The Voice Inside (Frost Easton Book 2)

by Brian Freeman

  23

  “Are you the one who called me?” Jess asked the Asian bartender in the downstairs bar in Japantown. He had plucked eyebrows, and his eyelashes were as full as any model on the cover of Vogue. She thought about asking him what shade of lipstick he was wearing, because she wanted it for herself.

  “I called you?” he replied. “Who are you?”

  “You said a guy named Rudy had a message for me.”

  He checked her out, and his lips bent into a smile. “Oh, you’re the girlfriend. Oh, sure. Well, sorry, your ex is long gone, and he’s not coming back. He left with a horny little thing.”

  “When did they leave?”

  “I don’t know. I lose track of time in here. An hour ago? It got busy, so I didn’t call you right away. Hey, as long as you’re here, you want to cry into a martini? I make a pretty sweet cosmo.”

  Jess dug in her back pocket for a piece of paper, which she unfolded on the bar. “Is this the guy?”

  The bartender picked up the file photo of Rudy Cutter. His soft eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What’s this about? Are you a cop or something?”

  Jess reached for her badge by instinct, but her badge wasn’t there. The reality hit her for the first time that she wasn’t a cop anymore. That part of her life was over. She didn’t even know what she was doing here, putting herself in the middle of an investigation that no longer had her name on it.

  “Do I look like a cop?” she asked him.

  “Yeah, you do,” he replied, as if it were finally dawning on him that he’d made a mistake.

  “Then answer the question. Is this the guy?”

  “Yeah, that’s him,” the man replied.

  “Does he still look like this?” Jess asked, stabbing the photo with a finger.

  “Pretty much. He had a clean shave. No stubble. He was wearing a trendy fedora with a double brim in yellow. Sunglasses, too. Little rectangular sunglasses and a leather jacket.”

  “His full name is Rudy Cutter. Does that mean anything to you?”

  The man picked up the photo again and stared at it, and he looked as if his powder makeup were going to dissolve in a soup of sweat. “Oh, shit. That guy? That’s him?”

  “That’s him.”

  “I thought he looked familiar. Damn it, I knew I’d seen him before.”

  “What did he tell you?” Jess asked.

  “He said his girlfriend dumped him, and he was looking to hook up.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yeah, I told you, he left with a girl.”

  “You also told me that you were the one who fixed him up,” Jess reminded him.

  The bartender squirmed. His eyes darted back and forth. “Look, he asked for my help in finding a girl with the right attitude, you know? Someone looking for a party. He gave me fifty bucks to make an introduction.”

  “And you found someone for him?” Jess asked.

  “In here? It wasn’t hard.”

  “You slip her anything?”

  “What, like drugs? No! I may have made her drinks a little strong, but nobody complains about that.”

  “Who was she?” Jess asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before. She’s not a regular.”

  “Did she give you a name?”

  “Maggie, I think. Or something like that. No last name. She paid cash for her first couple of drinks, and then this guy picked up the rest. No credit card. I’m telling you, I don’t know who she was.”

  “Describe her,” Jess said. “How would I pick her out in a crowd?”

  “You wouldn’t. She looked like a hundred other girls. Long brown hair, too much makeup, little black dress.”

  “Did you eavesdrop on their conversation?” Jess asked. “Where were they going when they left?”

  “A concert at the Fillmore. He had an extra ticket for Japandroids, and he was looking for someone to go with him.”

  “Japandroids. Is that a real group?”

  “Hell yes. Great rockers.”

  “Did you actually see these tickets?” Jess asked.

  “Yeah, he showed them to me. It wasn’t a con.”

  “Do you remember anything else? Anything that would help me find this girl or where she lives?”

  The bartender shook his head. “Look, if I’d recognized this guy, if I knew it was this psycho, I wouldn’t have helped him.”

  Jess wanted to believe that, but she knew that money talked. A fifty-dollar bill erased most moral objections. She left the bar and jogged back up the steps to Post Street. Japantown was crowded with traffic and pedestrians hunting for sake and sushi. Across the street in the plaza, the Peace Pagoda was lit in green, looking like a giant laser weapon in some sci-fi movie. The night was cool, and drizzle gave a wet sheen to her trench coat.

  She studied the faces around her, but she knew that Cutter was long gone, and he wasn’t coming back. Maybe he was at the Fillmore, or maybe the tickets were just a ruse to lead her in the wrong direction.

  The only thing she knew for certain was that Cutter had paid the bartender to call her. He wanted her to chase him.

  Frost found Jess standing next to a stoplight on Geary Street, across from the yellow-brick building that housed the Fillmore. A cigarette leaned out of her mouth, as usual, and her lips tilted downward into a perpetual frown. Her hair and skin glistened with rain. She had eyes that never seemed to blink, and they were focused on the doorway to the theater, where mist blew through the glow of a streetlight.

  For up-and-coming bands, the Fillmore was the ultimate high. It meant you were playing the same stage where ’60s music royalty had been crowned. Grateful Dead. Jefferson Airplane. Santana. Even hardened rockers felt the awe.

  “Did anyone remember seeing Cutter?” Frost asked Jess.

  “No, I showed his photo around the box office, but nobody could pick him out. When you’ve got a few hundred bodies shoving to get close to the stage, you don’t see the individual faces.”

  “You think he’s really inside? Or is this all some kind of trick?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure what his game is. But he flashed those concert tickets for a reason. He wanted us here.”

  “Did you call Hayden?” Frost asked.

  Jess exhaled something that might have been a laugh and might have been a snort. “Yeah, because I’m the person he wants to talk to. I’m not supposed to be here at all. If Hayden scrambles cops on my say-so, the new investigation’s already poisoned. Maybe that’s what Cutter is counting on.”

  “Even if he’s inside, I can’t arrest him, you know,” Frost said. “He hasn’t committed any crime that we know of. We don’t have any probable cause to tie him to the murder of Jimmy Keyes.”

  “Yeah, but you can put the fear of God in him. And you can scare off the girl he’s with.”

  “Okay. I’ll check it out.”

  “Thanks. I hope I didn’t pull you away from anything important. Like a date with Eden Shay.”

  It was a joke, but a joke from Jess always had an edge. He knew what this was about. She’d put herself out there by offering to sleep with him, and he’d turned her down. She wanted to know if he’d done the same with Eden. Jess was as tough a cop as he’d ever known, but she was still a woman, and he’d hurt her feelings. She was also in a dark place and looking for reasons to feel bad about herself.

  “I was with my parents,” he told her.

  “Yeah? How are they?”

  “Fragile,” he said.

  “Well, I’m sorry to take you away from them.”

  “No, I appreciate the rescue,” he said. “I wasn’t in much of a mood to talk right now. Why don’t you go back home? There’s nothing more you can do here.”

  Jess shook her head. “I’ll keep watch while you’re inside. I want to be here in case he rabbits.”

  “And then what? You can’t stop him.”

  He saw the cloud on her face. She kept forgetting. Twenty years as a cop didn’t go away easily.

  “I
can follow him,” she said. “I won’t let him see me. At least we’ll know where he goes and whether he’s alone.”

  It was pointless for him to argue. Jess was stubborn, and she was going to do whatever she wanted.

  “Did you find out anything more about the girl at the bar?” Frost asked.

  “Brown hair, lots of makeup, black dress.”

  “That really narrows it down.”

  “Cutter’s wearing a fedora. Double yellow stripes on the brim.”

  “Just like half the hipsters in the city,” Frost said.

  “Look who’s talking, Justin Timberlake,” she muttered sarcastically.

  Frost laughed without taking offense, but he knew Jess was trying to be cruel. He was running out of patience with her. She was more upset than she let on about her life being turned upside down, but if she wanted to feel sorry for herself, he couldn’t do anything except let her wallow. She’d brought it on herself, and they both knew it.

  “I’m going over there,” he told her in a clipped voice. “Keep your eyes open.”

  Jess didn’t reply. She smoked, and she shrugged with false bravado, as if she didn’t care about anything. Her eyes were as cold as the rain.

  Frost put his head down and crossed Fillmore Street toward the theater door. As he got closer, he could already hear the music trying to bust through the walls and the screams of the people inside. There was something animal-like about a concert floor. Pack the crowd together, turn up the volume, turn down the lights, and shatter your eardrums with noise. In a room like that, you couldn’t tell the hunter from the hunted.

  The thought flitted in and out of his mind that he could shove his gun against Rudy Cutter’s heart in there, pull the trigger, and no one would ever know.

  It was just a bad fantasy.

  He went inside.

  24

  The music thumped inside Rudy’s chest like the beating of a second heart, wild and loud.

  Hundreds of people squeezed shoulder to shoulder, screaming and throwing their hands in the air. Spotlights, like bright eyes, streamed through clouds of fog and cast an orange glow over the mass of bodies. The crowd undulated in unison, like a single living thing, dancing up and down. Elegant chandeliers dangled over their heads, strangely out of place here, as if a revolutionary army had stormed the royal palace. The floor shook. The band ruled.

  Rudy didn’t dance like the others. He stood where he was, as motionless as a wooden mannequin, except to swivel his head to study the faces shining in the moving lights and monitor the exits out of the theater. He hid behind the mask of his sunglasses. His hands were in his pockets. He had nothing with him, other than cash; his backpack was hidden in an alley two blocks away. It would be easy enough to retrieve when he needed what was inside.

  Beside him, Magnolia shoved her fingers in her mouth and whistled, but the noise was soundless amid the din. She tossed her head back and forth, and her long hair swirled underneath the brim of the hat he’d dropped on her head. Her forehead was dotted with sweat. Her lips mouthed the lyrics of whatever song the band was playing, but he couldn’t make out the words.

  As she danced, the spaghetti strap of her little black dress slipped down one shoulder. He admired the exposed bare skin and the creamy curve of her neck. She saw him watching her, and she shouted something, but he couldn’t hear it. Then she grabbed his waist, pulled her body next to his own, and kissed him with her tongue snaking inside his mouth. He could see her eyes, which were big and drunk. He wondered if she’d scored some pills from someone in the crowd.

  That was fine. That made it easier.

  Magnolia’s lips found their way to his ear. She shouted at him, but he could barely hear her. “You’re cute.”

  She was definitely drunk. Definitely stoned. He let his hand drift downward on the back of her dress.

  “So are you,” he mouthed at her. He didn’t know if she understood him, but her eyes had a horny fire.

  “I’m having a great time. The music is great.” She pressed herself hard against his body and breathed into his ear again. “Wanna get lucky?”

  Rudy grinned at her, which was all the encouragement she needed. She kissed him again, and down below, where the hips of strangers bumped around them, her fingers fished inside his loose pocket. Squeezing. Tugging. His breath caught with what she was doing to him. It wasn’t going to take long for him to explode that way, but after she’d teased him to the edge, her hand disappeared. He tried to grab her wrist, but she nimbly avoided him and patted his cheek. She gave him a wicked smile and shook her head. With her face an inch away, he read her lips as she said, “Save that for later.”

  She didn’t know there would be no later.

  The band’s song ended. The split second of silence in the hall was followed by whoops and cries. His ears rang. Everyone was breathless.

  “I need a drink,” Magnolia said.

  “I’ll get you one.”

  “I gotta pee first,” she said.

  “Okay, we’ll drink when you get back. You like champagne?”

  “I love champagne.”

  “What kind?”

  “The most expensive kind.”

  He smiled. “Sure.”

  “What if I lose you in here?” she asked.

  “You won’t.”

  Her hand dipped into her purse. She pulled out a business card and nestled against him and slid it into the pocket of his jacket. “Just in case. My address is on the card.”

  Magnolia twirled away, stumbling against two other men. If the collision had been harder, it would have been like toppling dominoes. She wiggled a finger at Rudy to say good-bye, and then she weaved into the crowd. He followed her progress by watching the bounce of his fedora on her head, but he lost her among the sea of bodies.

  Japandroids started playing again, drowning out whistles that were as sharp as knives. The throbbing guitars of the song growled like a monster in his head. He checked his watch and did another slow survey of the hall. The exits. The balconies. The cautious gazes of the security guards. If they were looking for him, if the alert had come down, they didn’t show it.

  And yet his sixth sense tingled. That was the one that saved you in the prison yard. Someone was watching him.

  Rudy was casual about trying to figure out who it was. He pretended to be into the music. He pumped the air with one fist and shouted into the echo chamber. No one could hear him. Fresh fog spilled from machines in the ceiling like a damp cloud, giving him cover. He turned slowly, with his stare sweeping the faces behind him. They went in and out of focus in the haze.

  There she was.

  A stranger, not even ten feet away. Her eyes drilled into him.

  She had blond hair and was probably twenty-five years old. She was dressed to party, in a gold dress bare up to her thighs, with stiletto heels. A threaded chain adorned her neck, and matching earrings dangled from her ears. She had blue eyes, and the only way to describe them now was arctic blue. Cold as ice.

  He watched two words form on her lips, as if she were talking to herself. Rudy Cutter.

  He didn’t see any fear in her expression, and he knew why. She had a date with her who loomed head and shoulders above the crowd, at least six foot five, built like a fullback. She tugged on his arm, and the man leaned down. As she spoke, his eyes darted among the people in front of him until they landed on Rudy. Then they stopped dead, and his face hardened.

  There was no doubt. The giant recognized him, too.

  Rudy turned away from them. He focused on the stage again, as if he were in no hurry. Two couples danced near him, and he sidled between them and used them as a screen. Glancing back, he could see the giant’s head. The giant was on the move, coming after him. Rudy pushed faster, swimming against the current in an ocean of bodies. Deliberately, as he passed a cocktail waitress, he used an elbow to nudge her tray, causing drinks to fly. Shouts and shoving ensued, and the disturbance made a wall. The giant was cut off.

  He worked his
way toward red curtains draping the fringe of the hall. It was darker back here; the hot lights focused on the stage. The fog covered his escape, too; it wafted through the crowd like a ghost. The music roared on; the noise and dancing and drinking went on. No one noticed him. Carefully, he peered over his shoulder to study the seething mass of people around him, but he was invisible now, one face among hundreds, and the giant was nowhere to be seen.

  The main doors beckoned him from twenty feet away. He was almost free. It was time to go.

  That was when he turned his face upward toward the balconies over his head and saw a man scanning the crowd on the floor below. He recognized the swept-back brown hair and beard.

  It was Frost Easton.

  Rudy shrank backward among the bodies. The crowd and the smoke weren’t enough to hide him. The cop looked down as Rudy looked up, like two flashlight beams connecting and growing brighter.

  Their eyes met.

  “That’s him,” Frost said to the security guard next to him. “Three o’clock, gray turtleneck, blond hair.”

  “I’ve got him,” the guard replied.

  “He’s heading for the doors. Ask your men to hold him until I get there. Don’t let him leave.”

  Frost fought through the knot of people on the balcony and broke free into the cocktail lounge. A handful of customers stood around lonely tables, amid walls filled with hundreds of rock band posters. The music from the stage made the entire room vibrate. He bolted for the stairs and ran to the concert floor. Downstairs, the ushers waited for him at the theater doors, but there was no sign of Rudy Cutter.

  “Did you see him?” he asked.

  The two men shook their heads. “He didn’t come this way.”

  Frost waded into the crowd. His head bobbed back and forth, hunting among the faces. He made his way to the red curtains where he’d spotted Cutter, but the killer had already backtracked and disappeared. Cutter was nowhere to be seen. He turned around, saw that the head of security had followed him downstairs, and shouted in the man’s ear, “He’s heading for one of the other exits. Do you have a man on each door?”