Freeze Frame (12 page)

Objects crashed in the basement as I ran to
the front door. Footsteps pounded on the stairs off the kitchen. My
fingers were wet with perspiration as I turned the dead bolt, then
the handle, swung the door open and rushed through, slamming it
behind me.

Out on the street, I ran for the car I left
at the school.

In minutes that seemed like hours, I reached
it. Out of breath, heart pounding, but alone.

I stopped at the first pay phone and dialed
nine-one-one. Within minutes a squad car appeared, and two police
officers followed me home to find...nothing. Roland’s car had
vanished, and so had he. One of the officers found marks where
Roland had pried open the basement window, and the incident went
down as a burglary, as common in big cities as paved streets.

***

Later, in bed at a Holiday Inn on Harper
Avenue, I decided to call on Sid Goldman the next day. Sid would
have some helpful advice. That is, if I could convince him I hadn’t
gone crazy, and he had regained enough strength to help. It had
been six weeks since the heart attack; would I find him back on his
feet or flat on his back?

44

Sunday, Oct. 17 -- 1:14 p.m.

I pulled into the driveway of Sid's sprawling
red brick ranch home in the suburb of Bloomfield Hills, just north
of Detroit.

Three suitcases rode with me, in the back
seat. I had gone back to my house just long enough to pack and
telephone Sid. I’d check into another motel this evening.

A note taped to the screen door told me to
walk around the house, where I found Sid enjoying the warm Indian
summer sun on his patio. I’d feared he’d be weak and pale. Instead,
Sid looked fit and tanned, decked out in a navy blue golf shirt,
khaki slacks and brown loafers.

He rose to greet me, setting a copy of
Advertising Age on the table in front of him. He took my hand in
both of his with a firm grip.

"Darcy. Wonderful to see you. Welcome back to
the Motor City."

"Thanks, Sid. But there's obviously a mistake
here. Someone else must have had that heart attack. You look
great."

"No." Goldman laughed. "It was me alright.
Kicked the hell out of me. Four weeks ago, you'd have found me in
my skivvies.

"Sit down, sit down." I pulled a chair away
from the table and sat across from Sid.

"Mavis is at her sister's; I'm playing host.
Let me get you some iced tea. Or perhaps a scotch?”

"Nothing right now, thanks."

Sid settled back in his chair. "You said you
wanted to talk. Anything to do with the Ampere?"

Sid’s mention of the Ampere caught me off
guard. My expression must have telegraphed the surprise.

"Oh, I know all about the Ampere business,"
he said. "After I read about AVC's decision to review agencies, I
called Cunningham. He drove out to fill me in." Sid smiled.
"Probably afraid I'd have another heart attack if he didn't."

"The campaign's going fine. But there's
something else...something really strange, Sid."

"What do you mean?"

I told him, starting with Vince Caponi's
death, Darren Cato’s suicide/murder, and the arrival of the suspect
DVD at the agency. I described how the disc had been stolen, then
turned up in Bacalla's office. At the mention of the name, Sid's
face wrinkled as if he’d bitten into a lemon.

"Bacalla," he said.

"You know him?"

"Yes, of course. He came to the agency
just...just before my heart attack."

I waited for Sid to say more. When he didn’t,
I prompted him. "What about Bacalla, Sid?"

"Darcy, you have stumbled onto something far
worse than you could imagine."

"Bacalla?"

"The son-of-a-bitch is the devil
reincarnate."

As I listened, Sid described his first
meeting with Robert Bacalla, a cocktail party at the Adams mansion
on Lake Shore Drive.

"I sensed something cock-eyed from the start.
Said he was from Young & Rubicam in New York. Talking with him
five minutes, I could tell he knew nothing about advertising."

"Did you mention that to anyone?"

"Ken Cunningham. Immediately afterwards."

"And?"

Sid looked me in the eye for the first time
since Bacalla's name had come up. "Cunningham told me to mind my
own business. He said the VanBuhler campaign pointed a national
spotlight on Adams & Benson, and I should be glad Bacalla was
there."

"Did you? Mind your own business, I
mean."

"Hell, no. Bacalla was supposed to be some
hot-shot political wizard who helped pull off Richard Columbo's
upset. You remember... the guy who came out of nowhere to be
elected Governor of New York? First thing I did was call some
friends who'd worked on the campaign. They'd never heard of the
bastard."

"Then who is he?"

"That's what I wanted to know. Before I went
back to Cunningham, I needed facts. I started checking into people
Bacalla talked to. Outside the agency, I mean. Our telephone system
keeps automatic records of calls going in and out by extension.
Marlene Checkle, in administrative services, keeps the records on
file."

"She let you see them?"

"You'd be surprised the influence the title
'executive creative director' carries. Anyway, there were calls to
Washington, New York...places you'd expect. But there were also
calls to Tijuana, Mexico. Frequent calls."

"Tijuana?"

"The drug capital of the Western Hemisphere
since the early nineties. Eighty percent of the cocaine that hits
our streets passes through Tijuana."

"But phone calls to Tijuana don't prove
Bacalla is involved with drugs. Do you know who the calls were
to?"

"I was working on that when...it
happened."

"What happened, Sid?"

Goldman’s hand shook visibly. “Darcy, what
I've told you so far, and what I'm about to say can go no
further."

"If that's the way you want it, Sid."

"I made notes of my little investigation.
Kept ‘em in a folder in my desk."

"Yes?"

"A week or so later, the notes had vanished.
Instead, the folder held two photographs of my granddaughter,
Stephanie. In one, her head was cut out of the picture."

"Sid, that's terrible."

"Worse. The pictures were taken by
them...whoever they are. The message was clear: they could get to
her anytime they wanted."

"You took the threat seriously.”

"You could say that. My heart attack happened
the next day.

“This was no idle threat, Darcy. Let me tell
you a story. There was a town near Tijuana. The mayor of that
village, a woman, had crusaded against Tijuana's drug cartel. One
day, as she addressed an elementary school class, two men broke in
and grabbed an eight-year-old boy from the classroom. They chopped
off his head and threw it back into the room."

"My god."

"An eight year old boy. That's the kind of
people we're dealing with. The next child that happens to could be
my granddaughter."

I thought back to Bacalla pointing his index
finger at my head. A threat that seemed empty suddenly became
frighteningly real.

45

I described my brush with the hit-and-run
driver in the parking lot and the intruder breaking into my
house.

Then I told Sid about Manny Rodriguez; how he
seemed to have found something on the DVD, had been badly beaten,
and was now in Ford Hospital.

"I heard about Manny,” Sid said. “Hell of a
shame. The guy’d never hurt a fly.”

"Manny said you’re the one who brought him to
Adams & Benson.”

"Manny was in the Army; weapons expert.
Pistol or rifle, he’d shoot the eye out of a chipmunk at fifty
yards. Unfortunately, his was one of the first classifications to
go when they downsized the military.

"Sorry for getting off track. You were
talking about your suspicions."

I finished my story quickly: the disc stolen
from Rodriguez, his mention of subliminal persuasion and the
possibility of a second disc in the possession of Caponi's
widow.

“Subliminal persuasion? Don’t tell me you
believe in that crock?” Sid obviously didn’t, and while I was
beginning to believe anything could be possible, my imagination had
taken enough punishment lately.

When I remained quiet, Sid spoke again. "You
said this woman...the widow...is supposed to have a copy of the DVD
in question?"

"Yes. But what I can't figure out is: what
connection could that Avion DVD have with the Ampere
presentation?"

"Beats hell out of me. But that disc seems to
be the lightning rod for everything. The shooting of Vince Caponi,
the beating of Manny...who knows, maybe even Cato’s phony suicide.
He worked on that Avion commercial, after all.”

"So you agree I should visit Caponi's widow
and see if she'll give me the DVD?"

Sid didn’t answer right away. It was obvious
he wanted to bring Bacalla down, but becoming too involved would
certainly risk his granddaughter’s life.

"Yes," he said finally, "I think you should
go. But not alone."

"What's Caponi’s widow going to do, shoot
me?"

"It's not her I'm worried about. Once you
have that disc, you're fair game for the people who want it. And
they've already killed twice."

"Who'd go with me?"

"Me, if I were up to it."

"Yes, but you're not."

"Then Matt Carter...you said he knew
Caponi."

"He'd be perfect, but he's at the agency
preparing the television portion of the campaign for tomorrow's
presentation to the AVC Board."

"In that case, the logical candidate is Sean
Higgins."

"He thinks I'm nuts."

"Let's see if a phone call changes his
mind."

46

4:45 p.m.

The shiny black bullet of a car slid next to
mine in Sid’s driveway, and the gullwing door on the driver’s side
rose. Sean Higgins placed a hand on the top of the windshield and
swung himself up and out. When he stood, the roof of the car came
barely to his waist. He had taken care that his black turtleneck
and slacks matched the color of the car perfectly.

The car appeared to be a production AVC
Avatar, but the rumble of the engine told a different story. It was
an Avatar AVX, the souped up version of the Avatar. It had to be
the same one I’d driven around the Grattan track three months
ago.

"Hi, Sid, you're looking great."

Goldman pointed to the car. "What the hell’s
this? You sign up for the Grand Prix?"

"No chance. I wish it
were
mine. It’s
a prototype. The body's stock Avatar, but what's under the hood is
twice as mean. AVC calls it the Avatar AVX; they’re going to
introduce this beast on the racing circuit next year."

Sid ran an admiring hand over the front
fender. "This is no stock paint job either." The vehicle’s gleaming
skin appeared to have depth beneath the mirror-like finish.

I meandered over to the car and leaned down
into an interior that resembled the cockpit of an F-16 jet fighter.
I recognized the curved black instrument panel that wrapped around
driver and passenger, the dual black bucket seats, and the shift
lever immediately at the driver's right hand that shot the Avatar
AVX through six forward gears. Behind this very steering wheel, I
had clocked an official two hundred twenty on the straightaway at
Gratten.

"No doubt about it," Higgins was saying,
"this is a real man's car."

"How did you get hold of this real man's
car?" I asked.

If Higgins caught the sarcasm he didn’t show
it. "AVC sent it over for a photo shoot. I got the keys from John
Read in the photographic department. He's nervous as hell that I
have it."

Higgins reached into the cockpit and hit a
button. The gullwing door on the passenger side lifted. "C'mon, get
in. Let's not keep the lovely Mrs. Caponi waiting."

I’d much rather have gotten behind the wheel,
but I put my left leg inside the passenger side, and lowered myself
into the leather seat, thankful I wore slacks.

***

"Got a call from your ex-husband,” Higgins
said as we drove north on I-94. “He wants to talk about Cato.”

“You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about.”

“Just the same...” He let the sentence die
off.

Higgins tried his best to act nonchalant,
sliding the Avatar in and out of expressway traffic. He obviously
had more car than he had dealt with before. The Avatar AVX sprang
like a pouncing animal at the slightest touch of the accelerator.
Higgins held the steering wheel so tightly the knuckles of both
hands turned white. I couldn't help smiling.

He continued looking straight ahead as he
spoke. "Sid thinks there's something to your story."

"That's the only reason you're here?"

"That's the main reason I'm here." Then he
grinned, looking over at me. "That and the fact I don't have any
other place to drive this beast."

47

5:49 p.m.

Light was disappearing as we found Gracie
Caponi’s brick ranch in St. Clair Shores, a suburb north of
Detroit.

I knocked on the aluminum storm door and the
wooden door on the other side of the glass opened. Vince Caponi's
widow wore a Detroit Red Wings sweatshirt and jeans, an infant
balanced on one hip. Gracie Caponi was a short woman with brown,
shoulder-length hair. She pushed the storm door toward us.

"I'm Darcy James, Mrs. Caponi. This is Sean
Higgins."

"Do I know you?"

"Darcy and I are with Adams & Benson
advertising,” Higgins said. “Your husband was working on a project
for our account group.”

“We’re friends of Matt Carter,” I said.
“He...we, believe your husband sent you a DVD the night he was
killed.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know any Matt Carter. Or
anything about a DVD.”

So Mrs. Caponi was going to play games.
According to Matt, he had known Gracie and her husband well. Matt
had attended Vince’s funeral.