“So . . . any luck? I didn’t expect you back this quickly.”
Terry pulled the envelope out of her shirt and Lenore’s mouth flapped open. “Is that all of it?”
“We haven’t counted it, but it looks like ten thousand,” Terry said.
Lenore snatched the envelope, squeezing its sides and dumping the contents on the bed. She riffled through the stack of bills, looking at the denominations.
“Count it, will you, dear?” she said, tossing the bundle to Terry. “My nails are still tacky.”
Terry rolled her eyes and took the money over to the little desk next to the window. She snapped off the rubber band and began counting, stacking the bills according to size.
“Where did you find him?” Lenore said to me, her eyes glinting in triumph.
“At Tatiana’s,” I said, watching her carefully. But there was no hint of pain on learning that her husband was consorting with the Russian honey.
“Little tramp.” Hatred deepened the color of her bruises. “How did you get him to give up the money?”
I looked over at Terry, whose head was bent in concentration. I was on my own. The Glib One was busy at her task.
“Uh, the money was there. He wasn’t.”
“You just said he was.”
“I mean he left.”
“And you went in and got the money.”
“I’d rather not discuss our methods,” I said. “Trade secrets.”
“Fine. I don’t really want to know,” Lenore said. “Now I need you to follow him.”
“What?” Terry shrieked from the other side of the room.
I shot her a look—Chill.
“Why?” I said to Lenore, dreading the answer.
“Well, he won’t be happy about this. I want you to make sure he doesn’t come after me.”
“But you said the money was yours!” I said, as Terry went back to counting, shaking her head in disgust.
“Of course it’s mine! But he might be . . . peeved that I took it back.”
Yes, he might. And I could imagine him flicking open his switchblade and punching air holes into someone’s skull if sufficiently peeved.
If he was still alive, that is.
But whether Mario was dead or alive or somewhere in between, I wasn’t about to offer our services as human buffers. Lenore’s story was getting murkier by the minute, and I wanted our business with her concluded as soon as possible.
“Mrs. Richling, you don’t want us for that job,” I said. “You need a bodyguard. We couldn’t guarantee your safety.”
“Whyever not?”
“Well, for one thing we don’t carry weapons.”
She gasped. “You went after Mario without weapons?”
Terry gave me a sideways smile. She was always after me to buy a gun, since her felon status prevented her from getting one. I couldn’t tell her that my main reservation, besides taking a life, was that I didn’t entirely trust Terry herself around firearms. You don’t keep guns around someone with the impulse control of a three-year-old buzzed on Frosted Flakes.
“We’re not licensed to carry them,” I said. “Incidentally, if you thought there’d be a call for weapons, it would have been nice of you to warn us.”
“I thought it went without saying Mario was dangerous!” Lenore said, her nostrils flaring like a stallion in a sweat.
To my mind, the things that go without saying are—The sun rises in the east and sets in the west; Things that go up, must come down; and All things must end. Everything else in life is up for grabs. What Lenore meant, of course, was that she hadn’t wanted to say that she was sending us on an errand that could land us toes-up in the morgue.
“Sorry, Mrs. Richling. We’re done here. We did what we agreed to do and got your money back. Pretty good work considering we did it in one night.”
Terry finished counting the money. “Nine thousand, seven hundred and sixty-seven.”
Lenore got a cagey look on her face then stood up and grabbed three hundred-dollar bills, thrusting them at me. “Now let’s see . . . that’s three hundred for today. And I’ll give you two days’ advance for tomorrow and the next day. That should be long enough.”
“No deal!” Terry stood up so fast she overturned the small gilded chair. I flashed her another warning look.
“Long enough for what?” I said. What the hell angle was Lenore working now?
“I’ll be satisfied if you keep a watch on him. If you see him go near my house, notify the police immediately and tell them there’s a burglary in progress. If he comes near the hotel, alert Alphonse. He’ll get his security people involved . . . Take another six hundred, there’s a good girl.”
Terry crossed her arms over her chest, hip slung in her best tough-slut posture. “Our contract was for a twenty percent recovery fee.”
Lenore sniffed. “You don’t mean to tell me you expect eighteen hundred dollars for one day’s work? That’s highway robbery!”
“That was our deal.” Terry’s voice was low, and to my ear, dangerous.
Lenore let out a Scarlett O’Hara sigh. “Oh, sweetheart. Don’t be so difficult. If you only knew the agony I’m in with these stitches!”
She lurched to the mirror working her jaw up and down, as if the movement would somehow scratch the itch, and brought her hands up to her face, the long red nails curved millimeters away from it, dying to dig in.
“Maybe you should call the doctor,” I said, feeling her discomfort. “I don’t know if that much itching is normal.”
“I have been calling, all day! These doctors . . . glorified cosmeticians. Think they’re gods, but where would they be without us?”
Sensing Lenore’s distress, Paquito jumped off the bed and began humping her ankle. She kicked out sideways, sending him sprawling.
“Yah!” Terry and I yelled, echoing the dog’s piteous cry of surprise and pain.
“Behave!” Lenore barked at him. “Mommy’s in anguish! Oh, if only I could scratch my ear, just once . . .” She tugged at the edges of the bandage.
Terry and I looked at each other in alarm. Was she going to rip it right off her face?
“Lenore, no!” Terry said. “Your stitches!”
“Your manicure!” I said.
But it was too late. She’d got a purchase on the tape and she yanked on it, tearing it away from her face with a revolting ripping sound.
Then she let out a scream of terror.
Time was suspended as we gaped in horror at the white strip that hung to Lenore’s shoulder. There, nestled in the gauze and stuck to the tape was a purplish-black lump. Blood was caked around the hole in the side of Lenore’s head, where only a piece of flesh remained . . .
The rest of the necrotic ear now dangling at Lenore’s neck.
“Uh-h-h-h-h!” she fainted dead away before we could even make a move.
I felt my stomach flip over and heard Terry gagging on the other side of the room. I ran to Lenore’s side but Paquito beat me to her. He grabbed the bandage in his teeth and tugged on it, fighting to pull it free from her head like it was a great new chew toy.
“No, Paquito!” I lunged at him but he got the tape free, squirming away from me and running with it into the black marble bathroom.
“Call 911!” I screamed at Terry.
I ran into the bathroom after Paquito, casting about wildly for the crazed mutt with the sow’s ear. I spotted his tail wagging behind the bidet and knew he wanted me to chase him. I reached out and grabbed at him, but he squiggled away and raced out of the bathroom, claws ticking jauntily on the marble.
I chased him back into the main room and saw his tail disappearing under the bed. I threw myself to the carpeting and yanked up the gold-trimmed dust ruffle.
Terry was yelling hysterically on the phone. “She ripped it off her head! She’s bleeding from her hole! The dog’s gonna eat her goddamned ear!”
Jesus, we’d be lucky if they didn’t hang up on us.
I peered into the shadows u
nder the bed. A panting yellow lump sat right in the middle of the space, beyond the reach of my arm, his tiny pink tongue jabbing the air. I saw the bandage with the ear stuck to it lying in front of his paws, and the look on his face said, What a prize!
Terry was behind me putting a pillow under Lenore’s head, slapping her wrists to stimulate circulation, as Lenore moaned semiconsciously.
“You’ll be okay,” Terry said, her voice choked with revulsion. “You’ll be just fineohmygodinheaventhatwasthegrossestthingIhaveeverseen!”
“Good doggie,” I cooed breathlessly. “Good Paquito. Bring me the ear! Bring me the ear!”
He responded with an aarf of pleasure. Poor little guy was play deprived, I thought, trying in vain to picture Lenore going a few rounds of fetch with him. This was a really good game, he seemed to think, and he was making the most of it.
Aarf, he said again. Nothing doin’, Two Legs! Come and get it!
I heard Lenore behind me muttering in shock. “My ear, what did the prick do to my ear?” she said.
And then she blacked out again.
In the ensuing melee of sirens and blinking red lights and EMTs chasing down the dog with a bandage trailing from his jaws, I didn’t notice Terry stuffing the envelope of cash into her jeans. It was only after Alphonse had left, glaring at us as if we were personally responsible for maiming one of his guests, and after Lenore had been whisked away to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to have her ear reattached—if that was possible, given its unfortunate condition—only then, when we were alone in front of the hotel holding a shivering and hairless, homeless lapdog, did Terry admit to taking Lenore’s money.
“We’re just keeping tabs on it. It’s not safe in the hotel,” she said, zipping Paquito up in her jacket, his minuscule head poking out the top like that of a preemie papoose.
“She has to have a full-time maid, they all do,” I said. “We’ll leave the money with her first thing in the morning, along with the dog.”
“No! That’s a breach of our fiduciary duty! You don’t give ten thousand dollars of somebody’s money to someone you don’t even know because that person happens to clean the toilets of the person whose money it is—is that smart? She could say she never got it!”
“We’ll get a receipt.”
“What if she doesn’t speak English?”
“Then she can give us a receipt in Spanish or Chinese or Swahili.”
“Racist pig!”
“Or Swedish! Oh, never mind,” I said. “We’ll give it directly to Lenore when she’s better.”
“Less our twenty percent.”
“All right, all right!” I yelled. “You’re a mono-fucking-maniac, has anyone ever told you that?”
She gave me a pout. “I could call you a few things, too.”
Paquito loved the ride home—tongue flapping in the breeze, nostrils quivering as he sucked up an olfactory city smorgasbord at forty miles an hour. He didn’t seem at all worried about being separated from his mistress. In fact, he seemed to be having the time of his life.
First a game of keep-away with a rotten ear, then a ride on a motorcycle snug between two human teats, his wet nose alfresco. It doesn’t get better than that for a dog.
The phone was ringing as we entered the house. Terry answered and I knew immediately who it was. Evidently, our great-aunt was not pleased.
“We . . . she . . . it . . . our fault?” Terry stammered. “Well it serves her right. She kicked her dog!”
I grabbed the receiver from Terry and mouthed: Turn on the news.
“Right!” She ran to the TV.
I braced myself for the whirlwind. “Hi Reba. How are you?”
Her words came out fast and furious. “I don’t know what you girls think you’re doing. I ask you to come to the aid of a friend and this is how you help? What’s this I hear about your attacking Lenore, ripping off her bandages and . . . and is it true her ear came off—?”
“We didn’t touch her . . . Who told you all of this?”
“Alphonse gave me the short version. And my phone has literally been ringing off the hook with people wanting to know what happened.”
“Well, hold the phone. Lenore is in Cedars recovering from a little mishap with her surgical tape, and beyond that I don’t think you should spread any more rumors.”
“Rumors? So it’s not true about the ear?”
“It is true but it’s not for public consumption.” Bad choice of words, I thought, almost gagging. “But I’m sure she’ll be fine, and if it’s any consolation, she’s bound to receive a gigantic settlement from Dr. Hattrick’s insurance company.”
“If Hattrick still has insurance.”
I paused. “What are you talking about?”
“Giselle Fairweather says the good doctor has lost his hospital privileges, and is minutes away from losing his license,” Reba declared with a hint of malicious glee.
If Reba was in the know about the doctor’s troubles, then it stood to reason that Lenore was, too. The next question was: Why in hell would Lenore let Hattrick operate on her if his license was in question?
“Psssst! Psssst!” Terry was waving me over to the TV.
“Listen, Reba. I’d like to talk to you more about this—”
“Well I certainly wish you would.”
“Let’s do it in person. How about we come over tomorrow?”
“Fine. Be here for brunch at eleven.”
“Okay, see you then.” I hung up and ran to the screen.
Terry was cuddling Paquito with one hand and biting the thumbnail on her other hand as she watched the ten o’clock newscast. An excited young woman with platinum hair and a microphone stood in front of Tatiana’s Hollywood apartment building. Crime-scene tape was strung up in front of the bungalow, and police lights lent an eerie strobe effect to the scene, as though the disco ball of death were rotating swiftly overhead. The reporter stood next to a witness who shielded his eyes from the camera lights. We leaned in for a closer look at him. Bald and nude from the hips up, body generously decorated with spiky designs.
Uh-oh. Tattoo Man.
“I’m standing here with the next-door neighbor, a Mr.—”
“Potato,” he said.
“Wha’?” The reporter was momentarily stunned. But she recovered immediately, the consummate professional. “You heard the gunshot?”
“Sounded more like a cannon shot to me.”
“Did you see anyone leaving the scene?”
“No, man. I got under the bed . . . and stayed there.” He leaned into the camera, driving the point home. “Didn’t see a thing.”
The reporter gave him a brisk nod.
“Thank you, sir,” she said gravely, as if he’d just revealed the coordinates of Amelia Earhart’s plane. He stumbled away into the darkness and she turned to face the camera again. “And there you have it. An unidentified young Latino, dead of a gunshot wound. But no suspects, no witnesses. Truly, a mystery. Back to you, Hal.”
Terry flipped off the TV. “Shit.”
“Got that right,” I said.
“Whoever shot him must have taken his identification.”
I paced the floor. “Think this is coming back to us?”
“No. There were no other witnesses. And Tattoo Man obviously doesn’t want to get involved. Saw nothing, knows nothing. Name of Potato.”
I snorted. “Great alias, huh? The bonehead’s never heard of Smith?”
“Best he could do on short notice with no neurons.”
“Think he mentioned us to the police?”
“No. He doesn’t want to cozy up to the police, either. On account of his tendency to self-medicate.”
We pondered the situation for a moment. Terry sat down with Paquito on the couch.
“You think Lenore had something to do with it?” I asked.
Terry sighed, shaking her head. “Obviously she didn’t know Mario was going to be out of commission, or she wouldn’t have tried to hire us to follow him.”
&nbs
p; “But she said ‘two days should do it,’ meaning she didn’t think he’d be a problem after that. So what did she think was going to happen to him?”
“I don’t know. But it’s a safe bet that Mario and his blushing bride were into something extralegal.”
“Yeah, but what? What were they into?”
She tugged on her braid, mulling it over. “Hey, what did Lenore’s first husband die of, anyway?”
“Old age? He was in his nineties.”
“Hmm. Makes ya wonder, doesn’t it? She marries the young guy as soon as the old guy’s in the ground, then the young guy gets shot.”
I got a mental image of Lenore as a psychopathic black-widow murderess, cackling with delight as she bumped off a series of hapless husbands. It didn’t seem like too much of a stretch, actually. “You think she’s a killer?”
Terry responded with a neutral shrug.
Suddenly it was all too much for me. Dead husbands. Purloined money. Severed ears. “Look, we’re going to have to give a statement to the cops—”
“Don’t start with that again!”
“This is not playtime, Terry. This is real. We’re involved with a murder.”
“Peripherally,” she said. “Let’s talk to Lenore, first. See if she’ll come clean.”
“Oh all right. But if the police find out we were there—”
“They won’t. We wore gloves. We’re covered.”
I gave her a skeptical look.
“Hey, rest easy,” she said, looking at the dog curled up next to her leg. “Speaking of which, we’d better figure out some sleeping arrangements for Paquito.”
We fed our new houseguest a meal of canned turkey chili, then made a little sweater nest for him on the couch, stoking the fake logs in the stone fireplace for warmth. Our house is a tiny, shingled two-story cabin, 850 feet square, apparently built for and by Keebler Elves in the 1940s. It’s freezing in the winter because there’s no insulation, and freezing in the summer because of a huge canopy of trees that completely blocks the sun during the day. I sleep upstairs in the loft, a six-by-eight-foot platform with a closet and a skylight, that has a half-wall and no door. Terry sleeps on a mattress on the floor of a little alcove downstairs, an add-on slightly lower than floor level, with a window seat she uses as a dresser.
The Butcher of Beverly Hills Page 5
