Solitary Dancer

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  McGuire said sure, and the waiter nodded again and half backed away, half turned to disappear into the measured gloom of the dining room.

  “You certainly got my secretary’s attention with your telephone message,” DeMontford said. “I assume that was your objective. It worked.”

  McGuire sat back in his chair and drank in the man’s appearance for the first time. The eyes, unwavering and fastened on McGuire’s own, were pale blue and McGuire thought inexplicably of cornflowers. The skin was taut and tanned, framing a firm nose, slightly humped, set above a pewter mustache and thin lips. When the lips parted in a wide smile they revealed unnaturally white and even teeth.

  “It wasn’t what I planned to say to her,” McGuire said. He glanced around the half-filled dining room, the tables set far enough apart to prevent eavesdropping, the diners at each table adding to the atmosphere of discretion by speaking in low tones like conspirators.

  “And what would that have been?” DeMontford appeared amused, watching McGuire as though he were a stand-up comic about to deliver a monologue.

  “I wanted to tell her your nuts were on an anvil and I had a hammer in my hand,” McGuire said.

  At first, DeMontford responded as though he hadn’t heard McGuire. His smile, if anything, grew slightly wider but he gave himself away by narrowing his eyes ever so slightly before shaking his head and lifting his glass to sample the expensive single-malt Scotch. “Well, well,” he said, sipping from the glass and looking casually around the room. “Well, well, well.”

  This was all together too much.

  Some other man had come bounding up the stairs, making far more noise than necessary, and began pounding on Billie Chandler’s door as though he were trying to wake the dead. Then he began shouting her name over and over, saying, “I know you’re in there, let me in.”

  Lily Cathcart opened her door, leaving the chain attached, and spoke across the second-floor landing at him. “Please,” she said. “There are others living here, you know.”

  The man turned his head to glare at her and Mrs. Cathcart retreated slightly from the open door, recognizing his sharp features. “She in there?” he demanded.

  “I have no idea,” Mrs. Cathcart said, “but I do wish—”

  “She’s in there, isn’t she?” the man said angrily. He took a step toward her and Mrs. Cathcart backed away even further, preparing to slam the door if necessary, frightened by the fury in his eyes. “You hear her go out today?”

  “I have no idea who comes and goes,” Mrs. Cathcart said.

  “That’s a load of crap,” the man said. “I’ll bet you know everything. You see anybody come in here today?”

  “If you don’t leave, I’m calling the police,” Mrs. Cathcart said.

  The man glared at her for a moment, then turned back to the door. “Billie!” he shouted. “Goddamn it, open up.”

  Mrs. Cathcart closed the door and returned to her living room. If he doesn’t leave in one minute I’ll do it, she promised herself. I will call the police. This is outrageous.

  But the man left shortly afterward and she remained where she was, shaking with anger and remembering that she had seen the same man at Billie’s door recently, perhaps just a day or so ago. And she would tell the police all about it if he should ever return.

  “How much do you know about my association with the police department?” DeMontford asked. He was sitting back in his chair, watching McGuire expectantly, as though waiting for an amusing play to begin.

  “You’re supposedly cooperating in an undercover investigation concerning fraud,” McGuire said. “In exchange for immunity from prosecution.”

  “Not quite.” DeMontford leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “The fact is, there is no record of my having broken any law. Or committed any transgression. None at all. So there is no risk of prosecution. By working with Dan Scrignoli, I am fulfilling my duty as a concerned and involved citizen.”

  “Sure, there’s no record,” McGuire said. “All part of the deal.”

  “No record.” DeMontford’s hand cut the air in a horizontal motion across the table. “Nothing. Remember that.”

  “All right,” McGuire said. “So talk to me about Heather Lorenzo.”

  DeMontford sat back again as the waiter arrived carrying McGuire’s beer and a chilled Pilsner glass on a silver tray. “Thank you, Vincent,” DeMontford smiled, and he watched the waiter leave before speaking to McGuire. “Any idea how many women Jack Kennedy screwed in the White House?”

  McGuire shrugged, pouring the beer into the tall glass. “The hell’s that got to do with Heather Lorenzo?”

  “I heard close to two hundred,” DeMontford said. His voice was tinged with admiration, as though measuring an associate’s wealth. “Considering he was in office less than three years, that’s a new one about every five days.”

  McGuire watched DeMontford, waited for him to continue.

  “And a lot of people still think he may be the best president we ever had. Don’t you find that interesting?”

  “Not really.” McGuire sipped his beer.

  “The point is,” DeMontford said, “what a man does with his libido isn’t important. Not nearly as important as what he does with his mind.”

  “Heather Lorenzo,” McGuire said, setting the beer glass down, “was not killed by somebody’s mind. She was killed by a baseball bat swung at her body and by a knife plunged into her gut. A particularly brutal death.”

  “Brutal?” DeMontford said. “You’re shocked by brutality? A Boston homicide cop? I suspect you don’t read much history, do you?” Before McGuire could respond, he waved the question away with his hand. “Of course you don’t. You’re probably too practical, or consider yourself to be.”

  DeMontford sat back and stroked his mustache with his fingertips.

  “In World War Two, the toughest resistance fighters against the Nazis were the Serbian Chetniks, the meanest, most fanatic guerillas of the war, and when they weren’t setting up massacres of the Germans, they were fighting among themselves or wiping out Croats and Muslims.”

  DeMontford shrugged. “Things haven’t changed that much, have they? Anyway, the Chetniks had a favourite method of executing prisoners. Do you know what it was? I’ll tell you what it was. They would choose two men of equal weight or better yet, a man and a woman, that was a favourite, and they would hang them from opposite ends of the same short length of rope tossed over a tree limb. Then they would remove the binds from their hands.”

  DeMontford paused to watch McGuire’s reaction. When he saw none, he continued.

  “The poor devils would start clawing at each other, trying to pull themselves up for another breath or two while the Chetniks stood around and laughed. Now that’s brutal, McGuire.”

  “And I hear the Turks had a special way of punishing unfaithful women,” McGuire offered. “Something about tomcats.”

  “Yes.” DeMontford smiled again. “I’m impressed. You’re more widely read than I thought. The Turks would strip the woman naked, place her in a gunnysack with two tomcats and a heavy stone, tie it all up and throw it in the sea. I’ve always found that fascinating. What went on inside the gunnysack, I mean. The tomcats in a frenzy, the woman hysterical . . . Every death is filled with terror, McGuire. Of one kind or another. You of all men should know that.”

  “How much terror did Heather Lorenzo suffer before she died?” McGuire asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “There was blood everywhere. In the foyer, down the hall, in her office, back up the hall. Everywhere.”

  “You know quite a lot about her death. How much did you know about her life?”

  “I was related to her,” McGuire said. “By marriage.”

  “I know that. I meant the little scheme she had. The music piped into her room. The camera aimed at the bed. The special lighting
she used, invisible to the human eye but very good at creating images on infrared film. The cute little way she had of threatening to destroy a man’s life, his reputation. The woman had no feelings at all, McGuire. Except anger. No compassion. She wanted only to sell her dirty pictures like they were some sort of . . . some kind of commodity, for God’s sake.”

  “Just another business deal,” McGuire said.

  “It was blackmail, McGuire.” DeMontford’s face had grown red with anger but he still managed to smile. “What made it so good, what made her so effective, was that she could be romantic about it. I mean, she wasn’t interested in one night stands. She went after a kind of commitment, relationship. The kind a married man cannot easily explain away. The kind that leads to confrontations and lawsuits. The kind he’ll pay thousands to avoid.”

  “The kind that would drive him to kill her,” McGuire said.

  DeMontford nodded. “Agreed. And there were dozens of men who might have. You know that. She told me when she showed me the pictures. Our pictures. She said there were dozens of other men, all wealthy, all successful and all weak enough to be seduced by her. All carefully selected and used. Trying to make it easier for me to capitulate, sign the check, chalk it up to experience.”

  He shook his head in admiration.

  “You know, when Heather first came to me with those pictures and sprang everything on me, she was so cool and specific about the terms I considered hiring her on the spot. The idea actually crossed my mind. I thought, ‘This woman could outperform every securities salesman on my staff.’”

  “You didn’t offer her a job.”

  DeMontford drained his glass.

  “You killed her,” McGuire said.

  DeMontford lowered the glass and looked out the window at the pedestrians scurrying past on Boylston Street, their collars turned up against the chill. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. His amused expression had faded. “I was at my home on the Cape with Dan Scrignoli all night. Preparing material for the investigation.”

  “Bullshit.” McGuire sat back in his chair.

  DeMontford looked back at McGuire, visibly annoyed. “You’re a damn fool,” he said angrily. “What makes you think you can intimidate me? You have no legal standing, you have no respect, you have nothing.”

  McGuire shrugged.

  “You used to be a hero,” DeMontford said. “I remember reading about you in the newspapers. How you went up against that priest killer a few years ago. Now you’re just a bum. They wouldn’t have let you through the front door of this place if I hadn’t told them to.”

  DeMontford’s words seemed to amuse him and the anger faded, replaced with a dry smile.

  “I thought I would do you a favour. Dan Scrignoli told me what a good man you once were. He said you’d had a string of bad luck and now you were trying to turn things around. I’m a good Catholic, I remember how you solved those priest killings. And I’m concerned about maintaining my reputation as a civic leader. So I thought perhaps we could talk. I might even be able to offer you something, a helping hand perhaps. But you don’t deserve it. You deserve nothing but my contempt. You’re just another street bum.”

  McGuire watched DeMontford carefully and in silence, which appeared to annoy the other man. His words tumbled out in longer sentences.

  “Remember when I said the things a man does with his libido aren’t nearly as important as what he does with his mind?” The elegant tone had vanished from DeMontford’s voice, replaced by an edge, a low growl that was both measured and relentless. “Well, I built the best privately owned securities operation in the northeast. The very best. I count the governor, three United States senators and a former president among my friends. All these connections were made by me, my hard work, my energy, all of it with my mind. I have status, McGuire, something you’re not even within shouting distance of. Status and standing and responsibilities, and I am married to a woman from a family that represents the finest of American society. And I would not risk any of it, not a shadow of it, for another woman, especially one like Heather Lorenzo.”

  “But you did,” McGuire said. “You slept with her.”

  DeMontford dismissed the thought with a shake of his head. “I’ve slept with many women without risking my position. She was just one more.”

  DeMontford leaned toward McGuire and dropped his voice even lower. “You may have been related to her, McGuire, but unless you were intimate with her, you wouldn’t know. You’d never know what that woman could do for a man. Heather Lorenzo had more qualities that attract a man than you could ever imagine. I don’t mean just physical qualities. I mean a kind of total package, a vibrancy, a . . . an insatiability, if that’s the word—”

  “She was a hot fuck,” McGuire said.

  DeMontford smiled tightly. “I suppose that’s the kind of phrase you prefer.”

  “And I’ll bet your wife’s about as much fun in bed as a bag of lobsters.”

  DeMontford sat back in his chair and inhaled with fast, shallow breaths. “I was mistaken,” he said. “You’re not a bum, McGuire. You are a pig.”

  The two men continued staring at each other, DeMontford with indignation, McGuire with a cool detachment, wondering how much more it would take to trigger an explosion in the other man. Before either could speak, the maître d’ arrived at the table and presented a cordless telephone receiver to McGuire.

  “A call for you, sir,” he said, then turned to DeMontford. “The salmon is on its way.”

  DeMontford nodded, still glaring at McGuire, who brought the receiver to his ear and spoke into it.

  The voice at the other end was Zelinka’s. “Have I interrupted the main course?” the Hungarian asked, but his voice said he didn’t care if he had.

  “I hear it’s on the way,” McGuire said, watching the waiter approach, pushing a teak and silver serving cart toward the table.

  “Perhaps you should ask for a doggy bag then,” Zelinka said. “I am in my car, turning onto Arlington Street. I will be there in three or four minutes.”

  The waiter arrived and with a flourish removed the ornate sterling silver cover from the serving dish revealing two large salmon fillets, pink islands in a sea of thick lemon-coloured sauce. DeMontford kept his eyes on McGuire and gave the waiter a flick of the hand that could have been a gesture of either approval or dismissal.

  “You want us to set a place for you?” McGuire asked.

  “No,” Zelinka said. “Meet me outside. At the curb.” Zelinka’s cellular telephone crackled. “There has been a murder reported. I am heading there now.”

  “Who?” McGuire said.

  He heard a moment or two of traffic noise, another crackle in his ear, and the line died.

  McGuire reached for his topcoat, stood up and shrugged into it. Then he stood over DeMontford. “You killed her,” he said, staring into the other man’s eyes.

  The waiter continued to prepare DeMontford’s plate as though he were totally deaf to the words being passed back and forth between the two men.

  “I know why,” McGuire said. “And I know how. And I know that when Zelinka and I pull everything together, a herd of lawyers won’t be able to save your rich status-seeking well-connected ass, DeMontford.”

  If anything, McGuire’s words seemed to calm the other man. “I don’t believe we have any reason to talk further.” The waiter set a plate of salmon in front of him. “I have said everything I wanted to say and you have said everything you need to say.”

  McGuire glanced to his left, through the bay window that looked out onto Boylston Street. The beggar was returning, shaking his battered paper cup and thrusting it toward passersby. “No, I haven’t,” he said, and spun on his heel toward the door.

  Outside, the air had the sharpness of a knife’s edge and McGuire buttoned his coat to his neck before trotting along the sidewalk to catch up with the beggar. He
spoke a few words to him, thankful that the brisk wind carried the man’s body aroma away from him. The beggar glanced back at the bay window where DeMontford sat watching McGuire. Then he exposed a mouth of brown teeth with his smile and extended a hand to McGuire who placed a ten-dollar bill in it.

  At the sound of a horn, McGuire glanced around to see a gray Plymouth waiting at the curb, Zelinka behind the wheel. He jogged toward it, opened the door and slid into the car’s musty warm interior, but before Zelinka could pull away, McGuire touched his shoulder and said, “Wait a second.”

  Zelinka followed McGuire’s eyes back to the bay window of the hotel where Harley DeMontford had just placed the first morsel of Chablis-poached salmon into his mouth. All three men watched the beggar, his eyes gleaming and his mouth working in silent laughter as he approached the window, his hands at his hips. Then, in a gesture as explicit as it was timeless, the beggar pulled his trousers down to his knees and backed up to press his buttocks against the window inches from DeMontford who ceased his chewing and turned his head away, an expression of disgust visible on his face just before he covered it with his starched white dinner napkin.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “You know a woman named Billie Chandler.” Zelinka shifted the car into gear and pulled into the evening traffic.

  “Billie?” McGuire turned away from the scene at the hotel window. “What about her?”

  “She is dead.”

  McGuire stared at Zelinka, waiting for him to continue.

  Zelinka swung the car to the right, down Charles Street. “She was found strangled in her bed. It happened some time this afternoon.”

  “Who found her?”

  “Your friend Donovan and two uniformed officers he flagged down in the street. They broke in, on Donovan’s suspicions.”

  “We’re going there now?”

  Zelinka grunted.

  “Why do you want me along?” Billie. Jesus, poor Billie.

  “Because things are beginning to come together very quickly and I’m certain this woman’s death is part of it,” Zelinka said.