From the cheap briefcase I carried I took a large manila envelope and put it on the conference table.
“You told me your office was broken into,” I said to Kelly. “I believe these are the documents that were taken.”
“What the hell is this?” Fitzgerald said. He reached for the envelope. I snatched it away. Gave it to Kelly.
“Ross knew what was going on,” I said to Fitzgerald. “And very soon I will, too.”
He stepped back to the phone and ripped it from its cradle. “This is Robert Fitzgerald. I want a security guard here immediately. We’re in Room—”
He was so furious he started to sputter. Bill Han-ratty, ever the brown-nosed weatherman, said, “Room One-Fourteen D.”
They stood there staring at me, the whole newsteam, and then Kelly Ford started crying and said, “Dwyer, please, please leave before it gets any worse.”
It was the first time this morning that I had liked her. I reached out and touched her hip, and then I pushed my way past the others and out into the hallway.
The security guard came down with great and serious intent. I didn’t want to make things difficult for him. I put my hands up in a gesture of mock surrender and said, “I’m the asshole they want to get rid of.”
He had no sense of humor. “Yeah, you look like an asshole.”
I was two steps from my car, enjoying the sunlight again, when I heard a familiar voice say, “I can help you with that man Ross.”
I turned to find the distinguished Dev Robards coming up to me. Behind us, at the doorway, I saw Bill Hanratty watching us with great interest.
Dev’s face was flushed. “Hanratty and I want to talk to you.”
“You and Hanratty? I thought you didn’t like him.”
“I don’t. But we became partners of a sort.”
I nodded back to Media Associates. “What the fuck is going on here?”
“We’d like to set up an appointment with you.”
“When?”
“Right after the show tonight. There’s a steak house. The Castle.”
“I know where it is, but it’s a little expensive for what I make.”
“Jesus,” he said. “This is important. I’ll pick up the tab.”
“You’re in too deep, aren’t you, Dev?”
“Way too deep.”
“You going to be all right?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t been all right for so long, I don’t think it matters.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know a pair of twins named Ayres, would you?”
He nodded. “Bad, bad people.”
“Yeah, I kind of guessed as much.”
He looked back at Media Associates. “Fitzgerald just told me that he’s letting me go. They’re bringing in another anchorman.”
“You’re a real journalist, Dev. You don’t want to traffic with those jack-offs anyway.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said, “after all these fucking years.” He cried just enough to need to blow his nose, which he did with ferocity. “Now I’m almost glad we did it.”
“Did what?”
“That’s what we’re going to tell you,” he said, “tonight at The Castle.”
21
In another hour I’d be putting in half an afternoon at the Guns and Ammo show. I found a Denny’s, had a luncheon diet special, got a handful of change and started making phone calls, first to my agent to see if Hollywood or something resembling Hollywood had called (he mentioned the possibility of a good dinner-theater role coming up, but then he was a man who always spoke in terms of possibilities), and then to Federated to see if Becker was in (Bobby Lee coldly said no), and finally I called Ad World and spoke with Donna Harris.
“How’s it going with the tapes?”
“God, if he didn’t invent the stuff on these tapes, the Chandler kid led quite a life.”
“How so?”
“A lot of girls, for one thing. At least on the tapes I’ve listened to so far.”
“How about drugs?”
“That’s the odd thing. Apparently, drugs didn’t play a part in his life.”
“They must’ve played some part. He died by overdosing on heroin.”
“He talks a lot about drinking — his hero seemed to be Jack London — but almost never about taking drugs.”
“Anything else?”
“The more recent tapes get sort of enigmatic. I mean on the earlier tapes he always used names and specific places, but these get very vague. He keeps talking about ‘If I do what they want me to, I’ll have it made, I can split for California with money in my pocket.’ That’s a direct quote, about splitting for California.”
“Any sense of who ‘they’ are or what ‘they’ wanted him to do?”
“Not so far.”
“Has he mentioned anything about the Ayres twins?”
“No.” She paused. “But there’s something weird about the tapes.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Gee, that’s helpful.”
“Very funny. I just mean that I’m starting to come to some kind of conclusion, but I don’t know what it’s going to be yet.”
“Maybe it’s going to arrive on the next Federal Express shipment.”
“Or maybe the woman you spent last night with is going to tell me what it is.”
That kind of ended my feisty mood.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“That’s okay. We all need to take shots every once in a while.”
“You were perfectly free to do whatever you wanted.”
“Yeah, that’s what you said.”
“I called Rex and canceled my appointment.”
“What did he say?”
“He must have sensed that I was really saying goodbye, because he said, ‘We’re just beginning to make progress, Donna. We really are.’ I pay him fifty-five dollars an hour for him to hustle me, and he says we’re making progress.” There was another pause. “And something else happened, too.”
“What?”
“Chad stopped by.”
Now I knew what she must have felt like this morning when she guessed about Kelly Ford and me. “Oh?” I said. I didn’t have much of a voice.
“He, uh, brought an engagement ring with him.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
“I had to tell you, Dwyer.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean I don’t know what I’m going to do, how I’m going to respond. I mean, I just know that I’m being very unfair to you. I mean, I get jealous when you sleep with another woman and I have absolutely no right to.”
“That’s just kind of the way human beings are, I guess.”
“Oh, Dwyer, God, I really care about you so much.”
“Just keep listening to the tapes, okay?”
“Don’t you want to say something?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Dwyer?”
“Yeah.”
“You know I care about you.”
“Yeah.” I hung up.
I stood in the entrance to Denny’s and people came by and I tried to put on little bright social smiles, but I was a mess inside. I cared about Donna in some high, clean, fine way that I hadn’t cared about anybody in a long time, and I had the sense that it was soon about to end, that I was going to have my high, clean, fine feelings and absolutely nobody to use them on.
After a couple minutes of standing by the phone I took another quarter from my pocket and dropped it in the box and called my answering service. The woman who answered was excited. “You’re to call a Karl Eler. He says it’s an emergency.”
I talked to Eler less than half a minute later.
“My God, Dwyer, somebody came in and grabbed Diane and asked her about some tapes and then knocked her out. She’s got a big goose egg and a very bad headache.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I said.
And I was.
Eler was waiting for me in the vestibule. He looked terrible. He just kept saying “My God” as he led me up the stairs to the girls’ section of Falworthy. Several girls stood outside Diane’s room. They might have been keeping a vigil — except for the tinny rock song on the radio.