Killer Riff

by Sheryl J. Anderson

  “Because I knew there was no chance Claire would let me come up. But I need to talk to her or Gray Benedek, and I can’t get either one of them on the phone. Unless you can tell me where Gray went after he left the SoHo Grand.”

  Olivia’s face sagged. We were right. I raised my hand to knock again, and Olivia grabbed it. “What did Adam tell you?”

  “Why do you assume I’ve talked to Adam? Did something happen I should know about?”

  Olivia shot a worried look at the door. “Shut up.”

  “Does that sound like a confession to you, Cassady?” Tricia asked.

  “It’s certainly not a denial, Tricia,” Cassady answered.

  “She’s not amused, guys,” I said. “Let’s run it by Claire and see what she thinks.”

  “Claire’s not home,” Jordan said from Olivia’s doorway. He leaned against the doorjamb, dressed in a white broadcloth shirt and skintight black jeans, his arms and ankles crossed as if he were posing for an album cover.

  “Hey, Jordan,” Tricia said brightly.

  “Hey, angel, this is a pleasant surprise,” Jordan said, almost convincing me and completely convincing Tricia. He strode over to her and threw his arm around her shoulders, kissing her on the cheek. Me, he looked at less warmly. “What’s up?”

  “Do you know where Claire is?” Tricia asked helpfully, smiling up at Jordan like a smitten teenager.

  “No, but I passed her in the lobby. She and Gray were going out as I was coming in about half an hour ago,” Jordan answered, watching me carefully and absently tapping his fingers on Tricia’s arm. “I didn’t stop to talk to them, they were in a hurry.”

  Tricia, Cassady and I all knew better than to look at one another in reaction to that, but the fact that all three of us looked at the floor at the same time probably made Jordan and Olivia just as suspicious. But I knew my friends were on the same wavelength with me. Gray drugs Adam, gets the information he needs, pours him into a cab, and sends him home. But Adam doesn’t go home, he goes to my place. And Claire freaks out because her son is missing and demands that Gray help her find him. And Gray, not wanting to tell her what he’s done, plays along and joins the hunt, maybe even worried that he went too far and Adam is unconscious or worse somewhere in Manhattan.

  “Why’re you looking for Claire this late?” Jordan continued.

  I corrected course a bit. “I’m actually looking for Adam,” I said.

  “What’d he do now?”

  “Why does everyone assume Adam has done or said something?” Cassady asked.

  “Because he usually has,” Jordan said.

  “I just need to talk to him,” I said. “And I’d really like it to be tonight.”

  “You haven’t fallen for him, have you? I thought you were smart,” Jordan said with a sour grin.

  “Almost as smart as Tricia,” I said, eyeing his arm still around her shoulders. Jordan’s smile didn’t waver, but Tricia’s did.

  “I misplaced him,” Olivia said crisply. “I was hoping you knew where he was.”

  “Misplaced him? What happened?”

  “I met him for drinks at the SoHo Grand, which you obviously already know somehow.”

  “Gossip.”

  Olivia gave such a tight little shake of her head, it was more like a shudder. “Gray joined us. He’d been looking for Adam, and Claire told him where we were.”

  That supported the “happy hour therapy” scenario; if Adam and Olivia were sleeping together, Adam would never admit to his mother where he was meeting Olivia. “What did Gray want? To see how you enjoyed your arrest?”

  “To apologize to both of us.”

  “No way,” Jordan interjected, then explained to me, “He doesn’t know how.”

  Olivia continued impatiently, “He’s not pressing charges, he was just upset.”

  “And staying on your good side in case you turn up with the tapes since he couldn’t find them in your apartment.”

  Jordan shook his head, and I felt some of Olivia’s impatience myself. “This isn’t about the tapes,” he said.

  “Really?” I said pleasantly, though I was not at all happy with his spitting on my central thesis.

  “Gray and Claire are just tearing each other down. Bad breakups lead to stupid behavior.”

  “Like Gray breaking into Olivia’s apartment?” I didn’t see where that fit with Jordan’s theory.

  Jordan shrugged grandly. “I don’t get that, either. Ask him.”

  “I’d love to,” I said, trying to conceal my frustration, “but he isn’t around, is he?”

  “You’re not being very helpful,” Tricia said chummily to her new friend, sensing the rising temperature of her old friend.

  “I don’t have to be, do I? Adam will come home sooner or later, hung over and trailing paternity suits behind him,” Jordan said with a sunny smile that had probably been getting him out of trouble since the cradle.

  Cassady snapped us back on track. “Why did Gray want to apologize to Adam?”

  Olivia hesitated a moment, then said, “Gray was sorry about arguing with Adam over his album, and he wanted to make a clean start.”

  “How’d that go?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I got a phone call, so I excused myself.”

  “Who called you?”

  “I did,” Jordan volunteered. “Funny thing, I was looking for Adam, too.”

  I had a sudden insane image of all the children hunting for the Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, but instead of devouring candy bars to get it, they were devouring one another. Why was everyone so worried about where Adam was? Did they all think he had the tapes? Or did they think his mother had the tapes and he knew where they were and could be persuaded to divulge?

  That made sense at least for Gray, who might have decided Adam’s new obsession with jazz was beneficial; if he was turning his back on rock and roll, he wouldn’t care about the tapes as much and would help Gray get hold of them. And Gray had been so casual about slipping Adam something and not paying attention to whether Adam survived or not—could that mean Gray’s callous pursuit of royalties had already claimed one victim and he didn’t care about making it two? Had Gray killed Russell, too, and then just not been able to find the box with the tapes before Olivia showed up?

  I didn’t realize how long I’d been lost in thought until I heard Cassady ask Jordan, “Why were you looking for Adam?”

  “I wanted to talk to him about singing with me tomorrow night at the terrific party Tricia’s planning.”

  “Because it went so well last time?” I asked.

  “To make up for last time.”

  “Why does everyone suddenly want to patch things up with Adam?” Tricia asked.

  Jordan shrugged, pulling her closer to him. “Who knows what Gray’s deal is, I just felt bad. He’s my brother, after all.”

  “So did you talk to him?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t let him,” Olivia said quickly. I caught the look she zapped to Jordan, that slightly wide-eyed “play along, please” look that hovers between confidence and desperation. She was either spinning this hard or making it up as she went. “Adam was so upset, I didn’t think it was the time for them to talk.”

  “How drunk was Adam?”

  Olivia elongated her neck, offended. “He wasn’t. He’s very careful about his drinking, which is understandable given what happened to his father.”

  “I thought his father was murdered,” I said, as much to Jordan as to Olivia. “Just like your father. Which means he shouldn’t just be careful about drinking, he should be careful about who buys his drinks.”

  Olivia’s neck drew back down, and she flushed a deep, unexpected shade of red. “Are you accusing me?”

  “No, should I be?”

  While Olivia sputtered, Jordan said, “She’s accusing Gray, Ollie. Cool it.”

  Olivia gasped again, and she flushed even deeper, which I wouldn’t have thought possible. “Oh no, what if Gray hurt Adam a
nd that’s why we can’t find him?”

  I agreed with her on the first half, but her grave concern about the second half distressed me. Before my guilt, which lives very close to the surface, could get the better of me, Cassady said, “Adam and Gray were seen leaving the hotel separately. I’m sure Adam’s fine, wherever he is.” It’s like MasterCard says, “Friends who know when to lie for you: priceless.”

  “And when he turns up, would you ask him to give me a call?” I said, guiding Cassady and Tricia back to the elevator. A plan was beginning to take shape in my tangerine-flavored brain, and I didn’t want us to overstay our welcome.

  Tricia and Jordan bade each other a flirtatious good-bye until Cassady pulled Tricia in one direction and Olivia pulled Jordan in the other. As the elevator doors closed, Tricia sighed happily and I felt like an absolute creep.

  “You really like him?” I asked.

  “He’s handsome and he’s fun, and that’s all I’m considering right now,” Tricia said.

  “And he wrote her a song,” Cassady reminded me.

  “You’re working really hard on his party, too, aren’t you?” I asked.

  Tricia looked at me uneasily. “Yes, but why do you sound so unhappy about that?”

  It was my turn to sigh. “Because I’m going to ruin it.”

  16

  The most damgerous part of my job isn’t the occasional fanatic who takes a swing or a shot at me. It’s spending so much time with people who are willing to lie, steal, or worse in order to get what they want that I start accepting that as the normal course of events. So it’s really good for me to stop and remember how nice it feels to do something good for another person. And to consider what lengths people will go to for me once I’ve done something sweet for them.

  In the doorway of Connie’s office, evolving paparazzi Kenny radiated a whole new vibe, eager and earnest. Who knew? He smiled at me over Connie’s shoulder as she thanked him for bringing in his portfolio on such short notice and promised to give him a call for something in the next issue. I told Connie I’d be right back and escorted Kenny to the elevator.

  “How much does she owe you?” Kenny asked, gun-shy and trying to get to the punch line before I did.

  “About twenty-three large,” I said in my best moll voice. Kenny flinched, then I explained, “We take bunco very seriously around here.” He snorted and made a face. “She doesn’t owe me anything, Kenny. It’s one of those greater good situations—break for you, benefits the magazine, helps out Connie, so why not?”

  “Would’ve expected you to be more cynical at your age.” Kenny shrugged.

  I felt kindly toward him nevertheless. Plus, “There’s something else.”

  “I knew it,” Kenny said with the satisfaction of a man seeing his worldview vindicated.

  “You really ought to come by Pillow tonight.”

  “The club in TriBeCa?”

  “Jordan Crowley’s having a listening party for some friends.”

  “What, you haven’t gotten your picture taken in twenty-four hours?”

  “I was thinking you might want to get a few shots of what happens when people hear a very special announcement about Micah Crowley’s Hotel Tapes.”

  Kenny lit up as though I’d handed him a winning lottery ticket. “Who’s making the announcement?”

  I winked. “An announcement will be made,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too much like I was dictating the press release.

  “Who else knows?”

  “In the press?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just you.”

  Grabbing me in a bear hug that reset my spinal column more efficiently than a chiropractor, Kenny said, “You won’t be sorry.”

  He had no idea on how many levels I hoped he was right.

  The night before, I hadn’t been able to get Kyle saying “They don’t know that” out of my head. After we’d talked to Jordan and Olivia, the fact that no one knew I didn’t have the tapes because no one knew who did have the tapes blossomed into a plan. Which was why I’d told Tricia I needed to ruin her party.

  At first blush, she hadn’t been pleased, which was to be expected. Not only had she been working around the clock, she’d been enjoying hanging with Jordan; she didn’t want either of those efforts to go to waste, and neither did I.

  “Ruin how?” had been her first question.

  “Unleash a little pandemonium,” I said.

  “That helps most parties,” Cassady said. Her dazzling eyes flicked back and forth between Tricia and me, weighing us as much as watching us. The elevator doors opened, and Cassady swept us out in front of her.

  Halfway across the lobby, I stopped and asked the doorman if I could leave a message with him for Mrs. Crowley. When he said I could, I took out a business card and wrote on the back of it.

  “You don’t have cards for your new job yet, do you?” Tricia asked.

  “I think I have to prove I can hold on to the job for more than a week before Henry will authorize the expense,” I said. I wrote, “LIAR,” on the back of the card, handed it to the doorman, and followed my friends out to the street.

  In the taxi back to my apartment, I explained my plan. Since everyone in this group was lying to me—and to one another—about everything, I was going to play the game by their rules and tell a whopper of my own. I was going to announce that I had the Hotel Tapes. While the ensuing chaos might ruin Tricia’s party, it would also force whoever really did have them to take some action.

  “Like shoot you!” Cassady exclaimed, horrified.

  “They don’t seem like a gun-toting crowd,” I said with optimistic justification.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this to Tricia,” she tried again.

  “That’s why I’m apologizing in advance.”

  “I don’t know that an apology’s necessary,” Tricia said, her voice strangely tight. She was looking out the window, so I couldn’t see her face, and for a moment I panicked, thinking I had made her cry. But Cassady poked her, probably thinking the same thing, and Tricia turned to give us both a dazzling smile. “Can you imagine the publicity?”

  “Oh, God help us all,” Cassady said, sighing.

  “I’ve got such an old-money, blue-blood clientele—not that I don’t love them, but this will introduce me to a whole new community, one that throws parties constantly,” Tricia said with growing enthusiasm.

  “And you’ll take credit for her suicidal stunt, like it was part of your planned entertainment for the evening?” Cassady asked with growing incredulity.

  “Hey, you’re the one who usually encourages envelope pushing,” I said.

  “If one of these maniacs doesn’t kill you, Kyle will,” Cassady said with a tone that implied I’d tripped over the elephant in the room several times without noticing. “In a metaphoric, emotional sense, of course, but nevertheless. I don’t think he’ll appreciate your using yourself as bait in this type of situation.”

  One of the most valuable things about true friends is the perspective they offer you about life. One of the most annoying things about true friends is they offer that perspective when you’re least receptive to it. I considered my “I can play this game” strategy to be bold and clever, worthy of a Thin Man movie or at least of an episode of Law & Order that would give some very deserving cabdriver his big break. Self-as-bait had not occurred to me, and I disliked the image of a worm impaled on a hook that sprang to mind now. But surely there was a way to explain my plan so it would win over Cassady. And Kyle.

  “No.”

  Kyle looked at me as though I’d just asked permission to try a swan dive off the George Washington Bridge. Cassady and Tricia got a glance as he determined if they were in on this, then the smoldering glare swung back to me. He pointed to Adam, who was sound asleep on my couch, a position I envied deeply. It was after midnight, and I had reached the point in the evening where my feet felt permanently fixed in the shape of my Stuart Weitzmans and my thoughts felt squeezed through chees
ecloth. I was sure it was a good idea, maybe I just wasn’t expressing it properly. “Haven’t you ever told a suspect that you had a piece of evidence that you didn’t really have, just to see his reaction?”

  “I’m unplugging your television.”

  “You’re avoiding my question.”

  Tricia grabbed Cassady by the hand and yanked her out of the line of fire. “We’re going to the bathroom. Call us when it’s okay to come out.”

  “You don’t have—”

  “Have fun, ladies,” Kyle said grimly. He looked down at the floor, waiting to hear the bathroom door close, while I cast a flustered look at the sympathetic but worried faces of my departing friends.

  The door snicked closed, and I lowered myself toward a chair, anticipating a lengthy lecture about professionalism and boundaries and a bunch of other things I couldn’t argue with. But before my knees had bent more than seven degrees, Kyle grabbed my arms and pulled me back up. For a fleeting, hopeful moment, I thought he was going to kiss me, but instead he looked at me with a ferocious intensity that made my throat go dry. “I have to be there.”

  “Where?” I asked quietly.

  “At your damn party. To watch your back.”

  “But you just said—”

  “That I didn’t think it was a good idea. And it’s not. But it’s your call, not mine. I told you I want to make this work. You’re not making it easy, but I’m trying.”

  When he did kiss me, he had to keep holding me by the arms so I didn’t collapse from the heat. Losing myself in the moment, I tried to slide my hands up under his shirt, but his hands shot down to my wrists and stopped me.

  “One unconscious male on the couch and two giggling females in the bathroom,” he said by way of explanation.

  “Send them home. He’ll sleep through anything, don’t you think?” I whispered, not wanting the heat to dissipate.

  “Taking our time,” he reminded me firmly.

  “You’re showing off.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Because you have more self-control than I do.”