Sex and Death: The Movie: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 6)

by J. J. Henderson

  “Oooh, a secret entry,” Mickey said as they sauntered over. “You going to let me double that five grand for you, Luce?”

  “Does that offer come with a written guarantee?” Lucy asked.

  “I’ll let you know in about fifteen minutes,” Mickey said. “I need to see the lay of the table first. See who’s playing, what’s up, who’s on a roll if anybody.”

  “Sounds good. But don’t forget if I find this Kristalli guy here I have some business to attend to. And he might not like it so we might have to leave pronto.”

  “Right right,” Mickey said, then Lucy did the door knock bebop on the appropriate door, which immediately swung open.

  A guy in a black suit and nerdy horn-rimmed glasses, with a bad haircut said, “Show me your money.”

  “What?”

  “Hey, this is a twenty-five/fifty dollar blind game, baby. You can’t come in here with less than three large. Three thousand that is.”

  “Yeah I know what three large means, bucko. I’ve got five,” Mickey said, waving Lucy’s money at him.

  “What about her?” he said.

  “She’s my manager,” Mickey said.

  “I’m her life coach and drinks-fetcher,” Lucy said. “Mostly the latter. You guys have a bar down here, right?”

  “You want to be down here you stay at the bar,” the guy said. “Stay away from the table. Dig?”

  “Dig,” Lucy said, and they stepped down into the room, a small, overlit dinge-palace featuring plastic wood-paneled walls and fluorescent lights, with the round poker table in the middle and a bar against the back wall, where a photo of a naked woman on a calendar stuck on July three years past fluttered in the draft from a dirty little fan on the bar back. Five guys occupied the table, with a couple of empty chairs between them. Each had stacks of cash on the table. Two women sat at one end of the bar, watching, drinking, bored broads on bad dates. Both looked like the calendar girl only slightly more dressed. Mickey went straight to the table, pulled up a chair, and sat.

  “I’m in,” she said, putting her money—Lucy’s five grand—on the table.

  “Hold em, 25-50 blind, no limit. You good with that?” The man holding the deck looked at her evenly. Lucy checked all the players out, and decided nobody in the room was named Mark Kristalli.

  “Sure,” Mickey said. “No limit means I can take all your money faster.” Now she had their attention.

  “Deal, Sam,” one guy said. “Let’s put this broad out of her misery.”

  Mickey adjusted her shirt in an ostentatious way Lucy had never seen before. Did she really think showing her boobs would distract these serious card dudes?

  By the time the door swung open again an hour and a half later, Lucy knew that the boobs-as-distraction either didn’t matter or worked really well. Mickey was up somewhere between eleven and fourteen hundred bucks, according to Lucy’s loose calculations.

  Two guys came down the stairs. One of them, Lucy knew immediately, was Mark Kristalli. The hair, the leather, the stocky muscular body, the shades all added up. The angry, pugnacious face seemed to add up as well. She cleared her throat softly. Mickey glanced at her, got the message. Kristalli came to the bar and squirmed onto a stool, leather pants squeaking, as the other guy sat in the one empty seat at the table.

  Lucy swung round and got the attention of the nerd in the suit sitting at the end of the bar. He apparently served as doorman, bouncer and bartender. She’d had two glasses of a rather foul red wine that he’d poured from a two-liter bottle, and for a second she thought about ordering a third but changed her mind. “Could I get a mineral water, amigo,” she said his way.

  He went behind the bar and got her a little green bottle of water. “Five bucks, sweetheart,” he said, putting it down in front of her.

  “Five bucks!” Lucy said, mock-shocked. “Seven-fifty a pop for that swill you call red wine and five bucks for a Pellegrino?”

  The guy shrugged. “Hey, it’s New York.”

  “If my friend wasn’t running the table I’d be pissed, I guess,” Lucy said, pushing the money across the bar. “But she is…hey, I know you,” she said, looking left and softening her tone to something close to a sexy murmur. “I’ve seen you…at Moan,” she said quietly, almost a whisper.

  He’d been ignoring her but that got his attention. Sunglasses and all, she could feel him checking her out carefully. “I don’t think so,” he finally said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know you,” he said. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes you do,” she said. “Because you’re Mark Kristalli, and I’m a friend of Christopher Wadsworth.”

  At this he put his hands on the bar and stood up. He knocked back the rest of his drink. “I’m outta here,” he said to the bartender. He gave Lucy a look. “You’ve got some really nosy new talent in here, Henry.”

  “Not so fast, chico. You can run but you can’t hide, Señor Dark Krystal,” Lucy said. “I’ve got your number.”

  He stopped. “What number?”

  “The one from Carole Wainwright’s phone book.”

  “It’s a cell. I ain’t listed, bitch.” He headed out.

  “I know about the money,” Lucy called after him, fishing. He stopped and turned around.

  “What money?”

  “The money he owed you.”

  Had him. “Owes me, you mean.”

  “No. Owed you. Dead guys don’t function in the present tense, Krystal.”

  “Well he still owes me anyways,” he said.

  “A lot of money?”

  “Three hundred twenty grand.”

  “Jesus. So you didn’t…”

  “What, kill him? Fuck no. Why would I do that?”

  “Teach him a lesson? Scare someone else into paying you? Because you were pissed? Hey, why don’t you tell me? Tell me what happened the night he died.”

  He sat down. “Get lost, Henry,” he said to the barkeep, who was lurking. Abashed, Henry skulked away. “What the fuck are…why are you here? Who are you?” His aura combined impatience and violence. Not a good mix.

  “My name is Lucy Ripken and I am not a cop. I knew Wadsworth. Hey, look, did he tell you he was producing a movie?”

  “Fucking guy didn’t tell me anything except that he’d pay me back this week. So…” he stopped. “You still didn’t tell me why you’re interested.”

  “I was working on this movie he was producing. He’s dead, there’s some question about what happened, and guess what? I heard that you were there when he died.”

  “Is that what you told the cops?” He leaned into her.

  She threw up her hands. “Back off buster. No, I didn’t tell them anything. I didn’t know when I talked to them. I heard it from…”

  “Carole. That cunt. God damn her. Hey, listen, let me tell you something.” He was practically poking at her with his finger. “That fuck Wadsworth came into this card game a couple months ago—I brought him in because I knew him from, you know, the club, and…”

  “Moan?”

  “Yeah. I knew him there for a while. He used to come alone and hire some of the girls there to do all kinds of weird shit. I could tell he had a lot of money and didn’t know what to do with it so I thought I’d get him in this game. So I did, and pretty soon he was into me for a ton of money—I was the banker here for a while, lending people dough when they’d run out—and he kept coming back, and losing, and booking bets on football games and shit. I don’t know how he made his money but he fucking sure knew how to waste it.

  “Then he started showing up at the club with that bitch Carole, and she was doing all the stuff the other girls did before. To him I mean. He was into some kinky shit, see? So last week I told him he had to pay up because frankly they were at a point at the club where they didn’t want him coming around any more, they were afraid he was going to like, bring down the law or expire on the premises or some such shit. He was basically out of control. So the
last night I saw him he told me he had the money he owed me back at his place and would I come down there with him.

  “So I said, yes, who wouldn’t, the guy owed me three hundred and twenty grand. So him and me and that Carole broad went down there the other night, and the next thing I know I’m stoned on some xanax Carole gave me, don’t ask me why I took it because I don’t know, she put it in my hand and I put it in my mouth, and then I drank a couple of glasses of wine at his pad. So I was pretty high, know what I mean? Then the guy gets out his toys and starts getting ready to do his weird thing, you know…” he hesitated. “You know what he liked to do, right?” Lucy nodded. “So I said hey you fuck, where’s my money, and he said, afterwards you can have it, first you have to watch me, so I said fuck this and I left. I figured he didn’t have any money, he just wanted an audience. I took the three grand he had in his wallet and put six bottles of his fancy wine in a shopping bag and split. Next thing I hear he’s dead.” He stopped. “End of story.”

  “What about Carole?”

  “What about her? She was there watching him do his little dance on the end of the rope, last I saw them.”

  “So he was still alive?”

  “Alive? Yeah. Fucking loaded as it gets but yeah, he was alive and kicking. About to kick the chair right out from under himself in fact. That’s when I left the room, I wasn’t gonna give that asshole the pleasure of having me watch him do that shit. I went into his wine room and bagged the bottles, took the money I could find, and cut out of there. I probably should have searched the whole place to see if he had the half a million in cash like he said but I was getting really uptight with what was happening, plus I was kind of wasted myself and I felt like I might pass out if I didn’t keep moving. Also I think if I’d stayed I might have had to, you know, beat the shit out of both of them because they were so lame. So I split instead. That bitch was sitting on a sofa watching him so she hardly even noticed when I left.”

  Lucy took a pull on her Pellegrino. “So you have no idea how he died?”

  “I heard he was strangled.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “Well, sounds to me like he did it himself. Maybe the bitch helped him out—or didn’t, know what I mean?’

  “No. What do you mean?”

  “Maybe he expected her to release the rope and let him down. Or put the chair where he could get his feet on it. After he shot his wad.”

  “Maybe he expected you to do that.”

  “Maybe so but I was gone, wasn’t I?”

  “I guess you were weren’t you?” She turned, not liking this guy’s deal one bit. “Hey Mick,” she said, rather loudly. “How goes it?”

  “Good good,” Mickey said, patting her cash pile.

  “Time to go, kiddo,” Lucy said.

  “Sounds good.”

  “No way, what the fuck’re you talkin’ about, you can’t go now,” came from various heads around the table.

  “Says who?” Mickey said.

  “That’s chickenshit cards is what it is,” one guy opined.

  “Fucking bullshit,” said another.

  Mickey looked around the table. “Well boys,” she said pleasantly, riffling her stack of bills. “Do you really want me to stay, take some more of your free money?”

  “Get the fuck out,” one said. “And don’t come back.”

  “Shall we go, Luce?” she said pleasantly.

  “Hey,” Kristalli said, grabbing Lucy’s arm. “I’m not done yet, lady.”

  Lucy vigorously shook him off. “Yes you are,” she said. “Or I am anyways. So keep your hands off me.”

  “You give my name to the cops I’ll know about it, bitch,” he said.

  “Don’t threaten me, Mr. Dark Krystal or whoever you are.”

  “The cops come to me or fuck up the club, you’re in the shit. That’s all I got to say to you, lady.”

  Lucy turned her back on him, opened her cell phone and called a cab, gave the address. “Let’s wait upstairs, Mick,” she said, and threw two twenties on the bar. “Thanks,” she said to Henry. She kept her back to Krystal, daring him to mess with her. She’d fuck him up if he tried anything. Give him a taste of that black belt karate she didn’t know. But no matter she didn’t know, he wouldn’t mess with her because she had him by the short hairs and he knew it.

  “I called a cab. No way we’re going to go out there and look for one,” Lucy said quietly as they tripped up the stairs. “One of those mugs will be sure and try to take his money back…”

  “And then some,” Mickey said. “I told you I’d kick their butts, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah. And I got what I needed from that guy. What a major asshole.”

  “Was he?”

  “Oh yeah.” The cab pulled up just as they emerged onto street level. They ran out and climbed in. “A trueblue super creep. Corner of Broome and Broadway and then uptown,” Lucy said to the cabbie.

  “Some weird shit our friend Paul’s gotten into,” Mickey observed as they took off.

  “You don’t know the half of it, my darling. This Wadsworth fellow was a major piece of work. Now poor little Paulie’s up to his neck in it and he doesn’t even know.”

  “Last time we talked he said he was getting ready to leave his wife,” Mickey said.

  “Really? Even with the new baby?”

  “Uh-huh. Said he couldn’t deal with it any more. Said he didn’t have the financial wherewithal to support two families and…”

  “This must have been before his movie deal came through.”

  “Maybe so but it is still not what you want to hear from someone who’s been married less than two years.”

  “No shit. Hey, right here’s fine. Here’s your money, honey,” Lucy said, handing Mickey a grand in hundreds.

  “No way, Lucy. You banked me. I had a ball and the five hundred was plenty.”

  “Just take it, Mickey. Don’t make me beg.”

  “Here,” Mickey said, snatching the bills. She quickly counted out three. “There. Eight hundred for me, seven hundred for you.”

  “Not bad for two hours’ work, eh?”

  “Call me when you find out what’s up with this. And I want to come to a screening as soon as there is one. Say hello to Paul.”

  “OK, OK, will do,” Lucy said, climbing out of the cab. She leaned in and smiled at Mickey. “By the way, you never even touched your left ear once, girl. Good job.” She shut the cab door, dashed to her front door, let herself in quickly—even in the new, crime-free Manhattan, hanging out on the street at two a.m. with almost six grand in cash was not a good idea—and skipped up the stairs, feeling rich and pleased with herself but still wondering who killed Christopher Wadsworth.

  CHAPTER NINE

  REALITY INTRUDES

  The next day it was back to Zola for lunch with Paul. They huddled, ordered exotic overpriced salads and iced tea, talked about how well the recent shooting had gone.

  “Yeah, it’s like all this weird stress brings out the best in people,” Paul said. “Or the best work anyway. Carole’s blowing my mind right now. Manny too.”

  “If they can make this scenario that Manny’s shoved down our throats work, I’ll be amazed, Paulie.”

  “No shit. I still don’t know why I let him talk me into it.”

  “It didn’t look to me like you had a whole lot of choice.”

  “I guess not.”

  “But I was wondering about something else, my friend,” Lucy said, cutting to her chase. “Like, why you felt the need to take five hundred grand out of that bank account when you already had free access to the money.”

  “Five hundred grand? What five hundred grand? What are you talking about, Lucy?” he said, but his tone belied the denials. She had him and he knew it.

  “Spare me, Paul. No one else could get at that money, and no one else has it.”

  “You know what?” he said to the waiter who showed up at that moment with their iced teas. “I’m going to have a glass of your
best Cotes du Rhone instead of the tea. Lucy?”

  “Are you going to answer my question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then I’ll drink to that, by all means. A glass of the same for me as well, thank you.” The waiter left. “So tell me about the money, honey.”

  “First of all, I didn’t take it.”

  “Come on, Paul, what’s the…”

  “It was Carole.”

  “Carole? How could she get at the money?”

  “Wadsworth, Lucy. Wadsworth took the money out that day. I knew because I went to the bank to get some cash and check my balances—having three million bucks in the bank makes you want to do that—and sure enough, the big fat account was down by half a million.” That made sense, Lucy thought. Wadsworth got the money out to pay back Kristalli. He’d even told Kristalli he had his three-twenty. Maybe he was going to disguise it as movie money for the tax man or some such scam. And maybe he withdrew the other one-eighty to buy himself a present, some girls, some boys, a pair of dogs, six goats, three sheep, a deck of cards, a stack of chips, designer drugs, u-pick the mix. Who knew what other weird shit the guy was in to?

  “So what happened?”

  “Hey, you know what happened to Christopher. Who did it is still anybody’s guess, I suppose, although the signs surely point towards Carole, wouldn’t you say? As soon as I saw the money was gone and Christopher was dead I figured somehow she’d gotten wind of his having taken out the money, for whatever sordid reason, and…well, you can figure out the rest. I saw them in action at the club a few times, and I could see it going too far, the game they played. So let’s assume she knew he had the cash because he told her, or she saw it, whatever. I don’t know the details but when I confronted her…Actually,” he smiled, “I blackmailed her.”

  “Blackmailed her?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I told her I knew she had the money and I wanted half of it or else I’d turn her in.” He sighed. “Then things got complicated. She said she’d give me a hundred fifty grand back but that she wanted thirty for her troubles and three hundred twenty for something she couldn’t say what. I told her that wasn’t good enough. That’s when she told me about some weird guy named Crystal that Christopher owed a bunch of money.”