At 2:30, the end of the McKinney Alitzer workday, Liz Martini drove her Silver Shadow through the garage, passing Iris’s red Triumph TR6 parked in her reserved spot. At the exit, she slid her key card into the slot. The gate lifted and she turned right onto Flower Street. From there it was a short drive to the Harbor Freeway. Today she took it southbound instead of her usual trip north to the junction with the 101 through the San Fernando Valley on her trek to her home in the Malibu Colony.
“The coast is clear, Iris.”
Iris climbed onto the back seat from where she had been crouched on the floor and rubbed her knees.
“How are you going to get home tonight?” Liz asked with concern.
“I’ve reserved a rental car at the airport. Can you pick me up on your way into the office tomorrow?”
“No problem. Did you get the cash?”
“I went down the back stairs and out the side door to the bank. You should have seen my shadow’s face when I came walking in the front door of the building.” She chuckled. “I asked him if he’d missed me and his face got beet red.”
“Five thousand dollars is a lot of money to throw away, Iris.”
“I’m not throwing it away.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I hope I know what I’m doing, too.”
The posh Redwood Room in the Clift Hotel was a place where the only thing that had changed over the years was the menu. Steak tartare had been replaced by the more fashionable tuna tartare. The spacious redwood-paneled room, overseen by obsequious waiters, had been a meeting spot for San Francisco’s well-heeled for decades.
Douglas Melba started complaining as soon as he came in the door when the maître d’ forced a jacket and tie on him before he was allowed to enter. Melba disdainfully punched his flabby arms through the jacket sleeves and draped the already knotted tie around the neck of his knit shirt, to the amusement of Iris, who was sitting in a corner banquette, enjoying an outrageously overpriced glass of chardonnay.
Melba walked brusquely toward her, his arms constrained by the tight jacket, pulled out the chair opposite, and sat with his knees spread, his ample thighs not permitting another posture. He smelled of cigarette smoke. “I hate this fucking place. They charge an arm and a leg so you can hobnob with the city swells and be waited on by assholes.”
The comment was overheard by the waiter who didn’t bat an eye but politely asked if the gentleman would like to order a cocktail.
“Gimme a Stoly rocks.” Melba drew his hands across his remaining dark hair, which had deeply receded into an interesting line, revealing a smattering of freckles across his head. Freckles also covered his plump cheeks. When he smiled or grimaced, both of which he did frequently, his freckled cheeks became as round as apples. With his long eyelashes, he looked like a cherub gone bad. “You look better as a blonde.”
Iris didn’t know if the comment was intended to be a complement but decided it was best to take it as one. “Thank you.”
“Why did you come to the Greentree in disguise?” He answered his own question. “Palmer and Lazare know you and you were trying to get them busted. What’s your angle on this? Why were you working for Weems? You know because of that little event in Pasadena, my business is ruined. Word spreads.”
Iris couldn’t have cared less. She kept her feelings to herself and waited for him to finish.
“Plus I didn’t get shit from that deal. Palmer wouldn’t even pay for my time or airfare. What do you think of that?” He drew back his freckled lips.
“I’m prepared to give you five thousand dollars right now.”
“I don’t do business with cops or informants. I have principles.”
“I told you on the phone, I don’t work for Weems anymore. I stupidly got involved with the fox. I don’t want to go into details about how. Roger Weems threatened to arrest me and ruin my reputation unless I helped him. In my business, reputation is everything.” She reached inside her purse, pulled out an engraved silver case, slid out a business card, and handed it to him.
Melba read the card and tapped it against the table. “Got any stock tips?”
“Sure. Don’t forget that I nearly got shot that night. Weems lied to me and used me. He’s no friend of mine.”
“I still don’t believe you.” Melba flicked the card with his thumb. “I want to make sure you’re not wired.”
Iris upended her purse on the table, attracting curious glances from people at surrounding tables and a reproving look from the waiter as her belongings spilled across the pressed white linen tablecloth. A lipstick rolled onto the carpet. Melba squeezed the empty leather purse.
Iris slid from the banquette, took off her suit jacket, and tossed it to Melba. As he searched her jacket, she stood with her back to him, legs akimbo. “Go ahead.” She ignored the stares when Melba stood and patted her down with his ham fists. An older woman with a frozen hairstyle crooked her finger at a waiter who leaned over so she could speak in his ear.
Melba dropped his hands and Iris picked up her jacket, put it on, then slid into the banquette. She was gathering her belongings into her purse when the waiter came over.
“Is there any problem here?”
Melba smirked and Iris jumped in before he could speak. “Everything’s just fine. I’d like another glass of wine, please. Another drink, Mr. Melba?”
Melba made a lazy gesture toward his empty glass and the waiter hurried off. Melba asked Iris, “So what do you want?”
“I have a buyer for the fox.”
“Here we go again.”
“I have many wealthy clients, Mr. Melba. Some of them collect art. I made a discreet telephone call to one of them and told this individual that I might be able to negotiate a deal for the Czarina’s fox. My client is very interested.”
“I’ll contact Palmer and see what I can do.”
“Not good enough, Mr. Melba. I want to contact Palmer directly.”
Melba pointed a stubby finger at Iris. “You’re not cutting me out of this deal. You’re not the only one who almost got shot because of that damn fox.”
“I can’t do the deal through you. The FBI is watching you. They’ve tapped your office and home. Why do you think they let you go so easily the other night? They hope you’ll lead them to the fox. I’m your last best chance to make any money from this deal.”
“If the FBI is watching me right now, they’re watching you too.”
“That’s my problem.”
“I’m not going to be cut out of the loop.”
“I can’t use you, Mr. Melba. That’s final.”
Melba drew circles on the table top with the pads of his fingertips. “So what’s the deal?”
Iris picked up an envelope from the banquette and placed it on the table. She kept her fingers on it like a chess piece move she was still evaluating. “Five thousand dollars to put me in touch with Dean Palmer or Enrico Lazare.”
Melba eyed the envelope. “All I have is the number of an answering service Enrico Lazare uses in Fresno. When I call I say I want to leave a message for Lazare. I give my name and number and Dean Palmer calls me back within twenty-four hours.”
Iris was still touching the envelope. “You’ve never spoken to Lazare?”
“Never.”
“You don’t know where Palmer is calling from?”
“No, but I think it’s a public phone in a restaurant or something. I always hear people in the background and plates and things, like a diner or something.”
“Do you have the answering service number on you?”
He raised his hips to reach into his rear pants pocket. He fished out a tiny black telephone book, licked his thumb and used it to turn the pages.
In her purse, Iris took out another business card and a pen. Melba jotted down the number in an unusually flowery hand with loops and long tails.
Iris slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder, tucked the envelope under her arm, and left with the phone number.
She returned a few minutes later and tossed the envelope on the table in front of Melba. He eagerly picked it up and pulled the wad of bills out just far enough so he could thumb through them. The more he counted, the wider his close-mouthed smile stretched. After he’d finished, he let out a satisfied sigh as if he’d consumed a good meal, folded the envelope in half, and shoved it in one of the pockets of the jacket. He pushed back his chair and stood. “Thanks for the drinks.”
Iris extended her hand, catching him off guard. His relations with women didn’t appear to include business deals. He clasped her hand with his moist palm.
“Thanks for meeting with me, Mr. Melba.”
She watched as he quickly left the bar, only to have the maître d’ chase after him to retrieve the borrowed jacket and tie. Iris counted not quite to ten before Melba scurried back and demanded the jacket he’d been wearing. He safely retrieved the money envelope and left.
It was just short of 10:00 p.m. when Iris drove the rental car into her driveway. A minivan she didn’t recognize was parked across the street one house up from hers, right where Weems had parked when he had been watching her.
“Pay attention, boys,” she muttered to herself. “You just might see something.”
She pulled her mail from the brass box next to her front door and went inside her house. It was a welcome sight. She checked her phone messages on the answering machine in her home office. There were two, both from Garland, the second one left an hour ago. He was worried about her and wanted her to call as soon as she got in, regardless of the hour.
She looked at her watch. From a public telephone in the Clift Hotel, she’d left a message with Lazare’s answering service for Palmer to call her at home at ten tonight. She had call-waiting, but didn’t want to awkwardly interrupt her talk with Garland if Palmer called. She’d have to call Garland later. He’d definitely try to stop her if he knew what she was up to. It was best if she kept it from him. He wouldn’t understand. She didn’t quite understand herself why she was doing it.
She pulled off her pumps with a groan and dangled them from her fingers as she walked into her bedroom and put them on her shoe rack next to many other similar pairs in different colors. She closed the blinds over her windows, disturbed with the thought that Weems or his people might be outside in the darkness watching her. She took off her jacket and began to unbutton her blouse when she saw something that unnerved her more than a Peeping Tom. The receiver on the telephone next to her bed was in the cradle backward, the cord turned toward the top. She never hung up the phone that way.
She picked up the receiver, put it to her ear, and heard the dead sound of the dial tone. There was no indication that the bug Weems had planted was there. She could have easily removed it from that phone and the others in her house, but there would be plenty of time for that later. She set the receiver back in the cradle the right way, suppressing the anger that welled inside her. As much as she resented the violation of her privacy, she had hoped that Weems would do something like this. She had played right into his hand and now he was playing into hers. She took off the rest of her clothes, wadding them for the dry cleaners, and put on her old terry cloth bathrobe.
It was 10:15 and she was starting to wonder whether she’d thrown away $5,000 for nothing. Then all the phones in her house rang in a chorus of different tones. She rushed to her bedroom and smiled when she saw the location and phone number displayed on her Caller ID. The call was from Furnace Creek, California.
“Iris Thorne.”
“Hi Iris, it’s Dean Palmer.”
“Hi Dean,” she said, trying to sound warm.
“Is this on the up and up?”
“Look, Dean. The FBI forced me to pose as Margo Hill. This agent, Roger Weems, threatened to arrest me if I didn’t. You know me. I’m no FBI informant. I’m a investment counselor. I’m through with the FBI. This is between you and me now.”
“How did the FBI catch up with you?”
“Fernando Peru was an informant. He was passing on everything that happened with the fox to Roger Weems. Weems is a jackass. A real piece of work.” She poured it on for Weems’s benefit through her bugged telephone line.
“If Peru was a rat, that explains a lot. What’s your angle now?”
“I have a client who’s willing to pay top dollar for the fox.”
“No bull?”
“No bull.”
“Why bother? Like you said, you’re an investment counselor, not a stolen art fence.”
“Money,” she replied. “When I heard about the cut Melba was getting by just hooking you up with a buyer, I thought to myself, I can do that.”
Palmer hesitated. “I don’t know, Iris. I have to talk to my partner. You were cooperating with the FBI. I don’t think he’s going to go for it.”
“I explained how that happened. Look, I’ve got a client with lots of money. You need to unload this fox, the sooner the better. Things are hot for you now. You may not get another chance like this. The next deal you do will probably be with the FBI.” If there was one thing she excelled in, it was closing a sale.
“I’m ready for something to happen with this fox. I’ve got a lot invested to be sitting like a prisoner out here. And we’ve got a little power trip going on too, which is starting to get under my skin.”
“Think about it. Call me at this number.” She gave him Liz’s cell phone number. “If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow, the deal’s off.”
“That’s not much time, Iris.”
“This has to be done pronto or not at all. I’m not going to wait around until the FBI gets wind of it.”
“Well, they won’t hear about it from me or my partner. He’s covered our tracks. No one will ever find us.” Palmer blew out a puff of air like he couldn’t begin to describe it.
Iris looked at the Furnace Creek telephone number displayed on her Caller ID. She glanced at the photocopy of the shots Todd had done of the Furnace Creek city marker with the donkeys standing in the shade of a shadow cast by the sign. “Hey, who was the woman who picked up the urn at LAX?”
“Kathleen, my fiancé. She’s a good gal. Put up with a lot of crap.”
“Dean, you can make yourself a rich man with one phone call.”
“It’s sounding sweeter by the moment.”
“Call me tomorrow.”
She hung up and called Garland, trying to sound as chipper as possible as she told him the truth, but not the whole truth. It didn’t quite seem like lying that way, but it was a lie and it was getting too easy for her. She wondered whether rubbing elbows with thieves and liars was having a permanent adverse affect on her. She trusted it would go away as soon as she closed the deal for the fox.
She threw on some clothes, climbed into the rental car, and drove to an all-night coffee shop on Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica. The van followed her.
It wasn’t late enough for the real parade of weirdos through the coffee shop to begin. A few lonely souls hunkered over cups of coffee at the counter. Iris took a booth by the window so that her shadow in the van could keep an eye on her. She ordered a tuna salad sandwich on wheat toast and splurged on a chocolate shake. It was the first real meal she’d had since lunch that afternoon although she’d downed two saucers of hot, salted mixed nuts at the Redwood Room.
When she was midway through her sandwich, she got up and made her way through the restaurant to the ladies’ room. Looking out of the corner of her eye through the big windows, she didn’t see anyone leave the van to follow her. She was glad to see that the pay telephone near the restroom was unoccupied and functioning.