Gunnar rolled the poster up again. “You’re quite right.”
“So why do you suppose Holt thought he could get something like this Fitness Girls in the Buff thing made with the WBBF and a bimbo like that?”
“Interesting question, isn’t it?”
“You think you need to ask Laura Preston again?”
“I think I’m going to do just that.”
“I can’t wait to hear what happens.”
“I’ll call you the moment after I get to talk to her again. Oh, by the way, did you get a chance to look for that Ultra Fuel power bar?”
“I couldn’t find it at the All-Natural Fitness supplement place, but I’ll keep looking.”
CHAPTER 25
Gunnar saw Erika approach, and his pulse quickened. She walked toward his table in Bistro 42 in Marina Del Rey, blowing him away by how little she appeared to have changed over the years they had been apart.
She was six feet tall, exactly, Gunnar remembered well, and of a broad, almost husky build. But she had the proper proportions of the classic beauty, almost artistic in their precision. She looked quite literally statuesque, as if her form had been chiseled out of a block of granite. With high cheekbones, a delicate, pointed chin, and full lips enhanced by red lip-gloss, Erika Lindstad looked like the rendering of some mythical goddess of the hunt by a romantic painter. She looked Wagnerian with her long blonde hair tied back, wide shoulders, and long legs.
Gunnar stood as Erika reached his table. “Erika—” he began.
But she cut in with a soft, “It’s great seeing you again.”
As they embraced briefly, Gunnar was shocked yet again by how little she really had changed since they had started separate lives. Certainly, through her black evening dress, he could tell she was still remarkably muscular, but holding her, he could feel how hard she was. She was bodybuilder hard, competition training hard. Her muscles felt like blocks of smooth, polished stone, sculpted by recent sessions of intense training on the machines and free-weights in the gym.
Of course, eyes had followed her as she walked across the high-toned restaurant.
“It’s been so long,” Gunnar said as they separated.
He thought he sounded as fumbling and awkward as he felt. Of course, it had been so long, he admonished himself as they both stepped back a polite couple of feet, just out of each other’s intimate space. A breakup was supposed to put people well out of each others’ lives, so they didn’t have to see each other again.
At last, they sat down, comfortably positioned in fixed spots to manage all the requisite moments of the reacquaintance ritual. Their waiter showed up immediately and took orders for Scotch on Gunnar’s side and a Chardonnay for Erika. Then they both checked how the other one was doing, what they had been up to, and told each other that it was great they were both doing so well.
“So, have you turned up any information on whether or not your client has a real case of foul play on her hands?” Erika asked and sipped some of her ice water. Her bright blue eyes fixed on Gunnar.
And he had always believed that Erika could intimidate any insecure man with that intense stare far more than her enormous physique.
“I don’t know,” Gunnar said and tasted the Scotch. “I guess I’m just trying to get a handle on some anomalous information I ran across.”
“Anomalous?” Erika said with a sly smile, teasing out the word. “Just what kind of anomalous information are you trying to get a handle on?”
Gunnar’s heart raced again. They had played with words like this when they had been together. She had made a teasing remark at some point about how he had first been hired as a private investigator’s assistant to be brute, hulking muscle and not a deep thinker. As a result, he liked to poke fun at her comment by throwing big words at her to prove he was working on getting cultured.
“How about the President of Operations at the WBBF?” Gunnar said.
Erika’s eyebrows shot up. “She’s involved in this?”
“I got to talk to her today. She tried to make the point that she wasn’t, but there’s something about this whole case that doesn’t feel right.”
“Do you think she’s lying to you?” Along with the sharp focus of a keen mind revealed by Erika’s intense, piercing eyes, she also had the talent of bluntly coming to the point at just the right moment in a conversation.
Gunnar didn’t reply immediately because he wasn’t sure of what the answer was. “Well, unfortunately, I don’t know that either. But, at the same time, there are a couple of little things that still bother me.”
“Like what?”
But Gunnar had to delay in answering. Their waiter was back to take the orders.
“So what’s bothering you about the case?” Erika pressed once the waiter was gone.
“Let’s just say it’s the extent and nature of Holt’s involvement with the WBBF.”
“Oh? Now the elaboration, please.”
Gunnar chuckled. “You know how Holt had a…I guess the generous way of saying it is an independent production company.”
“Girls Caught in the Buff,” Erika said with a rueful smile. “Yes, I’ve heard about that.”
“Well, I’ve got some discrepant information about a possible business deal between Brad and the WBBF.”
“You mean you think this is what, uh…. What’s that woman’s name?”
“Laura—”
“Preston!” Erika cut Gunnar off. “Right? Laura Preston.”
“Keeping up with the comings and goings on the competition scene?”
Erika shrugged. “Maybe I am. I like to know what’s going on in the ‘sport of the future,’ as Bob Holbrook likes to boast in his magazines.”
“I suppose we’ll see about the sport of the future. But now that you bring this up, I did want to comment. You look, and feel, fantastic.”
Erika flashed an evasive smile. “Oh, we’ll talk about that later, but let’s get back to the point for now. What about Laura Preston and the WBBF doing business with Brad Holt?”
Gunnar didn’t want to get back on track. He wanted to let his eyes graze over the ample blocks of her pectoral muscles bulging above the cups of her dress. He wanted to run his tongue down that canyon between her muscles just as he had done years ago. He wanted to kiss the solid little bunches of her abdominal muscles as he kept going down.
Nonetheless, he filled her in on what he’d found out about Mitzy Starr and a supposed co-production of WBBF Fitness Beauties Caught in the Buff.
“Yes, it does sound peculiar,” Erika said after hearing Gunnar out about his problems with Mitzy’s poster.
“However…,” Gunnar added, hearing the incomplete thought in her voice. But he did know what Erika was likely to say. It was only logical.
“Laura could be right, you know.”
Gunnar sipped some Scotch to ease the sting of frustration he felt coming on. “Yes, she could.”
“I mean, just talk me through the problem you’re having with this. You think Holt was getting ready to do some sort of a porno fitness video, and the poster he made for Mitzy Starr is proof. Except Laura is in charge of the WBBF. She would have the ultimate say so in this, and everything you know about her tells you she would never allow such a thing. But somehow, Holt was able to force this on the WBBF, and now Laura is lying about it.”
“It sounds weak, I know.”
“Maybe not, but extremely circumstantial.”
“It sounds weak.”
“Look, if you think this through, the implications are big, although the proof is nonexistent. You’re saying that Brad Holt had the power to dictate WBBF policy to the president of operations. Now somehow Holt winds up dead—naturally, it’s quite convenient for Laura—and she lies about it to make the entire problem disappear, to erase any suggestion of Holt’s hold over her.”
&nb
sp; “Exactly,” Gunnar said quietly.
“So that leads us to the final question.”
“Did Laura hasten Brad Holt’s demise?”
Neither of them said a thing for several drawn-out moments.
“It would support his sister’s claims of Holt fearing for his life,” Erika said at length.
“Maybe,” Gunnar replied.
“Yes…maybe.”
“Because I have nothing to prove it. Brad could have been threatened by someone, but he just as well could have died of natural causes. Laura could be telling the truth, and Brad could have just gotten that poster made to impress Mitzy and get her in bed.”
“Exactly,” Erika said. “But you have a hard time believing that, don’t you?”
“Yeah. But it doesn’t matter if I can’t prove it.”
Gunnar then finished his whisky with a hard, final swig. He felt it burn as it went down and felt the alcohol rush hit his brain.
“So what do you think?” he said, prompted a great deal by the power of the Scotch. “Do we make a good team?”
Erika smiled, but she was evasive again. “I want to know how this is going to turn out.”
Gunnar nodded. “I’ll keep you filled in.”
“It’s important to me. I helped the medical examiner write this off as an accident when it might not have been one. I concurred that an autopsy was not necessary.”
“None of this is your fault.”
“No, I think it is,” Erika said strongly.
Gunnar was taken by her tone. It was so familiar. It had that possessed edge that always accounted for all the good and bad her personality was capable of. It was the edge that made her so driven, that focused her as a doctor, that motivated her as a competitor. But it was also the edge that had almost pushed her to destroy herself once.
“No, it’s not,” Gunnar said, just as strongly. “Nevertheless, I’ll keep you involved in what’s going on.”
Erika smiled and nodded.
So, Gunnar had to add, “I want you involved.”
As he expected, Erika’s look was distant once more.
“I’d like you back in my life,” he then added bluntly.
“Let me just be an observer, okay?”
“Unless, of course, there is someone who would object.”
“No, there’s no one in my life now, but let me just observe as an old friend. Can we just do that for now?”
CHAPTER 26
The proverbial meter was ticking, counting up the billable time for Diane Holt, yet Gunnar could hardly give the case the focus he owed her right now. His mind had been on Erika Lindstad since seeing her the previous night. Still to this moment, thoughts of her haunted him. So he hoisted the dumbbells upward as he leaned back on the exercise bench, his back falling flat against the padding and the two eighty-five-pound weights hovering over his chest.
Gunnar had often realized that some of his best thinking came in the gym. Although he never planned on it, he could somehow think outside the box when hoisting and pressing and pulling the massive poundage of iron.
By eight in the morning, he was back in the Foundry Gym, knocking out a big chest workout, hoping he could refocus on Diane’s case, hoping he could make himself care about Brad Holt when all he could think about was Erika.
Groaning through clenched teeth, he forced his arms to explode upward, to punch the weight high overhead, to contract his pecs and flood them with blood, to tear down the muscle fibers so they could strengthen in recovery and grow larger. And he knew why his effort was so intense this morning. He wanted the workout routine to clear his mind of all distractions, to eventually let him get back on track with his work. Instead, he was motivated by Erika. Just like when they first worked out together. He was pumping and lifting and hurting because somewhere, Erika was doing the same. He still had to lift harder than anyone because somewhere, Erika was doing the same.
“Gunnar!” came a voice from across the gym the moment he finished his set and let the dumbbells tumble and crash onto the rubber-padded floor.
He sat up, recognizing Alexandra Rinaldi’s voice. He looked toward the stairway leading up to his office.
Alexandra descended the stairs with the grace of a high-fashion model sashaying across a catwalk. She had probably gotten the same training in poise and movement as said models, Gunnar guessed. Just like so much of the Southern California service industry, Alexandra was an aspiring actress. She had gone to UCLA to learn her craft, and now she was holding down the job as Gunnar’s secretary while doing auditions, some regional theater, and the occasional appearances in commercials.
“Gunnar,” she said, rushing over to him. “You have a call from the WBBF.”
“Say what?” he asked, toweling the sweat off his forehead.
“The WBBF,” Alexandra said. “Laura Preston called and said she will agree to see you. How fast can you get over to her office?”
CHAPTER 27
“The WBBF is the top bodybuilding organization in the world,” Laura Preston pitched as she walked Gunnar through the financial department of the glassy high-rise housing the World Bodybuilding Federation’s headquarters in Century City. “Our athletes are the best in the world, bar none. Our magazines have a readership of over forty million worldwide, offering cutting-edge nutritional and health advice in our various publications, each geared toward a distinct specialization of the bodybuilding and health industry. But looking at you, Mr. Marino, I think you already know much of this.”
Yes, he was aware of her claims and aware of the unabashed hype and self-promotion of Robert Holbrook and the WBBF that came out of every issue of each of their magazines. He knew they were waging a battle for the hearts and minds and health of Americans, as Holbrook’s writers heralded.
“I subscribe to Body and Power and Muscle Quest,” Gunnar said.
“Oh really?” Laura said with a smile and brushed a strand of her shoulder-length auburn hair from her left eye. “I had meant to ask you if you had ever tried competing. Like we kidded around the other day, you look like you should be one of our readers. So actually, I’m quite happy that you are.”
For a moment, Gunnar was taken by the intense color of her bright green eyes emphasized ever more by her light complexion. Her milky skin tone accentuated the shape of her lips with equal effect, pronouncing their fullness with edges down-turned in an indifferent pout.
“I did actually compete a few times. Years ago. Some small amateur contests around here in L.A.”
“I see,” Laura said with a smile and a nod. “I would have liked to see how you made out.”
“Nothing to write home about. A couple of injuries, then life and a job kind of got in the way,” Gunnar said with a chuckle. “Sorry about that. I know the Holbrook lifestyle demands a bit more discipline.”
“Not at all. And yes, I realize our magazines run much too close to outlandish hyperbole now and again.”
Leaving the financial department, they walked through a pair of brass sliding doors, entering a corridor with a glass wall along its left side. It gave a view of a laboratory fitted with an impressive, confusing array of chemical analysis equipment and computers. The setup of this entire building, Gunnar reflected, looked just like what a Hollywood set designer with too much money to spend would imagine a high-tech nutritional supplement research and production corporation as looking like.
“The nutritional supplements we develop in our own labs,” Laura lectured, “are used by the top bodybuilders, weight lifters, and amateur athletes in every sport you can think of.”
After the research and development labs, Gunnar was led through a corridor lined with private offices. The third door on the right was Laura’s, and it, too, was decorated with all the trappings of a Fortune 500 executive’s suite. The corridor itself, however, was lined not only with photos of top bodybuilders and slinky f
emale fitness contestants but pictures of various top-selling supplements, power bars, and energy and muscle-building shakes. One thing in particular among the fitness foods, however, was missing.
“That’s quite an impressive research setup you’ve got back there,” Gunnar said. “Does your company also make the Ultra Fuel power bar? I think someone was talking about it at my gym the other day. Talking about it very highly.”
“Down in Venice, I bet.”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact.”
“That’s where we were giving away test samples last week. I hope your friends liked it because Ultra Fuel is hitting the shelves next month. The promotional activities and test marketing feedback, however, have been fantastic.”
“Oh, it’s not out yet?”
“Soon. No need to worry. But you know what?” Laura said as she walked toward her large, black lacquered desk, “Maybe we could find some of those test samples around here and let you have a few.”
“That would be great.”
“To throw in a promotional pitch,” Laura said as she sat down in her voluminous black leather chair, “I think they’ll give you such an energy boost you might consider competing again. Please sit down.”
Gunnar did so. “Well, probably not that.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t think I have the hunger anymore…no pun!”
Laura chuckled this time. “Are you doing too well as a private…what is it, private eye? Are we too comfortable to be getting back into the gym, Mr. Marino? Or nothing more to prove?”
“Maybe nothing more to cover up,” Gunnar said and noticed an unexpected shift in Laura’s looks. For a split instant, he thought his words had definitely struck some kind of a nerve in her. Somehow, she no longer looked so icy, her behavior not quite so…posed.
“What do you mean?” she asked. The change was definitely there, Gunnar decided. There was a note of earnestness there for the first time.
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