Cold Call (Iris Thorne Mysteries Book 1)

by Dianne Emley

  COLD CALL

  A MYSTERY

  INTRODUCING IRIS THORNE

  By

  Dianne Emley

  BOOKS BY DIANNE EMLEY

  Iris Thorne Mysteries

  Cold Call

  Slow Squeeze

  Fast Friends

  Foolproof

  Pushover (Coming in 2012)

  Detective Nan Vining Thrillers

  The First Cut

  Cut to the Quick

  The Deepest Cut

  Love Kills

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 1993 by Dianne G. Pugh and 2011 by Dianne Emley.

  Text revised by the author in 2011.

  Cold Call is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  ISBN-10: 0-9847846-0-8

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9847846-0-8

  Originally published as Cold Call by Dianne G. Pugh in 1993 by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Cover design by Kimberly King.

  Published by Arroyo Bridge Books, a division of Emley and Co., LLC.

  First Arroyo Bridge Books e-book edition November 2011.

  For my husband,

  Charles G. Emley, Jr.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Alley Muñoz walked down the street, stepping heavily on his right foot, swinging the left in a semicircle behind, holding the aluminum briefcase close to his side in his good right hand, his left hand flapping from his bent-wing arm as if he were waving to no one in particular.

  Two homeboys at the bus stop jabbed each other as he passed and it occurred to him that they’d been waiting for him. He tightened his grip on the briefcase and made an arc around them, writing off their staring to a stranger’s fascination with his handicap, and continued walking down Lankershim past the clutter of shabby retail establishments like he did every day after work.

  He reached the Café Zamboanga, the name “Studio Grill” still visible in faded paint on the brick sidewall. Paper-and-ink posters were taped in the café’s big picture windows. Carnitas. Menudo los Domingos. An old man with his pants belted high around his waist sat at the chrome counter, his fedora at his fingertips, his cane hanging next to him, and watched Alley’s lurching progress outside the café’s windows through clouded blue eyes.

  Alley put the briefcase in his bad hand, holding it high and close, and pulled on the heavy glass door with his good right. The door opened half a foot and he wedged his shoulder in, banging the briefcase against the frame before pulling it through. He took off his jacket, picked at invisible lint before he folded it over the back of a stool, and waved his good hand at the old man, who nodded back. He put the briefcase on the floor and slid his foot next to it.

  A middle-aged Hispanic woman with thick black hair down the middle of her back and a pink waitress uniform came over to him from behind the counter.

  “Hi, Alley. How are you today?” she asked, shouting.

  He read her lips. “Fiii.” He nodded, smiling with white, even teeth. A muscle spasm twisted his smile into a grimace, and a glistening drop of spittle fell on his chin. He smoothed his red-and-navy-striped tie with his good hand. “Haa ar ooh?”

  “Not too bad. Coffee?” she said loudly, even though he couldn’t hear her.

  “Eesss.”

  She put a cup and saucer in front of him, the glaze shattered with spiderweb cracks, and filled it. Alley sipped and glanced at a Spanish-language newspaper that was on the counter.

  “How’s your mother?” the waitress asked.

  Alley looked at her quizzically.

  “Your mother? Tu madre?”

  He nodded. “Eessss.”

  The waitress shrugged at the old man, who shook his head.

  Alley saw and continued sipping his coffee. He rubbed the side of his polished loafer against the aluminum surface of the briefcase. He emptied the cup and pulled two dollar bills from a black leather wallet and put them on the counter.

  “Thanks, Alley. Hasta mañana.”

  He nodded and walked out onto the crowded sidewalk. Beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. It was still ninety degrees at 5:00 in the evening but he put his jacket on, setting the briefcase near him on the sidewalk.

  Alley watched one of the homies from the bus stop walk toward him, his stride as precise as a march step, one arm swinging behind his back then in front, each shoulder lowered in time. His khaki pants came down low over his bright white Nike tennis shoes, and he wore a too-large, plaid, wool flannel shirt buttoned to the neck, in spite of the heat, the long tail trailing behind. His chin was cocked up and a cigarette was wedged behind his ear. He walked up to Alley and put his hand on his arm. “Hey, ese. You got a match?”

  Alley smiled and a muscle spasm twisted his mouth. He pulled open his left jacket pocket with his good hand and looked inside.

  Alley was shoved backward. He took his hand from his pocket and looked at the spreading red stain across the front of his shirt. He dropped the matches on the ground. He felt the pressure again, then looked up to see the ice pick come toward his chest a third time.

  Alley screamed.

  The boy watched him, his face serene and curious.

  Alley screamed and screamed. He pawed the air and wailed the same note over and over. He staggered down the sidewalk, throwing his right foot forward, swinging the left behind.

  The boy was already turning the corner onto a side street by then, running fast.

  Some people ran after the boy and some watched Alley, not knowing what to do. There was so much blood.

  Alley dropped to his knees, his breathing short. He fell back onto his good arm, then onto the sidewalk, his legs contorting under him. He screamed again and again, his tongue churning like a landed fish.

  The waitress ran out of the Café Zamboanga and kneeled beside him. Alley tried to speak, but his tongue just flapped in his mouth. Then he died.

  The waitress walked back to the doorway of the café, rubbing her bloody, trembling hands on her pink uniform. She shrugged her shoulders and moved her lips, telling herself there was nothing she could do, and then she saw the briefcase on the sidewalk. She pulled the handle. It didn’t move. She got a better grip on it and picked it up, leaning to one side with the weight, and took it inside the café.

  “Take it to his mother... pobrecita... that poor woman... pobrecita, pobrecita.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Iris Thorne slapped the snooze button on the screaming clock radio with a thwack and fell asleep again. The synthesized, singsongy music on the New Age station wove through her subconscious and took her to a calm place. Seconds later, the radio screamed again.

  Iris thwacked the snooze button two more times before she sat bolt upright in bed, turned off the damn thing, looked at the digital display that said 4:45a, and wondered what day it was.

  “Workday,” she said to no one, “and freaking late already.”

  She headed for the bathroom in the dark, tripping and cursing over a bundle of unfolded laundry she’d thrown on the floor the night before.

  “...had to do the snooze five million times...”

  She found her way to the kitchen in the dark and located the automatic coffee maker by its merrily shining red light and poured a cup into a squat-bottomed commuter mug.

  “...Thursday...”

  She took three sips and cranked into high gear.

  “...meeting with the stupid Hol
lywood bankers...”

  In the bathroom she wove through dangling tendrils of lingerie and yanked down a pair of panty hose.

  “...and that weirdo from the morticians’ association...”

  She gathered handfuls of drying lingerie and threw them on the unmade bed.

  “… oh God, Mr. Noone. The Nooner. Client From hell... Call him today...”

  A champagne-colored teddy embroidered with little flowers was on top of the mound. Iris grabbed it.

  “...better wear my bullet-proof vest...”

  She plugged in the set of hot rollers, the curling iron, and the blow dryer, turned on the waterproof radio, and ran out of electrical plugs.

  “...is this the one that rides up?”

  She had showered, moisturized, and rolled her hair by 5:15, unshrouded a suit from the dry cleaner’s plastic, dressed, and combed her hair out by 5:27, scooped her makeup into her purse, grabbed the handle of the pull-out stereo, looped her briefcase over her shoulder, and ran down the stairs by 5:29. At 5:30, she was in the garage, folding the cover back from the Triumph, rolling each side up, then rolling from front to back, her second cup of coffee in the commuter mug sitting on the concrete.

  At 5:35, she shifted the TR into reverse, slid the stereo into its chassis, shifted to neutral, pulled out the choke, mashed on the accelerator twice, and cranked the ignition. The engine roared in the garage. She put her makeup on in the rearview mirror by flashlight while the engine warmed up, then backed the TR out five feet, put it in neutral, ran out with the flashlight and shined it on the drip pan, studied its nightly excretions as if they were runes, dabbed a finger into a new glob of something, and rubbed her fingers together to test the consistency.

  “...need change oil...”

  She got in and checked the gauges.

  “...all A-OK.”

  She revved the engine. The vibration from the TR’s baritone set off the car alarm on the Porsche in the next spot. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel as she waited for the automatic garage gate to crank open, hoping she could get out before the Porsche’s owner came down, as attuned the sound of his own car alarm as a parent is to the cry of his own child.

  At 5:55 she was at the mouth of the mighty Ten, near a sign that said CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS TRANSCONTINENTAL HIGHWAY. She waited for the light to change and finished her mascara. She hooked her thumbs through her skirt into the leg openings of the teddy and jerked it down. This was the one that rode up.

  At the green light, she orange-lined the TR and tore down the Ten going ninety with one eye in the rear-view mirror and one hand touching and punching the stereo’s buttons like Braille and one-half a mind to drive on. Let’s drive. Goddammit. Past Grand Avenue, past L.A. city, L.A. county, past the rest of it, flowing with the current of the mighty Ten, a straight shot to Jacksonville, Florida. Then north, goddammit, to Vermont or New Hampshire or someplace like that. Someplace with woods and ponds and stuff like that. She’d live off her credit cards and not think about tomorrow. She’d sell antiques and draw in pastels and maybe even buy a winter coat.

  At Grand Avenue, Iris flipped on the signal indicator and the green “trafficator” light flashed on the TR’s wooden dash.

  The sun rose over the top of Bunker Hill, the heavy particles in the August smog diffusing the rays into a brilliant orange color wash.

  The office was alive at 6:20.

  “Good morning, good morning, hi, hi, howyadoin’?”

  “Just superior, Iris, superior.”

  “Good morning. Ça va?”

  Iris walked past her cubicle, down the corridor, straight to the last cubicle in the row. She reached in her briefcase, pulled out a large dildo, and slapped it on the desk. It made a wet noise like a blackjack on flesh.

  “What?” Billy Drye said guilelessly.

  There were stifled snickers from the fresh-shaved group within earshot. Guys craned their necks or half stood to see.

  “Mr. Dick turned up in my briefcase during my meeting with the Armenian Merchants’ Association,” Iris said.

  Hearty guffaws.

  “I-ris… what makes you think…”

  “Give it up, Drye,” Iris said.

  She was halfway down the corridor before they cut loose with ribald laughter behind her. The teddy crept up painfully, but she didn’t dare touch it. She rapped twice on the metal door frame of the corner office.

  Stan Raab was already on the phone to the East Coast, talking fast, pacing back and forth, spinning his phone cord into a tangled, tortured mess, laughing heartily now to what must have been a really good joke between really good friends. He glanced at Iris on a southward spin and shot his index finger up in greeting, then swung north, not missing a conversational beat.

  She pivoted on her pump heel, ignoring the sound of her name behind her, and circled around the end of the suite on the way to her cubicle, passing the corner office opposite Stan Raab’s where Joe Campbell lived. He looked up at her over a copy of The Wall Street Journal and smiled a little. She nodded back and the pit of her stomach tingled.

  At her cubicle, she threw her purse inside a desk drawer and flipped on the computer terminal with a one-two snap and picked up a report that had appeared on her desk during the night.

  Teddy watched her with his head perched like Kilroy on top of the cubicle wall dividing them. He was thirty-one but looked older with his thin hair brushed over the top of his balding head. He was grinning, his chubby cheeks round and pink, his tongue poking through the gap in his front teeth. He puckered his lips and blew at Iris’s ear.

  She unconsciously brushed at it.

  Teddy’s grin grew wider and his eyes narrowed to slits and sparkled gleefully behind thick lids. He blew again.

  She reached her hand to her ear, then spun around.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Washing you, ma cherie,” he crooned in pidgin French through pouting lips. He reached his big hand over the top of the cubicle and fluffed her hair. At six feet four inches, the top of the cubicle came to his waist. Red suspenders with little green dollar signs were pulled over his big belly. He wore a red silk tie with a small paisley pattern over a white cotton shirt with blue stripes. Sea Island cotton, he’d tell you if you mentioned you liked it.

  “You’re so smart to have gone lighter,” he said, cupping Iris’s hair. The index finger of his other hand dug deeply into his cheek. The irritated look in her eyes propelled him on. “You should as you get older.”

  “Teddy, I don’t dye my hair.”

  “Of course you don’t, dahling.”

  She reached over the cubicle and rubbed his bald spot. “Now I know it’s going to be a good day.”

  “You have a run in your panty hose, dear.”

  “Shit!”

  “Don’t you just hate when that happens?”

  Iris opened her top desk drawer and dug around the pencils, highlighter pens, paper pads, makeup, change for the vending machine, and crumpled memos, looking for the emergency panty hose.

  “Damn, I need another cup of coffee.”

  “Ain’t any.”

  “Why not?”

  “Gimp’s not here.”

  “Don’t call him that. Why don’t you make some?”

  “Squaw work.”

  Iris found the package of panty hose behind an envelope that had traveled into a back corner. She uncrumpled the envelope and looked at the heavy-handed printing on the outside:

  OPEN THIS. YOU WILL KNOW WHEN TO.

  Joe Campbell walked by and glanced down at her. She quickly palmed the panty hose and the envelope and shoved them into her skirt pocket, her cheeks coloring.

  “Go ask your girlfriend if she likes my gift,” Teddy said.

  Iris let out a long sigh. “What gift, Teddeee?”

  “Just go ask her.”

  “Teddy, I told you about that.”

  “She’s just playing hard to get.”

  In the lunch room, Iris held the refrigerator door open and s
pooned a cake leftover from somebody’s birthday out of a pink box while waiting for the coffee to brew. The door to the lunchroom opened behind her and she heard a man’s solid footsteps in heavy soled shoes. The footsteps were generic but she recognized the cologne. He left its oily resonance everywhere—on telephones, on papers, in rooms he had left. Iris liked the seductive fragrance. She had purchased it herself once for someone. She was sorry that now it would always remind her of Billy Drye.

  He stood close behind her—too close for polite office chitchat. She didn’t step away.

  “Filling in for the beaner gimp today?”

  “Don’t call him that.”

  “‘Don’t call him that,’” he mocked.

  Iris opened the cupboard, pulled out her BUDGETS ARE FOR WIMPS mug, and poured coffee.

  “Do you do windows, too?”

  “I type, make coffee, do windows, and screw,” Iris said, turning around, “but not for money.”

  “What kind of a screw is Raab, just between us girls?”

  “What’s your point, Drye?”

  “Why else would he have given Consolidated Industries to you?”

  “You did it to yourself. You ran it into the ground.”

  “That’s what he told you?”

  “Why don’t you ask Raab?”

  “I just figured a freak show might be what Raab likes. You and the gimp…”

  Iris picked up the spoon and turned back to the cake. “You’re sick, Drye.”

  Drye put his hand on the full part of her hip and put his lips close to her ear. “I bet the Ice Princess can really heat up.”

  Iris swung her hip, throwing his hand off, and twisted around.

  He was already at the door. “You’ve been to the gym. Good work.” He grinned garishly and winked at her before closing the door.