Face Value (13 page)

Chapter Thirty

“Mozambique,” Benny said. “Is that in the Caribbean?”

The four of us—Benny, Stanley Plotkin, Jerry Klunger and I—had just finished watching the video of Len Olsen's interview. Stanley appeared to be troubled by some aspects of the interview, but so far had only stated that Olsen's praise of Sari was insincere. The interview had taken place in Olsen's office, and the two framed photographs of him and his girlfriend were in the background, which led to my mention of his two vacation homes—the one in Vail and the other in Mozambique.

I shrugged. “I'm not sure.”

Stanley announced, “The Republic of Mozambique is situated in southeast Africa. The capital city is Maputo, known as Lourenco Marques before its independence from Portugal. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, which is the ocean visible in the background of that photograph of Mr. Olsen and his female companion. For those requiring a more precise description of the location, Tanzania is along the northern border, Malawi and Zambia are along the northwest, Zimbabwe is to the west, and South Africa and Swaziland are to the southwest.”

“Swaziland?” Benny asked. “Did you just make that up, Stan?”

“I did not, Professor Goldberg. The nation and its people are named after the country's nineteenth-century king Mswati the Second.”

Benny chuckled. “The man is a walking Wikipedia. What else can you tell me about Mozambique?”

“The official language is Portuguese. The country has no extradition treaty with the United States. It became independent from Portugal on June 25, 1975. It has a tropical climate with two seasons—a wet season from October to March and a dry season from April to September. Is there any additional information you require?”

“I'm good, dude. King Mswati the Second, eh? Nice.”

I filled them in on my meeting with Rebecca Hamel. Her description of Sari Bashir's concern over the mysterious large investment in the portfolio of assets of Claire and David Hudson, clients of Brian Teever, triggered a reaction from Stanley, who turned to Jerry.

“Tomorrow you need to request that Mr. Manghini retrieve a copy of the Hudson estate plan from the client safe.”

Jerry's eyes widened. “Do you think he will?”

“You should inform him that you are making that request at the behest of Ms. Gold. Mr. Manghini will comply with any request from Ms. Gold.”

“What if he asks me why Miss Gold wants a copy of that file?”

“He will not do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because he will assume that you do not know why she has made that request. For a combination of reasons, including the priapic, he will comply with Ms. Gold's requests.”

“What is the client safe?” Benny asked.

Jerry said, “It's where the firm stores important client documents.”

“Such as,” Stanley said, “original executed trust and estate instruments. The documentation for the high net-worth individuals that Mr. Teever represents often includes detailed financial statements of the sort that Ms. Bashir was apparently compiling or reviewing for the Hudsons.”

Benny grinned at me. “Priapic, eh?”

I rolled my eyes.

Chapter Thirty-one

“A Pious?” Benny shook his head. “That figures.”

I sighed. “A Prius, Benny.”

“Not in my experience.”

“Oh?”

“Science has shown a statistically significant correlation between Prius owners and sanctimonious upper-middle-class douchebags.”

“I have a friend who drives a Prius.”

“We're talking statistical significance, woman. One friend does not refute basic math, and basic math proves that most Prius owners are self-righteous douchebags. It's one of the fundamental statistical truths of car ownership.”

“There is more than one?”

“Of course. We have the Subaru Outback, or as it's more commonly known in the industry, the Lesbaru. And then there is the Smart Car aka the Ultimate Buzz Kill.”

“Enlighten me.”

“According to the most recent scientific data, the correlation between bachelors who own Smart Cars and bachelors who get laid is nearly zero.”

“Is that so? Who exactly keeps track of this scientific data?”

“Excellent question, Ms. Gold. Unfortunately, disclosure of that information is beyond your security clearance.”

“Ah, yes, available only to subscribers of
Benny Goldberg Magazine
.”

“Mock me if you choose, fair lady, but answer this one question: have you ever had sex with a man who owned a Smart Car?”

“Next question.”

“How about this one, Miss Marple? What exactly are we doing here parked outside the offices of Warner & Olsen at 9:30 at night?”

“I told you. We're trying to investigate a pattern.”

“Tell me again.”

“I asked Tommy Flynn to print out the last few months of cardkey information for weekday nights. Since we already had the record of who entered the walkway the night Sari died, I wanted to see if there was any pattern.”

“And the only hit you got was Donald Warner?”

“Yes—or at least the most direct hit. There were lots of other nights when one or more of those lawyers left the office late—sometimes even after midnight. As did other lawyers at the firm. And there were some nights when all four of them stayed late and left within an hour or so of each other, although that seemed kind of random. But from our list of suspects, none had consistent Thursday departure times except for Warner. On the night she died, he entered the walkway around 9:30. The records show that he leaves the office around that same time about three Thursdays a month.”

“Which proves?”

“Nothing. But it makes me curious. There's no record of when he left the office on most other nights, which means he left before seven o'clock, since you don't need your access card for the walkway until after seven. The records show he occasionally left after seven, but never later than nine.”

“And thus?”

“And thus I have no idea. That's why I wanted to see where he goes on Thursday nights. If he just drives home, then it probably means he has some sort of regularly scheduled conference call or meeting that night. Maybe for one of his boards. If so, maybe I could dump him from the list.”

“Speaking of dumps…”

I gave him a look.

“No, I'm good. But do you remember our nighttime stakeout a few years ago? We were at that self-storage operation out by the airport?”

I thought back. “Vaguely.”

“Then you may also recall that while we were sitting there in your car waiting for something to happen I provided you with some enlightened commentary on an important gap in world literature.”

“You mean your demented rant on why no one in a novel ever makes a poop?”

“A ‘poop'? Did you just say ‘poop'? Good grief, Rachel. That is proof of the detrimental side effects of raising a child. But back to my commentary. It was a thoughtful and, if I may say, a profound discourse on the noteworthy absence of a certain bodily function from the novel. Great characters in world literature eat and sleep and eat some more and occasionally fuck but they never ever take a shit. Huck and Jim on that raft for weeks, Captain Ahab on his ship, Jay Gatsby in his mansion, and even Tarzan in the fucking jungle, for God's sake. Nary a dump.”

I sighed. “Yes, Benny, I do recall that rant.”

“Well, my dear, I must amend it.”

“Oh?”

“I finally dragged myself through that James Joyce piece of shit—no pun intended.”

“
Finnegans Wake
?”

“Of course not. No one has ever read that book. Anyone who claims they have is full of shit. Again, no pun intended.”

“
Ulysses
?”

“Exactly.”

“You read it?”

Benny shrugged. “Sort of.”

“What does that mean?”

“To quote the great Lord Arthur Balfour, ‘He has only half learned the art of reading who has not added to it the more refined art of skipping and skimming.' Try to read
Ulysses
. You'll see what I mean.”

“So what caused you to amend your prior diatribe?”

“A massive dump. In Chapter Two. Probably the biggest one in the history of world literature. And guess what? It's by a member of the tribe.”

“A yid?”

“You got it. Leopold Bloom. You'd be proud of him. And then, near the end of the book, Leo and that other guy—that pretentious putz from
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
—they stand side by side under the night sky and take huge pisses together.”

“That is an endorsement worthy of a dust jacket blurb.”

“Good point. Maybe I'll contact the publisher. You never know—wait—”

He squinted through the windshield and pointed toward the parking garage exit. “That him?”

The exit barrier arm was rising. A silver Prius with Missouri license plates passed through the gate and onto the one-way street.

“Yep.”

I waited until he was slowing at the red light at the end of the block before starting my engine. The Prius turned right at the corner, heading south. I followed, staying a block behind it.

When he reached the Highway 40 overpass, Warner drove past the west entrance ramp on the right and turned left onto the east ramp.

“Where's he live?” Benny asked.

“Out in West County.”

“Interesting.”

We followed him onto the Poplar Street Bridge heading east over the Mississippi River, passing the Welcome to Illinois sign halfway across. Although I was not exactly versed in the art of tailing someone, Donald Warner was no challenge. His cautious and conservative demeanor matched his driving style. He stayed in the right lane and kept his speed a few miles below the speed limit, which made him easy to follow. He took the Route 3 exit and headed south.

Benny said, “Jeez, you think he's going to a strip joint?”

There were several strip clubs in what St. Louisians refer to as the East Side, and a few of those clubs were along Route 3.

I stayed further back now, since the traffic was lighter on this undivided highway. We passed the turn-off for PTs Cabaret, probably the best known of the East Side strip clubs. About two miles further south, Warner's left-turn blinker came on. I slowed as he turned left onto a paved road. I turned onto the same road, but his car was out of sight by then. I started down the darkened road accelerating slightly.

“There,” Benny said, pointing to the right.

There was a side road. About fifty yards down it opened on the right into a large parking lot.

“Did you see his car?” I asked.

“I saw taillights. I think it was his car.”

As we pulled onto the parking lot I could see Donald Warner walking toward the building. His tall, lanky body was unmistakable.

“That's odd,” I said.

“What?”

I pointed. “He's wearing sunglasses and a baseball hat.”

He lowered the brim of the hat as he opened the door and entered.

“Well, well, well,” Benny said.

“What?”

“Look where we are.”

He was pointing up at the neon sign above the entrance. The sign read Steamhouse Saloon and featured a brightly lit illustration of a man, arms crossed over his bare chest, wearing nothing but a cowboy hat, a bandana around his neck, cowboy boots, and tight cut-off jeans that revealed enough beneath the denim to confirm, even from three parking rows back, that he wasn't Jewish.

Benny said, “Something tells me that Donald Warner did not drive over here tonight to attend a meeting of the Republican Party.”

“Wow,” I said.

“Let's check it out.”

“I don't know, Benny. I don't want him to see me.”

“We can at least poke our heads in there. I'll go in front to make sure he's not by the door.”

We parked, and I followed Benny across the parking lot. The building was a nondescript windowless one-story structure about the width of…well…a nightclub. You could hear the pounding bass of the dance music as we approached the door.

A sign by the door read:

NOTICE: WHAT HAPPENS IN THE STEAMHOUSE
STAYS IN THE STEAMHOUSE
NO CAMERAS OR CELL PHONES ALLOWED
LEAVE THEM IN YOUR CAR OR CHECK THEM INSIDE

I turned to Benny.

“In the car,” he said.

I returned to the car to store our phones and then we entered the building. The bald, tattooed bouncer greeted us inside the narrow foyer, which was screened off from the rest of the place by a heavy black curtain. Seemingly unfazed by me, he took our ten-dollar cover charges, looked in my purse, had us walk through a metal detector, and gestured us toward the curtain.

Benny went first. Pulling back the curtain, he peered around and turned back to me with a grin. “I hope you're a fan of thongs.”

Red thongs were the theme of the Steamhouse Saloon, along with white cowboy hats and black cowboy boots. Those three items comprised the entire uniform of all of the waiters and bartenders.

The room was large—at least the size of a basketball court. A bar ran the length of the side wall and was manned by three good-looking and impressively endowed young men, each dressed in the saloon's uniform. All three had hairless chests, plenty of tattoos, and cute tushes.

There were three dancers, one each on round elevated platforms at the end of a catwalk. The three catwalks, joined at the small stage on the back wall, angled out into the crowd, with groups of men seated around each platform. As with the other staff, the dancers wore nothing but the uniform. Waiters moved among the crowd with serving trays held over their heads, oddly effeminate as they sashayed along in their boots and thongs.

The clientele ran the gamut from college-age to senior citizen and from blue jeans to suits and ties. I scanned the room, standing on my tiptoes, just in time to see Donald Warner disappear through the large Western-style swinging doors at the far end of the room.

The music was almost painfully loud. I had to point and shout to Benny about Warner. He nodded. With hand signals, he told me to wait by the bar and he'd be back in a few minutes.

I ordered a Schlafly Pale Ale on draft. My bartender—gorgeous but obviously not Jewish—set down my drink and gave me a friendly smile.

“Cheers, honey,” he said.

I raised my glass. “Cheers.”

Benny passed through the swinging doors at the far end of the room. I sipped my beer and watched the dancer on the table nearest me. His principal dance move was a bend-over-and-shake-your booty maneuver known, I believe, as “twerking”—a move that delighted the customers seated on chairs around the platform. Perhaps I was jaded, but the vibe of the Steamhouse Saloon was as depressing to me as the vibe at the heterosexual version of these strip clubs.

I was still nursing my beer and leaning back against the bar when Benny reemerged, pushing through the swinging doors on the far end of the room. He walked briskly across the floor, caught my eye, and nodded toward the exit. I followed him out of the building and onto the parking lot.

“Well?” I said.

“Let's get in your car first.”

We did.

“So tell me,” I said.

“Donald Warner definitely has a secret life over here.”

“What's behind those doors?”

“A locker room, three saunas, and about twenty private—” and here he paused and made air quotation marks with the index and middle fingers of each hand “—massage therapy rooms. I got there just in time to see an older man and this young blond guy disappear into one of those rooms. They both were wearing nothing but towels around their waists.”

“Okay.”

“I poked my head into one of the empty rooms. There's a table that I suppose could pass for a massage table, although it's maybe knee-high instead of waist high. There're towels stacked on the counter along with several tubes of K-Y Jelly, a basket of condoms, and a few contraptions I'd never seen before.”

I leaned back in my car seat and exhaled slowly. “Thursday nights.”

“Yeah.”

“Was Warner in one of those rooms?”

“Probably. I couldn't tell for sure. There were maybe five of those little rooms occupied. I wasn't going to knock on the doors. There was another door at the far end—a big metal door—with a sign that read Private. I tried the handle. Locked. It had one of those finger-pad combination locks above the handle. I suppose he could have been back there.”

My initial reaction was that Warner's conduct was too risky for someone with political ambitions, but then I thought of all those family-values politicians and anti-gay preachers who'd been caught, literally, in compromising positions.

As if reading my mind, Benny said, “Remember, the presence of a dick automatically deducts seventy-five points from every man's IQ.”

“So it would seem.”

I started the engine and turned to Benny. “Even if we assume Sari discovered his secret, is that reason enough to kill her?”

“Unless she followed him over here, how would she even find out?”