“Hold on a second,” I say.
He turns and looks at me. “You got a problem?”
“We’re all going to have a problem if you open that door,” I tell him.
“Is that right?”
“Yes. Just listen to me for a second. My name is Paul Madriani. I’m an attorney. I’m working a case.” I reach into the inside pocket of my jacket.
“Keep your hands where I can see ’em,” he says.
When my fingers come out they are holding a business card. I hand it to him. He looks at it and then hands it to her.
“Are you with the police?” she asks.
“No. I’m a private defense attorney, criminal cases, but on the other side,” I tell her. “The man inside the bathroom is my investigator. We didn’t want to scare you off.”
“Yeah, right!” says her man.
Herman opens the door and steps out.
As soon as the guy sees him, the big black face staring back at him, he starts to bristle, spitting expletives, racial epithets about people hiding in woodpiles, while he flashes mean looks at Herman and me.
He squares up against Herman, tenses his body and widens his stance over the tactical boots on his feet, neck bowed as if he’s readying for combat.
“Calm down! Relax,” I tell him. “There is nothing bad going down here.”
“Are you packin’?” he asks Herman.
“No.”
“Lift your coat. I wanna see.”
Herman does it.
The man looks down around Herman’s ankles. “Lift ’em.”
Herman pulls up his pant legs to show that he has no weapon strapped to his ankles. First one, then the other.
The man turns to me. “You?”
I shake my head. “That’s not my gig,” I tell him.
He doesn’t bother to frisk me.
“What’s this about?” she asks.
“We are prepared to pay you,” I tell her. “For information.”
“Is this about the club?” she asks.
“No.”
“What then?”
“Can we close the door?” I look out through the open portal into the parking lot. “I’d rather not have the world looking in.”
The guy looks at her. She nods. “Go ahead,” he says.
I do it, walk over and close the door. “I admit it’s not much of a room. Not a lot of places to make ourselves comfortable,” I say, “but take a seat if you can find one.”
She settles onto the edge of the bed. The guy remains standing, as does Herman. Contest of the bulls.
I grab a chair, pull it toward the bed, and sit. “About three weeks ago there was an auto accident on a highway out in the desert. A woman was killed. A young man was arrested. He’s our client. You don’t know his name but you have met him,” I tell her.
She doesn’t say a thing. She just looks at me, steely eyed, chewing gum.
“You invited him to a party. You gave him a note telling him where this party was to take place and you told him you’d meet him there. But you never showed.”
The eyes start to shift and the chewing stops.
“Our client was drugged at this party and he was transported unconscious to the site of the accident.” I don’t couch it as belief, but fact, leading her to believe that we have more than we do. “The accident itself was staged.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Finally, a denial.
“Our client has identified you by photograph as the person who invited him to the party and who gave him the note with the location. He has said nothing to the police as yet. But if you refuse to cooperate, he’ll have no choice.”
“I. .”
“Don’t say anything, not yet. Just listen,” I tell her. “Our client has also described in particular detail that tattoo on your leg.” She looks down over the hem on the bottom of her micro-mini, one hand absently touching her naked thigh. “If you like, we can take the cops and have them talk to the artist who put it there. The man has a photograph of the tattoo with your name on file.”
“So what?” she says.
Two bullets and she is still holding up. I am running out of ammunition. “Now if you like, we can take the fingerprints we lifted off the note, the one with the directions to the party, and give those to the police as well.” I lie. It’s a whopper, but it stops her in her tracks like a dumdum round.
“You know what the cops are going to think?”
She shakes her head rather nervously.
“That you were part of this from the beginning. If the evidence we have is accurate, the victim in this case was murdered.”
The M word pushes her over the edge. “I don’t know anything about any murder. I didn’t drug anybody,” she says.
I turn and look at Herman. “I told you so. Herman here believed you were part of it. I told him I didn’t think so, that they probably used you just like they used our client. Hired you and didn’t tell you a thing. Didn’t I, Herman?”
“Got me there,” says Herman. “Owe you ten bucks,” he says.
By the look of relief on her face she would gladly front him the money for the wager right now. “That’s right,” she says. “He didn’t tell me anything.”
“Who?” I ask.
“The man with the cane.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know. He never gave me a name. If he did, I don’t remember. Besides, everybody lies about that.” She would be an expert on this.
“But he did hire you to deliver the note?”
If I listen closely I can hear the tinkle of crystal as she shatters.
“Yes, but that’s all,” she says. “He gave me the note and told me who to give it to. He said it was a joke. .”
“Tell me about him, the man with the cane.”
“I don’t know. He was maybe sixty, sixty-five, older guy,” she says. “Well dressed. Gray hair. He carried this cane, looked silver, you know, on the handle. Some kind of a bird. I don’t know. He gave me the note and a picture of this young guy, your client, I guess. I mean, if anything happened, I’m really sorry,” she says.
“Go on.”
“Well, that’s it,” she says.
“How much did he pay you?”
She swallows hard enough that I wonder if the gum went down. “I don’t remember,” she says.
“Maybe if the police ask it might jog your memory.”
“All right,” she says. “Two thousand. . twa. . twenty-five hundred dollars.”
Herman whistles. “FedEx is gettin’ screwed,” he says. “You think maybe their delivery people need shorter skirts?”
“We’ll put it in the suggestion box,” I tell him. “Where did you meet this guy, the older one with the cane? At the club?”
She nods, quick vertical head movements like the spring-bound head of one of those plastic puppies mounted on a dash.
“How many times did you meet him?”
“Once. Only the one time.”
“Upstairs or down?”
She knows what I mean. “We went up into one of the private rooms. He bought some champagne. You have to do that if you’re gonna go there.”
“Mm-hmm, go on.”
“We talked, that’s all.”
“He gave you the note, the picture of our client, and told you that you could find him where?”
“In front of the building where he worked.”
“He gave you that address as well. Did he write it down?”
“No. I knew the place. Big plaza downtown. I shop there sometimes.” She stops abruptly, glances toward the ceiling like a lightbulb just exploded and says, “You know, maybe you can get his fingerprints?”
“Whose?”
“The man with the cane,” she says. “You know, off the note.”
“I’ll work on that,” I tell her. “Did he say anything else?”
She thought for a moment. “Let’s see. He told me to give him the note. Invite him to the party. Tell him I would meet him there.” She ticks them off with her fingers counting them off like it’s a checklist, your five basic steps on how to hook the horny male. “And, oh, yeah, I forgot,” she says. “He told me that I was supposed to tell him that if anyone tried to stop him at the door, you know, the party. .”
“Yes.”
“That he was supposed to be seated at Mr. . ” Her voice trails off. She freezes up for a second like she can’t remember, then suddenly she smiles and says, “Mr. Becket. That’s it. That was the name. That he was supposed to say that he was to be seated at Mr. Becket’s table.”