“Why?”
“He heard things.”
“Like what?”
“Like too many of them are turning out to be junkies.”
“Yeah? Like who?”
“Like Mandy.”
“I told him Mandy don’t work here no more.”
“Or they run off like Nina.”
“Who?”
“Nina Evans.”
“Don’t know her.”
“She was one of Richter’s models.”
“Not for the club. I only use the dancers.”
“Speaking of which, Jensen wonders whether you know anything about it.”
“About what?”
“Richter’s murder.”
“Why would I know anything about that?”
“Jensen figured there might be word on the street about it.”
“Tell him not this street.” The big man drained a second drink. “And then you tell him I took him on as a silent partner, but this don’t sound silent, this sounds noisy as hell. You tell him if I want some geek telling me how to do my business, I’ll get someone who knows more about running skin than Jensen Lattimore.”
Victor got off his stool and left the bar. The bartender gestured at the stage. “Sally’ll dance for you if you want.”
“To Mozart?”
“Who?”
I slid off my stool and headed back to the john, then found a phone and used it. “Hello?” said the voice, as faint as the strains of Pearl Jam that were leaping at me from the stage, but not so faint I didn’t recognize the voice as Fran’s, the manager of Erospace.
“This is Rufus Kline,” I said, my tongue lolling somewhere near my cheek. “I work for Lattimore.”
“What’s with you DigiArt guys—you got more turnover than IBM. Tell him it’s in the mail.”
“What is?”
“The income statement.”
“That must be someone else’s department. I’m calling about the photographs.”
“What … oh, the Richter prints. What about them?”
“I wonder when we can expect delivery.”
“Whenever you want. You want them in Issaquah like last time?”
“Yeah.”
“I can take them out there tomorrow night.”
“Good. I’ll let you know what time. It may be late.”
“No problem. You still interested in anything else by Richter we can get our hands on?”
“Absolutely,” I said, then went back to the bar. “I think I’ll take you up on that specialty number,” I said when the bartender drifted my way.
“That’ll be twenty up front.”
I slipped her the requisite bill.
“Which one you want?”
I gestured toward the stage. “How long’s Sally been working here?”
“Long enough to know what to do with her booty. What difference does it make?”
“I want someone experienced.”
“She’s been here two years. Anything got on your mind, she’s heard worse.”
“I’ll take her.”
“Good choice. Go on back and I’ll send her your way after she finishes her set. You want the bikini or lingerie?”
“Lingerie. And the Mozart.”
“You got it if we got any.”
The bartender resumed tending the bar and I went through the door marked PRIVATE. The interior was even more depressing than the barroom—greasy shag carpet, hideous plastic paneling, understuffed tweed couch, cheap boom box, and black velvet art of tigers and panthers stuck on the walls for some class.
When Sally came in she was panting. She had a towel draped over her neck and down her breasts and a piece of lingerie in her hand.
“Tough set?” I asked.
“They’re all tough when you’re on the rag. What’s your name?”
“Calvin.”
“I’m Sally. What type of entertainment you interested in?”
“Oral.”
“Sorry. I don’t know what you heard, but we don’t do head tricks, not in the club, at least.”
“I’m not talking sex, I’m talking conversation.”
She frowned in disgust. “We don’t do that, either.”
“What do you do?”
“Dance. Sit on your lap if you make it worth my while. Rub up your johnson if you’re generous. Put on this teddy if you like romance better than reality.”
“I just want some information.”
“About what? Heath care reform?”
“About Victor’s special clients.”
Her eyes flicked toward the corner of the room, which meant we were being miked and probably videotaped as well. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said flatly.
“I’m talking about the rich men Victor services with his girls. I’m talking about Jensen Lattimore, in particular.”
“Don’t know the man.”
“You ought to—he owns the place.”
She shrugged. “So?”
“I’m wondering if you ever had trouble with him.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Rough stuff—violence, kinky sex, sadism.”
“That’s not trouble; that’s expertise.”
I lowered my voice. “And I was wondering if you knew about Mandy.”
She hesitated, then put her hands on her hips and adopted a menacing pose. “If you’re not going to tip, I got to leave.”
“I’ll tip,” I said, and got out another twenty. “If you make it worth my while.”
She went to the boom box and punched a button; Madonna started singing about self-respect; apparently Sally didn’t find it ironic.
When the music was sufficiently loud to preclude conversation, she started to dance, writhing and bobbing in time to the music, a curiously catatonic smile on her face as she gyrated six inches from my knees. The towel and the lingerie soon mated on the floor.
But I had misinterpreted her intentions. The next time she bent toward me and shimmied, she whispered without moving her lips. “They monitor this place,” she said.
I nodded.
She waited until her dance offered another chance to whisper. In the meantime, I enjoyed the play of her hips and the smell of her sweat. “I never did special clients,” she said as she thrust her pelvis at my chin.
“Did Mandy?”
“Yeah.”
“Did Nina Evans?”
She shrugged.
“What happened to Mandy?”
“Junkie.”
“Why?”
“Something happened.”
“What?”
“Don’t know.”
“Where can I find her?”
“Second and Pike. Late.”
“That’s where she lives?”
“That’s where she hooks.”
CHAPTER 20
As much as she wants to revel in seclusion, she feels stifled within a week. Stifled and isolated; it is solitary confinement, basically, despite the three occasions Chris has picked her up and taken her out on a shoot, seeing that she earns her keep. But she is definitely under wraps—no phone, no radio, no newspaper. Somehow, the only TV reception is from cable channels like Lifetime and A&E, not network affiliates like KOMO and KING. Why is this happening?
Over the years she has become a news junkie and feels edgy without a daily dose, so she begins to scheme and plot. Her first foray is to stroll casually out the door and head for the Red Apple market, with the intent of buying a newspaper, but the guy in the Cherokee tags along, and when she enters the store he enters after her. It is spooky and surreal, even though he says nothing and does not acknowledge her presence. She makes do with a box of Tampax and a quart of nonfat yogurt.
She visits the neighbors, in hopes of sharing their newspaper or their Newsweek, but for some reason the neighbors are never home. On the way back from a shoot, she asks Chris to stop at a variety store—he picks a Fred Meyer. In the guise of buying an irrelevance, she intends to steal a radi
o and take it back to the condo, but when she sees the elaborate detection devices at the register, she knows her ruse will be exposed. Then God knows what would happen.
The answer comes while she is doing her laundry. As she is transferring her whites to the dryer, she hears the tremulous strains of “Chances Are.” Her mother had played the Mathis album ad nauseam, as though it restored her soul or her virginity or something. She enjoys the song to its conclusion before she realizes that it suggests a solution to her problem. As the call letters of KBSG echo through the basement caverns, she trails the sound to its source, which turns out to be the furnace room.
The maintenance man is, by definition, a man, so she closes the deal within minutes. She gets a half-hour with his radio on Tuesdays and Thursdays and he gets a Full Sail Ale as often as she can manage it. He believes he’s gotten the better of the deal and she is happy for him to think so. Meanwhile, she covets the radio like a narcotic.
The fifth time she tunes in, she learns of the death of Gary Richter. She exults, then despairs; her paranoia returns full-blown. But subsequently comes the framework of a plan.
After I left the Blitz Club I found a phone and punched in the only 800 number I know by heart.
Clay Oerter is a stockbroker. Not my broker, since I don’t have anything to broker, but he’s a good guy and on top of that I’ve given him lots of coin in the form of poker chips over the years, for which he gives me some corporate lowdown from time to time.
“DigiArt,” I said when he came on the line.
He didn’t ask why, he just punched some buttons. “Nothing on it.”
“It’s in Seattle, if that helps.”
“It doesn’t.”
“What does it mean when you don’t have anything?”
“It means it’s private and not San Francisco.”
“You know anyone in Seattle in the broker business?”
“Is that where you are?”
“Yep.”
“Is it true it rains every day?”
“Not a drop since I hit town.”
“So how is it otherwise?”
“A lot like the city, except the neighborhoods are better.”
“You mean they have yards and trees.”
“Lots of each,” I confirmed.
“Sounds nice.”
“Is nice.”
“You’re not going to move up there, are you?”
“I’m too poor to move.”
“Good. One of our guys went up there a couple of years back. His kid was into alternative rock and went to Seattle to join a band call Bung, and the old man tagged along.”
“How did it work out?”
“Bung couldn’t find a bass player, so the kid’s the broker now and the old man is a drummer in an oldies band on weekends. Plays ‘Louie Louie’ four times a night.”
“That sounds like a good definition of hell.”
Clay laughed and gave me the name and number of his buddy and said he’d call and clear me.
The friend’s name was Gil Driller. I called him from a phone booth near the Pike Place Market.
“Clay says you’re a detective,” Driller said after I introduced myself and my connection.
“Sad but true.”
“Into something juicy?”
“Not yet. But sometimes the juice only starts to flow after I leave town.”
“Must be stressful work.”
“No more than being responsible for the life savings of widows and orphans.”
He laughed, though not robustly. “How’s Clay doing these days?”
“Doing great at poker. Don’t know about stocks and bonds.”
“How about that wife of his?”
“I don’t know the woman and Clay never talks about her.”
“That’s funny. He talked about her all the time at the office.”
“Probably I just didn’t notice.”
He laughed. “Probably you’re just being discreet. Clay says to give you what I’ve got on DigiArt, but I’m afraid I don’t have much.”
“If you’ve got anything it’ll be an improvement.”
“Good. Well, DigiArt is a start-up, about two years old. Still private; CEO is a computer guy named Wellington. No major financing that we know of—hard for these information highway guys to find venture capital up in this part of the country. There’s money here, but it’s cautious money; hell, the whole town is cautious. But if they get something hot, they’ll come up with the cash to come to market. Cable and Howse or Olympic Venture Partners will back them till it’s time to go public.”
“Any chance Ted Evans has money in DigiArt?”
“Possible, but Ted’s more into real estate than high tech. You heard something along those lines?”
“Not a thing. What’s Evans’s reputation around town?”
“Good. Conservative, but good. No major killings, no major disasters. Commercial real estate in West Seattle and the east side, some Boeing satellites down by White City, a little maritime stuff in Tacoma. No computer ties that I know about.”
“What’s DigiArt’s niche?” I asked. “What are they shooting for that Microsoft or someone isn’t doing already?”
“Some kind of art service, as I understand it.”
“What’s that mean, exactly?”
“You’ve got interior decorators for residences, and design consultants that supply paintings and sculpture for the company headquarters. Well, DigiArt wants to replace all that with software. The art of the world piped through the PC, for your viewing enjoyment any time of the day or night. They’re acquiring electronic rights to most of the world’s major collections.”
“How close are they getting to having something to sell?”
“No idea.”
“What does Jensen Lattimore have to do with it?”
Driller paused. When he spoke, his voice was throaty and noncommittal. “Nothing that I know of.”
“Who is he, anyway?”
“Why?”
“His name keeps popping up.”
“In what connection?”
Without knowing why, I decided to be cautious. “In a confidential connection.”
Driller paused long enough to boil an egg. “Sorry,” he said finally. “I can’t discuss that particular individual at this point in time.”
He was off the line ten seconds later, while I was still wondering why everyone tiptoed around the name Jensen Lattimore.
The DigiArt offices were three blocks south of the market across from a place that sold furniture. They were impressively impersonal and carefully unrevealing. This is a substantial business, the decor declared, without quite declaring what that business was.
I waited in the outer office for someone to join me, certain that my presence was being monitored. Finally a woman emerged from the back and asked how she could help me. She was exactly as handsome as the offices.
“I’d like to speak to the CEO. Mr. Wellington,” I added, just to show I was dealing from strength.
“May I ask your name?”
“Tanner. Marsh Tanner.” I bowed at the waist. “And may I ask yours?”
She was all business. “Maxine. You are representing what company?”
“Tanner and Associates.”
“What is the nature of your business, Mr. Tanner?”
“Why don’t we wait on that till I meet with Mr. Wellington?”
She crossed her arms. “Until I know the nature of your enterprise in detail, there’s not much chance of that happening.”
“Women,” I said.
Her look marched from haughty to puzzled. “Is that an editorial?”
I shook my head. “It’s a job description.”
“Women?”
I nodded.
“What aspect of … women … do you work with?”
“The obvious aspect.”
“I’m afraid I’m not sure what that means.”
My smile said I was as tolerant of ignorance as a math teacher.
“Your boss has been scouring the city for attractive women. I’m here to tell him that if that’s what he wants, I’m the guy he needs to talk to.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I represent a lot of them.”
“Women?”
“Women.”
“In what capacity?”
“In a capacity that your boss can use to his advantage, if and when we cut a deal. Now I’m about to walk out that door, Maxine, because you’ve been a trifle chilly toward me. I know it’s your job to keep out the riffraff, but if I were you I wouldn’t let the responsibility for letting me go fall entirely on your shoulders.”
Her lip curled like a Pringle. “But I don’t believe you. That you’re some sort of modeling agent, I mean. You look more like a boxing promoter.”
I smiled with what I hoped was celestial serenity. “Does it matter what you believe, Maxine? In the greater scheme of things?”
The rhetoric did the trick; she wilted like leaf lettuce. “I … perhaps not in this instance. Wait one moment.”
She turned on her heel and marched through the rear door. I used her absence to try to find something to indicate what DigiArt might be up to, but nothing turned up that was more intriguing than a Windows menu on a computer screen.
A moment later a man emerged from the back and gazed at me with equanimity. He was simply but memorably dressed, with boyish good looks and an artistic flair that extended from his white huaraches and black canvas slacks to the billowy peasant’s shirt that was tied at his waist with a drawstring. His eyes were shiny and black; his hair was as slick as a seal’s.
“I’m sorry you’ve wasted a visit,” he began easily. “You are apparently under the impression that I’m recruiting women for one of our projects. But I’m afraid it’s not true.”
“It was true a few weeks ago.”
When he shrugged, the cloth in his shirt fluttered like feathers. “Perhaps. But in any event, the search has ended.”
“Because you found your girl.”
“Precisely.”
I waited till I had his eye. “Her name is Nina Evans.”
It nudged him off balance. Not far off—his only reactions were to blink and rub his nose—but far enough. “What makes you think that?”
“Because I know you talked to her. And if you talked to her, you hired her.”
“How do you know she was qualified for what we had in mind?”
I smiled. “I’ve seen her work. She’s qualified for what anyone has in mind.”
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