The Talk Show Murders (23 page)

I had two problems with Mantata’s smug conclusion. I was convinced Patton had not been pulling my chain about Polvere. And I liked Derek Webber.

I turned to Dal. “The night the hit man shot at Carrie Sands and myself,” I said. “You were following us, right?”

Dal nodded.

“Was the red car following us, too?”

He hesitated, then said, “Yeah. We spotted the Rover parked at the TV station with its engine running. When you and the actress drove off, the Rover followed you, and we followed it. But we lost sight of it when you two were parking your car. We were hunting for a place where we could observe you without being noticed when Trejean saw the Range Rover dropping the crazy bastard off and driving away.”

“Why did they drop him off, I wonder?” Mantata said. “Wouldn’t it have been simpler to do a drive-by?”

“Some hit men have their own method—,” Dal began.

Mantata cut him off. “When they were waiting for you, Billy, they had no way of knowing you’d be accompanying Ms. Sands. That posed a problem. She’s the star of Webber’s movie. Her death would be too costly a price to pay. They didn’t want to risk a drive-by. They wanted the killer to be able to dispatch you without harming the lady. You did say the initial shots he fired went over your head?”

I nodded. “But what the heck was his exit plan?” I asked. “The guy shoots me and he’s stuck with my body and Carrie. And no ride. Why did the red car drive off?”

“Good question,” Mantata said.

“Maybe they dropped him off, saw us, and panicked,” Dal said.

“Perhaps,” Mantata allowed. “It is a puzzle. Thinking outside the box, we might even speculate that Webber got Ms. Sands to lure you to that spot.”

“Now she’s part of this murder cabal, too? That’s a little too cynical for me. And too unbelievable. I know how frightened she was.”

“Need I remind you, Billy, she’s an actress.”

I shook my head. “You’re wrong about her. Wrong about Webber.”

He gave me a stern look. “Billy, because of our mutual friend, I’m doing my best to keep you alive. If you resent my help, there are other, considerably more profitable ways Dal and I could be spending our time.”

“I appreciate your help, Mantata. And Dal’s, certainly.”

“Good. Be careful tonight. By tomorrow, I should be in a better position to suggest our next move.”

“Why then?” I asked.

“By then I will have accumulated more data.”

On the way to my hotel, I asked Dal, “Was it my imagination, or did Mantata seem a little more obnoxious than usual?”

He smiled. “He’s always a little hardheaded and high-handed. Comes with old age, I think. But there’s something else, too. When I first started working for him, there were twenty of us in the crew and, what with his … businesses, mainly on the South Side, we were hustling all the time. Wasn’t that long ago. Then things changed. The gangs took over. Black gangs, white gangs, Latino, Asian. Over a hundred of ’em by now, each claiming a bigger slice of turf. One night, for no particular reason we know of, somebody blew up a car with five of our guys inside. Mantata pulled the plug on everything. Now he’s down to a few primarily aboveboard operations, mainly in Bronzetown. And the gallery, which is where he spends most of his time.

“You’ve met the only crew that’s left. There are four other guys we
use when we need them, which isn’t very often anymore. But basically it’s me, the crazy Jamaican Trejean, and the even crazier Hiho. What we usually do is collect and deposit the cash from Mantata’s coffee shops and bakeries and barbershops and pool halls. We solve small problems. And we keep the old man company.

“What I’m getting at: It’s been pretty boring for us, and especially for Mantata. Then you come along, and it’s almost like old times. Except now we’re the good guys. Mantata used to see himself as a black Professor Moriarty. You bring out the Sherlock Holmes in him. I think he digs it.”

“What did you study at Duke? Psychology?”

“Hell, no,” he said. “It was Duke, not Harvard. My major was coeds, my minor chemical enhancement.”

Ah, the halls of higher learning.

“Where are you, Billy?” my restaurant hostess-manager, Cassandra, wanted to know.

“In my hotel room, getting ready for dinner.”

“I hear a man singing.”

Dal was in the suite’s sitting room, singing along with a contestant on
The Voice
.

“Just a friend,” I said, not wanting to get into the whole thing with her. “He’s staying with me for a few days.”

“In your hotel room?”

“Can’t a couple of guys hang out in a hotel in their bathrobes without narrow minds jumping to conclusions?”

She was silent for a beat, then decided to change the subject. “We identified the little bastard who’s been causing the trouble. A busboy named Phillipe, who’s been working here for less than a month. The undercover security lady saw him setting some roaches loose in the main dining room just before lunch.”

“Crap! What’d you do?”

“We got rid of the roaches. Most of them, anyway. It was a little tricky, since we didn’t want Phillipe to know he’d been observed.”

“Why didn’t we?”

“Because as any expert in security knows, you don’t chop off the finger while the hand is still at large. Or something like that.”

“Your boyfriend tell you that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Other than Phillipe and his roaches, everything okay?”

“Better than that. We’re just about at full capacity in the main room, and three of the private rooms are busy. How’s Chicago?”

“It’s got Marshall Field and Soldier Field, and it’s on a nice lake, but,” I began to sing, “ ‘… It hasn’t got the hansoms in the park, it hasn’t got a skyline after dark. That’s why New York’s my home sweet home.’ With apologies to the late Sammy Davis.”

“You and your hotel friend should do a duet,” she said, and clicked off.

At ten to eight, Dal stood in the doorway to the bedroom, resplendent in black blazer, dark gray turtleneck, and lighter gray slacks. There was no evidence of his gun or Kevlar vest.

“You’re looking good,” he said.

“I look like Bibendum, the Michelin Man. And I feel like I’m wearing a corset.”

“You’ll get used to it,” he said.

I still hadn’t by the time we reached Pastiche.

It was in a modern tri-level building located on the Chicago River, near the Merchandise Mart. A semi-officious maître d’ informed us, in a French accent that sounded almost comical, that the Onion City party was being held down the stairs to our right.

The stairwell led to a just-above-river-level indoor-outdoor dining area, where a lovely young brunette seated at a table introduced herself as Jo Sennett, Derek’s social secretary. She welcomed me and
asked Dal for his name, which she checked off her list. “The bar is to the left, but guests are gathering on the terrace,” she said. “Have fun.”

“Fun,” Dal muttered. “Billy, if the women guests all look like her, you’re going to have to keep reminding me why we’re here.”

“I don’t know about you, Dal, but that is why I’m here.”

The restaurant’s efficient layout, furniture, and especially the white cushioned chairs on the terrace made it easy to recognize which French Seine-side establishment had been its inspiration: Riviere. I hoped that the menu would be as successfully reproduced.

We were neither the first nor the last to arrive. There were about fifty people milling on the large terrace, with room for another twenty or twenty-five. I recognized a few of the cast and crew members I’d met at Webber’s mansion sprinkled in among those present. Near the boat dock, the marsupial-like assistant director, Harp Didio, was chatting up three young executive types. Webber’s partner, Alan Luchek, his red hair temporarily tamed by more than a dab of mousse, shifted his weight from foot to foot anxiously while struggling through a conversation with an elderly, obviously affluent couple.

Thief
’s director, Austin Deware, was at a table, doing shooters with several young men and women who might have been film students. Nearby, at another table, the actor Sandford Hawes, dark Ray-Bans lending their air of mystery to his absurdly handsome face, was holding court with an array of women, young, old, and in between.

A waiter arrived, bearing a tray containing bite-sized grilled somethings, accessible by toothpick. I tried a sample.

“Well?” Dal asked.

“Grilled calamari,” I said. Instead of mentioning that the calamari was soaked in lemon butter, garlic, basil, and tomato, I merely added, “Delicious. Try ’em.”

He took two, and I continued to scan the crowd for Adoree. I didn’t see her, but I spied Madeleine Parnelle engaging several executive types in conversation. She was wearing a midnight-blue dress with sparkles and a neckline nearly down to her navel. Her head was adorned by a matching version of an African skullcap.

Panning right, I locked eyes with Carrie, who was at the far edge
of the terrace. She turned to a tall, professorial gentleman, said something to him, then began working her way through the crowd toward us.

Following just behind her, looking a little apprehensive, was J. B. Kazynski.

“Billy, I’m so glad you’re here,” Carrie said.

“And in such sleazy company,” J.B. added. She was glaring at Dal, who was wincing and looking ill at ease.

“Dal, this is Carrie Sands,” I said.

“A pleasure,” he said, turning from J.B. with relief. He shifted his face into what I suspected was his ruggedly appealing Daniel Craig grin. “Henry Hart Dalrymple, at your service, ma’am.”

“Jesus Christ!” J.B. grumbled. “Excuse me while I puke.”

“I take it you and Dal are not strangers,” I said.

“J.B. tried to kill me a while back,” Dal said.

“It was just a warning shot. If I’d wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”

Carrie was looking at them both, her eyes open wider than Little Orphan Annie’s but with more pupil.

“Dal’s my bodyguard,” I told her.

“Uh … J.B.’s mine.”

“What happened to the legendary Bucky?” I asked.

Dal and J.B. stopped their sniping to ask in unison, “Bucky Hurtz?”

“Y-yes,” Carrie said. “I think Derek and Alan talked to him, but he said he’d retired.”

“Bucky retired?” Dal said, as if he couldn’t believe it.

“He was the champ,” J.B. said. “Remember when the Imperial Insane Vice Lords marked Senator Rockville’s family …?”

“As soon as the senator hired Bucky, he grabbed one of the Lords—” Dal said.

“Not just one of the Lords,” J.B. interrupted. “He grabbed Li’l Hay-sus and nailed him to a tree.”

“Crucifixion-style,” Dal said.

They both laughed.

J.B. turned to me suddenly and said, “Could we talk for a minute, just the two of us?”

I nodded and, with Carrie and Dal watching us with curiosity, followed her to a less populated section of the restaurant’s interior.

“What’s with you and Dal?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

“Friend of a friend put us in touch.”

“He’s a sociopath.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” I said, and started to walk away.

“Wait! That’s not why I wanted to talk.”

I didn’t think it was. I stood there, looking at her, waiting for her to ask me not to repeat anything she’d told me about her investigation of our host and his company.

It was evidently hard for her to ask a favor. She’d tried to make it a quid-pro-quo situation by telling me something she didn’t think I knew about Dal. That hadn’t worked, and now she was trying her best to come up with a spin that would make her seem less needy.

“I’m in a position to find out who tried to kill you and Carrie,” she said. “Don’t screw it up.”

“How could I do that?” I asked, with fake innocence.

“By telling Webber what I stupidly told you about my nephew,” she whispered through clenched teeth.

“Oh, I see. You want me to keep your secret? All you have to do is ask.”

“It’s as much for your benefit as—”

“All you have to do is ask,” I repeated.

“Okay. Will you?”

“Sure,” I said. “Can we go back to the party now?”

When we returned, Carrie was laughing at something Dal had said.

“What’s so funny?” J.B. asked defensively, as if she assumed they’d been talking about her.

“Dal was telling me about the time Bucky rescued several young undocumented Asian women from a house of prostitution in Joliet,” Carrie said.

“Yeah,” J.B. said. “He got ’em out in the confusion he caused by dumping a garbage can full of sewer rats into the reception area.”

Regardless of the reason, the use of rats to clean house was a little too close to home for me to be amused. But it definitely raised J.B.’s spirits. She felt she had to top it with another merry tale of the legendary Bucky Hurtz.

While our keepers amused themselves, I suggested to Carrie that we slip away to the bar for cocktails. This resulted in a mojito for her and a Sapphire martini for myself. I tapped my glass against hers and said, “To a long life.”

“Amen.”

“Last night, when you asked me to drive to Derek’s with you, was that your idea?”

“What do you mean?” She seemed genuinely puzzled. I immediately regretted giving Mantata’s unpleasant suggestion even a second’s thought.

“I don’t even know what I mean,” I said. “It’s been a long day. How was yours?”

“Not bad. We filmed some exteriors at Trump Tower.”

On the deck, our bodyguards were laughing again.

“How’d you hook up with J.B.?” I asked.

“After Bucky said no, Alan remembered seeing her on the show with us and called her service. She said she was busy but finally agreed to farm out the job she’d been doing and come aboard. I’m glad. I doubt I’d feel as comfortable with Bucky, as legendary as he may be. And J.B. seems very professional.”

I’d say
, I thought to myself. J.B.’s nephew and his wife were paying her to find out the source of Onion City’s financing, and now Onion City was a client, too, which put her in a position to complete the first job. Brilliant.

“I got a nice long email from Gerard today,” Carrie said. “He misses me, and he thinks he’ll be finished with the corrections to the final draft by the time I meet him in Paris.”