“Will you excuse me?”

She left, then came back with a fresh glass. The liquid looked pale, lots of vodka, not too much juice. This time, she nursed her drink.

“I tried to tell him that just because you teach some jack how to ace a serve doesn’t mean he’s going to star you in his next movie. But Harlan…”

“But he must have been a good tennis player to teach.”

“Good enough to teach those yahoos.”

“Good enough to make the circuit?”

“He told me he was actually seeded in the top two hundred or something like that. Maybe it was true. But probably not. Harlan lived in fantasies.”

“But he was a member of SAG.”

“Sure, he got a few parts…just enough to feed his delusional brain. Lieutenant, Harlan was a hanger-on. A walking-around guy.”

“Pardon?”

“A walking-around guy. There’s lots of egomaniacal people out there. No offense to Barbra, but people who need people are
not
the luckiest people. In fact, they’re cursed. They need people to create their identity, to feel important, to look busy, and to be wanted. And they’re rich enough to buy these little trained spider monkeys like Kato and his ilk to walk around with. So the hot dogs never look
unattended.
That’s
what Harlan was. He was a walking-around guy.”

Tears ran down her cheek. She turned her head, fiercely swiped her eyes.

“I still have feelings for him. That shock you?”

“Not at all.” Decker waited a beat. “Can we talk a minute about Harlan’s termination at Estelle’s?”

“Nothing to say. He broke their cardinal rule. Customer is always right.”

“But he was upset—”

“Of course he was upset. He was furious. Some drunken A-hole gets abusive and Harlan’s canned. I was so angry, I almost came down and made a scene.”

She seemed to wilt.

“Then…I don’t know. I guess I thought it was par for the course. Harlan getting axed.”

“Did Harlan continue to talk about it?”

“At first, he talked about getting even. I thought it was just talk…venting.” With watery eyes, she looked at Decker, pointedly. “God, I need to fuck.”

“Why’d you kick him out of your life, Rhonda?”

She sighed. “I found someone else. Also a loser, but at least he’s
gainfully
employed. A porno actor. Ernie Beldheim aka King Whopper. Can you believe that name?”

“It shows a certain amount of creativity. How did Harlan take the breakup?”

Rhonda sat on a bentwood rocker, legs pushing against the floor, her body moving back and forth. She gazed upward, eyes on her sky ceiling. “I wasn’t real tactful. I told him I was dumping him because he wasn’t big enough.”

Tears streamed down her face.

“I wanted to
hurt
him. Because he’d been messing around on me for so damn long. If I had known he was so unstable, I wouldn’t have…”

“You couldn’t have known, Rhonda.”

She looked down into her orange juice glass as if reading tea leaves. “After we broke up, he did things. Weird things. I guess I knew he was flipping out. But I didn’t know it would lead to this.”

“Of course not. What did he do?”

Rhonda returned her eyes to Decker. “Tried to scare me. Made calls in the middle of the night, ranted on about how he was going to get me. But I never took him seriously.” She looked up. “Thinking it over, I have a feeling I was one of the lucky ones.”

True enough
. Decker pointed to her duffel bag. “Where are you planning to go?”

Rhonda stopped rocking, blew out air. “I got an offer to do a gig in Hawaii. Some honcho wants me to paint
Playboy
playmates on his walls. No accounting for tastes.”

“Vacation might do you good.”

“Hope so.”

Decker said, “Do you have some old pictures of him?”

“Maybe one or two. Why?”

“I didn’t find any recent pictures of Harlan in his apartment.”

Rhonda was taken aback. “That’s odd. I know he has a portfolio—”

“No, I found that. I’m talking about things like photo albums.”

She shrugged. “Weird. Because we took quite a few…” She smiled. “Quite a few
compromising
ones. After we broke up, he told me he was going to send them to my mother. I told him to go ahead…ain’t nothing she’s never seen before.”

“Did he?”

“If he did, Mom never said a word.”

Decker said, “Rhonda, if Harlan was a member of SAG, he must have had an agent.”

“He had a couple light-years ago. Fired them all.”

Decker’s beeper went off. Rhonda stood up from the rocker. “Phone’s on the wall.”

Decker’s eyes scanned the mural, rested on a painted phone kiosk. Mounted on the wall, inside the painted booth, was a real, three-dimensional pay phone. “Do I need money to make the call?”

“Credit card’s fine.”

Decker said, “I’m slow on the uptake, didn’t get much sleep. I can’t tell if you’re putting me on.”

Rhonda smiled tightly. “It was a joke.”

“Sorry to be so dense.”

“Mr. Dumb Lug.” Rhonda rolled her eyes. “About as slow as a roadrunner. Sly, too. So why do I find myself trusting you? Is that how you extract confessions? You get people to trust you, then you slam them?”