Looking at the little man with the tobacco-stained gray beard, the porcupine gray hair, and the oily blue denim jumpsuit sitting on his personal folding stool while adjusting the Bistro’s front door latch assembly, I finally understood the rationale behind the proverb “Love laughs at locksmiths.”
At my urging, Cassandra managed to hustle the lock-fiddling leprechaun, his folding stool, and red toolbox decorated with the Rolling Stones’ big lips to the rear exit just as the first wave of customers hit.
I welcomed the diners, congratulated them on their good taste in having chosen one of the finest restaurants in the city, and showed them to their tables. When Cassandra returned, I retreated to a deuce at the rear of the room where A.W. was studying the evening menu. He placed it on the table and informed me that he would be passing on the rib steak in favor of the more imaginative squab with oysters, a combination I’d blithely stolen from one of the great chefs, Jasper White, though I did create my own sauce.
I complimented him on his choice, took one more look at the tables being filled, and, satisfied that all was well, liberated a bottle of Grand Cru Beaujolais and a wineglass from the bar and retreated to my office intending to at least glance at the morning show’s temporary schedule that Kiki had prepared. But I couldn’t focus on it. I felt … what? Vaguely depressed? Frustrated? Annoyed with myself? Why?
I should have been at peace with the world. If Trina Lomax was connected to Felix, she would have informed him by now that I was definitely off his case. And even if that didn’t work, I had people with guns protecting me. Assuming the commander had talked to the cops as he’d promised, that should have at least given Solomon something to think about other than me. These were good, positive things. So why was I feeling so blah?
I took a sip of the Beaujolais. Then another. My stomach growled, but I wasn’t quite ready for dinner. I picked up the morning-show schedule and put it down again. It was the damned vagueness of it all that was getting me down.
I had no real basis for thinking that Trina was connected to Felix. By her own admission, she’d made him a special project, which explained why she’d run his name through MonitorMan Marvin’s super-search program. It also explained why she knew so much more about some of Felix’s murders—the severed head, for example, and the full, grisly story of the Colombian cartel boss’s death—than had been in the news reports. She could have uncovered facts that other less-aggressive reporters would have missed.
But there was something … and I suddenly realized what it was that had bothered me at that meeting in Gretchen’s office. When Trina was talking about Felix, she seemed to be almost a different person. Gone was the unsympathetic professional who treated Arnie Epps like a lackey and used the murder of a coworker as a promotional tool. She’d seemed obsessed. Passionate. Felix was definitely more to her than just an elusive story.
Then there was the whole Rudy Gallagher thing. The commander had explained Rudy’s presence in Afghanistan, and even provided a motive for the murder of the security guard Deacon Hall. But the old man was assuming that Touchstone CEO Carl Kelstoe had sent Felix to New York to do a mop-up.
That didn’t seem to make sense. If Felix’s goal had been to recover Kelstoe’s recorded phone message and kill whoever might possess it, wouldn’t the commander have been number one on the hit list? He’d made the deal with Hall. Rudy was just the transporter. And why Phil? All he did was inadvertently videotape the information transfer.
Why had Rudy been killed? Regardless of what he’d told the commander, he’d been in possession of the recording. Since he’d said to Melody Moon that he was coming into money, it was safe to assume he was planning on selling it. To whom, if not to Kelstoe?
Maybe paying for a hit was cheaper than paying Rudy. Or Kelstoe wanted to make sure that Rudy wouldn’t be coming back at him with copies for future bargaining. Or, Rudy being Rudy, maybe he just pissed Kelstoe off. In that case, was it possible that Kelstoe, not Felix, had killed him? No. Kelstoe might have beaten Rudy to death, but I couldn’t see him using poison.
But I also didn’t see why a smart guy like Kelstoe would have been hanging around town on the night that his hit man was going to kill Rudy. He had to assume that the commander could link him to the murder. Except that the commander hadn’t … until today. And why was that?
Well, the old man’s consigliere Marvin had only recently told him about Felix. Maybe, in spite of what he’d said to the contrary, the commander had thought I’d killed Rudy. A lot of people did. Was that the point of using a Bistro meal to kill Rudy? To send the cops toward me and away from Kelstoe?
So many questions.
I opened the drawer to my left and got out Rudy’s little black book to see if it might provide any answers.
Judging by a date scribbled on the third entry, he’d started this particular record of his horndog adventures just three years before. Of its two hundred pages, one hundred and eighty were filled with scribbled entries. Two to a page. Approximately one hundred and twenty women a year. Talk about your multitasker.
Gretchen Di Voss’s “G.D.V.” entry was near the end. My guess was it had been added approximately four months ago. That’s about when Gretch, to use her term, became his “back-door romance.”
There were thirty-six entries after Gretchen’s. At the rate the Love Shepherd had been gathering his flock, as many as twenty-five or twenty-six little lambs could have made it into the book before the Gretch-Gallagher relationship had blossomed into what she’d assumed to be its monogamous affianced stage. That left ten or so post-fiancée flings.
I scanned those initials. M.M., Melody Moon, was the second to last, right after S.Y., H.H. and B.I. But unlike the other entries, Melody’s had no ratings. Instead, Rudy had drawn a dark line through that section of the page. Indicating what? That he hadn’t slept with her? He had. Melody wouldn’t have lied about that. That she hadn’t been worth rating? Doubtful, since he had continued to court her and was considering marrying her. Maybe he’d felt she was too special to rate? More special than Gretchen?
In that case, why was there one entry after Melody’s?
I gave it another look and realized it wasn’t an entry at all. It was a message from Rudy to himself: Call C.K. after nine. Not Clark Kent, I assumed. Nor Craig Kilborn, or any other C.K. except the most obvious one. Two telephone numbers were listed.
I flipped back through the book but could find only ratings. That he’d started using the pages for notes was probably another indication that he’d convinced himself Melody was the One.
I picked up the phone and dialed the first of C.W.’s numbers: 212-744-1600. Even before I’d hit the final “0,” I knew who’d be answering.
“This is the Hotel Carlyle. Good evening.”
“Sorry, wrong number,” I said. I pressed the disconnect for a few seconds and then tried the second number. “We’re sorry, but you’ve dialed a number that is no long—”
I hung up the phone.
The Carlyle. It wouldn’t be hard to find out if Kelstoe had been staying there the night of Rudy’s death … whoa. What was I thinking? This was exactly the sort of thing that would put me back on Felix’s hit list, assuming I’d ever left.
I replaced the black book into the drawer for what seemed like the hundredth time and picked up the bottle of wine. Still two-thirds full. Polish it off or have dinner? Finally a decision I could make.
I had the beefsteak plate delivered from the kitchen. With potatoes au gratin and petit pois. It was a dish I loved, comfort food, but because of my mood, I was working my way through it listlessly when A.W. arrived and took the chair across the desk from me.
He seemed so energized, it picked me up a little.
“That was the best meal I’ve had in months,” he said. “The combination of meat and oyster was brilliant. Reminded me of M.K.F. Fisher’s essays about the oyster, which I guess you’ve read.”
“To be honest, I haven’t really read as much of Ms. Fisher as I should,” I said. “And I sort of stole the idea of squab and oysters. But the sauce is mine.”
“The sauce? Awesome! Melted butter, of course. Vinegar. Minced shallots. Pepper. Beef stock?”
“Close enough,” I said. “Unsalted butter and defatted meat drippings. What else?”
“A dry white wine and, I don’t know, something briny I couldn’t quite … maybe anchovies?”
“Caviar,” I said, carving a forkful of beefsteak. “It was thoughtful of InterTec to send me a cross between Vin Diesel and Bobby Flay.”
“Too much hair for one and too little talent for the other,” he said. “But I love to eat. And I do a little cooking.”
“How’d you wind up in the security game, A.W.?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
“Seriously,” I said.
“I was an MP in Yemen when the USS Cole got bombed,” he said. “That’ll give you an idea of how well loved we were in that part of the world. Anyway, I just happened to be in the right place to help a car full of embassy workers avoid being captured by terrorists. This CNN reporter interviewed me, and a day later I got a job offer from a guy named Ken Foster at InterTec.
“I told him I had another year to go on my tour of duty and I was thinking of re-upping. But after the Towers came down and Bush started his war in what seemed to me to be the wrong place, I figured it was time to get my butt out of uniform. With Ken’s help, I managed to free up at the end of my tour, even as some of my buddies were being hit with mandatory reenlistments.”
“Foster a big dog at InterTec?” I asked.
“He was my supervisor, in charge of domestic assignments,” A.W. said. “He had a heart attack behind the wheel and drove his Lexus into a wall three months ago. A good man and a good friend.”
He stared down at the carpet.
Nice job, Billy, I thought. Now he’s as bummed out as you. Way to go!
“This is pretty good wine,” I said. “Have a glass.”
“No, thanks,” he said. “On the job.” He checked his wristwatch and stood. “I’d better check on the lock guy’s progress,” he said. “Then I’ll take a quick tour, just to see if anything looks hinky.”
In the time it took me to finish my dinner and have another glass of Beaujolais, he was back. Rushing in, a little flushed.
“Something going on?” I asked.
“No. It’s all fine.” He was pacing back and forth. “The locks and the alarm are finished. He tested the silent alarm and it worked. I didn’t think you wanted your customers to be disturbed by the non-silent.”
“Definitely not.”
“So it’s all good.”
I looked at him expectantly, waiting for whatever the other shoe was to drop.
“Billy, is Cassandra … hooked up with anybody?”
“Not that I’ve heard,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “But I’m not sure you want to go there.”
“Why not?” he asked, sitting down. “She’s beautiful. And she’s got a great sense of humor.”
I stared at him. “I’m with you on the beautiful thing, but humor …”
“Just now, a guy was leaving the bar and he stopped to ask her what it would take for her to come back to his hotel room with him. And she said, ‘A lobotomy.’ Tell me that’s not hilarious.”
I had to admit it was funnier than her usual two-word reply.
“Any objection if I ask her out?”
“That’s really not my call,” I said. “But it might be smarter for you to wait until our business is finished. Otherwise it could get complicated. Especially if it doesn’t work out and you end up killing either her or yourself.”
“Right. I get it,” A.W. said, very serious now. “So until we’re clear, it’s okay if Cassandra and I just … talk?”
It occurred to me at that moment that he and Cassandra might not be such an odd match after all.