Film Strip

by Nancy Bartholomew

  Twenty-nine

  I woke up wrapped in my sheets, the room filled with bright sunlight. Nailor was gone. For a moment I lay there, my eyes closed, my head on the pillow where he’d slept, remembering. I had to admit that Nailor had a great deal of potential. A shiver ran through my body and I felt him once again, everywhere and nowhere. I was developing a serious appetite for that man.

  I lay there for a few more moments, then forced myself to think. Marla the Bomber was sitting in a jail cell, Vincent Gambuzzo was in danger of losing his club, and I was in danger of losing my life if Raydean was right about the killer. My eyes flew open and focused on the alarm clock. Ten o’clock. That’s why Nailor was gone. Marla’s arraignment was this morning. I had to get there.

  I flew out of bed. The chances were that I’d missed it, but I needed to see for myself. I pulled on a pair of black rayon pants and a champagne-colored shell, struggled into a pair of black slingbacks, and ran out the door. I was figuring I could do my makeup in the car and pull my hair back into a bun when I arrived at the courthouse.

  Francis was still sleeping as I passed his room. Pat was gone, Fluffy probably with her. I ran out the back door, down the steps, and hopped into my car. An arrangement of yellow roses sat in the front passenger seat, the now familiar white card attached. My throat went dry and my heart started pounding. I knew they weren’t from Nailor.

  I looked around, saw no one, and touched the roses. They were still cool from the delivery car’s air-conditioning, or perhaps the florist’s cooler. I stretched out a hand and gingerly plucked the card from the greenery.

  Roses are red

  Violets are blue,

  There isn’t a flame

  Holds a candle to you.

  “Damn!” I swore, and started up the car. What in the hell did that mean? I pulled out of the driveway, the yellow roses filling the car with their scent. There isn’t a flame holds a candle to you. The phrase ran around in my head, distracting me as I drove, confusing me. I finally had to stop the car at a convenience mart and buy a large coffee, just so I could gather my thoughts before I got downtown. I reached the courthouse and was walking up the steps and into the building by ten-thirty, but Marla was gone.

  Ernie Schwartz, the Tiffany’s legal counsel, came rushing toward me, his briefcase bulging, not noticing me on account of his hurry. He would’ve passed me by had I not reached out and grabbed his beefy little arm. He stopped, looked up at me through thick Coke-bottle lenses, and smiled.

  “Sierra, what a pleasure!”

  “Good to see you too, Ernie, but I don’t have time for small talk. Where’s Marla?”

  Ernie smiled, puffed out his pinstriped chest, and looked back over his shoulder. “Out breathing her first taste of unconfined air, I reckon. I got bail!”

  “How in the world did you do that?”

  Ernie looked disappointed in me, like I should’ve known he did it with his customary legal brilliance, but an accused triple murderer never got out on bail.

  “I got them to acknowledge that they could only charge her with the Barboni murder, and even that was circumstantial. She didn’t have any priors. She’s clean. They didn’t have enough to tie her to whacking those girls, anyway.” Ernie liked to use tough words like whacking, but in reality he’d grown up in Boston, graduated from Harvard Law, and never known a tough guy. He lived in a Victorian overlooking the bay with his new wife, Cheryl. His biggest fear in life right now was probably that I’d somehow get to Miss Junior League and tell her about the time me and Ernie got drunk and he sang the Oscar Meyer Wiener song in his birthday suit.

  “So where’d they set her bail?”

  Ernie’s clear blue eyes twinkled. “Five hundred thousand,” he breathed.

  “That’s it?”

  Ernie nodded. “Gambuzzo put up the club. I told him he was being an idiot and he popped off on me. Said he wasn’t paying me to have an opinion.” Ernie sniffed. “I understand loyalty,” he said, “but to a bimbo with a fifty-two-double-D cup? Hell, that boy’s thinking with the little head.”

  I figured Ernie was really feeling like big stuff.

  “How’s Cheryl?” I asked. “You never bring her around. I’d love to meet her.”

  Ernie pulled back and looked over his shoulder again. “Aw, you know how it is with women,” he said. “They’re so insecure.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said. “Better yet, tell me about Marla. What are our chances?”

  Ernie cleared his throat. “It would help if she’d be more cooperative. That jackass of a boyfriend keeps giving her bad advice. Told her not to trust anyone. Said I’m just Vincent’s mouthpiece and that he didn’t know for certain that Vincent wasn’t involved. Like Gambuzzo would sabotage his own club and kill off his own dancers!” He shrugged. “Well, I gotta get going. I’m speaking to the Rotary Club in Panacea.”

  “Do you know if she was headed home?” I asked.

  We turned and started walking through the hallway out into the warm mid-morning sunlight. Ernie was fishing in his pockets for his keys, frowning like maybe they’d moved on their own.

  “That stupid boyfriend of hers took her off to celebrate. God knows what his definition of a celebration is. He probably took her off to his trailer for an afternoon of beer drinking and passion.” Ernie coughed like the very idea was making him sick.

  “Little Ricky lives in a trailer?”

  “That’s his name?” Ernie asked. “Little Ricky? No wonder.” Ernie shook his head and looked over at me, then around the parking lot. “She told me she’s got information that can help clear her. Of course, I can’t tell you all the times some potential convict’s told me that very same thing and it’s turned out to be nothing, but you never know.”

  Ernie stopped by his Jaguar and fumbled in his briefcase for his keys. “I got her to promise she’d be in my office by three. You can see her there then, if you really need to talk to her.”

  “I do really need to talk to her, Ern. Thanks.” I kissed him on the cheek and walked off to my Camaro. The roses were beginning to wilt in the steamy heat of the enclosed car. The odor was stronger than ever.

  I started the car and sat there thinking. What could Marla have that would help her? Stupid bimbo, couldn’t she see this was no time for a celebration? We had work to do. Something was wrong with the way I was looking at things, I knew this. There isn’t a flame holds a candle to you. Someone wanted me away from the investigation. Raydean’s angle was that it was all somehow about me in the first place. I sat there, twisting the facts as I knew them over and over. It just made no sense.

  I looked at the clock on the dash. It was only eleven. The club wouldn’t open for another hour. Somehow the club was involved. Flame. Maybe something was going to happen involving more fire. After all, John’s car had been torched in the parking lot. Maybe the next step was to torch the club. Or maybe Vincent hadn’t given me all the facts. Maybe Vincent didn’t owe the IRS; maybe he owed someone else and didn’t want me to know. I put the car in gear and pulled out of the lot, heading down Fifteenth Street, toward the Panama City Police Department. Maybe it would help to hash it over with Nailor. Maybe it would just help to see Nailor.

  I turned down the sandy side road that ran alongside the police department and turned into the parking lot. The Panama City P.D. blended in with its surroundings. It was a low, tan building that sprawled across its lot on the main drag into town. Many people drove right past it, missing it because of the dog pound that sat just next door. The pound was shaped like a giant igloo dog kennel. Most people were so busy staring at the misshapen building that they missed the police municipal building.

  I drove up to the front of the building, parked, and walked through the double glass doors and into the lobby. Paula, the chief records clerk, looked up and waved through her bullet-proof shield. “I’ll page him,” she called through the speaker.

  “Make that a large fries,” I said back, and sat down across from a crew of Mexican construction
workers. The men were so intent on their conversation that they barely looked up. They surrounded another worker who sat clasping his bandaged head in his hands and crying.

  Nailor kept me waiting long enough to figure that the crying man had been pistol-whipped and robbed. There was much gesturing and apparently a lot of blaming going on, as the men tried to sort out their buddy’s trauma. When Nailor did finally make an appearance, I was reluctant to leave. It was like watching part of a soap opera and not knowing the outcome.

  “Don’t you have anyone that speaks Spanish here?” I asked Nailor.

  He looked over at the men and shrugged. “We’ve got one, but he’s off today. There’s a lady who works in the chief’s office, but she’s at lunch. She’ll help out when she gets back.”

  I looked up at him and saw that the lines around his eyes were thickened with fatigue. Oh, well, that’s what happens when you stay up half the night with Sierra Lavotini. I chuckled and saw, too late, that he had his cop face on.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He was leading me through the warren of corridors, heading for his minuscule office. He didn’t answer.

  “Are you pissed ’cause Marla made bail?”

  He said nothing until he had me in his office with the door closed.

  “No,” he said, “I’m pissed because, as usual, something’s going on and I’m the last to know.” He sat down across from me and folded his arms across his chest. “What do you know about a guy named Cozzone being transported to the state hospital in Tallahassee, involuntarily, because of a false commitment order?”

  I returned his stare. “Not a damn thing,” I answered.

  “All right, let’s try this on,” he said. “One of my officers positively identified you as being at Ernie’s when they went to pick him up. She says you were seated at a table with him.”

  There was no getting out of this one. “Okay,” I said, “but you can’t say I didn’t try and get your cooperation.”

  Nailor’s face reddened. “I sure as hell can, because I don’t know what in the hell is going on, Sierra.”

  I stood up and leaned across his desk. “I told you that Marla the Bomber didn’t kill those girls or Barboni, but you didn’t want to hear it. I had to find out what I could on my own. And now you’re mad.”

  “You’re damn right I’m mad,” he thundered. “You used my people.”

  “I did not. I didn’t know Packy Cozzone was wanted.”

  Nailor threw up his hands. “What is it with you? Sierra, this isn’t a game. You can’t manipulate the system to meet your needs.”

  “Why not? I didn’t see you or anyone else listening to me. What? I should just sit back and let Marla go to the chair for murders she didn’t do? I should let a killer run around loose and maybe kill you or me next? You think I like getting death threats?”

  “What death threats? What are you talking about?”

  I told him about the roses. I reminded him of the other two “messages.” But I don’t think that’s what turned the tide and got Nailor’s attention. Somehow, as I spoke, I had the feeling he’d been sitting on something all along.

  “Just suppose Marla didn’t kill those people,” he said suddenly. “Suppose Raydean’s right and this is somehow about you or the club. Maybe this killer’s working to kill off the other headliners. Maybe he wants you to be the only dancer there, or maybe he wants to kill off all of you. Maybe Barboni knew something and that’s why he was killed. I don’t know, Sierra, but if this is about you, then don’t you think it’s time you let me handle it?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “You’re telling me you believe me now?”

  His eyes softened and he was about to answer, but the door flew open and his lieutenant stood there. The lieutenant did not look happy.

  “Hey,” he said. “We got a report of a possible abduction. Lewis is out. I need you to catch it. Call came in from an attendant at the Chevron station.” The lieutenant stopped and glanced at me. “Am I interrupting something?”

  Nailor stood up and gave me a look. “No, Miss Lavotini was just leaving.” His look said that our business would wait, that I should go and wait to hear from him. Well, Sierra Lavotini might wait, but then again, she might not.

  I stood up, cool as a cucumber, and turned to leave, brushing past the lieutenant.

  “Just remember what I told you,” Nailor called after me.

  I didn’t say a word. I had come to an unpleasant conclusion of my own and Nailor wasn’t going to like the way I handled it. I followed the winding corridors to the exit, my brain working double-time on a nasty theory.

  What if Nailor and Raydean were both right? What if the killer was systematically killing off the competition? What if Frosty Licks and Venus Lovemotion died because they were headliners, visiting headliners who had been thinking of staying at the Tiffany? What if Marla’d been set up to look like their killer? What better way to get rid of her? But now she was out and telling people she could prove her innocence. If John Nailor and Raydean were right, then Marla would be the killer’s next victim.

  Thirty

  Nailor had been a thirty-minute waste of my time. Marla was in trouble and stupid Little Ricky would offer her about as much protection as a newspaper in a hurricane. I had to find her, that much was clear. I couldn’t wait until three. I needed to track her down at Little Ricky’s trailer palace of burning love.

  Someone at the Tiffany had to know where Ricky lived. I slipped out of the police lot and onto Fifteenth Street, heading for the beach and the Gentleman’s Club. I reached over and punched in a cassette. I felt like something loud and wild. In short, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Music helps me think, and I had to think hard if I was going to figure this mess out.

  I sped up over the Hathaway Bridge, waiting for inspiration and finding nothing. The sun was almost straight up overhead, the sky a brilliant blue. It was perfect beach weather. Tourists would be flocking to the sugary sands, but I shivered. Panama City suddenly felt cold and unfriendly. Stevie Ray wasn’t scared. He sang out, urging me to come closer. I stopped at a red light and sat waiting to go. I didn’t hear anyone coming up behind me; Stevie took care of that. When the passenger side door swung open I was completely unprepared.

  “What the fuck is this?” Packy Cozzone said, eyeing the roses and tossing them out into the intersection. He slid into the front seat, an ugly gun poking out of his windbreaker sleeve.

  “Get out of my car!” I yelled, my voice certainly carrying out of the open T-tops.

  “Shut up, bitch,” Packy snarled. “If you wanna see that cousin of yours again, you’ll drive like I say, where I say.”

  “My cousin?”

  Packy gestured to the white sedan that idled behind us. A hand emerged from the moon roof, waving the tie Francis had worn to the meeting with Cozzone.

  “I got him in the backseat. Satisfied?” Packy looked smug. He knew he had us.

  “What do you want, Packy?”

  “Pull over to that motel lot over there. We’re gonna leave your car and take mine. I don’t like your taste in music and I got air-conditioning.”

  There was nothing else to do but follow his instructions. I parked under a small crepe myrtle and locked the car, all under Packy’s watchful supervision. I left my purse in the car, hoping that if it eventually got found by the police they’d figure I hadn’t left willingly.

  We walked to the sedan, the windows tinted too darkly to see what waited inside for me. Packy was practically dancing with glee at having the tables turned on the Lavotinis. I really didn’t have time for this.

  The back door opened as I approached the car and one of Packy’s men stepped out. He did not look friendly. Francis sat hunched in the backseat, leaning against the far window. When he looked up at me, I gasped. His eyes were blackened and his nose was horribly swollen, obviously broken.

  I whirled around toward Packy. “You son of a bitch!”

  The muscle grabbed me and shoved me into the car, propell
ing me into Francis, who groaned with the pain of another sudden impact. Packy’s hand shot out and smacked the back of my head, just so we could all see that he was in the driver’s seat now. I bit down hard on the inside of my lip and resisted the urge to cry.

  “Francis, are you all right?” I said. His hands were tied behind his back and his feet were bound together.

  “Francis?” Packy said.

  “That’s her pet name for me,” Francis replied evenly. “The people closest to me call me Francis.” I remembered and took the cue. If Packy Cozzone found out that we weren’t related to Big Moose, we’d be dead. As it stood now, we might be dead anyway, but at least the Lavotini name was slowing him up.

  “Do you know what you’re doing, Packy?” I said. “Do you know who you’re fucking with? Because if his father sees him like this…”

  “Shut up!” Packy yelled. His face was red and his foot tapped a rapid staccato burst against the car door. “Give me the stuff.”

  One of Packy’s men reached inside his jacket pocket and started to pull out a small plastic bag.

  “Boss,” the other said, “that might not be such a hot idea. Don’t you think—”

  “Shut up,” Packy said, the gun suddenly aimed at the man’s chest. He took the envelope from his other goon and grabbed a magazine from the floor of the car. From the looks of it, Packy was setting up to fill his nose with cocaine. He spilled a small amount of powder out onto the magazine and began tapping it into a thick line. He reached behind him and pulled a short straw off of the ledge behind the backseat. With a quick, practiced move, he snorted the cocaine. He leaned back against the seat and sniffed deeply, pulling the rest of the powder up into his nose. For a minute no one said a word. Packy sat with his eyes closed.

  I looked over at Francis. He sat there, staring at Packy, his eyes filled with hatred. I knew if he could reach Cozzone, he’d kill him. Packy’s eyes sprang open and he smiled at Francis, as if he’d heard him thinking.

  “You don’t fuck with a Cozzone,” Packy said softly. “I don’t care who you are.”