When I arrived at the Bistro, my new BFFs from the media were snarling and snapping at me like a pack of rabid dogs and I had Milk-Bones in my pockets. In their midst, I spied a reluctant Worldwide Broadcasting cameraman in khaki who actually was a friend. Phil Bruno was one of the guys you wanted on your team—smart, inventive, even-tempered, who always knew precisely how to get the best shot.
I waved him in, prompting even louder howls from the rest of the pack.
“Sorry about this, Billy,” Phil said as I led him through the restaurant in its second day of commercial inactivity. “I wanted to call you to tell you I’d been assigned to get footage for tonight’s evening news, but the new honchette, Trina, said no calls. She believes in the confrontational approach, even when it comes to friends and coworkers.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Shoot whatever interiors you need. But do me a favor: Keep what’s about to take place out of the frame.”
My reference was to Solomon and Butker, who were heading our way from the rear of the building.
“It wasn’t your rat poison that was used on Gallagher,” Solomon said, ignoring Phil.
“Then why are you people still here?”
“We’re back to square one, Blessing,” the detective said, with a grin that wrinkled his face, hiding some of the black scar. “This time we’re looking for … What is it, Butker?”
“Benzethonium chloride,” his bored partner replied. “A detergent used to clean cooking equipment, among other things. Very toxic.”
“My guess is: If we use it, it’ll be right in the open with the other detergents,” I said.
“Nothing’s ever that simple,” Solomon said. “Your help says they only use standard stuff. But if they did use the benzo-whatever on your ovens, then I guess you wouldn’t have used it on your pal Gallagher. Anyway, it’s gonna take us all day at least, pokin’ around. So many hidey-holes. And you never know, we might just turn up something else that’ll hook you up to the murder.”
With a sinking feeling, I realized I had Rudy’s little black book in my pocket. That’s all the connection Solomon would need. Keeping a poker face, I asked, “I don’t suppose you left one of your officers here last night?”
“No. Why?”
“A guy with a cop suit was seen on the premises.”
“Seen by who?”
“Me.”
“What bullshit story are you leading up to, Blessing? This ‘policeman’ tell you he killed Gallagher? Something like that?”
“No,” I said.
“Then what was he doing here? Fill me in. I love stories.”
I knew it would be a mistake to bring up the incident to Solomon. Telling him why the fake cop had dropped by would be futile. Or worse. Either he wouldn’t believe me or, if he did, he’d assume I really had taken something from Gallagher’s apartment and initiate an even more detailed search. He might even find the little black book I had in my pocket. And that would be a Go Directly to Jail card.
“You’re too clever for me, Detective,” I said. “Forget I mentioned it.”
Solomon stared at me. “Now you’re starting to piss me off. Was there somebody here impersonating one of my men or not?”
“Maybe it was just a bad dream.”
“Well, if you change your mind again, I’ll be around, seeing if the benzo-whatever turns up.”
“I suppose this means the restaurant will be dark another night.”
“Afraid so, chef,” Solomon said.
“Some of the food will be going bad. I can’t refreeze it.”
“Butker and I and the other officers would be happy to help you out with that. I saw some mighty fine porterhouse back there, all thawed and nice and bloody.”
“Bon appétit,” I said, heading for my office with Phil Bruno.
“You really have a break-in here last night?” Phil asked me.
“No big deal,” I said. “I should just keep my mouth shut around Solomon.”
“He’s a sweetheart, for sure,” Phil said. “He reminds me of Rudy, may God rest his black soul.”
“You didn’t think much of our late executive producer?”
“You should have seen him in Kabul, Billy, in his Abercrombie and Fitch great-white-hunter garb.”
“I didn’t know you’d made that trip.”
“Oh, yeah. Me and”—Phil deepened his voice theatrically to imitate the WBC evening news anchor—“Jim Bridewell.”
“Sounds just like him,” I said. “Who else was over there?”
“Rudy brought a couple of crew guys in from the L.A. bureau. Damn, but he loved to throw his weight around. In just a few days, he had the noncoms hating his ass and the officers going out of their way to avoid him. I wished I’d had that luxury. Bridewell is like a Calvinist or something, but he doesn’t bother anybody with it. Rudy was a demanding, rude-as-hell asshole.”
“What was that trip all about, anyway?” I asked. “There wasn’t any special story, as far as I could see.”
“It was the commander’s idea,” Phil said. “At least it was according to the late unlamented. Our first night there, Rudy got plowed at dinner. He told me Commander Di Voss had sent him there on a special mission.”
“He say what the mission was?”
“No. Made out like it was a big secret, strictly need-to-know. Then why bring it up, asshole?”
“He didn’t even drop a clue?”
Phil thought about it. “You know, I’ve been wondering if it could have had something to do with this thing that happened the next night when a bunch of us were in an Irish pub near the Mustafa Hotel. These Afghanis showed up at the pub, looking for trouble. They picked a fight with two of our security guards. A third guard got us out of there pronto and back to the hotel. The next day we found out that one of the remaining guards, a guy named Deacon Hall, got his throat cut.”
“Rudy mentioned that,” I said. “But he claimed he was there when it happened.”
“No way.” Phil shook his head. “Rudy was with me, safe and secure back at the hotel. But he freaked big-time when he heard about Hall. Took it surprisingly hard. In fact, he caught the next flight out. Bridewell and the rest of us had to stay and finish up the week. In that heat. With bombs going off. Still, conditions improved one hundred percent without Rudy.”
“What makes you think the bar fight might have had something to do with Rudy’s so-called mission?”
“After they brought us the news about Hall, and Rudy got over his freak and decided to head for home, he said, ‘My business here is finished anyway.’ Since he hadn’t been planning to leave before he heard about Hall, I guess that made me think Hall might have had something to do with his ‘mission.’”
His failed mission, according to the commander.
“They catch the killers?” I asked.
“Billy, that sort of shit goes on all the time over there. Those guys don’t know from Law & Order. My guess is the surviving guard took care of the two Afghanis. Those Touchstone mercs don’t take it well when you kill one of their buddies.”
“There must have been some talk about it.”
“Talk? Yeah. The Army general’s office informed us we were to keep the murder off the newscast until Hall’s relatives could be notified. The Touchstone security rep would tell us when we could run the story. That didn’t happen while we were there. Far as I know, it never happened.”
“You shoot a lot of footage?”
“That’s how I roll, Billy.”
“What about off-duty action? Like the night in the Irish pub?”
“I got some stuff. Nothing on the murder, though, since they dragged us out of there.”
“I’d still like to see what you shot,” I said.
“How about after you’re finished here?”
“Sure,” Phil said.
“I’ll see if I can sneak a few of those steaks away from the cops,” I told him.
While Phil roamed the restaurant with his camera, I shut the door to my office, then took Rudy’s black book from my pocket. I started at the first page and worked toward the last, looking at the initials of the dead man’s sexual partners. I wondered what their full names might be and if any of them might have caused Rudy’s death and sent Clove Boy to my building to retrieve the black book.
I briefly considered picking up the phone and starting to dial numbers and see who answered. But there were hundreds of entries. Even if I had the time and the patience to run the numbers through a reverse directory, I’d come up with only a percentage of the names. And then what? The bottom line was that I simply hadn’t the heart to invade the privacy of so many women, especially since I doubted it would accomplish anything. The odds of my discovering a homicidal needle in this haystack of one-night stands and best-forgotten seductions and broken affairs were too long.
I was about to toss the book back into my desk drawer when the office door was flung open and Solomon and Butker sauntered in.
“Whatcha got there, Blessing?” Solomon asked. He quickened his pace to the desk and snatched the black book from my unresisting fingers.
I felt like screaming, but developing a mental method of staying cool under stress had been the first thing my mentor Paul Lamont had demanded of me before he took me on the road. “Thanks to you, I’ve got the night off, Detective,” I said. “I don’t plan on spending it alone.”
Solomon flipped a few pages. “Damn, Blessing. You’re the original sexist pig, aren’t you? Look at this, Butker. He even grades the dumb broads who fall for his crap.”
Butker gave the book a quick once-over. He seemed impressed.
“Can I help you, Detectives? Maybe you need a date for tonight?”
“Hardly,” Solomon said. He grabbed the book from Butker’s fingers and tossed it onto my desk. “There are some locked cabinets downstairs. Before we tear the doors off, I thought I’d ask if you had keys.”
I picked up the phone, dialed Cassandra, and asked her to provide the detectives with whatever keys they needed. “Anything else?” I asked Solomon.
His answer was to leave the room. Following, Butker did not bother to shut the door.
I sighed and looked at the little black book. If Rudy’s name had been in it, I’d have been cooked. But while Solomon was pawing through the damned thing, I’d calmed my panic mode with the thought that a player who’d used only the initials of his conquests probably wouldn’t have put anything in the book that might identify himself.
“My God,” Cassandra said from the door, “a little black book, Billy? I’d never have taken you for an ass man. When do you have the time?”
“We ass men make the time,” I said, opening a desk drawer and tossing in the book. Now that the detectives believed it to be mine, I suppose it was, officially.
“Those insufferable cops are driving me crazy,” she said. “You think you’re rid of them, then they return. They’re like the silverfish in my apartment.”
“What can I do for you, Cassandra?”
“You wanted a report on the coq au vin dinners?”
“Right.”
“It is one of our most requested meals. And as Maurice reminded me”—Maurice Terrebone being the kitchen supervisor—“it’s all but impossible to account for every single entrée if it’s on the specials list.”
I understood what she was saying. Because the specials are often partially prepared in advance, and because it is impossible to accurately predict how many will be ordered on any given night, even with the waiters pushing them a bit, there may be as many as five or more left over at the end of the evening. These are often devoured by staff.
“I’ve accounted for the served entrées,” Cassandra said, “and the takeouts. That only cost me an hour and a half studying receipts, which in turn led to my developing a killer headache. I think I may need glasses. Are contacts covered by our health insurance?”
“You’d know more about that than I,” I said. “Thank you for the coq au vin report, Cassandra. And would you do me a big favor? Before the silverfish cops take all the steaks from kitchen, set two aside for me.”
She rolled her eyes. “My boss, an ass man.”
“Spread the word,” I said. “But mention I’m not so jaded I’d turn my nose up at a pair of nice round breasts.”
“Sometimes, Billy, you really disgust me.”
“Don’t forget the steaks,” I reminded her.