by Don Travis
“Emilio? When did you find that out?”
“Gene Enriquez just told me. But don’t jump to conclusions. That doesn’t necessarily mean this is Emilio’s deal.”
“The hell you say! He was the one with the pictures in the first place, and if he rented the blackmail boxes, that’s proof enough for me. The fact he’s running and nobody is putting pressure on me is just icing on the cake.”
“That’s true on the face of it, but I’ve learned he started doing chores for people. Sometimes it was probably for money, and sometimes it was to get in good with someone. It’s possible he rented the boxes for someone without knowing their purpose. That’s why I’ve been trying to get in touch with the bastard. Even if he didn’t know why they were rented, he knows who told him to rent them. And that’s who we want to get to.”
“I still say that’s bullshit.”
“Maybe, but this thing is beginning to look a little more complicated than it first appeared. If Emilio were trying some extortion on his own, he’d be more up-front about it. I’m going to keep an open mind until I catch up with him.”
“You mentioned Gene Enriquez. You involved the police?”
“Yes and no. Once my house was firebombed—”
“Your house was firebombed?”
“Yeah, a couple of Sundays ago. Not much damage, but a neighbor called 911. Gene heard the dispatcher’s call go out over the air and showed up. I had to tell him something, so I went off the record and filled him in. He’s been helping out where he can. Like finding out who rented the mailboxes.”
“And you’re sure that was Emilio?”
“The postal clerk identified him from the picture you gave me.”
I allowed Del to vent a little before I asked about the status of the Premier-union tussle.
“Some nastiness, but it’s not excessive. Harding tried to have some picketers arrested—against my advice, I might add. Not much more will happen until the employees vote on organizing the company.”
“When is that scheduled?”
“January.”
“Emilio must have been pretty comfortable with his setup with you. Why do you think he deliberately sabotaged the arrangement?”
“I’m not sure he’s capable of a long-term relationship, no matter how good it is. But in the end, it was a struggle for control. He’d started asserting himself, making demands. If you really want to know what I think, I believe the little shit wanted to prove he could get away with what I couldn’t—bringing in someone else to share a very private and personal liaison. He’s a cocky bastard.”
“Well, let’s see if we can scare up the cocky bastard.” I took out my phone.
No one answered Emilio’s cell, so I left another message. Del grabbed the instrument and added fifteen seconds of vitriol. Despite the words I sensed an unuttered yearning in his voice.
I caught his eye when he handed the phone back to me. “Anything new with your competition? Addleston?”
“No, we’re both being as civil as possible. There’s no clue from the partners who’s going to be selected. Hell, it might not be either one of us.”
“The Blahs are a staid old firm. Aren’t you a little young to be considered for a full partnership?”
“Why do you keep calling us the Blahs?”
“Never mind. Just answer the question.”
“Nobody else brings in the dollars I do. Right now I’ve got a hand in a merger that will bring the firm over $500,000. And that’s just one deal.”
“Any problems with it?” When he shook his head, I said, “Look, Del, I need to know everything you’re working on, especially any criminal cases. At least run over the cases with me, and we’ll argue about naming the clients later.”
No wonder he was so hard to reach. For the next fifteen minutes, Del cited a litany of cases involving tax planning, setting up new businesses, reorganizing old ones, partnership disputes, minority stockholder complaints, and a host of other boring cases. But none of them were before the criminal bar. Nor was there anything that was likely to generate an attempt to compromise an opposing attorney.
“It doesn’t add up,” I said. “There’s nothing here to make anyone desperate enough to resort to blackmail. Charlie and I took a discreet look at those contentious cases you gave me. We couldn’t find anything there either. Are you sure there’s nothing else? How about that big merger you mentioned? Anyone stand to lose money on that?”
“Not that I can tell. Control of a major local business will pass to an even bigger regional company, but the local owners will end up with a pot full of money.”
“Is it a friendly takeover?” I asked.
“They were invited in over the objections of a faction of the board.”
“Bad blood?”
“Nothing serious,” Del said.
“You represent the regional company?”
“I’m local counsel for them, yes.”
“When is it supposed to come off?”
“Right after the new year—for tax purposes.”
Then I took him through his relationship with Royal Crest’s management company. It was landlord-tenant. Nothing more. No disputes or complaints.
“I use the place to sleep, and that’s about all,” he said.
“And to host your guests.”
“Well, that too.”
I scratched an itchy place on my chin. “Do they know you’re gay?”
“Probably, but I don’t know for sure.”
Del maintained he had no contact with Hickey, the maintenance supervisor, except when he had a mechanical or electrical problem that needed taking care of. He confirmed that Hickey had been in his apartment for such repair work, sometimes when Del wasn’t around.
“You think he rifled my place while I was gone?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him, would you?”
He shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t.”
“How about when Emilio was living there?”
“Surely you don’t think Emilio would have gotten together with that big, hulking brute?”
I rolled my eyes. “Emilio would get it on with a moose, if the moose paid him. But I was thinking Hickey could have been in the apartment while you and Emilio were both away. He could have found the pictures and the negatives.”
Del looked doubtful. “I don’t think so. Emilio kept the pictures in his backpack, and he hauled that around with him all the time. I don’t ever recall him leaving it behind in the apartment.”
“Could he have left it in the Mustang in the parking garage?”
“He didn’t park in the garage. He parked in the lot. I suppose he could have left it overnight, but it would have been unusual.”
“Did you have copies of the pictures?” I asked.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why not? Emilio enjoyed hauling them out and looking at them from time to time. Didn’t you?”
“I probably would have gotten around to asking for a set sooner or later. But then we started having our problems.”
Getting slightly irked at having to drag every detail out of him, I asked who took the pictures.
“Emilio. He set up a tripod and tripped the camera with a timer.” Del sat with his head down for a moment. “So, you think Hickey’s the one, huh?”
“He’s a possibility. I’ve only talked to him once, and he wasn’t very cooperative. But he has a record.”
I declined Del’s invitation to dinner, and as I started to leave, he thought of something else.
“You asked about criminal cases. The closest thing I have is acting as attorney for a woman who’s a witness in a criminal matter. The court simply appointed me to look out for her interests since she was peripherally involved.”
“What’s the case?”
“A double homicide of two drug dealers up in Santa Fe last year, a husband-and-wife team. Gilbert and Helen Zellner. I say Santa Fe, but it actually happened somewhere between Santa Fe and Española.”
“How doe
s your client fit in?” I asked.
“She was the girlfriend of one of the guys accused of doing the shooting. She claims she wasn’t involved in the murders. It could be she’s being cooperative to save her own skin, but I don’t know that. Frankly it’s not my job either. I’m merely charged by the court to see that she’s legally protected during this process.”
“Who is she?”
“It’s public record, I guess. Miranda Skelton. She’s an Española girl. Ran around with a local biker gang called the Iron Crosses. Hell’s Angels wannabes. Even so, they’re badasses. Her boyfriend, Melvin Whiznant, is the Cross leader. He and his partner in crime, Jaime Rodrigo—called Adder on the street—are both in jail awaiting trial for the murders.”
“Christ, Del, why didn’t you mention this before?”
He shrugged. “Slipped my mind. In the first place, it’s a minor housekeeping chore for the court. It doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. In the second, it has nothing to do with Emilio. Nothing whatsoever.”
“When’s the trial?”
“After the first of the year.”
I shook my head. “I wish you’d told me about it before. Do you realize everything’s coming to a head at the first of the year? The Premier-union fight, the partnership announcement, the merger, the murder trial. Everything.”
“Guess that’s right.”
“If it were me, I wouldn’t be sleeping too well.”
“It’s not like anyone’s trying to get rid of me. They’re just trying to compromise me.”
“Well, they want something from you, and it isn’t $5,000.”
Chapter 13
I CALLED Paul from home that night. This time when I got his voice mail, I left a message, an abject apology, and a request for him to please phone me that bordered on begging. My chest cavity felt hollow; the air around me seemed too thin to sustain life. I hung up, hoping against hope he’d been listening and would rush to accept my invitation to at least remain friends.
Of course it didn’t happen.
Exhausted, I turned in early and overslept the next morning. I rushed through my shower and shave and threw on clean clothes. On the way downtown, I phoned Charlie Weeks and asked if he’d been able to put anyone on Hickey’s tail yet. He had, but there was little to report. Hickey apparently lived in a duplex near Bell and San Pedro SE in what is commonly called Albuquerque’s “War Zone.” He’d gone home after work, and his tan 1996 Mercury Mystique sat at the curb all night. Around ten two unidentified men showed up with a case of beer, and the door hadn’t opened again for the rest of the night. After Hickey reported in for work this morning, Charlie’s man—yet another ex-cop named Alan Mendoza—had gone to a nearby police station to see if he could find a mug shot to identify the two visitors. Then he intended to go home for some shut-eye.
After I heard Charlie out, I asked him to nose around the Zellner murders while I looked into the merger deal Del had mentioned. Del had declined to identify either his client or the target company, but a couple of acquaintances in the investment business, including the one who handled the bulk of my trust, ought to know something since the local company was supposedly a big one. Actually it wasn’t a strain; my man knew exactly whom I was talking about.
“High Desert Investments,” he said without hesitation.
“Billingham’s company?”
“The same.”
Like many before him, Horace Billingham Sr., the family’s patriarch, came to Albuquerque in his early twenties to die. Back in those days, Central Avenue was known as TB Road because of the old Memorial Hospital and the Presbyterian Sanitarium. But New Mexico’s clear, thin air did more for Billingham’s failing lungs than all the doctors in the world. He survived and prospered. Within five years he had established a highly successful mortgage business. As the company grew, he installed family members in key positions. A year ago he had relinquished the presidency to his elder son, Joseph, although he remained Chairman of the Board. Horace Jr., a contemporary of mine, was now a senior vice president. The old man’s daughter, Louise Billingham Fields was something—secretary, probably—and her husband, Frank Fields, a stuffed shirt if there ever was one, held down the Treasurer’s slot. A split within that board would provoke a fierce family fight, and every one of them knew how to roll around in the dirt.
Rumor held that the proposed merger with Vestmark Mortgage Company, a large Texas firm, was in trouble. Joseph had sandbagged old man Billingham, but the word in the financial community was the patriarch had recovered and come out fighting. Horace Jr.—or Whorey as he was known back in our school days—had swung over to the old man’s side, most likely hoping to end up as Crown Prince of Billinghamshire.
Normally a merger fight wouldn’t involve attempted blackmail and threats of mayhem, but the Billinghams weren’t your normal entrepreneurs. They were a mean nest of vipers and merited careful examination.
I put in a phone call to the Billingham I knew best—Horace Jr, an old school buddy—but was told he was out of town. Better than a week passed without a callback. I used that time to track down two more of Emilio’s johns and satisfy myself they were not connected to Del’s case. I also spent the time worrying about the strange silence from the extortionists. Either this wasn’t as serious a matter as I’d thought, despite a death threat, or they were lying low because of my investigation.
Eventually I was ushered into Horace Jr.’s presence. He rose from behind an immense oak desk, dressed in typical banker’s attire, although more like a New York mortgage banker than an Albuquerque one. The blue-gray three-piece suit was Italian cut; the red power tie neatly dimpled. A prominent beak that definitely was not a British nose dominated his saturnine face. Some astute Billingham ancestor likely changed the family name back in the mists of time.
I’d never set foot in the Billingham Building before, so I surveyed the office curiously. The walnut wainscoting and the dark fuzzy wallpaper I associated with old-fashioned parlors weren’t Whorey’s style. This room reflected the tastes of Horace Sr., who glared down from an immense portrait mounted on the wall behind the big desk.
Whorey noticed me taking in the room and growled in what was intended as an amiable manner. “Not bad, huh? Good to see you, BJ. Sorry to be so long getting back to you, but I was out of town. It’s been awhile. Looking good, boy.”
“So are you, Whorey.”
“Those were the days, huh? Always liked to be called that. It was spot-on as a nickname. Never lacked for the stuff. Except,” added the man who had waved his daddy’s money around like a sexual lightning rod, “I never had to pay nothing for it.”
“You miss them? Those days, I mean?”
“Yeah. I do. Those were good times, huh? Damned near won the state championship our senior year, didn’t we?”
I laughed aloud. “And cried like babies when we lost by an extra point.”
“We did, didn’t we? Whole damned football team broke down like kids. Hell, we were kids.”
“More than we would ever admit.”
“Right.” The man’s face closed up and a glint of suspicion surfaced in his eyes. “What can I do for you? I’m sure you didn’t come here to relive our high school days.”
“Word on the street is the merger’s dead, and you’re the guy who put a halt to it.”
Whorey beamed and adjusted his perfectly aligned tie. “So that’s the word on the street, is it? Well, it’s not dead yet, but I expect it will be soon. I kinda got the upper hand on the deal.”
“How did you manage that? With your picture gallery?”
His jaw dropped. “How’d you know?”
“Just a guess. But then, I know how sly you can be. When greed gets in the way, reason doesn’t always work. When reason doesn’t work, a man sometimes has to take the extra step. And greed’s what’s at the bottom of the merger, right?”
“Damned straight. And that’s all it is. Can you imagine turning over Albuquerque’s leading business to some Texas conglomerate? It�
�s criminal.”
“Why are you against the buyout? You’d net a pile of money if it goes through. And I’m sure Vestmark would recognize your value to the company.”
Billingham ruined his image as a buttoned-down businessman by slouching in his high-backed executive’s chair and absently juggling a lead crystal paperweight with a sizeable gold nugget embedded in it. “I’m already sitting on Fort Knox, so why trade being a big bug on the lily pad for being a little one in the pond?”
“Makes sense.”
Whorey gave me a level look. A confession of sorts would follow. Horace Billingham Jr. had always been eager to share secrets. “I considered coming to you for help, but I figured you were too straight and narrow for the job.” He laughed aloud. “Well, not straight, maybe, but I didn’t figure personal surveillance was your thing.”
“You guessed right. I wouldn’t have enjoyed sitting on Joseph’s tail 24-7.”
“Figured. So I brought in somebody from Phoenix. A good man with long-distance lenses. Joe’s always screwed around on his wife. She knows and ignores it.” Then he virtually mirrored Del’s description of his predicament. “But pictures are something else. Hard to ignore them. And the old man would have gone apeshit if he saw them.”
“Do I know her?”
He smirked. “You do, but I can’t say more than that. You understand.”
“Yeah, I do. Confidentiality’s my bread and butter.” I relaxed in my chair, initially unaware my muscles had tightened when he began to confess. “I thought for a minute you had the goods on somebody in Vestmark.”
“Don’t need to. Squeezing Joe’s balls is enough. He’ll waffle for a while, but then he’ll fall in with the old man and me.” Whorey paused and gave a sly grin. “Tell me, did you get what you came for?”
I laughed as I stood. “You’re too sharp for me. Yep, got what I came for.”
“You gonna tell me which minority stockholder you represent?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. You don’t want to know, anyway.”
“Naw. You’re right. Don’t wanna know.”
“One more thing. Why go to Phoenix for a PI when there are plenty of them right here? It’s bound to have cost a lot more money.”
