Christina Marks fingered his locks and said, “It’s a bloody wig.”
“Thank you, Agatha Christie.”
“Don’t get sore,” she said. “I kind of like it.”
“Really?”
Despairing of his physical appearance since his visit to Whispering Palms, Reynaldo Flemm had flown back to New York and consulted a famous colorologist, who had advised him that blond hair would make him look ten years younger. Then a makeup man at ABC had told Reynaldo that long hair would make his nose look thinner, while kinked long hair would take twenty pounds off his waist on camera.
Armed with this expert advice, Reynaldo had sought out Tina Turner’s wig stylist, who was booked solid but happy to recommend a promising young protege in the SoHo district. The young stylist’s name was Leo, and he pretended to recognize Reynaldo Flemm from television, which was all the salesmanship he needed. Reynaldo told Leo the basics of what he wanted, and Leo led him to a seven-hundred-dollar wig that looked freshly hacked offthe scalp of Robert Plant, the rock singer. Or possibly Dyan Cannon.
Reynaldo didn’t care. It was precisely the look he was after.
“I do kind of like it,” Christina Marks said, “only we’ve got to do something about the Puerto Rican mustache.”
Flemm said, “The mustache stays. I’ve had it since my first local Emmy.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Now, suppose you tell me what the hell’s been going on.”
Christina hadn’t talked to Reynaldo since the day Mick Stranahan was shot, and then she had told him next to nothing. She had called from the emergency room at Mercy Hospital, and said something serious had happened. Reynaldo had asked if she were hurt, and Christina said no. Then Reynaldo had asked what was so damn serious, and she said it would have to wait for a few weeks, that the police were involved and the whole Barletta story would blow up if they didn’t lay low. She had promised to get back to him in a few days, but all she did was leave a message in Reynaldo’s box at the hotel. The message had begged him to be patient, and Reynaldo had thought what the hell and gone back to Manhattan to hunt for some new hair. “So,” he said to Christina, “let’s hear it.”
“Over here,” she said, and led him to a booth in the hotel coffee shop. She waited until he’d stuffed a biscuit in his mouth before telling him about the shooting.
“ Theesus!” Flemm exclaimed, spitting crumbs. He looked as if he were about to cry, and in fact he was. “You got shot at? Really?”
Christina nodded uneasily.
“With a machine gun? Honest to God?” Plaintively he added, “Was it an Uzi?”
“I’m not sure, Ray.”
Christina knew his heart was breaking; Reynaldo had been waiting his entire broadcast career for an experience like that. Once he had drunkenly confided to Christina that his secret dream was to be shot in the thigh-live on national television. Not a life-threatening wound, just enough to make him go down. “I’m tired of getting beat up,” he had told Christina that night. “I want to break some new ground.” In Reynaldo’s secret dream, the TV camera would jiggle at the sound of gunshots, then pan dramatically to focus on his prone and blood-splattered form sprawled on the street. In the dream, Reynaldo would be clutching his microphone, bravely continuing to broadcast while paramedics worked feverishly to save his life.
The last clip, as Reynaldo dreamed it, was a close-up of his famous face: the lantern jaw clenched in agony, a grimace showcasing his luxurious capped teeth. Then the trademark sign-off: “This is Reynaldo Flemm, reporting In Your Face!”-just as the ambulance doors swung shut.
“I can’t believe this,” Reynaldo moaned over his breakfast. “Producers aren’t supposed to get shot, the talent is.”
Christina Marks sipped a three-dollar orange juice. “In the first place, Ray, I wasn’t the one who got shot-”
“Yeah but-”
“In the second place, you would’ve pissed your pants if you’d been there. This is no longer fun and games, Ray. Somebody is trying to murder Stranahan. Probably the same goon who killed his ex-wife.”
Flemm was still pouting. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going out to Stiltsville?”
“You were locked in your room, remember? Measuring your body parts.” Christina patted his arm. “Have some more marmalade.”
Worriedly, Reynaldo asked, “Does this mean you get to do the stand-up? I mean, since you eyewitnessed the shooting and notme.”
“Ray, I have absolutely no interest in doing a stand-up. I don’t want to be on camera.”
“You mean it?” His voice dripped with relief. Pathetic, Christina thought; the man is pathetic.
Clearing his throat, Reynaldo Flemm said, “I’ve got some bad news of my own, Chris.”
Christina dabbed her lips with the corner of the napkin.”Does it involve your trip to New York?”
Flemm nodded yes.
“And, perhaps, Maggie Gonzalez?”
“I’m afraid so,” he said.
“She’s missing again, isn’t she, Ray?”
Flemm said, “We had a dinner set up at the Palm.”
“And she never showed.”
“Right,” he said.
“Was this before or after you wired her the fifteen thousand?” Christina asked.
“Hey, I’m not stupid. I only sent half.”
“Shit.” Christina drummed her fingernails on the table.
Reynaldo Flemm sighed and turned away. Absently he ran a hand through his new golden tendrils. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “You still want to dump this story?”
“No,” Christina said. “No, I don’t.”
Mick Stranahan looked through mug shots all morning, knowing he would never find the killer’s face.
“Look anyway,” said Al Garcia.
Stranahan flipped to another page. “Is it just my imagination, “ he said, “or are these assholes getting uglier every year?”
“I’ve noticed that, too,” Garcia said.
“Speaking of which, I got a friendly visit from Murdock and Salazar at the hospital.” Stranahan told Garcia what had happened.
“I’ll report it to I.A., if you want,” Garcia said., I.A. was Internal Affairs, where detectives Murdock and Salazar probably had files as thick as the Dade County Yellow Pages.
“Don’t push it,” said Stranahan. “I just wanted you to know whatthey’reupto.”
“Pricks,” Garcia grunted. “I’ll think of something.”
“I thought you had clout.”
“Clout? All I got is a ten-cent commendation and a gimp arm, same as you. Only mine came from a sawed-off.”
“I’m impressed,” said Mick Stranahan. He closed the mug book and pushed it across the table. “He’s not in here, Al. You got one for circus freaks?”
“That bad, huh?”
Stranahan said, “Bad’s not the word.” It wasn’t.
“Want to try a composite? Let me call one of the artists.”
“No, that’s all right,” Stranahan said. “I wouldn’t know where to start. Al, you wouldn’t believe this guy.”
The detective gnawed the tip off a cigar. “He’s got to be the same geek who did Chloe. Thing is, I got witnesses saw them out at the marina having a drink, chatting like the best of friends. How do you figure that?”
“She always had great taste in men.” Stranahan stood up, gingerly testing the strap of his sling.
“Where you going?”
“I’m off to do a B-and-E.”
“Now don’t say shit like that.”
“It’s true, Al.”
“I’m not believing this. Tell me you’re bullshitting, Mick.”
“If it makes you feel better.”
“And call me,” Garcia said in a low voice, “if you turn up something good.”
At half-past three, Mick Stranahan broke into Maggie Gonzalez’s duplex for the second time. The first thing he did was play back the tape on the answering machine. There were messages from numerous relatives, all demanding to know why Maggie had missed her cousin Gloria’s baby shower. The only message that Mick Stranahan found interesting was from the Essex House hotel in downtown New York. A nasal female clerk requested that Miss Gonzalez contact them immediately about a forty-three-dollar dry-cleaning bill, which Maggie had forgotten to pay before checking out. The Essex House clerk had efficiently left the time and date of the phone message: January twenty-eighth at ten o’clock in the morning.