The Closers (19 page)

After hitting the cup with heavy doses of cream and sugar, he moved out to the patio area and selected an empty table in the corner. He sipped his coffee slowly but it was still twenty minutes before he was approached by a short man in black jeans and a black 1-shirt. He had a clean-shaven face and dark, hard eyes that were deeply set. He was much younger than Pierce had guessed, maybe late thirties at the most. He had no coffee, he had come straight to the table.

"Mr. Pierce?"

Pierce offered his hand.

"Mr. Glass?"

Glass pulled out the other chair and sat down. He leaned across the table.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to see your ID," he said.

Pierce put his cup down and started digging in his pocket for his wallet.

"Probably a good idea," he said. "Mind if I look at yours?"

After both men had convinced themselves they were sitting with the right party, Pierce leaned back and studied Glass. He seemed to Pierce to be a large man stuck in a small man's body. He exuded intensity. It was as if his skin were stretched too tight over his whole body.

"Do you want to get a coffee before we start to talk?"

"No, I don't use caffeine."

That seemed to figure.

"Then I guess we should get to it. What's with all the Spock stuff?"

"Excuse me?"

"You know, the 'make sure you're alone' and 'what do you do for a living' stuff. It all seems to be a little strange."

Before speaking, Glass nodded as if he agreed.

"What do you know about Lilly Quinlan?"

"I know what she was doing for a living, if that's what you mean."

"And what was that?"

"She was an escort. She advertised through the Internet. I'm pretty sure she worked for a guy named Billy Wentz. He's sort of a digital pimp. He runs the website where she kept a page. I think he set her up in other things- porno sites, stuff like that. I think she was involved in the S and M scene as well."

The mention of Wentz seemed to bring a new intensity to Glass's face. He folded his arms on the table and leaned forward.

"Have you spoken to Mr. Wentz yourself?"

Pierce shook his head.

"No, but I tried to. I went to Entrepreneurial Concepts yester

j that's his umbrella company. I asked to see him but he wasn't there. Why do I feel like I am telling you things you already know? Look, I want to ask questions here, not answer them."

"There is little I can tell you. I specialize in missing-persons investigations. I was recommended to Vivian Quinlan by someone I know in the LAPD's Missing Persons Unit. It went from there. She maid me for a week's work. I didn't find Lilly or much else about her disappearance."

Pierce considered this for a long moment. He was an amateur and he had found out quite a bit in less than forty-eight hours. He doubted that Glass was as inept as he was presenting himself to be.

"You did know about the website, right? L.A. Darlings?"

"Yes. I was told she was working as an escort and it was pretty easy to find her. L.A. Darlings is one of the more popular sites, you could say."

"Did you find her house? Did you talk to her landlord?"

"No and no."

"What about Lucy LaPorte?"

"Who?"

"She uses the name Robin on the website. Her page is linked to Lilly's."

"Oh, yes, Robin. Yes, I spoke to her on the phone. It was very brief. She was not cooperative."

Pierce was suspicious of whether Glass had really called. It seemed to him Lucy would have mentioned that an investigator had already inquired about Lilly. He planned to check with her about the supposed call.

"How long ago was that? The call to Robin."

Glass shrugged.

Three weeks. It was at the beginning of my week of work. She was one of the first I called."

"Did you go see her?"

No, other things came up. And at the end of the week Mrs. ^uinlan was not willing to pay me for further work on the case. That was it for me."

What other things came up?"

Glass didn't respond. You talked to Wentz, didn't you?"

Glass looked down at his folded arms but didn't reply.

"What did he tell you?"

Glass cleared his throat.

"Listen to me very carefully, Mr. Pierce. You want to stay clear of Billy Wentz."

"Why?"

"Because he is a dangerous man. Because you are moving in an area that you know nothing about. You could get very seriously hurt if you are not careful."

"Is that what happened to you. Did you get hurt?"

"We are not talking about me. We are talking about you."

A man with an iced latte sat down at the table nearest them. Glass looked over and studied him with paranoid eyes. The man took a Palm Pilot out of his pocket and opened it. He slid out the stylus and went to work on the device. He paid no mind to Glass or Pierce.

"I want to know what happened when you went to see Wentz," Pierce said.

Glass unfolded his arms and rubbed his hands together.

"Do you know .. ."

He stopped and didn't go on. Pierce had to prompt him.

"Know what?"

"Do you know that so far the only place in which the Internet is significantly profitable is in the adult entertainment sectors?"

"I've heard that. What does-"

"Ten billion dollars a year is made off the electronic sex trade in this country. A lot of it is over the net. It's big business, with ties to top-flight corporate America. It's everywhere, available on every computer, on every TV. Turn on the TV and order hard-core porn courtesy of AT and The. Go online and order a woman like Lilly Quinlan to your door."

Glass's voice took on a fervor that reminded Pierce of a priest in a pulpit.

"Do you know that Wentz sells franchises across the country? I inquired. Fifty thousand dollars a city. There is now a New York Darlings and a Vegas Darlings. Miami, Seattle, Denver and on and on. Linked to these sites he has porn sites for every imaginable sexual persuasion and fetish. He-"

"I know all of that," Pierce broke in. "But what I am interested in is Lilly Quinlan. What does all of that have to do with what happened to her?"

"I don't know," Glass said. "But what I am trying to tell you is that there is too much money at stake here. Stay away from Billy Wentz."

Pierce leaned back and looked at Glass.

"He got to you, didn't he? What did he do, threaten you?"

Glass shook his head. He wasn't going to go there.

"Forget about me. I came here today to try to help you. To warn you about how close you are to the fire. Stay away from Wentz. I can't stress that enough. Stay away."

Pierce could see in his eyes the sincerity of the warning. And the fear. Pierce had no doubt that Wentz had in some way gotten to Glass and scared him off the Quinlan case.

"Okay," he said. "I'll keep clear."

Pierce toyed with the idea of going back to the lab after his coffee with Philip Glass but ultimately admitted to himself that the conversation with the private detective had stunted the motivation he had felt only an hour before. Instead, he went to the Lucky Market on Ocean Park Boulevard and filled a shopping cart with food and other basics he would need in the new apartment. He paid with a credit card and loaded the numerous bags into the trunk of his BMW. It wasn't until he was in his parking space in the garage at the Sands that he realized that he would have to make at least three trips up and down the elevator to get all of his purchases into the apartment. He had seen other tenants with small pushcarts, ferrying laundry or groceries up or down the elevator. Now he realized they had the right idea.

On the first trip he took the new plastic laundry basket he had bought and filled it with six bags of groceries, including all of the perishables he wanted to get up and into the apartment refrigerator first.

As he came into the elevator alcove two men were standing by the door that led to the individual storage rooms that came with each apartment. Pierce was reminded that he needed to get a padlock for his storage room and to get the boxes of old records and keepsakes Nicole was still holding for him in the garage at the house on Amalfi. His surfboard, too.

At the elevator one of the men pushed the call button. Pierce exchanged nods with them and guessed that they might be a gay couple. One man was in his forties with a small build and a spreading waist. He wore pointed-toe boots that gave him two extra inches in the heel. The other man was much younger, taller and harder, yet he seemed to defer in body language to his older partner.

When the elevator door opened they allowed Pierce to step on first and then the smaller man asked him what floor he wanted. After the door closed he noticed that the man did not push another button after pressing twelve for him.

"You guys live on twelve?" he asked. "I just moved in a few days ago."

"Visitors," said the smaller one.

Pierce nodded. He turned his attention to the flashing numbers above the door. Maybe it was being so soon after the warning from Glass or the way the smaller man kept stealing glances at the reflection of Pierce in the chrome trim on the door, but as the elevator rose and the numbers got higher, so did his anxiety. He remembered how they had been standing near the storage room door and approached the elevator only when he did. As if they had been waiting there for some reason.

Or for some person.

The elevator finally reached twelve and the door slid open. The men stepped to the side to allow Pierce to step out first. With both hands holding the laundry basket, Pierce nodded forward.

"You guys go ahead," he said. "Can you punch the first floor for me? I forgot to get the mail."

"There is no mail on Sundays," the smaller man said.

"No, I mean yesterday's. I forgot to get it."

Nobody moved. The three of them stood there looking at one another until the door started to close and the big man reached out and hit the bumper with a hard forearm. The door shuddered and slowly reopened, as if recovering from a sucker punch. And finally the smaller one spoke.

"Fuck the mail, Henry. You're getting off here. Am I right, Six Eight?"

Without answering, the man obviously named because of his longitudinal dimensions moved in and grabbed Pierce by the upper arms. He pivoted and hurled Pierce through the open door into the twelfth-floor hallway. His momentum took him across the hall and crashing into a closed door marked electrical. Pierce felt his breath blast out of his lungs and the laundry basket slipped from his grasp, landing with a loud thud on the floor.

"Easy now, easy. Keys, Six-Eight."

Pierce's breath had still not returned. The one named Six-Eight moved toward him and with one hand pressed him back against the door. He slapped Pierce's pants pockets with the other. When he felt the keys he dove his big hand into the pocket and pulled out the key ring. He handed it to the other man.

"Okay."

With the smaller man leading the way- and knowing the way- Pierce was pushed down the hall toward his apartment. When he got his breath back he started to say something but the bigger man's hand came around from behind and covered his face and his words. The small one held up a finger without looking back.

"Not yet, Bright Boy. Let's get inside so we don't disturb the neighbors more than we have to. You just moved in, after all. You don't want to make a bad impression."

The smaller one walked with his head down, apparently studying the keys on the ring.

"A Beemer," he said.

Pierce knew the keyless remote to his car carried the BMW insignia on it.

"I like Beemers. It's the full package; you got power and luxury and a real solid feel. You can't beat that in a car- or a woman."

He looked back at Pierce and smiled with a raised eyebrow. They got to the door and the smaller man opened it with the second key he tried, Six-Eight pushed Pierce into the apartment and shoved him down onto the couch. He then stepped away and the other man took a position in front of Pierce. He noticed the phone on the arm of the couch and picked it up. Pierce watched him play with the buttons and go through the caller ID directory.

"Been busy here, Henry," he said as he scrolled the list. "Philip Glass .. ."

He looked back at Six-Eight, who had stationed himself near the apartment's front hallway, his massive arms folded across his chest. The small man crinkled his eyes in a question.

"Isn't that the guy we had a discussion with a few weeks back?"

Six-Eight nodded. Pierce realized that Glass must have called the apartment before reaching him at Amedeo.

The small man went back to the phone readout and soon his eyes lit on another familiar listing.

"Oh so now Robin's calling you. That's wonderful."

But Pierce could tell by the man's voice that it wasn't wonderful, that it was going to be anything but wonderful for Lucy LaPorte.

"It's nothing," Pierce said. "She just left a message. I can play it for you if you want. I kept it."

"You falling in love with her, are you?"

"No."

The smaller guy turned and gave a false smile to Six-Eight. Then suddenly he moved his arm in a quick overhand motion and hit Pierce with the phone on the bridge of his nose, delivering a blow with the full power of the sweeping arc.

Pierce saw a flash of red and black blast across his vision and a searing pain screamed through his head. He couldn't tell if his eyes were closed or he'd gone blind. He instinctively rocked backwards on the couch and turned away from the blow in case another was coming. He vaguely heard the man in front of him yelling but what he was saying wasn't registering. Then strong, large hands clamped around his upper arms again and he was pulled upright and completely off the couch.

He could feel himself being hoisted over Six-Eight's shoulders and then carried. He felt his mouth filling with blood and he struggled to open his eyes but still couldn't do it. He heard the rolling sound of the balcony's sliding door, then the cool air from the ocean touching his skin.

"Wha .. . ," he managed to say.

Suddenly the hard shoulder that had been in his gut was gone and he started a headfirst free fall. His muscles tightened and his mouth opened to emit the final furious sound of his life. Then, at last, he felt the huge hands grab his ankles and hold. His head and shoulders slammed hard against the rough concrete of the textured exterior of the building.