Hard Look

by Robert J. Randisi

  “I don’t know,” I said. “If I was working, maybe, but on vacation I wouldn’t be looking for a tail.”

  “Maybe not . . .” he said, and let it hang.

  When we got to the squad room, I was impressed. New desks, computer terminals, and a good air-conditioning system. I wondered what a New York detective would say if he ever saw what I was seeing. Probably try to get a transfer. I made a mental note to tell my friend Detective Hocus to come down here and check it out.

  “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to a chair on the other side of the desk. I noticed he was wearing an imitation Rolex—at least, I thought it was an imitation. “You mind making a verbal report into a recorder? I can have it typed up later.”

  “I’ll have to sign it, won’t I?”

  “We can take care of that later, too,” he said, waving my objection away. The Rolex—real or otherwise—glinted in the light from the window. “Before you go back home anyway.”

  I thought it was an odd request, but didn’t see any reason to object. The statement wouldn’t be official until I signed it anyway.

  He took out a microrecorder and I dictated my statement into it. He didn’t try to prompt me, which I took as a concession to the fact that I was a professional. I made the statement as concise as I could. I was in Florida on vacation and was quite shocked to hear that a body had been found on the floor in my room. I had seen the body and could not identify it. I would be available for approximately one more week—give or take a day—and would cooperate fully.

  “Okay?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Becker said, reaching for the recorder. He turned it off and put it in a desk drawer

  “Is that it? Can I go?”

  “You’re free to go . . . unless you’ve got something else you’d like to tell me. Like, maybe off the record?”

  “Off the record or on, Detective,” I said, “it’s all the same to me. I don’t know who the dead man was or why he was in my room.”

  “Or why he had your name in his pocket?”

  “That, too.”

  “And you’re here on vacation.”

  “I am,” I said. “In fact, I’m taking your advice and going to Busch Gardens tomorrow.”

  “And today?”

  “What about today?”

  “What are you going to do today?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “The only part of my vacation that I planned was that I would come to Florida. After that, I’m just winging it.”

  “What made you decide to come to Florida?” he asked, leaning way back in his chair. “You don’t strike me as a Florida type.”

  “I didn’t think so either,” I said, “but I guess I got tired of being panhandled, sneered at, and just generally ignored. Everybody here is so polite.”

  “Yeah,” Becker said, “I’ve noticed that myself. Okay, Mr. Jacoby. Thanks again for coming down.”

  “Sure,”I said, standing up. “Where’s your partner today?”

  “He called in sick,” Becker said. “I think it was something he ate.”

  I remembered that I had now eaten in two places his partner had recommended.

  “Jesus,” I said, “I hope not.”

  On the way back to the hotel I heard on the radio that a club in St. Petersburg was having Fake Orgasm Night that evening. If that wasn’t enough, Friday night was a special Ladies Night—the shorter the skirt, the cheaper the drink. I thought it might be worth a ride out there Friday night to see how many women showed up with extra-wide belts. I wondered if Cathy Merrill owned an extra-wide belt.

  26

  When I got back to the hotel my desk clerk was where he was supposed to be, behind the desk. I postponed my phone calls to talk to him.

  “Good morning, Mr. Jacoby,” he said, remembering my name—correct pronunciation and all.

  “Good morning . . . Patrick, is it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Patrick, I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

  “I’ll try, sir.”

  “I had made some notes on the pad in my room—room three-oh-four—before I had to move. What happens to the used notepads from the rooms when a guest checks out?”

  “Well, the maids go in and clean,” he said. “I guess they throw them out.”

  “So you don’t know what happens to them for sure?”

  “Well . . . no, sir, unless the maids take them home with them.”

  He was making a joke, but that struck me as a definite possibility. Why throw out a perfectly good pad just because one or two sheets of paper were written on? And there was probably a new pad for each room when the maid was cleaning them.

  “All right, Patrick,” I said. “Were there any messages left for me?”

  “No, sir,” he said, turning to check. “No messages.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Was that a help, sir?”

  “It sure was,” I said. “Thanks.”

  My next step to finding that pad would be to talk to the maid who worked that floor.

  I went back to my room and dialed Jerry Meyer’s work number. A woman answered the phone, and I asked for him. She said she’d transfer me.

  “Jerry Meyer,” he said, answering the phone.

  “Mr. Meyer, this is Miles Jacoby.”

  “Mr. Jacoby,” he said, lowering his voice, “where are you?”

  “I’m in Tampa, Mr. Meyer, working on your case.”

  “Have you—I, uh, can’t talk here. I really wish you hadn’t called me at work.”

  “Yeah, well, when somebody dumps a dead body in my lap I kind of lose track of correct protocol.”

  “A dead—what did you say?”

  “A dead body, Mr. Meyer. That’s what I said.”

  “My God—uh, not—it wasn’t—”

  “No, it wasn’t your wife, Mr. Meyer.”

  “Mr. Jacoby,” he said, still sotto voce, “could I call you back—um, from the lounge? Sometimes these calls are monitored—my employers don’t like us taking personal calls on these lines.”

  “Call me right back, Mr. Meyer,” I said sternly.

  “Yes, yes, of course I will,” he said quickly. “Let me have your number.”

  I gave him the number and the room, then hung up and waited for it to ring. It took ten minutes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, right away, “I was leaving my desk when the phone rang again. Please, do you have any information about Sandra?”

  “No, I don’t, Mr. Meyer,” I said.

  “But . . . what’s this about a dead body?”

  “A man named Styles, Mr. Meyer, Ben Styles. Is that name familiar?”

  “Styles? No, I don’t believe I know anyone by that name.”

  “Think, Mr. Meyer,” I said. “He followed you to my bar that day in Manhattan.”

  “Followed me?”

  “And thereafter, he followed me.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “What does this have to do with Sandra? Perhaps this man is involved with one of your other cases?”

  “I don’t have any other cases at the moment, Mr. Meyer,” I said. “You’re it.”

  “Well, then, perhaps from a past case—”

  “No, Mr. Meyer,” I said. “I saw him in New York when I saw you, and the next time I saw him he was dead in my room. The police here take a very dim view of that.”

  “Have you told the, um, police why you’re down there?” he asked.

  “No, I haven’t,” I said, and then added, “yet.”

  “Will it be necessary?”

  “Let’s put it this way, Mr. Meyer,” I said. “If it’s necessary to keep my neck out of a noose, then yes, I’ll tell them everything.”

  “I thought there was such a thing as, uh, client confidentiality?”

  “You’re getting me mixed up with lawyers, Jerry,” I said. “There’s no such thing when it comes to P.I.s.” Unless, of course, I was working for a lawyer, but there was no need to go into that with him.

&nbs
p; “There’s something you’re not telling me, Jerry,” I said. “Something about your wife.”

  “Well . . . I don’t think Sandra really wants to be found,” he said.

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Tell me, how badly does she not want to be found? Would she send someone after you—or me—if she knew we were looking for her?”

  “I don’t know,” Meyer said. “I don’t know what she’s involved in, Mr. Jacoby.”

  “Jerry,” I said, realizing that I had dropped the “Mr.” a few sentences ago, “how would she know that you were looking for her again?”

  “Possibly she thought I never stopped.”

  “Let me rephrase that,” I said. “How would she know to have you followed in New York to see if you were hiring another P.I. just at the time you hired me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you had any contact with her at all since she left?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t see her when you were down here?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Well . . . that doesn’t mean she didn’t see me.”

  “Yes, Jerry,” I said, “I already figured that out for myself.”

  “Mr. Jacoby . . . you’re not going to stop looking for her, are you?”

  “I don’t know, Jerry,” I said. “A lot depends on what happens in the next twenty-four hours.”

  “I’ll pay you extra,” he said. “A bonus. I’ll increase your rate.”

  “None of that is making me feel any more secure, Jerry,” I said. “It just makes me wonder why you want to find her so badly.”

  “My God . . . she’s my wife.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said, “a lot of guys, when a woman leaves them, would just let go after six months of not seeing her, Jerry.”

  “But I—”

  “I’ll call you at home tomorrow,” I said. “That’s when I’ll tell you if I’m going to continue to pursue this.”

  “Please—”

  “Go back to work, Jerry,” I said. “I think your phone is ringing.”

  I hung up and immediately called Geneva at home. There was no answer. She was either running, working out, or on her way to the bar. It would be at least another half hour before anyone would answer the phone at Packy’s.

  I considered calling Sarah Connor, but I didn’t want to pressure her. Not yet, anyway. She said she’d get me the information when her boss wasn’t around. I just hoped she really thought he was as big an asshole as she claimed she did.

  I also considered calling Cathy Merrill, but she was on duty, so that would accomplish nothing.

  So I actually had the rest of the day in front of me all to myself. Instead of doing something with it, I looked for the local yellow pages, found them, and started looking up photographers.

  27

  I called several photo studios and asked for Ray Cortez. I was just killing time and taking a chance. For all I knew Cortez lived—and worked—out of Clearwater, or St. Pete, or Sarasota, or any one of a dozen other Florida cities.

  One of the private investigator’s most valuable tools is pure, dumb, blind luck. I was on my fifth call and asked for Cortez.

  “He’s on a shoot,” the woman who answered the phone said.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Uh, yeah, really.” She must have thought she was talking to a real dope. “It’s what he does for a living, you know.”

  “I know,” I said. “Look, I was supposed to talk to him before he left. Can you tell me where the shoot is?”

  “What are you, one of the models?”

  “Yeah, I’m one of the models,” I said.

  “And you don’t know where the shoot is?”

  Now I tried to sound like I was the one talking to a dope.

  “That’s why I was supposed to talk to him before he left,” I said.

  “Okay, don’t get testy,” she said. “Geez . . . here it is, he’s out at Sam’s Gym. Know where that is?”

  “That’s what he was supposed to tell—”

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “It’s on Waters, off of Lynn Turner. You do know where that is, don’t you?”

  No, I thought, but I wasn’t going to let her know that. Now that I had the location I could just ask somebody else for directions. There was no need to raise her suspicions—if that was possible. She sounded like a very trusting soul.

  “Of course I know where that is,” I said.

  “Well, you better get over there quick, or you might lose the gig.”

  “That’s me going out the door,” I said. “Thanks, doll.”

  “Sure,” she said, and as she was hanging up I heard her say, “Models!”

  I found Waters with no problem. It was between my hotel and the Village Inn. I made a left and kept driving until I reached Lynn Turner. Along the way I passed a huge Bally’s. I wondered how Sam’s Gym would compare.

  My answer came fairly quickly. Sam’s Gym was in the shopping center right after Lynn Turner. I was in the wrong lane and just managed to get over to my right and pull into the lot by way of the last entrance.

  Sam’s was nowhere near the size of Bally’s, but I remembered what Geneva had said about serious bodybuilders not necessarily choosing a Bally’s or Jack LaLanne’s to work out in.

  The front of Sam’s was all glass, and I could see all of the people inside working out on machines. It didn’t look like any gym I had ever worked out in, but then I was a boxer. When I worked out there were no machines, or even free weights. Lifting weights was not conducive to building the skills you needed for boxing, one of which was speed. In the ring—the boxing ring, that is—too many muscles sometimes got in the way. Also, when you had that many muscles, a pull or tear was always a danger:

  As I entered, I could see that this was not a franchised yuppie gym. The bigger fitness centers catered to the crowd who wanted to lose weight and get in some kind of shape. They advertised on TV hoping to pry some couch potato off his or her couch with commercials showing men and women in top physical condition, when in reality you rarely saw a man or woman in top condition at one of those places—unless they were instructors.

  This kind of gym, though, you couldn’t swing a dead cat—sorry, cat lovers—without hitting someone who was in top shape.

  There seemed to be an equal number of men and women here, which suited me. I was watching one woman in particular working out on a weight machine when another woman came over to greet me.

  “Can I help you?”

  I looked at her, and she was as easy on the eyes as most of the folks there. She was about five three and, if I’m any judge of weight, went at about 135, most of it hard-toned flesh. I’m no judge of bodybuilders—Geneva could tell you that—but my guess was that this woman and weights were no strangers.

  “Yes,” I said, “I’m looking for Ray Cortez.”

  Her smile brightened even more and she asked, “Are you an associate of his?”

  “Yes,” I said, “an associate.”

  “You don’t have any equipment?” she asked, looking behind me.

  “Ray has all the equipment,” I said, “I’m sort of a . . . an adviser.”

  “I see,” she said. She frowned at me and asked, “Do you work out?”

  “I stay in shape,” I said.

  “I thought so. Did you lift?”

  “I used to box.”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t tell if she approved or was disappointed. “Well, Ray’s working in the back. Follow me, please.”

  “Sure.”

  She led me right through the busy floor, with machines to the right and left of me. I saw a particularly huge young man hoisting an amazing amount of weight, with an equally large man spotting him. As he lifted he grunted, as if he’d been struck in the stomach. He and the other man glistened with sweat, the other man probably perspiring just from watching.

  I passed the woman I had been eyeing when I came in, a girl with dark hair cut short, clad in
a Spandex workout suit. She didn’t have the muscles my guide had, but give her time. She was obviously well toned, and didn’t seem to be having trouble with the weight machine she was using. She even had time to smile at me as I passed.

  “Not a duffer in the place,” I commented.

  The girl looked over her shoulder and said, “The duffers, as you call them, go to our competition down the road. We cater to a more serious crowd.”

  “I can see that,” I said. I assumed by her “down the road” comment she was referring to Bally’s.

  We reached the back of the room and I followed her through a doorway into some sort of studio, with a lot of floor space and no weights. At the far end a man was fussing with some camera equipment while three female models and a male model waited. The man was muscular and obviously oiled. The women, all clad in the briefest of workout outfits, were also oiled. Two of them were blond, one dark-haired, all with long hair and firm flesh. Neither of the blond women appeared to be Sandy Meyer. That would have been too much to ask. Besides, all three of these young women were lucky if they were twenty. Sandy Meyer was twenty-eight.

  “I’ll tell Ray you’re here,” my guide said, and she hurried across the room before I could stop her. I didn’t want to call out to her to stop, so I just waited while she moved up behind Ray and spoke to him.

  I don’t know what she said to him, but he turned and looked at me, and I knew from the look on his face that he was going to rabbit.

  “Ray!” I called, but it was no good. He took off on a dead run, knocking over a tripod. He said something to the four models and headed for a back door.

  “Ray! Hey! I just want to talk!” I shouted, running after him.

  Whatever he had said to the models worked, because the beefy young man stepped right into my path and I had to put on the brakes or plow into him. As collisions go, I would have gotten the worst of it for sure.

  “What do you want with Ray?” he demanded, holding one hand out like a traffic cop.

  “Excuse me,” I said, trying to sidestep him, but he moved with me and blocked my path.

  “No way, friend,” he said. “Ray don’t want to talk to you.”