“I’VE BEEN KEPT WAITING for forty-five minutes,” Darlene said, although Linden had warned her it was not smart to complain. “Forty-five minutes,” she repeated icily, not particularly caring whether it was smart or not.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Tucci said politely, sitting down across from the well-groomed, extremely attractive woman and her Beverly Hills lawyer. “Emergency situation arose.”
“I was forced to rush my lunch to be here on time,” Darlene said, pushing her point home.
Christ! She was complaining. All he’d had to eat all day was three lousy donuts, and the way things were going he’d be working straight through dinner. Hopefully Faye would save him something. Lately he’d been daydreaming about her pot roast. The good thing was that over the last few days he must have lost at least ten pounds. Goodbye diet. Hello food.
“We understand you have some questions you’d like to ask Ms. La Porte,” Linden said. “Can we kindly proceed.”
“Certainly,” Tucci said. It had taken him a while, but he’d finally convinced Angela Musconni not to press charges against Bobby Skorch. She’d left with Eddie—reluctantly.
Meanwhile, Lee had managed to upset Bobby, who’d stalked out of the station just as his lawyer arrived. Marty Steiner was not a happy camper, furious that they’d had Bobby to themselves for an hour. Marty would be even more furious if he knew that even now the lab was running blood-sample tests which could possibly connect his client to Salli’s murder.
Tucci was in no mood to conduct an interview with some Hollywood madam, who probably had more connections than a multi-purpose vacuum. He knew the way these things worked. These women always had clients in high places who eventually put on the pressure to get the charges dropped. Not that they had anything to charge Darlene La Porte with. She was a known madam, but right now they had no concrete proof. Her girls wouldn’t talk, nor would her rich and famous clients. To nail Darlene they’d have to put some kind of entrapment plan in the works. And now was not the time.
“We appreciate you coming in,” Tucci said.
“Appreciate away,” Darlene said, shooting him a haughty look. “The sooner I’m out of here, the better.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And don’t call me ma’am.”
• • •
Madison was on a roll. In her mind she visualized the story she was going to write about L.A. and it had her adrenaline pumping. For the time being she forgot about Freddie Leon, because right now she was into investigating the call-girl business. It had all the ingredients for a killer story. Power. Obsession. Murder. Revenge. Her kind of deal.
And Junia—Darlene La Porte’s almost underage lesbian lover—was set to spill everything.
They’d stashed Junia in a room in Jake’s hotel, made sure she had Spectravision and room service; then they’d gone to Jake’s room, where Madison sat on his bed and called Victor in New York.
“Have I got a story for you!” she bragged.
“Freddie Leon was that interesting?” Victor boomed in his annoyingly loud voice.
“Not Freddie,” she said excitedly. “Bigger and better. Only you’ve got to come up with a check for twenty grand pronto.”
“Excuse me?”
“I have a songbird from the inside of an exclusive call-girl operation. And she’s ready to Whitney Houston it.”
“You know, sometimes I don’t understand a word you say.”
“That’s okay,” she said breezily. “Make the check out to cash and FedEx it to me at once. We’ll have a story that’ll blow the magazine off the stands.”
“Now wait a minute—”
“No waiting, Victor. And I want to work with a great photographer who just might be available.” She winked at Jake, who couldn’t believe this was the same Madison he’d gotten used to. “He’s expensive, but you should definitely consider signing him. His name’s Jake Sica. I’ll let you know if we can get him.”
“Madison—”
“Bye, Victor.” She hung up and turned to Jake. “Why work for some popular crap mag when I can get you a gig on Manhattan Style?”
“What happened to you?” he said, shaking his head at her metamorphosis. “You’re all fired up.”
She beamed. “I feel good. In fact, I feel great. I’m back in action. This story’s going to be sensational. Let’s go tell Junia the good news.”
“I need to find Kristin,” he said. “That’s the only important thing to me.”
For a moment she felt a shiver of disappointment. Just when she’d thought she and Jake were a great team . . .
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “You’re right, and I have an idea.”
“What?”
“We should go by her apartment, see what we can find.”
“The maid’ll never let us in.”
“Jake,” she bragged. “Doncha know? You’re working with me now, and when I’m into it, I can do anything.”