Deal to Die For (31 page)

Chapter 36

Though the detectives from Metro would turn out to be far more interested in asking questions than answering them, Driscoll had managed to go over the body before the investigating team had arrived. He’d diverted the driver of the first patrol car that had responded back to his unit to put in a lookout for the car they’d heard escaping, then completed his own hasty search. As he would tell Deal later, the dead man hadn’t been carrying identification, but his suit held the label of a Hong Kong tailor. There was a half-eaten package of airline peanuts in his jacket, a thousand dollars in fifties and a package of matches from a Los Angeles restaurant in his pants. Once Deal had managed to get Mrs. Suarez calmed down and back inside in case Isabel awoke, Driscoll had beckoned him back to where the body lay. By now several squad cars had arrived, but no one seemed ready to interfere with Driscoll.

The ex-cop was kneeling, holding up the hand of the dead man, nodding for Deal to take a closer look. On the skin between the thumb and palm was a tiny tattoo, something that wouldn’t ordinarily be visible unless the hand were splayed open, as Driscoll held it now. At first Deal had thought it was some abstract design, but when Driscoll trained a penlight on the mark, he could see that it was a Chinese hieroglyphic, very intricately done.

“What is it?” Deal asked.

Driscoll had shrugged, dropping the man’s hand back to the tile. “Gang bullshit,” Driscoll said.

“Gang?” Deal said, disbelieving. “He’s part of some street gang?”

Driscoll shook his head. “Gang, as in mob.” He glanced up. “
Triad
, to be more exact. You hear about them on the West Coast and New York, for the most part.”

“What are you talking about, Driscoll? Chinese mobsters? Why would they come after me?”

Driscoll shrugged. “You must have pissed them off.”

“It’s not funny, Driscoll.”

“Well, what’s your explanation, pardner? You think this was some everyday South Florida home invasion? The last I checked, the Chinese down here weren’t exactly involved in that.” He gestured at the body. “This guy’s from L.A., probably from Taiwan before that.”

Deal shook his head. “But it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Oh, it makes sense, all right,” Driscoll told him as a white Ford, not unlike the one the ex-cop drove, pulled up to the curb. A pair of detectives got out, pausing as a patrolman filled them in. “The only problem is, we’re just not in the place where we can see
how
, as yet.”

“So how do we get to that place, Driscoll?” Deal asked.

“Hard to say.” Driscoll shrugged again, eyeing the body at their feet. He gestured downward then. “First thing, let’s get the mess cleaned up.”

***

“She
what?”
Driscoll said into the phone. “When was this?”

They were in Deal’s apartment now, the detectives finally gone, the body of the man who had nearly killed them taken away, though skeins of yellow police-line tape still draped the entrance and breezeway like some huge otherworldly spider had been at work in a place where Deal had just wanted to make a life.

One cruiser remained out at the curb in deference to Driscoll’s request. “They’re not coming back,” Driscoll had said, and Deal wanted to believe him. “But we got a hysterical woman and a little girl in here,” he’d pointed out to the investigating officers. And so a car would be staying, at least for the night.

Deal’s eyes rested on the amber parking lights of the vehicle, his mind replaying the events of the evening, trying to apply logic to something that seemed essentially illogical. He scarcely paid attention to what Driscoll was saying now. The ex-cop, whose telephone had been blasted into fragments by a stray round from what the detectives assumed was an M-10, had seemed intent upon calling Paige Nobleman, but Deal didn’t see why it was so important at this moment.

His mind kept wandering, imagining what might have happened if Mrs. Suarez had opened the door before he and Driscoll had stumbled out. And he kept thinking of Isabel, who had mercifully slept through everything, just as she’d slept through the raging of Hurricane Andrew, without a peep.

He rubbed at his bandaged palm absently, feeling fortunate the burn hadn’t been worse than it had turned out. He and Driscoll had debated the wisdom of telling Janice what had taken place—
Yes, things are fine at home, except for the Chinese guys who showed up to kill me for reasons I couldn’t begin to explain
—but in the end, they’d settled on letting the detectives confer with the director of the clinic where Janice was staying. Security at the place, already reasonably tight, would be augmented, and patrols in the area would be doubled for the time being. The detectives had listened to what Driscoll had to say about the triads, but had been noncommittal at best.

“You get a lot of street hunters fly in from a lot of places during the tourist season,” the lead detective had said. He was a squared-off man in his fifties and looked ready to go in for the night. “Maybe these guys saw your watch.”

The detective nodded at the aged Rolex Deal wore—nothing he would have ever bought, it had been a welcome-to-the-partnership gift from his father, fifteen years before. Deal wore it to the job as if it were any other watch; to him, it had long since become too battered to seem anything worth stealing.

“But he asked for me by name,” Deal said, idly running his thumb over the crystal of his watch. The thing had become so scratched up, it was getting hard to read the time.

“He could’ve overhead that somewhere,” the detective said. “You were out around town on some jobs today, right?”

“Sure,” Deal said, “but…”

“These guys see you driving some custom Caddy, figure you’re a rich
jefe
, they’ll follow you around all day,” he said, “just waiting for their chance.”

“Rich
jefe
?” Deal echoed, disbelieving. The thought of the Hog as some symbol of status was even more ludicrous.

The detective saw the incredulous look on Deal’s face, but that didn’t seem to concern him greatly. “Don’t worry,” the detective had said, apparently as dismissive of any personal motive for the attack as Driscoll was convinced of it. “You’re not going to have any more trouble with these scumbags. They’ll just move on to the next victim.”

***

Deal was replaying the scene, still marveling at the detective’s studied cynicism, when he realized that Driscoll had his hand on his arm, was trying to get his attention.

Driscoll had his other hand clamped over the receiver, had turned to Deal, a look of concern on his face. “They haven’t seen Paige Nobleman at her hotel for a day and a half,” he said. “Some big guy, they think it was her limo driver, checked her out late Sunday afternoon.”

Deal shook his head, trying to focus on what Driscoll was saying. “So what?”

“So that would have been before she came over here,” Driscoll said. “Didn’t she say she was going back to her hotel?”

Deal sighed. Compared to what had just happened to them, it seemed like some abstract puzzle, some game show question Driscoll had posed. Still, maybe it was worth it, take any excuse to veer away from his own situation for a moment. Finally he nodded. “That’s what she said, Vernon.”

“I thought so,” Driscoll said. He shook his head in puzzlement, then turned back to speak into the phone. “You have any idea who this limo guy worked for?” he asked whoever was on the other end.

Driscoll listened for a minute, made a couple of notes. “Okay, thanks,” he added, and hung up.

“You got a phone book?” he said to Deal.

Phone book
, Deal was thinking. Is that the answer or the question.

“The hell with it,” Driscoll said impatiently. He punched out the number of Information, asked for the number of a limo service. He glanced at Deal’s questioning look, and waved his hand. “Turns out that the way she found that shitbox hotel in the first place,” he explained, “the first guy driving her was a
compadre
of the person who owns the hotel. This driver works for a service up in Dania.”

Deal glanced at his watch as Driscoll began punching in the number. “It’s almost midnight,” he said idly. He was mildly intrigued suddenly, realizing that his brain could operate on one level, stay numb on so many others.

“So?” Driscoll said. “Who do you think rents limos in this town? The kind of people who go to bed early?”

He motioned Deal quiet abruptly, then spoke into the phone. “Yeah, how you doin’? This is Lieutenant Vernon Driscoll down at Metro-Dade.” He waved off Deal’s disapproving look.

“Yeah, that’s right. I need to talk to one of your drivers, a guy name of Florentino Reyes.” He shot Deal his I-know-what-I’m-doing look, but the expression fell away before he got the chance to settle back in his chair.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “So how long’s this been?” Driscoll moistened the tip of his pencil with his tongue, began writing again.

“How about his replacement,” he said after he’d finished. “No, I said
replacement
.” He cut a glance at Deal that could only mean he was talking to someone with a Hispanic accent.

“A big guy. Some kind of Samoan or something,” Driscoll said, impatiently.

“
Samoan
!” The ex-cop repeated. “As in a person from the kingdom of Samoa.”

He listened for a moment, finally nodding. “Okay, I got it. I see. Sure. I’ll follow up on the stolen car report. You bet.” He hung up then, sat staring at Deal for a moment.

“It seems this Florentino Reyes has disappeared,” Driscoll said finally, “along with the limo he had checked out to drive Ms. Nobleman around in, all of this arranged by a Mr. Marvin Mahler of Los Angeles.” Deal gave him a questioning look and Driscoll shrugged. “Must be her manager or whatever.

“Anyway, Reyes was supposed to bring the car back Sunday night,” he continued, “leave it off for end-of-the-week servicing, pick up another one.” He opened his big palms on the tabletop. “Nobody’s seen him since Friday. A coworker went by his house, found the place locked up, his dog inside going apeshit. The company, being the trusting souls they are, guy’s only worked for them about twenty years, they filed a stolen car report this morning. They thought maybe I was calling to tell them we found it.”

Deal nodded. “What about this Samoan guy?”

Driscoll shrugged. “The fellow who owns the hotel, this Reyes’s buddy, he says that’s who showed up to check Ms. Nobleman out. He thought maybe it was Reyes’s relief. Great big guy wearing a driver’s cap and a coat, looked more like he ought to be playing for the Dolphins.” Driscoll broke off, jabbed his thumb toward the phone. “But the limo company doesn’t know anything about him.”

They sat staring at each other for a moment, then Driscoll picked up the phone. He checked his notepad and dialed again. “Yeah. This the Grover Cleveland? Mr. Escobedo? Vernon Driscoll here. Right. This Samoan guy you were talking about who did the checking out for Ms. Nobleman. Yeah, that one. Listen, is there any chance he could have been Chinese? Uh-huh. No, that’s Japan, your sumos. Right. Okay, Mr. Escobedo. Thanks for your trouble.”

Driscoll turned back to Deal. “It’s a definite maybe,” he said. “Mr. Escobedo says that all your Orientals look pretty much the same to him.” Driscoll raised a finger. “They’re very nice people, though.”

“So what’s the point, Driscoll?”

Driscoll looked at him as if he were brain-dead. He opened his mouth to deliver some withering remark, then caught himself. “You’re right,” he said, holding up his hand in a gesture of apology.

Deal shook his head. “I didn’t say anything.”

But Driscoll seemed not to be listening. “I never got around to telling you,” he said.

“Telling me what, Driscoll?”

“I found out who Paige Nobleman’s mother is,” he said absently.

Deal stared at him. “Well, who?”

But Driscoll’s mind was already elsewhere. “You mind if I call long distance?” he said, already picking up the phone.

***

Using a contact in the L.A. County Sheriff’s office, it took Driscoll less than a half hour to discover that Rhonda Gardner had a home in Westwood and an unlisted telephone number in her name. After a few more minutes of conversation with a Los Angeles telephone operator, he was talking to someone at the Gardner home.

By then, of course, Deal had figured out who Driscoll believed to be the mother of Paige Nobleman. But it still didn’t seem possible. It seemed to be a night of things that did not seem possible. In fact, that’s what his life had turned into: a state of affairs that a month ago he could not have ever dreamed possible.

“And exactly why is it Ms. Gardner can’t speak to me?” Driscoll was saying.

“Oh,” he grunted. He tapped his pencil on the table for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear about that.”

He paused, thinking about something, then turned back to the phone. “Let me ask you, does Ms. Gardner have some kind of significant other or personal representative out there, somebody I could get in touch with?”

He stopped, apparently listening to the person on the other end. “Excuse me,” he cut in, flipping a couple of pages back in his notepad. “Would that be
Marvin
Mahler?”

Driscoll gave Deal a significant glance, then turned back to the phone. “I see. Now would that be the same Marvin Mahler who’s the agent for Paige Nobleman?”

Driscoll was nodding now, his gaze locked with Deal’s. “Right. How about if I spoke to Mr. Mahler, then.” He held the receiver away from his ear a moment and Deal could hear the buzz of conversation coming from the other end.

“Uh-huh,” Driscoll was saying. “I got it.” He made another note. “Okay, I appreciate the trouble.” Deal thought he was about to hang up, when he raised a finger in the air as if whomever he was speaking to might be able to see it. “One last thing,” he said. “I was wondering if you might have received any calls from a Paige Nobleman recently.”

He gave Deal another significant glance. “Uh-huh. Right. Not since then, huh.”

Driscoll had something approaching a look of satisfaction on his face now. “Well, thanks again, Ms. Retton. You bet.”

He hung up then and turned to Deal, his hand up to forestall Deal’s questions. He opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. He sat back in his chair, massaging his face with his big hands for a moment.