“So who gets the money?”
“How do you mean?”
“Richter’s share. Who gets it now that he’s dead?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure I know the answer to that. What difference does it make?”
“I figure his heirs will have lots of pictures to sell, don’t you? Was he married?”
“I’m sure not.”
“Does he have relatives?”
“I have no idea.”
“Did he make a will?”
“I’d be surprised if he did—Gary was quite slipshod about both his personal affairs and his business arrangements. But I didn’t know him nearly as well as your questions imply.”
“How about the model in those pictures?”
“What about her?”
“It was Nina Evans, wasn’t it?”
The question made her uneasy. “I … yes. I suppose there’s no need to be coy about it. I take it you’re familiar with her work.”
I nodded. “She’s a stunning physical specimen.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Do you have any other work in your inventory that features Ms. Evans? By Richter or others?”
“I believe that shoot with Gary was her only erotic session. She mostly does art studies.” Fran glanced at her watch. “Is there anything else I can show you? I have a bas-relief in the storeroom from a Hindu temple near New Delhi—it’s the most sensuous thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do with it,” I said. When I reached the door, I indulged in a hunch. “Tell Mr. Jensen I’d like to talk about the Richter pieces sometime.”
“I don’t know any Mr. Jensen. I’m sorry.”
I was sorry, too. “How about a model named Mandy? I met her at a party one night. Did Richter do any work with her?”
Fran shook her head firmly, to close off that question and any like it. “That name is not familiar to me.”
As I left the gallery, the doorbell tinkled at my back, accusing me of child’s play.
On the way back to my car, I had to wait for a light at Roosevelt and Forty-seventh. As my mind oscillated between two-dimensional images of Nina Evans and three-dimensional holograms of Peggy Nettleton, someone joined my wait for a break in the traffic. At first glance, it didn’t seem to be anyone I knew. It seemed, in fact, to be a particularly buffeted victim of life on the city streets. On second glance, which was prompted by a low groan emitted from somewhere near her viscera, I recognized the woman as Roan.
She was clearly in pain and had curled at the waist to lessen its sting. An eye was black, a cheek was swollen, a wrist was wrapped with a roughhewn bandage made from a torn piece of cheesecloth. One arm wrapped around her belly as though that would keep things in place till she got where she was going.
When she started to cross the street, I put out a hand to stop her. “Roan?”
She tried to resist and only relented when she saw who was restraining her. “Oh. Hi.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” Her lips were barely supple enough to form the words.
“Did someone beat you up?”
She shook her head and winced from the effort.
“You act like you’ve cracked some ribs. You should see a doctor.”
“That’s where I’m headed.”
“Why don’t I go with you?”
“It’s all right. I can manage.”
“Who did this to you?”
“No one. I just fell.” Her timid eyes made her answer inaccurate.
“What did they want? Were they looking for Nina?”
Roan shook her head. “They just wanted her stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“The stuff she gave me to keep for her.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know; I didn’t look. She asked me not to, so I didn’t.”
Tears started to flow and the emission seemed to sap what was left of her strength. I grabbed her waist to support her.
“I tried not to tell them,” she sobbed, “but they hurt me. The little guy would have killed me, I think; he was having fun. What would make a person that mean?” The question was as light and airy as a cloud of poison gas.
“Who was this guy?” I asked her.
“There were two of them. Older, like you. One was bald; the little one was Hispanic. I never saw them before. I hope I never see them again.”
“What did it look like, this stuff of Nina’s?”
“An envelope. One of those padded ones.”
“How big?”
“Letter size. Maybe a little bigger.”
“What was inside?”
“I told you I didn’t look.”
“What did it feel like? A book?”
She shook her head. “Papers, maybe.”
“Photographs?”
“Maybe.” Roan groaned again and twisted out of my grasp. “I got to get to the clinic before they close.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked again.
“No. Please don’t.”
I reached in my wallet and gave her a twenty. “Buy some food; buy some aspirin.”
“Thanks.”
Roan groaned with the effort to pocket the bill, then shuffled through a break in the traffic and disappeared down the block.
When I got back to the motel, there was a message from Peggy to call as soon as I got in. I poured myself a slug of scotch, indulged in some refreshed recollection of the times we had shared drinks at the end of a difficult day, then picked up the phone and did her bidding.
“Thank God you called,” she began, her voice low and distressed and ulterior.
“What’s happened?”
“They took Ted in for questioning.”
“The police?”
“Yes.”
“About Richter?”
“Yes. Apparently Ted did go to Richter’s studio several days ago looking for Nina. He and Richter got in this shouting match and the guy next door came over to complain and at some point Ted told him his name. When the police were swarming all over after the body was discovered, this guy told them about the fight and the cops came to the office to question him. Whatever he said made them decide to take him downtown. Ted was scared to death. What should I do?”
“Get him a lawyer.”
“I already did. Do you think he’s in trouble, Marsh? Tell me the truth.”
I decided not to tell her that was exactly what I thought. And maybe even what I hoped. “They’re just covering the bases,” I evaded.
“Are you sure? What about the pictures I found?”
“They won’t know about the pictures unless one of us tells them. And even then, they just prove he was there, which they know already. Your man will be home for dinner. And after he gets there, I’m going to drop by for a chat.”
“Why?”
“It’s time we pooled our resources.”
It took her a while to respond. “He won’t like it, Marsh. He gets uptight whenever I mention you. He knows I still care about you. He’s afraid I care too much.”
My cheeks reddened and my chest tightened. If she’d been in the room, I’d have tried very hard to kiss her. Instead, I made do with logic.
“That seems less important at this point than finding Nina before the guy who killed Richter decides to do the same to her,” I said, awash in self-righteousness.
“Do you really think that’s likely?”
“I think Nina ran afoul of someone who’s mad or jealous or afraid and wants to make sure she isn’t a problem for him.”
“But how could that have happened?”
What I thought was that it was because the guy has a fetish for erotica and wants to keep it a secret. What I said was that I didn’t know.
“I’m coming over tonight,” I said again.
“No. Not tonight. We’re going out for dinner.”
“Then when?”
“I don’t know. Tomorrow, maybe.”
&n
bsp; “That’s too late. What time will you get home?”
“Late, probably.”
“Then I’ll come by before you leave. Do you know anyone named Crowder, by the way?”
“No. Should I?”
The answer was yes, but I didn’t say so. There were some things I wasn’t ready for, either.
CHAPTER 19
It’s as though she died and went to the penthouse—an entire apartment full of wonderful stuff, apparently just for her. For a moment of trepidation, she wonders what she will have to do to earn it. No one has ever paid her this well just for displaying her body.
There are things she’s never had before, not since she’d left home at any rate, and sometimes even then. A poster bed, for example, draped in paisley like a caliph’s. Matching sets of stoneware and stemware. Flowered sheets and scented soaps. Prints on the wall by an artist she’s actually heard of. A food processor. A mini-espresso maker and pounds and pounds of Torrefazione to feed into it.
After a first quick inventory, she takes stock again, and then again, fingering objects, caressing fabrics, admiring artwork, disbelieving both the parts and the entirety. It is a palace on the lake, a view apartment with all the trimmings, a dream come true in the vale of Madison Park. The only thing missing is a telephone.
He will communicate solely by E-mail, he said, although at the time she didn’t take him literally. Messages will come through the phone line and appear on her screen automatically, she just has to scroll to the end of the file to be certain she’s gotten everything he wants her to have. She can talk back, but only to Chris and only to his office—the address is already lodged in a macro; she can summon it with a single stroke.
His salutation is still on the screen: “WELCOME TO YOUR NEW HOME. We’ve tried to provide everything you’ll need—there is food and drink for five days and sundries for longer; there is a selection of casual clothing, some basic exercise equipment, and a variety of reading material and videos. If we’ve missed anything, let us know by way of the computer.
“You should not leave the apartment for any reason, or communicate with anyone but me. Work will begin in two days—prepare yourself accordingly. Chris.”
Out one window is Lake Washington, blue and calm and reassuring. But out the other is a man, seated behind the wheel of a Cherokee, watching. It looks like the car she saw at Roan’s, the one she feared was following her. The room is suddenly sinister. When she turns on a lamp, something about it makes the feeling intensify. She begins to tremble, and then to cry. She runs in the bedroom and hides beneath the quilted cover.
Seeking safety, she has found its opposite.
The Blitz Club was only four blocks from the university campus, evidence that academics bubbled with as much repressed desire as the rest of us. The exterior was blue board and batten with windows obliterated by sheets of painted plywood that were plastered with examples of Gary Richter’s soft-core accomplishments.
The door was lit by a naked red bulb directly overhead. Immediately inside, a bouncer collected a cover charge. The cover was five bucks; the bouncer was bored; the interior was as dark as an executioner’s heart but for an array of filtered spotlights directed toward the stage and bar.
The stage ran the entire length of the room, along the wall to the west; the bar ran down the other side. In between were as many tiny tables and chairs as the narrow space would accommodate. At the far end was a door marked PRIVATE and another marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. There were three customers in the place. The music was loud and indecipherable.
As I made my way toward a bar stool, a woman wearing a short pink wrapper and red high heels came out of the door marked PRIVATE trailed by a young man with a red face and equally red suspenders that stretched like strapping tape over the swell of his flannel shirt. The woman in the wrapper disappeared inside the other door, scratching her hip as she went. The guy with the red suspenders joined a buddy at the bar and proclaimed the experience, “way cool.” I slipped onto a stool and waited to be blessed with the bartender’s attention.
She was toughly attractive and as bored as the bouncer. Her silicone breasts were impervious to the tight white leotard that enveloped them. Her hair had been blond from a bottle for so long it looked like a saffron scouring pad. A scar lifted her lip in a continual sneer; from the look in her eye she could have cut it on purpose, just to get men to back off.
I ordered a beer, then gestured toward the rear doors. “What goes on back there?”
“Couch dance. Want one?”
“What is it?”
“You sit on a couch, the girl dances for you. If you tip, she dances real close. And sometimes that’s not all she does.”
“How much?”
“Twenty plus tips.”
“What do you get for a tip?”
“Whatever she thinks you deserve, as long as it stops short of touching.”
“Her me or me her?”
She smiled. “Either way, cowboy. But you can rub her with your mind all you want.”
“Too bad. I can do the mind stuff at home.”
She shrugged. “A little visual stimulation never hurts, but the law’s the law,” she grinned, “when there’s a cop on the premises. I can get April for you, if you’re interested. She’s a real flexible young lady.”
I guessed the description applied more to her morals than to her spinal cord. I looked around. “Which is April?”
“She’s back in the john—just got off shift. She’s cute, you’ll like her. Got enough meat to make it interesting, not like Linda up there.”
Her look traveled to the stage, where a woman who was both naked and emaciated seemed grimly determined to make some part of her person vibrate. I looked back at the bartender. “How about you instead of April?”
She’d heard it before and then some. “Free drinks are against policy, so bullshit won’t get you anything but air. And what you see is all you get; I gave up dancing when my implants started shifting. You want April or no?”
“I hear Mandy’s pretty good.”
Her eyes rolled like a vaudevillian’s. “Mandy. Jesus. Don’t mention that bitch again. I mean it.”
“What’s wrong with Mandy?”
She started to frame a hot retort but asked a question instead. “Who are you, pal?”
“A customer. What else would I be?”
“Vice. DEA. IRS. They all come by for a peek. But that’s all they get, is a peek, ’cause we run a clean ship. If you’re looking for something else, you’re wasting your time up here. Be better off down in Pierce County.”
“I don’t think Pierce County has what I’m looking for.”
“Which is?”
“A peek at Mandy.”
“Well, we don’t got that, either. Mandy don’t work here no more.”
“Why not?”
“She broke a rule.”
“Which rule?”
She slung her bar rag at the sink. “The rule against too many questions. We got other girls, mister; new ones every hour. You don’t like the selection, move on down the road.”
“If I wanted to find Mandy, where would I go?”
“Regrade, probably.”
“What’s regrade?”
“The Denny Regrade, north of downtown and south of Denny Way. Used to be a hill till they graded it out way back when.”
“Why does Mandy hang out there?”
“That’s where white folks find dope. Cobain made his last connection in the Regrade, so they say. Me, I could give a shit—I still get high on Engelbert Humperdinck.”
I laughed. “What kind of dope does Mandy use?”
“Same as all the grungers—heroin.”
“I thought heroin went out with the sixties.”
“It’s back big time. Lots of rockers ride that horse all the way up the stairway around here.”
“You mean they died of it.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“You got an address for Mandy?”
&
nbsp; “I got nothing at all for Mandy. Or you, either, unless you want another beer.”
It was time to shift gears. “How about Victor?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Victor who?”
“Krakov.”
“What about him?”
“He coming in today?”
“Why would he come in?”
“He owns the place; I thought he might keep tabs on his investment.”
She shrugged. “He might. What of it?”
“I’d like to talk to him.”
“What about?”
“Business.”
“Victor don’t talk about business; Victor just does business.”
“He’ll talk when he hears Jensen sent me.”
“Who?”
“Jensen.”
“Lattimore?”
Bingo. “Yeah. Lattimore. Tell Victor I’m here about Jensen Lattimore.”
“Victor’s not here; I told you.”
“I thought he might be behind that other door.”
“Well, he’s not.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
The bartender shrugged once more, then strolled to the CD player behind the bar. A moment later, the air was rent not by Nirvana but by Mozart. Behind me, a girl in a micronic thong bikini came out, wrapped herself around a pole at center stage, and proceeded to slither and snake her way up and down its brassy length to the strains of a flute quartet. The combination worked better than it should have.
The delicate mood didn’t last. As the customers down front began to get restless, the bartender pressed a remote and the music switched to something with rhythms of the subtlety of pile driving. The dancer doffed her bikini and abandoned the pole and gave the customers what they wanted, which was an intimate view of her privates.
I must have been rapt myself, because when the song finally ended, I discovered that a man was sitting on the stool beside me. He was burly and ruddy, with hair tied in back in a ponytail, one ear that was missing a lobe, and lips as fat as night crawlers and as red as old lipstick. His eyebrows were as white and straight as lines of coke.
The bartender brought him a shot glass full of something brown. “Hear Lattimore sent you,” he grumbled, with gravel and evil in his voice, then tossed back the shot in a gulp.
“He’s worried about some of your girls.”
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