‘She comes off as cheap – you know, in a good way.’
Someone knocked on Kelson’s office door – soft, as if the person was worried about disturbing him.
Phone to his ear, he went to open it, saying to Peters, ‘I think whoever killed Jeremy Oliver will—’
He opened the door.
A heavy man in a red nylon jacket cradled Genevieve Bower in his arms. She looked too drunk for anyone to want to hold. Her bruises had started to yellow as they healed. She wore a thin pink pajama shirt and matching shorts that hardly contained her. She gazed at Kelson through half-open eyes, gave him a lazy-lipped smile, stuck the tip of her tongue through her teeth, and said, ‘Hey there, muffin.’
Kelson spoke into the phone. ‘Never mind.’
‘Never mind what?’ Peters said.
‘Never mind Genevieve Bower. Never mind any of this. Never mind me.’
Instead of waiting for Peters’s anger and questions, Kelson hung up.
He looked at Genevieve Bower. ‘Hi,’ he said. He looked at the man holding her. ‘Hi.’
The man gritted his teeth under the strain. ‘Can I put her down?’
Dick Avakian owned a grocery store called Genty’s on North Lincoln, three blocks from a strip that included the Apache Motel, the Diplomat Motel, the Summit Motel, and the O-MI Motel. When Avakian and his wife arrived to open the store a few minutes after six, they found Genevieve Bower slumped in the shadows of the entryway. At first he tried to sweep her out to the sidewalk the way he did the street people who sometimes camped in the space on spring and summer nights. But the story she told – about men breaking into her motel room and threatening her with blades – made him bring her inside and give her coffee.
Now, she slumped and shivered on one of Kelson’s client chairs, her head lolling, her pale skin damp and sagging, her eye shadow smeared, her bleach-blond hair tangled.
Kelson stared at her sideways. ‘If you ran out from the motel like this, where’d you get the booze?’
She pursed her lips as if she would razz him but said, ‘Kindness of strangers. Coupla frat boys looking for company – I told ’em I don’t do it for money. Guess they felt sorry for me. One of ’em wanted to give me his socks.’
Avakian said, ‘She would not let me call the police, but she said you are her friend. My wife had me bring her here.’ He had an Eastern European accent. ‘I will leave her now, OK?’
‘Do you have to?’ Kelson said.
The man smiled and gave Kelson a business card for Genty’s, which carried a ‘full selection of Armenian foodstuffs’. ‘If you come to the neighborhood,’ he said, and he left.
Kelson gazed at Genevieve Bower, who seemed about to fall asleep. ‘What trouble did you get yourself into?’ he asked.
She licked her lips and looked nauseous.
‘If you throw up on the carpet, I’ll add it to your bill,’ he said.
She belched, her eyes widened, and something worse seemed about to follow. Kelson reached under his desk for the wastebasket, but when he came up, she’d already settled. She closed her eyes.
‘Before you slip off on me,’ he said, ‘you need to answer some questions. Who broke into your motel room, and why?’
Again, nausea rose to her face. ‘Told you they’d come after me,’ she said. ‘They want—’
‘Who? No screwing around.’
She licked her lips. A line of saliva shined on her chin.
Kelson set the wastebasket on her lap. ‘Who?’
She worked her flabby lips. ‘They would’ve cut me. They said they’d kill me. I locked myself in the bathroom. They kicked down the door, but I climbed out the window.’
‘Who?’
She frowned. ‘Stevie Phillips and Greg Cushman.’
‘Who are they?’
She spit into the wastebasket. A string of drool hung from her lips. ‘They sent Stevie and Greg … for me. I think … Stevie did Jeremy.’
‘The police found Jeremy’s body last night.’
‘I know.’
‘How?’
‘Stevie said.’
‘How did they even find you at your motel?’
‘I called – my cousin. Yesterday. Susan. She had the party – where I met Jeremy. I trusted – no one else but her.’ Her pale skin had a green tinge.
‘Did you tell Susan where you were staying?’
‘I might’ve.’
‘So you called her when you shouldn’t have, and you told her where you were, which you also shouldn’t have. But when I called you, you didn’t answer, and you didn’t call back.’
‘I didn’t want to talk to you.’
‘Score one for Dan Peters.’
‘You ask questions I don’t like.’
‘I ask good questions. Here’s another – what do you know about G&G Private Equity?’
Her eyes widened, and she threw up.
TWENTY-FIVE
‘I’m hungry,’ she said, after she wiped her mouth. She’d mostly hit the wastebasket. ‘I want pizza – or …’ Her eyes got heavy as she thought. Then she passed out. Sitting upright in the chair – more or less.
‘Hanging this way, hanging that,’ Kelson said.
She started to snore.
‘At least you won’t choke on it,’ Kelson said.
He carried the wastebasket out of his office to the garbage chute at the end of the hall and crammed it in. Then he went back and opened the window to clear the smell.
‘The things I do for love,’ he said. The last word, which came out before he thought it, surprised him. ‘Love of the work? Of …? Of the – hell, I don’t know.’ He stared at the snoring woman. Her breasts were truly impressive. ‘You’re truly impressive,’ he told them. A chunk of something stuck to her chin. ‘Not love of you,’ he said. ‘Not by a long shot.’
He went to his desk and called a friend and former client named Doreen Felbanks. Until recently she’d traveled a lot, but he knew she’d be around – she wore an ankle monitor and had a court order to stay in the city. She was an ex-escort, told by the judge to take no money for sex work while she was out on bail. Depending on one’s view, she either was or wasn’t responsible for the deaths of a handful of men, which made her job hunt difficult. After Kelson had finished working for her, he’d slept with her once – not for money.
Now his call woke her, and she answered with a thick throat.
‘I like your sleep voice,’ he said.
‘When you wake someone with an early call, you say, Sorry for waking you.’
‘It’s after eight o’clock, and your sleep voice is incredibly sexy.’
‘In what world is eight o’clock daytime? Next time, wait till noon to flirt with me.’
‘How are the job interviews going?’
‘I had one yesterday. They said my ankle monitor was a turnoff.’
‘They said “turnoff”?’
‘They said “inappropriate in a classroom of kindergarteners”.’
‘You applied to be a kindergarten teacher?’
‘Teacher’s aide. I can’t pay the rent unless I start escorting again.’
‘They’ll throw you in jail.’
‘Jail or the street. At least jail has a roof.’
‘How would you like to make some money from me?’
‘You don’t need to pay me for it.’
‘That’s the second time I’ve heard someone say something like that in the last half hour.’
‘Must be your lucky morning.’
‘I want you to work as a guard – or more like an adult babysitter. I’ve got a drunk woman in pajamas who needs watching. You can keep her at my apartment. Put her in my bed – let her sleep this off.’
‘What am I going to do if she acts up? Take away her teddy bear?’
‘You’re tough, and she’s passed out, and when she wakes she’ll have a rotten hangover. Raise your voice and she’ll cringe and beg you to be gentle. It’s lousy work but better than having her throw up on your s
hoes. She got that out of her system.’
‘You know the nicest people.’
‘If she annoys you, you can tell her your pay is coming out of her pocket. I’m billing her.’
‘I’ll be there at noon – when I get up.’
‘Ha.’
‘An hour, then. Christ, you’re hard on a girl.’
As he waited, he researched Susan Centlivre on his laptop, wrote down an address for her house and another for her fragrance and candle store, The Wick, and then tucked his KelTec in his belt.
When Doreen called from a cab downstairs, he draped his jacket over Genevieve Bower, hoisted her into his arms, and stepped out of his office door. The computer training company clients, milling in the corridor, stared at him as if he was kidnapping her. ‘She isn’t even my girlfriend,’ he told two bald men. When the elevator came, he got on with a tall woman in a long skirt. The woman gave him an ironic smile. ‘You think this is bad,’ he said, ‘try singing some Joan Jett around me.’
When he came from the building, the cabdriver saw the passed-out woman and refused the fare.
Doreen, who was wearing black high-heel pumps, pink leggings that clashed with her bright red hair, and a black faux-fur zipper sweater, tried to sweet talk the driver, but he still grumbled, so Kelson gave him an extra twenty and said, ‘Her tank is empty – no mess, no fuss. When you get to my apartment, help carry her inside.’
‘No, no, no,’ the cabdriver said, and tried to give back the money.
But Kelson fished out another twenty and gave it to him along with a business card. ‘If she wrecks anything, I’ll pay.’
The driver still grumbled, but he loaded Genevieve Bower into the backseat.
Kelson said to Doreen, ‘Let me know when she straightens up enough to talk. But don’t let her make any calls.’
The cab sped from the curb, and Kelson walked to the parking garage. Forty minutes later, he drove his Dodge Challenger through downtown Highland Park. A bakery called Breadsmith, a lingerie shop called Posh, and a skincare store called Cos Bar looked like money and more money. Kelson read a sign in the Cos Bar window. Parfums. ‘For Chrissake,’ he said. He found a parking spot around the corner from The Wick and went into the store, a little brass bell chiming overhead. The smell of lavender, lemon, mint, and vanilla almost knocked him back out to the sidewalk.
‘Whoa,’ he said to a woman who stood behind a glass counter. In a green cashmere sweater and beige wool slacks, she looked nothing like the wide-faced hippieish woman he saw in Facebook pictures when he first researched Genevieve Bower’s cousin. ‘Do people like this?’
‘Excuse me?’ she said.
He waved at the shelves of candles, gels, soaps, bath beads, and diffuser oils. ‘All this?’
‘Quite a bit, yes,’ she said. ‘You look like you might enjoy cedar.’
‘You can tell just by looking at me?’
‘Close your eyes and imagine a pine grove.’
‘I like the smell of engine oil,’ he said. ‘City streets.’
She smiled. ‘We have nothing like that.’
‘Is Ms Centlivre in?’ he asked.
‘Susan works afternoons this week. May I take a message for her?’
‘Some messages are better in person,’ he said, and he went out of the store into the fresh air.
Susan Centlivre lived in a large white-brick house at the top of a ravine near the lake. When Kelson knocked on the big door, the wood under his knuckles felt solid. ‘Money and more money,’ he said.
The Facebook woman opened the door. She wore a blue batik dress. Her long hair hadn’t touched a brush in weeks.
Before she could speak, he said, ‘You don’t get a house like this from selling stinky candles.’
She blinked at him.
‘I’m Sam Kelson,’ he said.
She blinked some more.
‘We talked by phone a few days ago? About Jeremy Oliver’s death? Him hooking up with your cousin?’
She blinked.
‘Am I talking to a rabbit?’
‘I’m confused,’ she said. ‘Why are you here?’ Her voice lilted British, as it did on the phone.
‘Why did you send Greg Cushman and Stevie Phillips after Genevieve?’ he said.
She blinked.
Her blinking made his left eye twitch.
‘That’s an irritating habit,’ he said, and he rubbed his forehead above the eye.
She stopped blinking and made a decision. ‘Come in.’ She stepped back from the door to let him past.
‘Maybe this is a bad idea,’ he said.
Looking amused, she walked up the front hall, and Kelson followed her. She went into a sunny kitchen with French doors that faced a stone terrace and then the ravine. A short, broad-chested man with close-cropped black hair stood by the counter. He wore jeans and a red-and-black flannel shirt, which he’d tucked tightly into his pants. A tall, thin version of him stood by the refrigerator. He wore jeans and a gray sweatshirt with a Chicago Bears logo.
Susan Centlivre gestured at the short man and then the tall one and said, ‘Greg Cushman and Stevie Phillips, this is Sam Kelson. Sam Kelson, this is—’
Kelson slipped his KelTec from his belt. ‘I told you this was a bad idea.’ He aimed his pistol at the short man, then the tall man, and then Susan Centlivre.
None of them looked worried. ‘What are you doing?’ Susan Centlivre asked.
But Kelson spoke to Phillips. ‘Why did you break into Genevieve Bower’s motel room?’
The tall man seemed unsurprised by the question but said, ‘We didn’t.’
‘Why did you beat her up?’
Now the man glanced at the short one and back at Kelson. ‘She said we did that?’
‘More or less,’ Kelson said.
Susan Centlivre said, ‘She got in a fight at a bar – with another woman.’
‘Now I’m confused,’ Kelson said, and asked the men, ‘who exactly are you?’
The men glanced at Susan Centlivre. She said, ‘They work for the family.’
Kelson asked, ‘The Centlivre family?’
Her eyes turned icy for a moment. ‘The Cranes,’ she said.
He laughed. ‘Are you a Crane?’
‘Before I married. But once a Crane, always a Crane – though I left the family business in my early twenties.’
‘Looks like the family business bought you a nice house. Genevieve Bower’s your cousin – that makes her a Crane too?’
‘Her mother is my aunt – my dad’s sister. It’s in the blood, like it or not.’
‘And your dad is Harold Crane? Sylvia Crane’s your sister?’
‘Like it or not.’
Kelson wiggled a finger at her, as if a thought was coming to his lips, but he asked the short man, ‘Why does Genevieve Bower say you broke into her room?’
The man glanced at Susan Centlivre, and she answered for him again. ‘How much do you know about Genevieve?’
‘Looks like there’s a lot to know. She dated a little one-armed friend of mine named Marty – that’s how she hired me. Then she dated a DJ named Jeremy Oliver – JollyOllie. JollyOllie stole her shoes and a computer drive, and I think that’s how he got shot in the head.’
Susan Centlivre’s lower lip hung open. ‘I’m confused again.’
‘It’s very confusing,’ Kelson said.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘Genevieve has had problems. For much of her life – since she was a teenager. That’s when I ran away too, though I guess I never ran very far. As you say, I have my house and my store. As far as I went, I never gave up my safety net. I love Genevieve. I admire her for cutting the strings. But cutting causes pain too.’
‘What’s on the computer drive?’
‘You’re quick, aren’t you?’ She said it with a smile, but something in her tone seemed to shift the mood in the room, and Stevie Phillips and Greg Cushman tensed.
‘What’s on it?’ Kelson asked again. ‘Genevieve said there’s a video of her, but the
re’s got to be more for it to matter so much.’
‘It’s proprietary information,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss it.’
‘Big words for a hippie candle dealer. And what’s with the British accent?’
‘I went to school in England.’
‘You didn’t grow up here with your family?’
‘I went for a semester – my runaway time. I got pregnant, had an abortion, tried to become a junkie, got hepatitis instead, dabbled with Buddhism. It was a very formative four months.’
‘Then you came back and opened a candle shop.’
‘I came back and got into cocaine. I dropped out of school, got married, got divorced, and kicked coke. Then I opened the candle shop, yes.’
‘Nice to have money,’ he said.
‘It smooths the edges,’ she said.
‘What’s on the thumb drive?’ he said.
She smiled, and now there was no tension. ‘I would like to find Genevieve,’ she said. ‘The whole family would. For her sake. If you—’
But he talked over her. ‘So you sent Pipsqueak and Stretch here to get her from the motel when she called you?’
She smiled at the interruption and continued. ‘If you can find Genevieve and bring her to me safely, I would be more than happy to pay you for your work.’
‘I can, but I won’t,’ he said. ‘Sylvia already tried to hire me, and I told her the same – I’m working for Genevieve.’
‘I’ll be very sorry if Genevieve gets hurt,’ she said, and again her eyes hardened. ‘My family has hurt her enough. It’s what my family does, I’m afraid – especially if we feel threatened.’
‘I didn’t have much of an opinion about you at first,’ he said. ‘Now I’m starting to dislike you.’
She glanced at Stevie Phillips and Greg Cushman again, and the glance made Kelson tighten his fingers on his pistol grip. She asked him, ‘Where is she?’
‘Dammit,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask questions that—’
‘Where?’
The words came. ‘Tucked in my bed.’
She frowned. ‘Don’t be a smartass. Stevie and Greg can—’
‘She’s there with a hot redhead,’ Kelson said.
‘Cute.’ She nodded, and the two men moved toward Kelson with the suddenness of cats.
Lucky Bones Page 13
