Cold Call (Iris Thorne Mysteries Book 1)

by Dianne Emley

  “With McKinney Alitzer.”

  He smiled and nodded, punctuating his insight. “So, you’re there when the market opens.”

  “Yeah. It’s a bear getting up, but the traffic’s great.”

  “Anyway,” Four-oh-five continued, “what amazes me about this town is how everyone has to stop to look at a ladder that fell off a truck.”

  “Where are you from?” One-eighteen asked.

  “Chicago. You?” “New York.”

  “I’m from New Orleans.”

  “I’m from L.A.,” Iris said.

  They looked at her as if she’d said she was from Mars.

  “New Orleans?” One-eighteen said. “Great town…”

  Iris drifted into the dining room where she picked at a plate of cubed cheese and raw vegetables on the table and wondered if the men had noticed she’d left.

  “My agent told me to get the gray out, that it made me look old,” said a guy wearing a black T-shirt, a rumpled black linen jacket, stone-washed black jeans with too-long legs crumpled on top of heavy black cowboy boots, and a black belt studded with silver grommets. “So I dye it, right? And I get called in on an audition for a commercial and they say, ‘Your hair’s different.’ They’d looked at the old head shots and wanted a graying executive type. I lost the gig.”

  A statuesque woman, wearing a black off-the-shoulder cocktail dress, dramatic eye makeup, and fuchsia lipstick on voluptuous lips, her hair auburn and cut in a smooth Dutch-boy bob, said, “One told me to go darker. One even told me to go blond. Like, I’m really the blond type, right? They don’t even know what’s selling.” She munched on an undressed carrot stick. “So… you been working?”

  The master bedroom was crowded with women in line for the bathroom. Two women and a man pushed their way out of the bathroom together, giggling. “Have any left?” someone in the crowd asked.

  Three girls jockeyed for position in front of a mirror hanging over a chest of drawers, passing around a can of hairspray, bending their heads over their knees, back brushing their hair and ratting it with combs until it was matted and pasted into halos two feet in diameter.

  Iris looked at herself in the mirror. She noticed how much older she looked than these girls. Like Blanche DuBois, she was grateful for the dim light.

  “So, he’s putting me in a music video he’s doing next week.” She was buxom, wearing a loose-necked gold lamé top that teased open when she leaned forward and a skintight mini that barely covered her cheeks.

  “For real? How cool.” She was wearing a sixties retro op art go-go dress with an open midriff that was attached to the dress’s bottom half with big gold rings all around. She wore hot pink thigh-high vinyl boots, neon blue stockings, and double rows of false eyelashes with little ones painted on with eye liner underneath. A Twiggy homage.

  Iris pulled up her skirt to adjust her stockings and the girl in the gold lamé crept her skirt up to her waist with hot pink porcelain-tipped nails, revealing the merry widow underneath. She wasn’t wearing the G-string that came with the set.

  “Look, I have the same one,” she said. “Isn’t it cool?”

  In the living room, Iris leaned next to the fireplace where a fire was crackling against the August chill that blew off the ocean. It was probably down to a chilly sixty-eight degrees outside. People were dancing in a glass-walled room off the living room. She thought she saw Steve’s shirt bouncing in there. A man wearing baggy khaki pants and a loose white shirt, his hair cut short, was also standing by the fireplace. He was friendly.

  “Know anyone here?” he asked her.

  “Just Josh and the co-host, Steve.”

  “I just know Josh. Great house, huh?”

  “He bought it after he got a part as a regular on that sitcom,” Iris said.

  “Who’s Steve?”

  “He’s around here somewhere. I think he’s dancing.”

  “Is he an actor too?”

  “Yeah, but he mostly gives sailing lessons and does maintenance for a sailing school in Marina del Rey.”

  “Seems like everyone here is an actor or a writer but they do something else in real life.”

  “Really.” Iris was relieved to have found someone to talk to. “Do you have a real job?”

  “I’m Josh’s stockbroker.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “Burns Fenner Smith.”

  “I have the high net value accounts for McKinney Alitzer.”

  “McKinney Alitzer. I know some people there. Warren Gray?”

  “Sure.”

  “Billy Drye?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Billy makes himself known, doesn’t he?”

  They both laughed.

  “Say, didn’t I hear that some guy who works in your office got murdered last week?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Slightly.”

  “Wow. That’s pretty weird. What happened?”

  “I’m sorry, I see someone I know. Excuse me. Nice chatting with you.”

  “Have some pie,” John Somers said. A wedge of hot apple pie sat in a puddle of vanilla ice cream on a plate in front of him.

  “I’ll just have coffee,” Paul Lewin said. “My wife has me on a diet. Oatmeal and nonfat milk and crap. My cholesterol’s two fifty-three. What’s yours?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Unwedded bliss.”

  “Did you read the coroner’s report?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Changes things, don’t you think?” Somers ate forkful of pie.

  “It’s weird, but I’m not sure it changes things.”

  “The weapon made small, round entrance wounds and punctures five inches deep. Like an ice pick. Not a homeboy’s weapon of choice.”

  “I’m still holding to a gang initiation. I want to question Flaco and the Cirrus Street boys.”

  “It wasn’t a local,” Somers said. “Witnesses are afraid to come forward, but my longtime informant in that neighborhood told me that word is, everybody got a good look at the killer and no one recognized him.”

  “How do you see it?”

  “A hit.”

  “Mafia-style? That’s not their M.O.,” Lewin said. “Alley Muñoz? What for?”

  “Maybe he saw something or knew something.”

  “Stop complicating my life,” Lewin said.

  “Then why did our guy use an ice pick?”

  “It was handy.”

  “If it was a homeboy, why didn’t he use a gun?”

  “He hocked it.”

  “Or a knife?” Somers said.

  “I don’t know, Professor. You’re giving these guys too much credit. They don’t think this stuff through.”

  “Think about it. A handgun leaves bullets behind. You might as well leave fingerprints. But you can stab him and be halfway down the street before anyone realizes he’s been stuck. You gotta be precise with a knife, but our boy made sure he got close enough. But what if the knife blade bends? Or breaks on a rib? An ice pick is sturdy. Innocuous. Just clean it off and put it back in your neighbor’s garage. The guy is smart. A disguised murder-for-hire, in full day. A street gang doesn’t disguise a murder. It’s public relations.”

  “You’re thinking too hard. A vato wants in the gang. The boys give him a job. Done.”

  “But he didn’t make any mistakes.”

  “He got lucky.”

  “But he wasn’t from the neighborhood,” Somers said.

  “Maybe the witnesses know your informant talks to the cops. The witnesses are covering up. They think it’ll happen to them next.”

  “I don’t think so,” Somers said.

  “Why not?”

  “Just doesn’t feel right.”

  “You and your feelings again. Just follow the evidence, Professor.”

  Somers finished his pie and ice cream. “The wake’s going on right now. Should we go over there?”

  “The funeral will be enough. They’ll be
a better turn out. The wake’s family and close friends. Give them their privacy.”

  “I’m gonna re-canvass the neighborhood.”

  “It’s been done. Rodriguez and me. We got it all when you were busy with your daughter.”

  “I want to have a look myself.”

  “Go ahead,” Lewin said. “Say it was a hit. Who’d want this guy dead?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he had a secret. We don’t know enough about him. Change of heart?”

  “I’m not dropping the gang angle, but I think the hit idea’s worth a pass-through. Alley was a fly on the wall. Maybe he saw something he wasn’t supposed to. What did that Iris Thorne chick have to say?”

  “Not much.”

  “What did you ask her?”

  “The usual.”

  “Like what?”

  Somers bristled. “When was the last time she saw him, what did she say, what did he say, how did he act, did he have any enemies, was anything different the past few days. The usual. Okay?”

  “And what did she say?”

  “Nothing”—he shrugged—“nothing significant.”

  “You didn’t question her.”

  “I did.”

  “So?”

  “So? So nothing. Oh, hell. We caught up on old times and it got late.”

  “You caught up on old times? What kind of old times did we have?”

  “It was a long time ago, all right? Ancient history.”

  “But you dug it up.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “You gonna interview her for real or dick around?”

  “Why the focus on her? Eighty people work in that office.”

  “She was Alley’s buddy in that office. I’ll talk to her,” Lewin said. “Since your personal relationship with her is interfering with your ability to do your job.”

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “At the funeral?”

  “Ease up. I’ll talk to her, all right?”

  “All right.”

  “I can keep my professional distance.”

  “No problema, Shamus.”

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  “That’s what you said. I’ll be waiting for your report.”

  Iris wandered back into the kitchen, where the four men were now beating up sports. She leaned in the doorway with her back to them, facing a mirror hung on the wall of a entryway. She admired the carved wood frame and was speculating about how much an actor on a sitcom could pull down when she caught her reflection in the dim light. Slender, patrician, expensively dressed and coiffed. Apparently confident. It was definitely her.

  She met her eyes and they teared up. Can count friends on one hand. The through-thick-and-thin type. Now, there’s one less. She felt she hadn’t been a good enough friend to Alley and spun a swirl of remorse. Like that envelope. She’d figured it was nothing and had forgotten about it. She’d discounted Alley, too. Little Alley. Even though he’d helped her in the past. Gave her information that kept her from making a stupid mistake.

  Iris watched the party goings on behind her in the mirror. She could still do right by Alley. He’d told her that things weren’t what they seemed. The best thing she could do for him was to believe that. No one else did. She could repay Alley’s favor. Make it square. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself otherwise. She looked away from the mirror and counted to ten and found the familiar, practiced control. She decided to get another glass of wine.

  A woman wearing a floppy hat, a flowing Indian-print silk dress, and two chiffon scarves draped around her neck breezed through the front door, trailed patchouli past Iris, and swooshed into the living room. People turned to look at her. She held her head high and smiled. She was lush-figured and pretty. The woman lasciviously looked around the room, taking everything in.

  “Bernice!” Josh suddenly appeared, TV handsome and polished, and gave her a wet smack on the lips, which Bernice returned along with a firm hug.

  Steve was next. Bernice kissed him on the lips while cupping his rear end. Everyone laughed. She was the type of gal who could get away with it.

  Steve laughed too, and pulled on her scarves. Bernice cooed something in his ear.

  Iris shook her head as she considered Steve’s extensive tastes in women. Definitely a man for all seasons. She slipped through the kitchen and down the hall and found an empty back bedroom. She closed the door and sat on the bed. She found issues of Golf magazine and thumbed through them. She decided to go home.

  “There you are!” Steve walked toward her in the hallway. “Where have you been?”

  “Around. Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been neglecting you. I’m sorry. There’s a lot of people here I know.”

  “Seems like you know Bernice well.”

  “Oh… That’s just Bernice. I’ve known her forever.” He tickled her stomach with his forefinger. “I’ve been thinking about you all week.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “I have too. I missed you.”

  “You missed having sex with me.”

  “I missed you.” He tickled her harder.

  She grabbed his hand and moved it out of her space. “I’m going. Then you can talk to your friends without worrying about me.”

  “Iris. Stay. We’ll leave soon. What’s wrong? You’ve been really quiet.”

  “You and my mother. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just tired.”

  “Tired?” Steve flipped the bedroom door closed and backed Iris against it. “I know just the thing.”

  He kissed her, pressing his pelvis against her. He slid his hands up her thighs, beneath her skirt, feeling the garters of the corset.

  “Ms. Thorne, what have we here?”

  He dropped to his knees and slid her skirt up over her thighs.

  “Ooohh. I like it.”

  He pulled at the G-string with his teeth, moving the fabric from between her legs. She slid down so that her legs fell open.

  He probed with his tongue, slid his hands behind her, and grabbed her butt. She grabbed two handfuls of his hair and went with it. She was water. She was earth. She was heading toward the carpet.

  Someone turned the doorknob.

  Iris caught her breath.

  There was knocking. “Is someone in there?”

  “Yes,” Steve said.

  “We have to get our stuff to go home.”

  “Okay.”

  Panting, Iris pulled down her skirt. Steve gave her a long kiss, smearing her lipstick on his face and hers. They opened the door and a man and woman came in, sensing the charged atmosphere, and went straight to the closet with eyes averted.

  Steve gave Iris a wicked smile.

  She walked in front of him down the hallway. She knew he was watching her hips move in the snug leather mini. He walked close behind her and let his hand rest against her hip, his hand riding with the motion of her walk.

  “One more hour,” he said. “Then we’ll go.”

  “Okay,” Iris said, wondering why she was such a fool. Addicted to junk food.

  When they got to the living room, Josh handed Steve a guitar. Bernice was going to sing. Josh sat on the floor behind an electronic keyboard on the coffee table, facing the fireplace. Steve sat on the couch with the guitar. The big-boobed brunette with the harem pants rushed to squeeze beside him.

  Iris leaned against the wall and thought about her own scent now on Steve.

  The electronic keyboard rang shallowly through the house and Bernice started to sing a campfire song in a large, cabaret voice, giving the old ditty a racy interpretation. She got everyone to join in on the lively refrain. Iris sang too, not wanting to, but not wanting to look like a stiff. At the end of the song, someone requested the theme song from a current movie and Bernice faked most of the lyrics, making the group laugh. She knew how to work the crowd. Then came something soulful that made chills run up and down Iris’s spine and Iris hated her for it,
hated Bernice for her voracious appetite for life and her seductive manner.

  Iris considered that she herself had been seduced too often by the quick, the obvious, the easy. By things that ended up different than what they seemed at first. She felt empty and used up. Bernice begged off from singing another song and the crowd scattered.

  Steve walked up to Iris. “Just let me make the rounds and say good-bye to some people, then we’ll go.”

  Forty-five minutes passed. Iris kicked her butt for thirty of them, but still didn’t take action. She felt lonely and vulnerable. She was trading self-esteem for hugs. She should know better. She of all people should spot a bad trade. She got her purse and had found Josh to say good-bye when Steve walked up behind her.

  “Ready to go?” he asked.

  Bernice sauntered up to Steve, swaying her ample hips. “Leaving before I’ve had a chance to say good-bye?” She grabbed Steve in a bear hug and kissed him on the lips.

  He slid from her grasp, making a joke, and looking apologetically at Iris. Bernice gave Iris a bold up-and-down look and sashayed away.

  Somebody’s car alarm barked one high then one low tone.

  Iris was awake, lying on her back, staring up through the porthole in the bow cabin of Steve’s boat. The boat rocked in the Santa Ana winds, the dock lines creaking noisily. Steve was asleep on his stomach with his arm limp and heavy across her waist. One patterned stocking clung to the goose down comforter and trailed off the edge of the bed, the other one was crumpled in a ball on the floor. Her leather miniskirt was doing a handstand against the door to the head.

  She was still wearing the merry widow, which had painfully crept up around her ribs. She pulled it over her head and threw it at the miniskirt. Steve turned on his side, tightened his grip on her, and pulled her close. She put her nose in the soft hair in his armpit. It smelled faintly of deodorant. She rubbed her forehead on his biceps and circled her hand around his neck, squeezing the lean muscles.

  “Steve?”

  “Hhh?”

  “What am I to you?”

  He opened his eyes a slit. “Wha…?”

  “What am I to you?”

  Eyelids heavy, he rolled onto his side and pulled her close, draping a leg over her torso. “What do you mean?”