From where I stood by the staff elevator, I could see the new director too. He was wagging his head eagerly, listening to Sandy Sparks. The producer, however, kept his sharp eyes trained on his young wife. Even from across the room, it was difficult to miss Larrah Sparks.
Blond hair piled high on her head, she spun on the dance floor under the black lights, boogie-oogy-oogying until she just couldn’t boogie no more. Bare arms lifted—the better for admiration—she shook her backside against a partner who moved in the shadows behind her. What I could see of him stepped back and forth, side to side, like somebody kicking his own ankles. The muscle-bound attempt to stay on the beat. It was too dark to see his forehead, but I could guess: Vinnie.
I walked from the service elevator to the palm reading table. The music sounded muffled in my ears, and the room looked like a cave warmed by neon and black-light fires. Jessie the bartender had covered the windows with the storm shutters, and at the black velvet table, Aunt Charlotte sat with MJ, the piano player. I ducked my head, trying to avoid being seen as I pulled up a chair.
“How’s the party?” I asked.
My aunt shook her head. “I’m too old for this crowd.”
“And I have the spirit of Marilyn Monroe,” MJ said. “That’s why I’m an addict. And I’m going to die young.”
I repressed a groan. “Claire?”
MJ nodded.
Suppressing an eye-roll, I looked around. “Where is she?”
My aunt sat up, gazing around the dark bar. “She was just here.” Her voice dropped confidentially. “She might be in the bathroom, she had a bit too much to drink.”
“I thought she was an alcoholic,” I said. “She told the bartender she can’t drink and give readings.”
“She can’t. She was just drinking iced tea but she got loopy. Then woozy.” Pushing back her chair, my aunt stood up. Her silk tunic was creased across the lap, telling me she’d sat for most of the party. “I’ll go check the restroom.”
She left and MJ looked down, studying her hands. The black velvet washed over the table and seemed to blend with her flowing dress, the bohemian waves of dark hair.
“MJ, who ran the pot operation in San Jose?”
She lifted her eyes. They were such soft intuitive eyes. And they were so full of fear. “I told you, I don’t smoke anymore. Claire was just telling me why I was an addict. I’m clean, honest.”
“I believe you. But you went to prison for distribution.”
She began picking at her palm.
“You’re not the business type.”
“I set that whole thing up.”
“You’re an artist,” I said calmly. “You probably can’t even balance a checkbook, if you even keep a checkbook. Somebody had to be the bank on that operation. Somebody took care of the books. Who was it?”
She turned. The boogie song had ended, the dancers were wandering off the floor, leaving the purple orb of the black lights. Larrah Sparks was fanning her face and following her—like an oversize puppy—was the man Milo tried to choke. The burly extra.
“Tell me, MJ.” I tried to control my voice, but time was running out.
“I need this job.” She fumbled with the plastic chair, trying to push it back. “It’s all I’ve got.”
“It was Sparks, wasn’t it?” I grabbed her wrist before she could run away. “He ran it?”
She yanked her arm away, fleeing. Her gossamer black dress floated behind her as she ran to a keyboard, set up along the wall by the dance floor. She sat down awkwardly. She even tried to smile.
Bird Girl suddenly saw me. She was flapping across the room, right behind Aunt Charlotte, whose distance was shorter.
“I can’t find Claire,” she said.
“Charlotte, this is a private party,” Bird Girl said. “Mr. Sparks has been more than generous with you. He’s given you and your family very comfortable—”
“Comfortable?” My aunt guffawed.
Bird Girl blinked.
“After this week, I’m going to need months of therapy,” my aunt said.
Bird Girl opened her mouth.
But I stood up, cutting her off.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I was just leaving.”
Chapter Forty-one
The Parrotheads next door sang along with Jimmy Buffett, insisting that when Monday comes everything will be all right. I wanted to believe them, fishing in my pocket for my keycard, but I could also hear Claire on the other side of the door. Playing that bizarro music. Even in my cottony ears her loud voice grated. She was talking to the crystals. Or maybe the plants.
“Do you love me?” she asked. “Because I looooove you.”
Keycard poised, I felt an urge to run the other way. But Claire had the bracelet and the pink stone. And I needed to know if anybody had asked about them.
I slid the card into the slot, taking a deep breath.
Then I heard a crash, followed by the sound of Claire grunting. Holding the door handle, bracing myself, I prayed the woman was dressed. But just to be safe, I knocked on the door and waited, giving her time.
But before I could open it, the door swung. I fell into the room. The door slammed shut. A hand clamped over my mouth. An arm wrapped around my neck.
I punched, whipping my elbows back. It felt like I was hitting granite.
He breathed into my ear. “One word and I’ll kill you both.”
Claire was picking herself off the floor. She staggered toward me, the yellow sari torn down the front. Her glazed eyes seemed aqueous, like shining opals.
“Raleigh . . .” She bumped into the desk and bounced off it like a Nerf ball. “My friend. You’re my friend.”
Drunk. Blind blotto drunk. On her forehead the pink stone hung like a scab, the skin bleeding from where he’d tried to tear it off. I glanced at her right wrist. Thin sharp lines traced her pale skin. No bracelet remained.
His arm pulled tighter. And I knew what I’d done: I’d made her a target.
Vinnie’s target.
“Where are the stones?” he whispered.
His hand over my mouth tasted bitter, like rust.
When I didn’t respond, he pulled tighter. My eyes bulged as I picked up my right foot and came down with full force, grinding my heel into his foot. He faltered with pain and I spun, twisting my body away. But his grip tightened. I grabbed his forearm, scratching, pulling at the muscles that rippled under my fingers, flexing like a boa constrictor.
“I know you took them from the box,” he said. “What did you do with them?”
I was choking. His fingers were blocking my nose too.
Claire tipped forward. “Whaatt?”
I tried kicking again but he lifted his arm, dangling me like a rag doll.
“What are you two doing?” Claire asked.
I twisted my waist, aiming a knee for his crotch.
“Hey, my turn!” Claire cried.
He shifted side to side as I kicked. Laughter in my ear. “It won’t work,” he whispered. “You’re mine now.”
“I get a turn!” Claire, sounding petulant, the spoiled child.
I was squinting, trying to press back the force pushing at my eyes. My head was going to explode. When he leaned back, lifting me higher, my feet came off the floor, treading thin air.
“I want to swing!” Claire said. “Let me swing! Swing, swing—”
Swing.
Taking his forearm like a branch, I swung my legs back and forward. Again and again, swinging until my right foot connected with Claire. I kicked her, hard. She stumbled back, hit the bed, and gazed down at her leg, where my foot struck. I started swinging again, ready for another kick, when Vinnie started backing up. Still holding me off the ground, he kept me from braking his path through the adjoining door. At the last second, I kicked out both of my feet, hooking my toes on the door frame. He tugged. My neck cracked and popped. Legs trembling, my shins burned. I closed my eyes, trying to breathe.
“You kicked me!”
The yellow sari
appeared at my feet.
“Why’d you kick me?” she demanded.
I closed my eyes and kicked her again. I felt my shoe connecting right before Vinnie yanked, pulling me off the frame.
He dragged me into my aunt’s cabin and moved the hand until it covered my nose.
“Tell me where you put them. Or I swear I’ll kill you.”
Far away I heard Claire, crying. “You hurt meeeee!” And the Parrotheads next door sang about getting drunk. My fingers tingled, losing circulation. They slipped off his arm, unable to hold on. I closed my eyes again. Praying. One gulp of air. Please. One breath.
The slap on my face opened my eyes.
Claire didn’t disappoint. In a rage, she hit wildly, striking at my face but connecting with Vinnie’s arm too. I felt the ground under my feet. Took a breath. Took another punch from Claire’s windmilling arms. I leaned forward, taking Vinnie down with me. Close enough now that Claire could strike his face. The crazy slaps flew, fast and unpredictable. He couldn’t control us both. Forced to the choice, he kept the arm around my neck. But his hand left my mouth completely. I gasped, opening wide. Claire kept erupting. Numbed by alcohol and anger, she propelled herself into us. When he lunged for her, I twisted sideways.
I spun out from under his arm.
They tumbled to the floor. Claire was snarling like a wild dog.
Turning away, I slapped my hands on the bureau, searching. My fingers didn’t feel the drawer as I pulled it out. And my thumbs felt just as detached sliding over the latches on the titanium case. Sliding again, until the lid popped up. Shoving everything away, I grabbed the rock hammer.
The steel claw pointed forward as I whirled around. Claire was pinned to the floor but still fighting, a drunken dervish. Sensing me, Vinnie turned his head. He saw the raised hammer. Under that brow the eyes grew large and I swung, so certain of connecting that I thought it was the force of my blow that toppled me.
I lay on the floor, stunned. The hammer was still in my right hand. But my left leg, it ached.
His thick fingers clamped down around my wrist, squeezing until my hand shook. I couldn’t move my leg and in horror, I watched my fingers spasm open. The hammer clunked to the floor.
A heavy leaden sound. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered if anybody could hear it.
Anybody.
Please.
Claire whimpered on the floor, crying and holding her arms to her body. Vinnie picked me up and flung me like a toy, throwing me on my aunt’s bed facedown. He pressed on the back of my head, pushing my face into the pillow. I tried to breathe, and heard Jimmy Buffett describing a dying little town, and when Vinnie’s full weight fell on me, covering my entire back, my lungs suddenly compressed, pushing out all the air. My mind begged. One breath. One breath. But the pillowcase had filled my mouth and fireworks exploded across my eyelids. I sent up another one-word prayer, desperate. Panicked. Fading with the Parrothead music until it was only the blood in my ears, washing like the sound of the sea. His enormous frame pressed down, making sure, making sure no air ever came back. I felt his mouth beside my ear. He was breathing as if to say good-bye. My body floated off the bed, rising weightless as the fireworks faded and my lungs no longer strained, and the last thought I had was this: Take care of her.
It felt like falling asleep. I released all my fear, letting go, breathing again.
“I just wanted to swing.”
I held still. Then opened my eyes.
“If you’d just let me swing.”
The lead weight on my back was motionless. He was no longer pressing. But he still breathed in my ear.
No, not breathing.
He was snoring.
I lifted my head, turned. Vinnie’s head slid across my back. His heavy arm dangled on my shoulder. The thick fingers were bloody. Bitten.
“I like to swing.” Claire sounded like a girl. A sad child. “That’s all I wanted. To swing. But you didn’t let me be part of the game.”
I pushed with my arms, and he slid farther off. I glanced over my shoulder.
She stood over the bed. In her right hand the rock hammer faced the wrong way. The claw pointed toward her.
Torquing the rest of my body, I shrugged Vinnie off. He slid to the right, slamming into the wall.
The Parrotheads banged back. “You shut up!” somebody yelled.
I heard laughter over the music.
Pulling my legs out from under him, my arms felt strange. The way they do when they’ve fallen asleep but are coming back. My face was hot with fever. Slowly, with both hands extended, I reached out. Her vapid eyes were still bright. Still drunk. Blind drunk. Blackout drunk.
“I like swinging,” she said.
“So do I, Claire.” I took the hammer from her hands. “So do I.”
Chapter Forty-two
Vinnie was damaged.
But not dead.
As Vinnie had pressed my face into the pillow, Claire came up behind him and slammed my rock hammer toward his head, connecting with the top of his spine, just below the cerebellum. One inch higher and Vinnie would’ve dropped dead. But the woman with broken-clock accuracy hit a hole-in-one. The perfect strike, immediately shutting down Vinnie’s deranged motor.
As Jack said, drunks will surprise you.
Holding her hands like she was a misbehaving child, I maneuvered her back into my cabin, setting her down on my bed. She was still babbling about swinging, and some thin strands of dried Superglue dangled from her forehead. As she prattled on, I yanked the pink benitoite. She didn’t even feel it.
Backing away, smiling, I leaped into my aunt’s cabin, locking the door.
Vinnie snored on the bed. In profile, the forehead looked like a continental shelf.
I took the nylon evidence tape from my rock kit and wrapped his wrists behind his back. I taped his ankles together, moving quickly because he was stirring, grunting toward consciousness. Once he was tied, I went into the bathroom and grabbed a washcloth.
When he grunted again, I stuffed the cloth into his mouth and sat on the twin bed opposite him. From the cabin phone, I called the concierge and reported a drunken woman in cabin 513. She was behaving erratically and needed immediate help.
Vinnie’s eyelids were fluttering as I hung up. When they opened, he stared at the bedside table for several long moments. But somebody was already knocking on Claire’s door and I got up. In the hall, I saw Jack standing at her door, holding a plastic bag.
“Wrong one,” I said.
“Why is your face so red?”
“Hurry!” I motioned for him to come inside, and as he passed through the door, he handed me the plastic bag. It advertised a Ketchikan gift shop.
“Open it,” he said.
The jewelry box was inside.
When I looked up, Jack was already standing beside the bed, staring down at Vinnie. “You want to ask me how I found it, but I want to know how you hog-tied this guy.”
I set the plastic bag on the bureau, relief spilling out of my heart, welling in my eyes. I could only nod.
“Okay, I’ll go first,” he said. “Dad was keeping the box.” He looked down at Vinnie. “You rotten creep. Dragging those old people into it, like they don’t have enough problems. I should throw you overboard right now, with your hands tied.”
“Jack.”
He didn’t hear me. Or couldn’t. Locked on Vinnie, his eyes had that cold camera-lens expression. I reached out, touching his arm.
He pointed at Vinnie like he was Exhibit A. “He took the box. That day Milo sent us to get his shoes. Vinnie realized that if Milo noticed the box was gone, he could blame the FBI. And the bodyguard had a key to the cabin.”
Vinnie tried to turn his head, gagging on the washcloth. The forehead dripped with sweat.
“After he grabbed it, he had to get back to the set. He was on a supposed bathroom break, and the girl with the clipboard was watching the door. Whose cabin is three doors from Milo? Sandy’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bu
tz.” He looked down at Vinnie again. “You miserable thug. You killed her, didn’t you? You killed Judy Carpenter.”
The forehead rippled, the eyes darted.
Jack sat down beside him, leaning down close. “That bracelet and those stones in her jewelry box, that’s what this is about—she died for some pretty rocks?”
Vinnie shook his head, then moaned in pain.
I rifled through my rock kit, searching through the mess I’d made. When I found the list from the purser, I checked the names again. I didn’t get far. Third name from the top: Herman Butz. I stared at the sheet, dumbfounded. According to the schedule, it was on Sunday. Ramazan worked for more than ninety minutes. Safety concerns for handicapped passenger.
“Jack, did his father say anything about a handyman?”
“No. Why?”
I walked over, pointing to the schedule. Suddenly I remembered something Larrah Sparks told me. “His mother was causing problems before the ship left Seattle. She locked her husband’s wallet in the safe, then forgot the code.”
“The safe, huh?”
“Ninety minutes seems like a long time.”
The name! I kicked myself. That might have been my biggest mistake. When I spoke to the father at the phillumenist convention, he was grateful that Lysander-turned-Sandy had “at least kept me in his last name.” Sparks. I thought that was their name. But Sparks was a stage name. The son was honoring his father’s passion for collecting matchbooks.
Lysander Butz of Philadelphia became Hollywood’s Sandy Sparks.
I had assumed—and it did exactly what the medical examiner said it would.
Jack slapped Vinnie on the back, hard.
The bodyguard winced, moaning again into the washcloth.
“I’m sure you know what happened, and why. You knew enough to give the old man the jewelry box. And if Raleigh’s got you bound up like this, she’s got plenty of rope. Get it, Vinnie, rope? You’re going to a place where they’ll call you Vickie. If you’re lucky, it’s Vickie.” He paused, letting the image sink in. “But I’m a nice guy, not like that Dutchman. Did Martin Webb tell you about him? The big guy just does not care at all about your rights. And when he hears what you did on his ship . . .” Jack shook his head, feigning compassion. “You’ll wish somebody was calling you Vickie.”
The Mountains Bow Down Page 34
