The Case of the Russian Diplomat: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Three) (10 page)

“I told him I was a stranger here myself, and that I don't get to work until six o'clock. Anyway, he wants you to bring everything you got on the case with you tomorrow. I guess he don't have a high opinion of the Beverly Hills police.”

Masuto left the station house and drove downtown. He took Santa Monica Boulevard to Melrose Avenue, and from there he turned south on the Hollywood Freeway. The Ventura Hotel was clearly visible as he approached the downtown area, and Masuto reflected that it was indeed an incredible building. It consisted of four round towers, like four turrets of some ancient castle, with the body of the hotel seemingly suspended in the center; but the towers were of glass, shining in the night, with outside elevators crawling up and down the glass surface like black beetles. Improbable anyplace, the building was even more improbable here in this earthquake country, and Masuto wondered, as he had so often in the past, at the insistence of engineers and architects that the new Los Angeles be built mostly of glass. The hotel was part of a complex of new skyscrapers that had risen out of the clearance of some of the worst slums in the city, sitting on a hill that had once been climbed by a cable car known as Angel's Flight.

The hotel, still minus the finishing touches of construction, was open to the public, the Arabian Room being the first of its large dining and entertainment rooms to open. The lobby of the new hotel was crowded. It was the end of June, and already the tourist flow into Los Angeles had begun.

Masuto went to the desk and asked for the number of Binnie Vance's room.

“She's not there,” the desk clerk said. “Miss Vance is rehearsing in the Arabian Room.”

“Where is the Arabian Room?”

The clerk looked at Masuto, a tall, long-limbed, tired Japanese man, hatless, tieless—and shook his head firmly.

“No, sir. It's not open to the public.”

Masuto showed his badge.

“That's Beverly Hills—”

“You want the Los Angeles cops?” Masuto snapped. “I'll have them here in the lobby in five minutes, if that's what you want. I want to talk to Miss Vance about her husband. Now use your head.”

“About her husband. Yes, sir. Terrible thing. You go up the escalator at the left. You'll see the sign.”

“Thank you.”

He had almost lost his temper. The day was too long, and he was tiring, and it was no good for a policeman to tire. It was only eighteen hours since Wainwright had awakened him, but it seemed to Masuto that days had been compressed into that time. He had not tasted food since the lunchtime sandwich in his office, and he desperately desired a hot bath, steaming hot, and after that thirty or forty minutes of quiet meditation where he could look into himself and turn away from a world that was at best half mad. Well, very soon now.

There was the Arabian Room, and Masuto wondered why in this day and age in America a hotel would establish a nightclub so named, unless, indeed, there was Arab money invested in the hotel. Certainly it would not surprise him, but then, he reflected, very little surprised him these days.

He pushed open one of the double doors and entered. The room was shaped like a slice of pie, three tiers of tables sloping downward, with the stage where the point of the slice would be. The dominant colors in the decor were red, black, and silver, with tassels, crescent moon, and paired scimitars as a motif. In a pit between the tables and the stage, a four-piece orchestra played. Three men sat at one of the tables, and on the stage a woman in a body stocking undulated to the rhythm of the music. She moved slowly and sensuously, every movement controlled, calculated, exaggerated for the utmost sensual effect.

One of the three men at the table saw Masuto, rose, and walked back to the entrance where the detective stood watching.

“We're closed, mister,” he said to Masuto. “We don't open until tomorrow. And tomorrow we're sold out.” He was a large, fat man with an unlit cigar clamped in his teeth.

“Who are you?”

“I'm the manager. Who are you?”

Masuto took out his badge. “Detective Sergeant Masuto. I have to talk to Miss Vance about what happened at the Beverly Glen Hotel this morning.”

The man's tone changed. “Look, Officer, Miss Vance knows all about what happened in Beverly Hills this morning. It knocked the crap out of her, but she took it. Don't make her take any more of it. Not tonight.”

“The show must go on and all that?”

“You're damn right, and thank God she's a trouper. We put out twenty thousand dollars' worth of advertising on this opening—TV spots, radio spots, and the press. We're sold out for three shows, and believe me, they ain't coming to see no Arabian Room. They're coming to see Binnie do her belly dance.”

As if taking the cue, one of the two men at the table down front stood up and called out, “Okay, Binnie, that does it for the opening. We'll take a few bars of the belly dance and then we'll wrap it up.”

She had come down to the edge of the stage, and both Masuto and the manager turned to watch her. She was not a tall woman, but she had a full, voluptuous figure—without being fat or even plump. She had brown hair that fell to her shoulders. Masuto thought her eyes might be green; at this distance, he was not certain.

“Stillman didn't hurt it none. Just more publicity. It adds up, like a snowball rolling downhill.”

“I'm sure Stillman is grateful for that.”

“What is it, Officer? You got a bone to pick? The kid's trying to turn a buck. She pays her own way. So lay off her.”

“What's your name, manager?” Masuto asked coldly.

“Peterson.”

Binnie Vance was doing the belly dance now. Watching her, Masuto said, “Well, Mr. Peterson, I'm here to talk to Mrs. Stillman. I intend to. So when she's finished, you will go over and tell her that.”

“Who the hell do you think you are, mister? In the first place, you're a Beverly Hills cop—”

“Just knock that off, Mr. Peterson. If you knew the law, you would know that I can go anywhere in this county in the investigation of a crime. Now I am provoked and I am tired, so if you interefere with me in any way, I'll pull you in for impeding the investigation of a crime.”

“You wouldn't—”

“I would.”

The music finished. Binnie Vance came down from the stage, and Masuto saw her talking to the two men who had remained at the table. Peterson walked down the aisle and joined them. He pointed to Masuto. They talked softly, too softly for Masuto to hear what they were saying, and then one of the two men who had remained at the table raised his voice.

“Bullshit! You don't have to say one goddamn word to him!”

Binnie Vance tossed her head, the hair flowing around her shoulders; she picked up a light coat from a chair, and walked up the aisle toward Masuto. The three men watched her but didn't move.

“You're the Beverly Hills cop?” she said to Masuto, a faint, almost undefinable accent in her voice.

“That's right, Mrs. Stillman. Detective Sergeant Masuto. I'm the chief of homicide in Beverly Hills.”

“Call me Miss Vance. I was Miss Vance a few weeks ago. Now I'm Miss Vance again. I didn't have time to get used to the other one.” There was a bitter edge in her voice. It was not a sweet voice. It rasped, and Masuto decided that she had been wise to choose dancing.

“Very well. Miss Vance.”

“How about a drink? I need one.”

“That would be fine.”

“Can a cop drink on duty?”

“I'll go off duty when we start drinking. I've had a long day.” She noticed small things, Masuto decided. She was an alert woman. He also realized that her eyes were green, an unusually vivid green.

“There's a bar on the main floor,” she said, and when they were on the escalator, she said to him, “Help me on with my coat. You don't walk around here in a body stocking.”

He held the coat for her.

“What do you think of this place?”

“Interesting.”

“L.A. is the pits for me, but this place gets to me. I like it. It's wild.”

Masuto nodded.

“You don't agree?”

“Well, as I said, it's interesting.”

“That's a pissy word. They want to knock an act, they say it's interesting. Here's the bar. You want a table?”

“If you don't mind,” Masuto said.

He led her to a table in a corner. It was not a very active bar at this hour. “What will you have?” he asked her.

“A cognac.”

He motioned to a waiter, and ordered two cognacs. She was studying him curiously, a slight smile on her lips. Her lips were rather thin, and she wore no makeup, no lip rouge. The dark skin was sunburned, the underside of her chin much lighter. She was pretty, he admitted to himself, and then revised the thought. Handsome was a better word. Her face was square rather than round, with sloping, flat cheeks and a square chin.

“What are you?” she asked. “Chinese? Japanese? Korean? I hear L.A. is lousy with Koreans.”

“Nisei,” he replied.

“Nisei?”

“That means my parents were born in Japan.”

“Then you're a Jap,” she said, making the remark deliberately and provocatively.

“If you wish to think of me that way,” Masuto agreed, unperturbed. The waiter returned and set down the two brandies. Masuto raised his glass.

“To you, Mr. Japanese detective,” she said.

“And since we are being ethnic, what are you, Miss Vance?”

“What do you mean, what am I?”

“You weren't born in this country.”

“How do you know that?”

“By your accent.”

“I don't have an accent.”

“Ah, but you do,” Masuto said gently. “Ever so slight.”

“All right. I was born in Germany. I left at the age of fourteen, but I thought my English was near perfect.”

“It is,” Masuto agreed approvingly.

“Why don't you stop being such a hotshot superior Oriental and say what you're thinking?”

“And what am I thinking?”

“That I must be a completely heartless bitch to be sitting here and talking like this and not shedding one damn tear a few hours after my husband was killed.”

“No.”

“No what?”

“That's not what I was thinking. I was thinking what an extraordinarily beautiful set of movements you went through up there on the stage. You're a remarkable dancer.”

She paused, swallowed the retort that was on her lips, and stared at him. “Thanks.”

“I meant it.”

“Okay, but let's get one thing straight. I wasn't in love with Jack Stillman. All right, I didn't hate him, but I didn't love him. Now he's dead and I'm alive. What should I do? Wrap myself in mourning? I don't have to lie to anyone.”

“Not even to me,” Masuto agreed. “Why did you marry him?”

“Can I have another brandy?”

Masuto motioned to the waiter. She sat in silence, playing with her half-empty glass until the waiter put down the second brandy. Then she finished the first, dipped her finger in the second one and licked it off.

“You wouldn't understand,” she said.

“Try me.”

“You know what I got for dancing last week at the Sands?”

“I can't imagine.”

“Fifteen grand. For five performances. Fifteen thousand dollars. Before I met Jack Stillman in Vegas, I did club dates and lousy stag affairs for peanuts.”

“And he was responsible—for your success?”

“He booked me, and he gave me an image. I can't deny that.”

“Then you owed him a good deal?”

“So he owed me. It works both ways. He took fifteen percent off the top and expenses.”

“And that's why you married him, because he was responsible for your success?”

“I was responsible for my success, Buster, make damn sure of that. Anyway, I don't have to explain to you why I married Jack Stillman. I had my reasons. I married him.”

“No, you don't have to explain. By the way, Miss Vance, when did you leave Las Vegas?”

“This morning. On the eight o'clock plane.”

“One day of rehearsal here? Is that enough? I don't know much about such things.”

“With that combo in there, it's enough. They're good.”

“Do you have your ticket?”

“What do you mean, my ticket?”

“Your airplane ticket.”

“No, I threw it away.”

“You know, Miss Vance, we can check the passenger list.”

“I'm afraid not. I came in on Vegas West. It's a shuttle service. Anyway, what the hell is this? You said when you drink that you're off duty. When you come right down to it, I don't have to answer any questions.”

“I only thought it might be easier if you did, here. It's a convenient place for you. It would be tiring to go up to Beverly Hills. By the way, did you know that your husband was staying at the Beverly Glen Hotel?”

“Of course I did. He always stays there.”

“But I should think that with you opening here, he would stay at the Ventura. As you are.”

“He hated downtown L.A. Anyway, I like to be alone when I'm dancing.”

“Do you have any notion who might have shot him?”

“No. None.”

“Did he have enemies?”

“A man like Jack, well, what do you think? But not to kill him.” She stood up suddenly. “Excuse me for a moment.” And she walked off, pausing only to exchange a few words with the waiter.

The moment her back was turned, Masuto took out his handkerchief, folded it carefully around the brandy glass, and slipped the glass into his jacket pocket. The waiter came to the table and said, “The lady won't be back. She's tired. And by the way, we don't give away our glasses.”

“It's a memento,” Masuto said. He gave the waiter ten dollars. “Keep the change.”

“Keep the memento,” the waiter said.