Dying to Call You (18 page)

“Hank Asporth.”

She studied his face. Phil gave no indication that he knew Asporth.

“Hank Asporth sicced his lawyer on me to shut me up.

But I searched the computers at work. A woman named Laredo Manson was supposedly living with Asporth. I called her number and got her sister, Savannah. She said Laredo was missing. The police weren’t looking too hard for her. A woman who worked with Laredo at Gator Bill’s restaurant said she was restless and took off.

“The waitress’s name was Debbie. She was a nasty little tease with long white-blond hair. I mean, it went all the way down to her waist. Must have taken all day to dry. Debbie got a lot of tip money making middle-aged men crazy with that hair and her body.”

I’m babbling, Helen thought. I don’t know this man. I did some pretty dicey stuff with Debbie. It could get me arrested.

She studied Phil’s handsome, offbeat face. Could a man with a crooked nose walk the straight and narrow?

“What’s the matter?” Phil said. “Why did you suddenly stop?”

“I’m trying to decide if I can trust you,” Helen said.

“What if I told you I did something bad? Would you turn me in to the cops?”

“Did you commit a murder?”

“No!” Helen was shocked.

“Do you deal drugs?”

Helen was outraged. “Are you nuts? Would I take abuse as a telemarketer if I could make good money dealing?”

Phil grinned. That was slightly crooked, too. “Then the answer’s no. Besides, Margery would skin me alive if I turned you in.”

He was right. Margery trusted him. She could, too.

“Savannah and I went to Debbie’s apartment. She told us Hank Asporth paid her a thousand dollars to lie about Laredo.”

“She told you, huh? This Debbie sounds hard as nails. She was paid to lie, but she volunteered information out of the blue?”

“Her long hair didn’t work on us. And we were persuasive,” Helen said.

“I bet,” Phil said.

“Do you want to hear this or not? Debbie said Savannah’s sister worked the charity orgies in the back room. Debbie claimed she didn’t know what went on in there, except that it was some group called the Six Feet Unders. She said Kristi would know the details because she worked there, too. Debbie was going to get Kristi’s address for us, so we could ask her some questions. Except somebody killed her first. We found her dead when we went back to her apartment. Debbie was strangled with her own hair.”

“Did you tell the police what you know?”

“We called them from a pay phone so they’d find her body, but we didn’t say anything else. Savannah’d had a little problem with the law.”

“I’m not surprised, being as she’s so persuasive. What about you? Did you call the police?”

“Uh, it wasn’t a good idea for me, either.”

“You’ve got a little problem with the law?” Phil looked amused.

“I’ve got a big problem with an ex-husband.” Also with the court, but Helen didn’t want to get into that. She kept talking, hoping to slide over that sticky subject.

“Anyway, I managed to get into Hank Asporth’s house and search it. He has a fur bedspread, mirrors on the ceiling and penis extenders.”

Phil burst out laughing so hard he had trouble downshifting. The gears ground and the Jeep lurched forward. “So you were working undercover on your own?” he said.

“This isn’t funny. I found a red shoe tossed in the back of a closet that I think belonged to Laredo. That’s proof she was in Hank’s house. I snuck it out.”

“You removed it from the scene?” Phil was serious now.

“It’s useless as evidence.”

“What evidence? Do you think the police will search the Asporth house again on my say-so?”

“May I ask how you got into Hank’s house?” Helen noticed Phil had called him Hank. Did he know Hank Asporth or not?

“I went as the date of a guy named Joey. Drives a red Viper.”

Phil stared at her. “You dated Joey the Model?” A car behind them honked. They’d been sitting at a green light.

“Is that his name? I couldn’t stand the guy. I pretended I was sick and he sent me home in a cab. He was awful.”

“You could say that. Joey the Model has murdered six people that we know about, two of them women he dated. He beat them to death.”

“Oh,” Helen said. “I knew there was something wrong with him. That’s why I was working that awful topless party.

It was the only way I could get Kristi’s address.”

“You are really something,” Phil said. “But what it is, I don’t know.”

When Phil pulled into the Coronado parking lot, Helen jumped out and handed him his coat. “Thank you very much,” she said, leaving him standing there. She ran all the way to her apartment.

What’s the matter with me? she asked herself. Why didn’t I stay and talk with Phil? I’ve told him everything—well, a lot anyway—about me. I have plenty of questions for him.

But I ran like a rabbit. At least I could have let Phil walk me to my door.

But Helen knew the reason: She was afraid he might kiss her good night. She was afraid he might not.

It felt strange passing Phil’s door without the familiar pot smog. It felt stranger still to have a face for the man in the Clapton T-shirt. Phil was no longer invisible. He wasn’t even a pothead. But he was still a mystery.

Who was he? Who did he work for? Why did he create that druggie persona? What was he doing at that charity orgy?

Once inside her apartment, Helen began shivering uncontrollably. She fixed a cup of decaf coffee and sat in the turquoise Barcalounger with her cat on her lap, absently scratching Thumbs’ ears until he rolled belly-up in ecstasy.

The cat and the comfortable chair could usually lull her to sleep on the most restless nights. But not tonight. Helen kept flashing on Kristi with her white lace and lilies, and the heart-stopping moment when she sat up in her coffin.

Then she thought of sassy little Laredo, with her yellow hair and red shoes. There would be no surprise resurrection for Savannah’s sister.

Helen sat up until the night sky turned into gray dawn, drinking decaf and asking questions she couldn’t answer.

Where was Laredo’s body? Did the Mowbrys’ parties have something to do with her death? Did Savannah’s sister see something that got her killed? Had she been blackmailing someone? Or had Laredo stumbled onto something stranger with the Six Feet Unders?

The coffin scene made Helen believe this was way beyond anything her Midwest imagination could conjure up.

The Mowbrys’ guest list read like a South Florida who’s who—with one slithering exception. Why was Mr. Cavarelli, the boiler-room reptile, mixing with the movers and shakers at a charity orgy?

There was one more guest who didn’t belong in that crowd. A slim, muscular man with white hair, blue eyes and a lean, tanned face.

Chapter 16

“You look stunning,” Jack Lace whispered in her ear. “All set for lunch at the Delano?”

Helen nodded. She was wearing her best black Ralph Lauren suit. Both she and the outfit looked slightly shopworn in the bright morning light. The suit was too shiny. She was too dull.

After that long slow night, morning came rushing straight at Helen. As soon as she clocked in at the boiler room, the staff was crammed into Vito’s smelly little office for another pep talk.

Jack boldly sat on the edge of Vito’s dusty desk. The room was so crowded, Helen was practically in Jack’s lap. The prospect was not as pleasing as she thought it would be.

Jack’s cologne was overpowering in the hot room. His hair was suspiciously black. His manner seemed smarmy.

Vito started marching up and down behind his desk, a plump pink piglet on parade.

“Listen up, people. I don’t have to tell you these are tough times for telemarketers. The Feds are making it harder for us to call people. Millions of people have signed up for the National Do Not Call Registry so far. Freaking millions. Our database is shrinking. With so many people on the do-not-call list, who’s left for us to call? The stupid, the old, the lonely, and the technologically challenged.

“How are we going to sell to someone too dumb to put their name on a national no-call list? These are the dregs.

“Wrong. They are the cream—and the government skimmed it off for us. These people are our natural customers. We want them. We got them.”

“You may want them, man, but they don’t want us.” Rico was a skinny, pimply kid who’d started three days ago. “People hate us. All day long, they say, ‘Why do you telemarketers bother me?’ ”

“And what do you tell them?” Vito asked.

Rico shrugged. “I say I’m a telemarketer. I can’t help it.”

The room laughed.

“Here’s what you say: ‘Sir, please don’t call me a telemarketer. I’m a technical advisor for a company that sells a product for septic-tank systems.’ ”

“Technical advisor,” Rico repeated. “I like that.” Even his spots looked brighter.

“You are also a surgeon,” Vito said. “Bet your mama always wanted a surgeon in the family. Know what kind of surgeon you are, Rico? A wallet surgeon.”

More laughter. Vito was warming up, his porcine body pacing faster. He waved his meaty arms, exhorting them like a TV evangelist.

“Get those prospects to say yes. If they say yes three times, the sale is yours. Get those sales, and I’ll get you out of here.”

The telemarketers looked startled.

“You heard me right,” Vito said. “This is boot camp. The worst of the worst. If you survive this, I’ll put you in the promised land.”

Vito paused dramatically. “I’ll let you call Canada. Canadians are polite and courteous. They don’t have many telemarketers up there. No one has harassed them like in America. In Canada, they listen to you. In Canada, they talk to you. They’re lonesome. It’s winter. They’re frozen in with nothing to do. They want to talk. Canadians are like little virgin girls, tender and sweet.”

Vito, the fat pervert, was practically drooling. Was he planning to sell to the Canadians—or sauté them?

“Now get out there and sell. And if you keep selling, you’ll have little Canadian virgins all day long.”

That’s disgusting, Helen thought, as she filed out.

“That’s terrific,” Jack said. “That man has a real way with words.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Well, maybe it was a little politically incorrect, but he knew how to talk to his audience. They’re inspired.”

“I’m not inspired by little virgin girls,” Helen said. “Vito sounds like a child molester.”

“That’s the problem with you women. No sense of humor.”

“What did you say?” Helen said.

But Jack was already oozing into his phone. Probably anxious to get those Canadian virgins, she thought sourly.

Helen didn’t get any virgin on her first call. She had an irate veteran in Maryland. “Why are you calling me?” the woman demanded. “My name is on that national no-call registry. I’m reporting you.”

“When did you sign up?” Helen said.

“Six weeks ago.”

“Ma’am, it takes up to three months for your request to go into effect.”

“Three months? Three months of you waking me up on my day off? I’m not waiting another minute. I keep a shotgun right here by my bed—”

Helen hung up before the woman shot her ear off.

All morning the calls were like that. She talked to the addled and the angry. The lunch at the Delano shimmered before her like a mirage in the boiler-room desert. Helen was miffed at Jack for his asinine remark, but the Delano would be a mini-vacation. Instead of dirty carpet and scruffy walls, she’d be in exquisite surroundings, waited on by an attentive staff. Sigh. She could have that life again, if she would only...

No. She had her pride. She was not giving one penny to that lying, no-good—“Jack Lace!”

The voice was so loud it cut through the boiler-room racket. “Is there a Jack Lace here?”

Jack hung up his phone, jumped up, and waved his hand.

“I’m right here.”

“Come forward, Jack Lace,” the voice said. Helen saw a man in a brown uniform standing by the door. There was almost a skip in Jack’s step as he ran up there. Strange.

“Is he being arrested?” Helen asked Taniqua. But she knew he wasn’t. Jack looked too happy.

Taniqua had the mirthless laugh of a much older woman.

Even in the dreary boiler room she was beautiful. Why was she so bitter?

“Arrested? No. He should be. I told you, he a bailiff boy.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Helen said.

Taniqua opened a pack of Famous Amos chocolate-chip cookies. “Want one?”

Helen shook her head. She’d already decimated a drawer full of salt-and-vinegar chips.

“Aren’t you lucky?” Taniqua said. “Ask Marina. She knows.” Marina made a face but kept talking on the phone.

“That’s why her baby boy Ramon be crawling on this nasty floor. Cause his worthless daddy a bailiff boy.”

Taniqua somehow managed to get down on all fours in her tight black chiffon dress. She gave the little boy a cookie.

“Cookie!” Ramon said happily and smashed it into his truck. Helen wanted to smash something, too. How much longer was Taniqua going to stall?

She ate another cookie, then said, “A bailiff boy cheats his family. When a bad man gets a divorce, he don’t care no more about his wife and family. He don’t want to give them no money, no matter how much he be making. He want it all for hisself. So he find hisself a lawyer who be as low as he is. Then he quits his job and works at a place like this. He don’t want no real money cause his wife and kids might get it. He flip burgers, wash dishes or sell septic-tank cleaner. He probably slip Vito money to give him this bad job.”

Helen thought Taniqua was right, although she couldn’t say anything. Vito helped himself to a hunk of Helen’s bucks because she needed cash under the table.

“Then the bad man dress up real poor-like and tell the court he can’t afford to pay hardly no child support cause he lost his good job and he be working as a telemarketer.

The court send out a bailiff to his new job to check on him.

The bailiff see him working here, and then the bad man is gone. You never see that bailiff boy here again.”

“But what happens to his good job?”

“He go right back to it. Plenty of bad men out there, helping other bad men. Bad women, too, hurting their sisters. His poor wife have to go back to court to get more money out of that lying cheat, and it cost her more lawyer bills. She got kids to feed and put through school. She can’t afford to chase the bad man around the court. Most of these men get away with it.