The Role Players (28 page)

“The other bartender tells me you were on duty a couple of weeks ago when that guy got killed not far from here. And no, I'm not a cop,” I hastened to add.

“So?” he said, his face as expressionless as his partner's.

“It's a pretty sure thing the guy was in here before he was killed. Do you remember him?” I asked.
Shit! How would he know? He never saw the body.
“Tall, dark hair, blue eyes. Late twenties. Looked like a model?”

He just looked at me, like his partner had. I reached into my pocket and pulled out another twenty, which seemed to jar his memory.

“Yeah, I remember,” he said, taking the twenty and putting it in his own pocket. “The cops showed me a couple of Polaroids of the body, but I couldn't tell all that much from them. His face was turned to one side and his eyes were closed, and the cops didn't say anything about them being blue, but those I remember. I told 'em I thought he'd been in.”

“Had he been in before?”

“I think he was in the night before. He was a hard guy to miss. He didn't look like anybody who belonged around here, but he just stood over there in the corner and didn't say anything to anybody.”

“Do you remember if he left with anyone either night?”

“I'm a bartender, not a social director,” he said. “But yeah, I think I saw him leave with somebody that last night. Not one of our regulars—somebody more like him. We get a lot of guys in here just slumming. Maybe they just connected.”

“Did you tell the police about the other guy?”

“I don't like talking to cops. It must have slipped my mind.”

Uh huh.

“Can you describe the other guy?”

He knit his brow and glanced toward the ceiling. “Tall, medium dark hair, good looking, mid-twenties. What else's there to tell?”

“Anything else you remember about either of them?” I asked. He looked blank. “Anything unusual happen while they were here?”

I glanced in the mirror behind the bar and saw our cab move slowly past in the street. The bartender was looking over my shoulder and apparently saw it through the front window, too.

“Yeah,” he said, his brows slightly furrowed again. “A cab pulled up across the street and a guy got out and walked over here, but the cab didn't pull away, which was kind of unusual—most cabbies don't like to hang around this neighborhood any longer than they have to. Anyway, the guy opened the door but he didn't come in. Just looked around, then walked back toward the cab, which was still sitting there. The next time I looked, him and the cab were gone.

“How long after that did the other two leave?”

He shrugged. “No idea. Maybe five, ten minutes.”

I could see he was getting a little impatient with the interrogation. I quickly reached in my pocket and pulled out another ten from my pocket and laid it on the bar.

“Last question,” I said. “Did you get a look at the guy from the cab?”

He took the $10 and slipped it into his pocket.

“Didn't pay much attention. The light's not too good around here. He had a beard, though.”

A couple of guys from the pool table came up to the bar wanting beer, and Vince pushed himself upright and went to get their order.

“Thanks,” I called after him. I took one more swig of my beer and left.

A beard? Well, so much for that lead.

*

We had the cab drop us off in front of one of Chris and Max's neighborhood bars and went in for a drink.

“We really don't go out to the bars much, just the two of us,” Chris said, “and going out alone can lead to trouble. I do most of my drinking—what there is of it nowadays—when we go out to dinner or with friends. But we like this place, and in the winter we're both on the dart team, so we're here about once a week.”

The place reminded me very much of our friend Bob Allen's original bar, The Ebony Room, before it burned down and he reopened it as Ramón's. I mentioned it to Chris, and he agreed.

“Yeah, it does, doesn't it? I never realized that before.”

Of course Jonathan, who was familiar with Ramón's but who came along long after The Ebony Room days, was a little at a loss as to what we were talking about.

“I'm glad I didn't meet Dick while he was with you,” Jonathan said to Chris.

“Why's that?” Chris asked.

“Because as long as he was with you, he and I would never have gotten together.” It was pure Jonathan-logic, but he was probably right, and I was glad that things worked out the way they did.

Chris introduced us to the bartender and a couple of the patrons he knew, and we sat around talking for nearly two hours until I realized it was about time for us to head home if I hoped to get up early in the morning. I also realized, with no little self-satisfaction, that ever since my visit to The Hole earlier that evening, I'd not spent nearly every minute thinking about who had killed Rod Pearce. I sensed I was getting close, and it was a good feeling.

*

I awoke at six o'clock Thursday morning, but with Jonathan's head on my shoulder and his arm across my chest, I didn't have the heart to disturb him. I lay there listening to him breathe and staring at his face, watching his eyes move under his closed lids as dreams came and went.

It doesn't get much better than this
, one of my mind-voices said softly.

When he moved his arm to rub his nose, I moved toward my edge of the bed, and his head slipped onto the pillow. When he finished rubbing his nose and moved his arm back to put it over my chest again, I was gone. He didn't notice.

I showered and managed to dress without waking him, then went into the kitchen to make coffee.

This time it was I who was standing by the window, looking out at a cloudless day, when Jonathan came up behind me and put his arms around my chest, laying his head on my shoulder. I turned around and kissed him. He had a slight case of morning breath, but I didn't care.

“Why didn't you wake me?” he asked, taking the cup from my hand and taking a sip, then making a face: “No sugar! I keep forgetting!”

He went to the kitchen for his own coffee, then returned to join me by the window.

At about 7:20 I called for a cab. Better fifteen minutes early than one minute late.

*

I arrived at 8:12, after a slow walk around the block to kill time. When I announced myself to the doorman, he called Tait's apartment, then said: “Mr. Duncan will be right down, sir.” A minute or so later, the elevator doors opened, and Tait stepped out. Keith, carrying Tait's briefcase, remained in the elevator as the doors closed.

“Keith's bringing the car around,” Tait said with a casualness that changed my mood from mildly puzzled to mildly irked.

I could very easily have just gotten on the elevator and ridden down to the garage with them, but then realized that Keith's “bringing the car around” was probably all part of the game.

We waited at the curb until a shiny new Mercedes, Keith behind the wheel, pulled up in front of us. Tait opened the back door for me, and we got in. I felt slightly Midwest-middle-class awkward not to be riding in the front seat. And I was duly impressed to see that Tait even had a car phone.

Ah, to be rich!
I thought.

“I should say,” I said to Tait as soon as we got in, “that I consider myself officially ‘off the clock' as of our conversation yesterday, so I won't be charging you for any time today.”

Tait tilted his head in my direction and raised an eyebrow. “Nonsense,” he said. “Our conversation yesterday was before I found the gun was missing. So you are still ‘on the clock' as far as I am concerned.”

“That's very nice of you,” I said. “Thanks.” Then, deciding not to waste any time, I jumped right in. “So tell me about the gun.”

“Not much to tell,” he replied. “I went into the box office to get it as I was about to leave, and it was gone. I searched all the drawers, but nothing. No gun, no box of shells.”

He saw me looking toward Keith, who had his eyes on the road.

“And no,” Tait said, “Keith did not take it…did you, Keith?”

Keith glanced quickly into the rearview mirror. “No, sir.”

Well, that apparently settled
that.
I chose to move on.

“Go over for me, if you will, the night that Rod was killed. You said you didn't have a chance to speak with him at all, which is why you gave him the note.”

Tait nodded. “That's correct.”

“Was there anything unusual about that night's rehearsal? Was Rod or anyone else acting strangely?”

A slow headshake. “No, nothing at all that I noticed.”

I leaned forward in my seat. “How about you, Keith? Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary?”

He did not look into the rearview mirror. “No, sir,” he said. “I was in the office all evening, working.”

“Did you by chance see Tait give Rod the note?”

There was a pause no longer than the length of a mouse's eyelash—but I caught it—before he said, “What note, sir?”

I sat back in my seat.

“Tait, I think I remember you saying you were in a hurry to leave that night. May I ask why?”

“I had a business meeting.”

At eleven o'clock at night?
I wondered, then thought,
So if Tait was at a business meeting, he has an alibi! Why didn't he mention it before?

“And Keith drove you?” I asked. That could give them
both
an alibi!

“No,” Tait said. “I decided to drive myself.”

“And how did Keith get home?”

Tait shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said. “Cab, subway, bus…it wasn't my concern.”

Of course it wasn't
, I thought.
You're the
Master
! But obviously that was normal for him.

“Tell Mr. Hardesty how you got home that night,” he said without raising his voice. I was sure Keith wouldn't be able to hear him, but he apparently did.

“I took the bus, sir,” he said.

“Not a cab?” I asked.

“No, sir,” he answered.

I turned again to Tait. “May I ask who you met with, and what time the meeting was over?”

He looked at me with a bemused smile. “Are you accusing me of killing Rod?” he asked.

“I'm just playing devil's advocate,” I said. “If the police decide to intensify their investigation, it's the kind of question they will undoubtedly ask.”

He shrugged. “Then I'll be in something of a predicament,” he said. “I was supposed to pick up my business associate at his hotel, but as I was on my way, he called me to say he'd just gotten back from dinner and thought he might have come down with a mild case of food poisoning and would have to reschedule our meeting after he returns from Europe next week. So I returned home and went right to bed.”

“And did you see Keith when you got home?”

“Keith has his own room,” he said with a wry smile, “and I assume he either hadn't gotten home yet or was already asleep. So no, I did not see him.”

Okay, so much for that
.
Next question
.

“Are you sure Gene does not know that you had sex with Rod?” I said it rather softly in hopes Keith wouldn't hear the question—I was embarrassed enough
for
him.

“I'm sure he does not,” Tait said.

“So he hasn't been acting any differently toward you lately?”

“Not any more so than I'd expect from someone who had just lost someone he loved deeply,” he said. “And in reference to my one encounter with Rod, I would trust that under the rules of privilege—assuming that such rules apply between private investigator and client—that he never will.”

“He certainly won't hear it from me,” I said, pausing only a moment before asking my next question. “Rod was killed near a bar called The Hole. Do you know anything about it, or if Rod ever went there?”

“I've heard of it, but I've never been there. Too many would-be Masters and not enough slaves.”

I looked again toward Keith, and again Tait smiled. “Keith does not go into bars alone,” he said.

“As for Rod's ever having been to The Hole, I don't know. I do know that he occasionally enjoyed going to the more…shall we say ‘esoteric' places?...to study the kinds of people who went there; how they acted and reacted. I don't picture The Hole being the kind of place he would go to pick up a trick.”

We were relatively quiet for the rest of the trip, what conversation there was being basically small talk. Keith, of course, said nothing.

When we pulled up at the Departures area of the terminal, Keith hurried around from the driver's side to open the door for Tait, then opened the front passenger's door to extract Tait's briefcase and hand it to him. I was waiting for the ride back into the city, and the chance to talk to Keith one on one. Obviously, Tait knew it, because when Keith got back into the driver's seat, Tait opened the rear door and leaned in.

“Oh, and Keith,” he said, looking at me, “you may tell Mr. Hardesty anything he might want to know.” He then smiled. “I'll undoubtedly talk with you tomorrow.”

He was holding the door open with his right hand, so shaking hands would have been a bit awkward, so I just said, “I'll look forward to it. And thanks again for your cooperation.”

Tait closed the door and Keith, without looking back, drove off.