“Won’t work. Houseboy screens all calls.”
“Then think of something he’ll be sure to come to the phone for. You talked to him once. What’d you use?”
“Fire marshal. Something about a gas leak. He won’t go for it twice.”
“No, but there’re people you’ll always take a call from.”
“Like who?”
Silence fell. Ramos, chubby and cheerful, wearing what was possibly the ugliest aloha shirt on the planet, picked up a rubber band from a container on Medina’s desk and snapped it at the far wall.
I said, “The IRS. Or anybody having to do with taxes.”
All three men looked at me, surprised. So far, out of familiarity that comes from working long hard hours together, they’d excluded me from their conversation, talked as if I weren’t there. Now they nodded.
Medina said, “Last thing a dealer wants is the IRS breathing down his neck.”
“Except a call from the IRS might panic him,” I said. “What about the county assessor’s office? Less threatening.”
“Yeah,” Colby said, “that’s it.”
Ramos let fly with another rubber band. “Okay, here’s what your primo phone guy does: I say I need to talk with Mr. Ridley personally. It’s about the adjustment of his property tax. No, it’s about the reduction of his property tax.”
Medina removed the rubber band container from his reach. “And the boy tells you Ridley’s not taking calls.”
“So I reinforce that it’s essential I talk personally with Mr. Ridley. I reinforce it several times, if necessary.”
Colby said to me, “Ramos is good at this stuff. Before he was a cop he used to sell a lot of life insurance—cold-calling, if you can believe that.”
Ramos grinned. “Let’s say the boy keeps on resisting; he’s well trained. However many times I reinforce, he says no, I can’t talk with the boss. Worst-case scenario, right? Wrong. Because then I say, ‘Tell Mr. Ridley I’ll call him back at two o’clock this afternoon. If he’s still unavailable, we’ll have to pursue the matter through other channels.’ And I hang up.”
Medina shook his head. “You call back at two, you’ll be talking to his lawyer. These scumbags, they’ve all got a lawyer or two in their pockets.”
“Uh-uh. You notice I said other channels, not legal channels. And I said tax reduction, not tax increase. It’s still a nonthreatening situation—providing Ridley takes the second call.”
“Okay,” I said. “In the meantime, where’ll I be with Buzzy Malakaua? He trusts me so far, but if he gets suspicious he’ll bolt.”
“You said he’s stashed at RKI’s hospitality suite?”
“Right.”
“Then when we’re done here, you head back, call us before you go to the suite. I make my first call to Ridley then. If he doesn’t take it, you stay away from Malakaua, go shopping or something. Be back at… let’s make it two, and ready to haul Malakaua’s ass to the Gold Coast. Now let’s take you downstairs and get you outfitted with a signaling device so you can summon backup if you need it. You put it in your pocket, it looks like the thing you control your car alarm with.”
I nodded and stood, hoping I wouldn’t have to use it.
“We’re calling Ridley back at two,” Ramos’s voice said.
“Great. I’m just aching to shop till I drop.”
I cradled the phone and said to RKI’s guard, “Everything okay with the client in the suite?”
“He hasn’t moved.” He indicated one of the TV monitors, which showed Buzzy still passed out on the couch.
“Is there someplace where I can make some calls in private?”
“Third door on the right’s a vacant office.”
I went in there, sat down at the desk, and called Peter, who sounded on the verge of falling apart. The police hadn’t turned up anything on Glenna. Next I called Tanner, who used up a full minute yelling at me for not telling him where I was going. He had good news, though: Mona Davenport had agreed to talk with me.
“I miss you,” he added. “When’re you coming back?”
“This evening, I hope.”
“I could pick you up over there.”
“No need. I’ve already bought my return ticket.”
A silence. “Puttin’ distance between us, aren’t you?”
I had no good answer for that.
My last call was to my office. Ted first, for my messages, which were of no consequence. Then Mick. He still hadn’t turned up anything on Elson Wellbright.
“You might as well shelve it for now,” I said. “I take it you haven’t started that check on Glenna?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, get right on it. She’s missing, and there may be something in her background that’ll help us find her.”
“Glenna is missing?”
“I’ll tell you about it later. Maybe by then we’ll have a happy ending.”
2:04 P.M.
“I been thinkin’ like maybe it’s not such a good idea to go see Ridley.”
“Why not, Buzzy?”
“Chip told me never to come near the house.”
“Chip’s just the houseboy, remember?”
“I don’ feel so hot.”
“You’ve got a hangover. You’ll feel better when you get some air.”
“Can’t we go back? There’s a fuck film at—”
“No more fuck films. Get in the car, Buzzy.”
“I’d feel better if I had a drink.”
“Later.”
“How d’you know Ridley’ll be home?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“Chip might not let us in.”
“Don’t you remember what we rehearsed? You just keep repeating that, and he’ll give in.”
“Says you. Somethin’ awful’s gonna happen.”
“Everything’ll be okay.”
“No, it won’t. Shit happens. Least it always happens to me.”
“Let’s go over what you’re going to say to Chip.”
“Why? It won’t work. He don’ respect me.”
“Chip doesn’t matter. Ridley must respect you. After all, he hired you.”
“… Sort of.”
“What does that mean?”
“Was Chip hired me. I’ve kind of like never met Ridley.”
Christ, now he tells me!
“Buzzy, let’s rehearse. Can’t hurt to try.”
“Okay. Um, let’s see.… Somethin’ -bad’s-goin’-down-tonight-I-gotta-talk-to-Mr.-Ridley.”
“Could you put a little more feeling into it?”
“Like how?”
“… Well, imagine that the cops’re chasing you and the only way you can escape them is to get inside that house.”
“Cops? Oh, Jesus! Okay, okay. Somethin’ bad’s goin’ down tonight. I gotta talk to Mr. Ridley. Somethin’ bad’s goin’ down tonight. I gotta talk to Mr. Ridley. Somethin’ really bad’s going down tonight! I gotta talk to Mr. Ridley now!”
“Academy Award, Buzzy.”
“I really don’ wanna do this.” Buzzy’s thick, clammy fingers gripped my forearm.
I could feel the fear in his touch. Smell it, too.
For a moment I felt sickened at how I’d tricked this pathetic, stupid man. I pictured the pride on his sister Donna’s face when she told me he had a job driving for some rich guy. I pictured the shame that would be there tomorrow. But then I pictured the forever-still face of a college friend whom I’d found dead in bed of a heroin overdose.
“Come on, Buzzy. Get out of the car.”
“I thought I told you never to come here,” the houseboy said through the intercom in the box beside the gate.
Buzzy recited his lines, his fear making them even more convincing.
“What’s going to happen tonight?”
“I gotta see Mr. Ridley! Now!”
A lock clicked, and the gate swung open. I gave Buzzy a thumbs-up sign and motioned him inside. It closed and locked behind us, and he looked over h
is shoulder, panicked. I took his arm and led him along a path bordered by palms and hibiscus and jacaranda toward the white house. When we reached the door it opened as if automatically, and we stepped into a marble-floored foyer.
A man moved from behind the door and shut it: medium height, slender, with light brown hair pulled into a ponytail. The biker who had visited the Kahai Street house last night, now clad in shorts and an orange T-shirt. Around thirty, he had regular features, a relatively unlined face, and jumpy pale blue eyes.
For a moment I thought I was looking at Eli Hathaway, the Wellbright relative who had played Elson in Glenna’s film. Then I made the connection. Had to bite back a name as I rewrote the scenario I’d previously scripted.
The man looked from Buzzy to me and back again, frowning. Anger made his lips pull taut. “You didn’t say you had somebody with you. Who’s this?”
Buzzy was silent, studying his flip-flops.
I said, “We’re here to see Mr. Ridley, Drew.”
In the silence that followed, Buzzy looked up. “Drew? His name’s Chip!”
Andrew Wellbright’s face had gone pale. He stared at me, a tic making one of his eyelids flutter.
“Buzzy has some demands to present to Mr. Ridley,” I told him. “But perhaps you could offer him a drink first? And you and I might confer privately?”
“My demands. Yeah. I wanna renegotiate!” Buzzy seemed to draw confidence from Drew’s confusion.
Drew flashed him a poisonous look, then got himself under control. “Buzzy, that door over there leads to the room where the bar is. Help yourself to anything you’d like.”
Buzzy glanced the way Drew pointed, then looked back at me, torn. “But what about—”
I said, “We’ll ask Mr. Ridley to join us later. Right now I have business with… Chip.”
Buzzy nodded and moved eagerly across the foyer.
“Jesus,” Drew muttered, “why do all the idiots beat a path to my door?” Then he turned to me, eyes narrowing. “Okay, what the hell is this about?”
I took one of my cards from my purse and handed it to him. “My name’s Sharon McCone. I’m a private investigator, affiliated with a local security firm. Your family hired me to trace your father.”
He looked down at the card, then up at me, lips twitching nervously.
“Your father is all I’m interested in,” I added. “I don’t care about you or the business you’re conducting here.”
“Then what’re you doing with him?” He jerked his chin the way Buzzy had gone.
“He was out by your gate, trying to get up the nerve to ring the bell. He says he’s unhappy with the way Mr. Ridley has treated him.”
“Oh? And what’s that he said about tonight?”
“Just an excuse to get you to let him inside.”
“I’m surprised he’s got the brains to think of it. Why are you here?”
“I need to talk with you.”
“I don’t have time for that.” He glanced distractedly into the living room behind him. “An important call’s coming in any minute now. You’ll both have to go.”
“I can’t do that. Your brother Matthew specifically asked that I see you. Now that your mother’s died—You do know she’s dead?”
“Of course I do! Gone straight to hell where she belongs.”
“Then you realize the family has to have your father declared legally dead, so the estate can be probated.”
“Doesn’t concern me.”
“Why not?”
“What did my brother tell you about me?”
“Enough so I have a good fix on what’s going on here.”
“He would let that out. He doesn’t like my line of work, but he’ll use me when it suits his purposes.”
“For what?”
“The present situation, among others.”
Best to let him think I was aware of that situation. “What others?”
He shook his head.
“Does he approve of you using the name Garvin Ridley when you’re not being Chip the houseboy?”
“Man, he told you everything! No, he doesn’t approve, says it’s an insult to the memory of Granddaddy and Uncle Gar.”
“I think it’s brilliant.” A little ego stroking never hurt. “Garvin Ridley’s a paper man. You’re just his houseboy. Anything comes down, how were you supposed to know what the boss’s real business was or where he is? Zero accountability.”
“Look, if you’ve got to talk with me, get on with it. Like I said, I’m waiting on a call, setting up a big deal. But I’m warning you: I can’t tell you anything about my father. I was long gone from Kauai when he did his disappearing act.”
“Something—anything—you remember from before he vanished might help me.”
There was a noise on the terrace at the other side of the living room. Drew started, probably thinking it was the phone, but to me it sounded like a wind chime. This Mexican deal had him severely on edge.
“Look”—he glanced at my card—“Ms. McCone, before I left Kauai I was a mess. Did a lot of coke, was strung out, paranoid, afraid of everything. My father traveled a lot. He wasn’t there for me, ever. I don’t know a damn thing about him, and I don’t give a shit what happened to him.”
“But the estate—”
“I don’t stand to inherit a cent. That was the deal when the family gave me the money to split.”
“They paid you to leave Kauai?”
“They called it staking me to a new start. Fifty thou and a stint in a fancy drug rehab hospital. I got straight, then used the bread to start up my business, create my paper man. I’m on my way to being richer than all of them put together.”
In the room where the bar was, music flared up. The Beach Boys.
Drew grimaced. “Jesus, now he’s playing my jukebox! If I wasn’t short on people to make the drops now that his broad’s split, I swear I’d kill him!” He took out his wallet, peeled off some fifties. “Here. Give this to Buzzy, tell him Ridley’s sorry for the bad treatment. Then take him back to the place where he’s staying. There’s a few hundred in it for you if you’ll stick around and baby-sit him till tonight.”
I took the money. “I’ll give it to him, but I can’t babysit. I’ve got a responsibility to your family.”
“Too bad. You look and talk like you’ve got a brain. I could use you. By the way, how come Matt didn’t mention you’d be coming by when he brought Jill here the other night?”
I’d been about to turn the conversation to the film company and Tommy Kaohi, but what he said derailed me. I feigned a coughing fit to give me time to digest the information. “Well, he was upset about her condition and probably distracted. How is she now?”
“Out cold. When you see Matt, tell him the doc’s coming on schedule to give her her shots, and I stay in the room while he’s with her, in case she says something.”
“What would she say?”
“I don’t know. Matt says she’s out of control, acting weird, making bizarre accusations against him.” He laughed, but without amusement. “Kind of like me, before I left there. I told him he should check her into the hospital where they sent me, but he wouldn’t go for it. Which makes me think there might be some truth to her accusations, whatever they are. Matt looks and acts like one of the missionary fathers, but they all had their sneaky side, and he’s no different.”
I thought back to the night of the fire. Jillian hadn’t made any accusations against her husband in my hearing, but he’d been disconcerted by something she’d said to me. “Would it be okay if I looked in on her?”
He glanced back at the living room again.
“I know—your call. But it’ll only take a minute, and when I see Matthew—”
“Okay, go ahead, but make it quick. Up those stairs, second door on the right.”
Jillian lay on her side under a dark blue comforter in the king-sized bed, her pale hair spread out on the light blue pillow. The air conditioning hummed softly, and she made little snorin
g sounds. I went over to the bed, saw someone had combed the snarls out of her hair; she looked clean and well cared for, but utterly dead to the world. When I touched her shoulder it provoked no response.
“Jillian,” I whispered.
Nothing. She was too deeply sedated to know I was there.
“Jill, what do you know that he doesn’t want you to tell anybody?”
A little sigh escaped her parted lips.
Well, there wasn’t anything I could do for her now, but I’d tell Jack Colby and Dan Ramos she was here, ask them to get her into a hospital where she’d be safe till this business with her husband was resolved. I patted her shoulder, hoping a reassuring touch would communicate itself at whatever level of consciousness she was currently existing on. Then I went back downstairs and found Drew still in the foyer—very jumpy now, snapping his fingers and glancing at his watch. His call was late.
“You’ll get Buzzy out of here?” he asked, motioning toward the room where the Beach Boys were extolling the virtues of California girls.
“Sure.”
“Mahalo.” Then he said, “Say, I just remembered something. Yesterday morning Matt met up with a woman when I dropped him for his seven-thirty flight at the airport. Pretty little babe, long light brown curls. He took her bag; they went into the terminal. D’you know who that was?”
“Glenna Stanleigh, Peter’s filmmaker friend.”
“Oh. I thought maybe she was the reason Jill’s making accusations.”
I didn’t reply immediately, because I was trying to take in this new information. Matthew had flown back to Kauai with Glenna. Why hadn’t he mentioned it to anyone?
7:10 P.M.
The whole time I was making my official statement at the HPD, I was alternately troubled by the specter of Buzzy’s terrified and betrayed face when I turned him over to Ramos and Colby, and the image of Glenna and Matthew entering the terminal at Honolulu International together. I was anxious to get back to Kauai and question him, but when I finished and asked Colby if I could leave, he told me not yet.
“Harry Medina wants to talk with you, but he’s tied up for a while. You can wait here for him.”
“Here” was a small windowless interrogation room. I looked around it in annoyance.
“Sorry, it’s the best we can do at the moment. You want anything? A Coke? Some coffee?”
A Walk Through the Fire Page 21
