by Carina Cook
She relaxed as this realization washed over her. Of course it made the most sense. Vincent’s proclamations of doom and gloom, combined with the strange circumstances of their meeting, had thrown her off her game. But now she knew what she was up against. Her voice grew in confidence as she spoke to Tanith.
“I don’t think there’s anything in particular that I need from you,” she said. “And I know you’re busy. But if you could put me in touch with someone who could show me around backstage, particularly places where Ignazio worked and the people he worked the closest with, I’d really appreciate it. I imagine they don’t let people just wander around unattended back here.”
Tanith rolled her eyes in an extravagant gesture that Lara could identify with.
“Girl, you are not kidding,” said the tall singer. “There are too many crazies out there for sure. I’ll hook you up with Manfred. He was Ignazio’s assistant. He should be able to get you what you need.”
“Thank you,” said Lara politely.
She expected Tanith to sweep out in one of those dramatic exits, but instead the singer stomped over toward her and leaned down. Her expression darkened as she loomed, her eyes big and dark.
“You’ll find him tonight,” she proclaimed.
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Lara, unfazed. Clients tried to intimidate her all the time. Sometimes she shot them, just to make them easier to deal with. The effect did wear off, if she let it. So she didn’t feel too badly about it. “It might take me longer to locate him. Is there some reason in particular that you feel rushed? Some deadline I didn’t know about?”
“Tonight,” Tanith repeated, pointing a long-nailed finger at her. “I am not used to being disobeyed. You’ll do as I say.”
With that, she turned and swept out, leaving Lara shaking her head in exasperation. Every single time she had a famous client, they made unreasonable demands. It seemed like part of the whole fame gig. Good thing Lara couldn’t carry a tune, because she wouldn’t want to be like that. Not ever.
After a few minutes, the harried guy she’d thought was a stage manager came back in. He was sweating with exertion but otherwise neatly put together. A dark goatee and black rimmed glasses set off nerdy good looks. Lara smiled at him.
“I’m sorry to be a trouble,” she said. “I imagine she’s running you ragged.”
He huffed in exasperation, nodding. “No kidding. Hand me one of those bottled waters? I’m sweating like a pig!”
She did as he asked and waited for him to take a swig before she spoke again.
“I take it that you’re Manfred?” she asked. He nodded. “So I imagine that you’re extra busy with Ignazio gone?” He nodded again, a hint of anger pinching his already thin features. “How about I come with you as you work? I can ask questions. Maybe help out a little. Hopefully keep you from getting too far behind.”
“Oh, I was behind when I got up this morning, but it’s nice of you to offer. Damned Ignazio. If he was here, I’d spit on him.”
“Did you two get along?” she asked.
“We weren’t besties or anything, but we worked well enough together. He pulled his weight. But Tanith can be…”
“Demanding?” finished Lara.
“Understatement,” agreed Manfred. “So it’s a stressful place to work. We had our tiffs, but nothing out of the ordinary. I couldn’t believe he’d do something so stupid. Leaving is one thing—I’ve been tempted to do it myself. But taking her new demo tapes? Those are irreplaceable.”
“Has he been acting strange lately?”
“The stress around here has been high lately. Tanith’s doing another album, and she gets extra high maintenance when she’s recording. It’s pretty much par for the course in my experience. She’s also putting together a new number for an awards show, plus her Vegas show…it’s been hectic. So we’re all pissy and hissing at each other like angry cats. Ignazio too. So he’s been more stressed than usual, but we all have.”
“So nothing in particular sticks out to you as a reason he might have left? No grudge against Tanith or any of the other crew?”
“A grudge against Tanith?” Manfred grinned. “Honey, she’s batshit insane. She’ll be nice as pie to you one moment and threatening your life the next. I heard someone say once that geniuses are one step removed from insanity. Can’t remember who it was, but they were right.”
“So that kind of behavior is normal for her,” murmured Lara. “She did it to me just a minute ago, and I wondered.”
“Oh, you’re a part of the club for sure. I wouldn’t take it personally. Let me show you Ignazio’s work space, and I’ll introduce you to whomever you want.”
“Thanks much,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”
CHAPTER 12
Vincent was determined to think positive as he left the hospital. Jin would be fine, and that was the most important part. He and Lara would find Ignazio in time. She hunted people down as her job all the time, so this would be a simple task for her. He wasn’t exactly sure how she did it, but he knew he could trust in her expertise. He’d find Lo, and perhaps he could even help him reconcile with his mother. He could take over Vincent’s job at the restaurant, so Vincent could…
Work with Lara? Travel around the world, and hope that his angel of death abilities happened to help with her bounty hunting? He wasn’t exactly sure how that would work, but that didn’t stop him from daydreaming about the idea in general as he hunted for his car. He could have sworn that he parked in the second row, but he didn’t see his scrubby little sedan anywhere. All these SUVs and giant mega-cars dwarfed it; he probably wouldn’t be able to see the car until he was right on top of it. That was the way it usually went.
The car wasn’t in the second row, and he started to have that nagging feeling of worry that usually began to creep in when he couldn’t find his car. He didn’t think he was overreacting; other people had to feel like this. First, there was that confused moment where he walked out to where he thought the car was. Then the craning of the head as he scanned one row in each direction just in case he’d counted wrong. Then the back track. Then, when none of those things worked, the worry came in. He could swear that he’d parked there. Maybe someone had stolen the car. Maybe he’d parked illegally, and now the car had been towed, and how in the heck was he going to get it back? Lara had already left while he was getting instructions from Jin on the things she’d like him to bring her from home.
Just as he was really starting to get worked up, he spotted the car, three rows over and not even remotely where he thought it had been. It figured.
As he walked over to it, he realized that the car next to it was occupied, the windows rolled down. He tended to be cautious about people in cars. Once, when he was delivering a big order to a rough part of town, he’d gotten robbed. They’d tried, anyway, but he hadn’t gotten paid for the food yet, and he only had two dimes in his pockets. The guy with the gun had shot him a look of pity, which seemed somehow offensive. But it wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat, and he knew that sometimes criminals waited in cars and attacked while their mark was looking for their keys.
He needn’t have worried. The person in the car turned out to be the police detective. Papadopoulos. As Vincent approached, he opened the door and stood up. Although Vincent wasn’t exactly happy to see him and his uncomfortable questions, he couldn’t deny that the officer had been a huge help. He was good in a crisis, and he wasn’t afraid of death—that would have been ironic—but his emotions had gotten the best of him and Detective Papadopoulos had stepped in to help.
“Thanks for helping out my boss,” he said, thrusting his hand out toward the detective. “I really appreciate it. She’s a good person.”
The detective looked a bit startled, but he recovered quickly, shaking Vincent’s hand. “How’s she doing?” he asked.
“Stable. They’ll keep her for a couple of days, they said. They’re talking about doing some minor surgery to help keep this from happen
ing again. I don’t really know the details, though.”
Detective Papadopoulos nodded, rubbing his chest. “Had the same thing myself. She’ll be okay.”
“That’s kind of you to say. I hope your health is better now too.”
The detective tilted his head, studying him. “Either you’re the best conman I’ve ever seen, or you really are a good guy.”
Vincent blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“I honestly believe you mean everything you’re saying,” said the detective. “So I really hope that this is all a formality.”
“What do you mean?” asked Vincent cautiously.
“I’d like you to come down to the station to answer a few questions. Would you be willing to do that?”
Detective Papadopoulos was watching him closely with those keen eyes of his, and it gave Vincent pause. What exactly was going on here? He wasn’t sure.
“Am I suspected of a crime?” he asked cautiously. “I thought the guy died of a heart attack.”
“We’re waiting on toxicology reports to confirm it, but that’s what it looks like. Still, I’ve got to look into it. The guy’s got all kinds of twisted stuff on his computer, and a receipt with your name on it. You were the last one to see him. What if you knew what he was doing—found out somehow—and decided to put an end to it? You wouldn’t be the first vigilante killer I’ve seen, and you probably won’t be the last.”
Vincent took a moment, trying to keep his face calm and blank. A vigilante killer. Was that what he was? He killed to stop wrongs, but it wasn’t like he chose them. He just chose to listen to the voice, because horrible things happened when he didn’t. Did that absolve him of guilt, or was he exactly what Detective Papadopoulos had said? He wasn’t sure, but this certainly wasn’t the time for a crisis of conscience.
“I wouldn’t have any idea how to fake a heart attack,” he said honestly after a moment. “I don’t even watch those crime shows on TV, and I imagine they aren’t very realistic anyway.” The detective rolled his eyes, and Vincent almost laughed before he realized maybe it wouldn’t look good. “So if there’s a vigilante, it isn’t me. But maybe I noticed something that could help you. So I’ll come.”
The detective nodded. “Normally, you’d ride with me in my car, but I don’t want to strand you without a ride during a crisis. You need to stop anywhere urgently for your boss?”
Vincent thought quickly. “If I could swing by the restaurant and put up a sign, that would be smart. I forgot to do it earlier. I was too worried about Jin to think straight.”
“I’ll follow you to the restaurant, and then you can follow me to the station,” offered Papadopoulos.
“Sure thing.”
Vincent got in his car and took extra care pulling out of the parking lot and onto the street. It wouldn’t do to break the traffic laws with a cop on his tail. Could detectives write traffic tickets? He didn’t know, but he was determined to appear as meek and law abiding as possible. Definitely not the kind of guy who had visions of the criminal that had been found dead in his apartment. That kind of guy wouldn’t follow the traffic laws at all.
Everything would be fine. He’d answer the detective’s questions and get him off his back. Then they’d find Ignazio. And then, although it would hurt, he would leave Las Vegas. If Lara could hook him up with a job, that would be ideal. And if not, he would do as he always had. Start somewhere new. Wait for the visions to show him how to make a difference. This situation with Levante might be inconvenient, but it was a confirmation that the voice was steering him right. If the stuff on Levante’s computer was half as bad as he imagined, he’d done the world a service by killing him.
He pulled into the lot outside the restaurant and hurried inside to post a sign. This wouldn’t take long. Everything would be fine. It was a constant internal mantra running in his head, and it was dead wrong.
Detective Papadopoulos had kept him waiting for at least a half hour in the interrogation room. He’d dropped Vincent off with an apologetic smile, explaining that they had to talk in this room because that was where the recording equipment was, and he wanted to make sure to get any clues that Vincent might provide on the record. At least he’d provided coffee first, but he’d forgotten the sugar. Vincent was so desperate that he’d drank it anyway. In all the chaos, the only thing he’d eaten were the snacks that Lara had brought, and now he was regretting it. He wasn’t quite at the stage where he wanted to bang on the one way mirror and demand food, but he might get there if Detective Papadopoulos took much longer. Where had he gone?
As if summoned by magic, the door opened and the detective stepped through. He carried a small paper plate with a donut on it, and Vincent almost leaped to his feet and hugged the man before he realized that maybe the pastry wasn’t for him. Maybe Papadopoulos had brought it from home or something, and demanding to have it would be rude. Vincent was determined to be as polite and upstanding as he could be, just to prove that of course he’d had nothing to do with the death of Maurice Levante.
But the detective held the plate out toward Vincent with arched brows. “You want one?” he asked. “I thought you might appreciate a snack to go with the coffee.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Vincent took the plate and helped himself to a nice big bite of the glazed dough. It wasn’t warm, but it was fresh, and that was enough for him. “I already killed the coffee, though. I don’t want to be a trouble, but is there any way I could get a refill?”
“How about we run through these questions really quickly, and then we’ll fill you up on the way out?” suggested the detective.
“Sounds good to me. What do you need to know?”
“Tell me about the delivery. Walk through it step by step. No detail is too small.”
Detective Papadopoulos sat down, opening his little notebook and setting a pen beside it. But he didn’t write anything down as Vincent told his story. It was all probably being recorded anyway, so the notebook seemed silly. Like a prop in a movie, never to be used. But Vincent didn’t care so long as he got through this questioning in one piece.
He told the detective everything he could remember about that night. He remembered Levante’s call in particular because he’d been waiting for it. The voice had shown him a vision of Levante six days earlier, and usually there wasn’t such a gap between his visions and the appearance of the mark. So he’d been particularly eager to get the order, with Levante’s distinctive choppy speech patterns. He described it all quite clearly, and maybe too much so, because Detective Papadopoulos remarked, “Do you remember all of your customers this clearly, Mr. Malone? Because your memory is quite remarkable.”
Vincent froze for a moment but recovered quickly. “I don’t get much human interaction. I’m a bit of an introvert. Usually, the people I talk to at work are the only ones I talk to all day, so they’re pretty memorable. And Levante was particularly so.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, he made me uncomfortable. I know it seems convenient for me to say that, knowing what I know about him now, but it’s true. Sometimes I get customers like that. There’s this lady who lives with about fifteen cats, and she always orders shrimp with garlic sauce, and she makes me feel the same way. So I can tell you everything about my most recent delivery to her, because she puts me on my guard.”
Papadopoulos nodded, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on the table. “Can you think of anything in particular that made you feel this way about Maurice Levante?”
Vincent actually took a moment to think about this one. It was a question that he’d asked himself many times before. He’d delivered to Levante a few times before the voice had pointed him out, and when he’d realized who it was, he hadn’t been surprised. But what exactly had cued him in to the fact that all wasn’t right with Levante? He wasn’t entirely sure now, and he hadn’t been then either, but he had to say something.
“Honestly, I don’t really know,” he said. “He never did anything strange. I’ve had people invite me insid
e or offer me drugs, but he never did any of those things. He didn’t try and strike up long rambling conversations or make a pass at me. He just gave me the money and took the food. But…maybe it was something in the way he looked at me.”
Detective Papadopoulos arched his brows and gestured for him to go on.
“Like, most people show emotions when you show up. They might be angry if you’re later than they wanted you to be, or if you didn’t bring enough soy sauce, or whatever. They might be excited to spend a night in with their boyfriend or their Netflix. They usually have something going on, you know? But I don’t think he ever showed emotion. Or…maybe he looked at me without emotion. Like I was just a thing that brought the food instead of a person.”
He trailed off, aware that he’d been rambling. Had he gone too far in his effort to justify his actions? The more he thought about it, though, the more he realized he was right. Levante had had dead eyes, from the first time Vincent had delivered to his house. They were the eyes of a man who could do anything and feel nothing. Vincent couldn’t help it. He shivered at the thought, knowing that Papadopoulos wouldn’t miss it. Maybe that was a good thing.
It seemed so, because Papadopoulos said, “Well, I think you’ve given us everything you can about Maurice Levante. I appreciate the help, Mr. Malone. Like I said, we’ve got a tox screen pending, and it’s probably nothing but given the sensitive nature of his crimes, I need to be thorough. I hope you understand and won’t mind letting me know if you intend to leave town.”
“I will. I may end up having to go elsewhere to get work, depending on what happens with the restaurant.”
