The White Gold Score (A Daniel Faust Novella) (4 page)

Curtis led me to his den, a little sanctum in the back of his mansion. No phones, no windows to the outside world, just a marble grotto with a shag ice-white rug, a plush leather sofa, and a big-screen TV on the wall. A vintage Williams pinball machine flashed its lights in a corner, next to a well-stocked wet bar.

He walked to the bar, took down two glasses and a crystal-cut decanter, and glanced my way. “You allowed to drink on the job?”

“You gonna tell my boss?”

He chuckled and poured two fingers of whiskey into each glass, handing me one. The first sip burned down my throat like liquid lightning and left an aftertaste of smoke. Definitely not the cheap stuff.

“I was on tour,” he said, “promoting the
Back at Ya
album. Coast to coast, man, my first big blowup. Blue Rhapsody handled everything: the schedule, the tour buses, the venues. I just had to hit my stops and win the crowds. You ever been backstage at a concert? Know anything about that?”

I shook my head. “Never had the chance.”

“When we tour, we roll with a ton of gear, right? I ain’t no
folk
singer. Mics, amps, speakers, mixing boards—that’s just the start of the list. All that stuff gets packed up in roadie cases: they’re these big trunks on rollers, with padding inside. Makes it easy for the crew to set up and tear down at a new stop every night, and they keep our gear from getting banged up in transit.”

“I’m with you,” I said, taking another sip of whiskey.

“Some of the crew on that tour were my boys. Guys from the old neighborhood, the ones who stood with me before I became the Big Rig. We needed more help, though, so Dino brought in his own people. They got real protective around those cases. Doing all the work themselves, pushing my posse out. They said it was a union thing. I believed ’em, at first.”

“At first?”

“Yeah. Till one night before a concert, at sound check, I was having trouble with my microphone. I went to grab a backup and noticed the padding in the case was a little off-kilter. Underneath? Three fat keys of coke in plastic wrap. Dino Costa ain’t in the music business; he’s in the
drug
business. He sends artists out on tour with the goods stashed in their kit, and his ‘roadies’ make sales at each stop. He made me a goddamn coke mule and I didn’t even know it.”

“And if anyone found the drugs,” I said, “they could blame it all on you.”

“Damn right.
That’s
why I split with Blue Rhapsody. I went loud and public—not about the drugs, but anything and everything else I could throw at them—because I needed to go high profile. Make it hard for Dino to snuff me and get away with it. In the end, he paid me off to shut up and go away, and that’s just what I did.”

“So what about Monty? Was he in on this?”

Curtis swirled the whiskey in his glass and sighed.

“He knew about it. I went to him first, once I found out. Spine of a jellyfish, man. Said he was trying to convince Dino to knock off the shady shit and go legit.
Trying
. Like you can talk a guy out of that life by being nice and saying pretty please.”

“Dino must be pretty loaded, right? What did he even need Monty for?”

“Loaded last year, maybe. But from what I hear, right now he’s overextended on cash. He’s pouring all his money into this new start-up called Sonic Wave, a music-streaming service that’s supposed to out-Spotify Spotify. Typical Dino. News flash: it’s already been done.” Curtis paused. “In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s called Spotify.”

“And Monty was in on that too?”

Curtis nodded. “Monty’s job was PR. Massaging the talent and, most importantly, getting everybody on board with the new start-up. Not an easy sell. You know what artists get paid for streaming music? I make about half a penny per song, and my management and legal take half of
that
. Anyway, Monty’s been trying to sign anybody and everybody to bump up the catalog. Tanesha called me last week, said he sounded scared as hell. He
knew
this thing was gonna be a stone flop, but he couldn’t talk Dino out of it.”

“So he was trying to get Tanesha to come back to Blue Rhapsody?”

“Trying
hard
. Sounded like Dino was leaning on him. See, Tanesha’s contract with EMI is up. She’s a free agent with a number-one hit and people are lining up to buy an album she hasn’t even finished recording yet. You don’t get a hotter prospect than that.”

“Just what Dino needs to make his new venture a success.”

“You got it. If he could sign Tanesha to the label and make her music exclusive to the streaming service? Hell, he might actually get some subscribers. So he sent Monty to be his ambassador, seeing as the two of ’em had old history together. History Tanesha wanted to
keep
history, y’hear? She turned him down flat. But Monty…Monty didn’t always know how to take a hint.”

Something in the tone of his voice caught my ear. Something that said he knew a lot more than he was saying. And considering he’d already outed his former producer as a coke dealer, it had to be something juicy.

“Old history?” I asked.

He set his glass on the wet bar and folded his arms.

“Old history.”

“Any chance you could put me in touch with Tanesha? Anything I can learn about Monty could be useful.”

“Man, whatever you’re trying to dig up, it’s got nothing to do with her. Leave her be. What’s the big deal, anyway? Guy had a heart attack. It happens.”

“We still off the record?”

Curtis squinted at me.

“I am if you are.”

“Monty didn’t have a heart attack.” I looked him in the eye. “Someone broke into his hotel room and shot him.”

His mouth opened. He poured himself another splash of whiskey.

“Shit. Well, ain’t no shortage of suspects. Monty built Blue Rhapsody on poaching talent from other labels.”

“So I hear. But it sounds like he had a bigger threat a lot closer to home.”

Curtis looked me up and down. He took my business card from his pocket, read it, and tapped it with his fingertip.

“If I call this number, they’ll vouch for you, right? Say you’re their guy?”

“A field investigator, yes.”

“But if I go and get Monty’s brother on the phone and ask him the name of the law firm handling his will…I’m gonna bet it won’t match the name on this card.”

He fell silent, his fingertip sliding across the glossy face of the card. I held his gaze.

“Sure,” I said, “you could do that. Or you could take my word for it.”

“And why would I wanna do that?”

“Because whoever I am, and whoever I work for, I’m looking to find Monty’s killer. The cops won’t be. Just me.”

Curtis shrugged and looked away. “I ain’t even talked to the man since the lawsuit. He was nobody to me.”

“Maybe not,” I said, “but I don’t think you’re the kind of guy who likes the idea of a killer walking free. Especially not if they killed somebody who
was
somebody to you, once upon a time. I’m not asking you to stick your neck out. Just an introduction to Tanesha, then I’m out of your life forever.”

He didn’t answer at first.

“You think Dino did it?” he finally asked.

Life is like poker. You’re surrounded by players, and they’ve all got tells. Learning to read them is what changes a game of chance into a game of skill. That little eye twitch, the furrow of his brows—Curtis wore his worry on his face every time a certain name came up, and it wasn’t Dino’s. I answered his question with a question.

“Why are you worried about Tanesha?”

His gaze darted to the floor, then to the left, everywhere but on me.

“Wait outside for a minute,” he said. “I gotta make a phone call.”

I stepped into the hall, shut the door, and waited. He might have been calling Monty’s brother. Might have been calling the cops, for that matter. Still, it felt prudent to stick around. About ten minutes later the door cracked open and he nodded me back inside.

“Better you hear it from her than from me. Tanesha says she’ll talk to you. She’s out at her lodge in Mt. Baldy. I’ll hit you with the address. This is private info, understand? It ain’t on any Hollywood tours.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I’m not the paparazzi.”

“I don’t know
what
the hell you are.” He put his hands on his hips. “But something about you feels legit, and she thinks so too. Enough to take a chance on you. Do me a favor: don’t make shit
worse
, okay? If you can help her out, I’ll be grateful. If you can’t, just leave her alone.”

“I’m not sure what you hope I’ll help her with.”

“Better you hear it from her,” he said again.

*     *     *

On the other side of Curtis Rake’s gates, simmering under a blanket of heat in the Los Angeles sunshine, I got Caitlin on the phone.

“Hey,” I said, “I’m heading out of the city on a lead. Turns out Monty’s partner was bent, and there’s something else going on, something weird. Curtis put me in touch with this singer named Tanesha—”

“
The
Tanesha?” Caitlin asked. “‘Smoky Monday’ Tanesha?”

“From your tone, I’m guessing you’re a fan.”

“Most music recorded after 1990 is sewage. She is a rare and pleasing exception. When are we leaving?”

I smiled. “As soon as possible. She’s in Mt. Baldy. I guess it’s this little place out in San Bernardino County, about an hour northeast. Can you rent a car for us?”

I paced the sidewalk and ruffled my shirt to stave off the sweat, stewing in the afternoon heat. Twenty minutes later, Caitlin screeched up to the curb in a cherry-red Chevy Camaro SS.

“I paid extra for the GPS,” she said, leaning toward the open window. “Hop in.”

We left the city behind and drove for the mountains. They rose up in the distance, stoic in a hazy yellow sky, as the urban sprawl fell away at our backs. Ponderosa pines embraced the open road, filtering the sunlight through a sprawling, lush canopy. Curtis’s address took us to the edge of Mt. Baldy, off the beaten path and down a single-lane road beyond a sign marked
Private Property
.

A tidy lodge waited for us at the end of the line, behind a circular driveway and hedges so neat they must have been trimmed with a nail cutter. From the faux-rustic log cabin siding to the discreet footlights and alarm sensors nestling in the flowerbeds, it was the sort of wilderness retreat only serious money could buy: the beauty and solitude of nature, with none of the messiness of the actual wild.

Under normal circumstances, anyway. It looked like we’d just rolled up on a little unexpected messiness, in the form of two black Lincolns parked out front and a pack of men in unseasonably heavy jackets standing on Tanesha’s front porch. Caitlin and I shared a glance as the Camaro rumbled to a stop.

“Open up,” shouted one of the men, sounding annoyed as he slammed his beefy fist against the front door. “C’mon, Tanesha, we know you’re in there. We just want to talk, that’s all.”

I counted eight men. Then I counted three guns, shoulder holsters bulging. The leader of the pack didn’t carry a pistol; he held a tire iron in his right hand, fresh from the Lincoln’s trunk. I’d given that kind of “talk” to people once or twice myself. They weren’t fun for the person being talked to.

Caitlin and I strolled up the porch steps side by side. As our footsteps clacked on the smooth-sanded wood, the thugs turned our way.

“Hey, guys,” I said, “we’re with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Don’t suppose I could interest you in a copy of
The
  
Watchtower
?”

The leader stepped up, going toe to toe, staring me down as his grip tightened on the tire iron. Anxious hands edged back, jackets inching open, chrome gleaming from the holsters underneath. I got the impression these guys weren’t big on surprises.

Too bad. They were about to get one.

The thug with the tire iron had two inches of height on me and about twenty pounds more muscle. He leaned in like he could crush me with sheer force of gravity. The sort of move you see from somebody who intimidates people for a living.

“You need to get lost,” he said. “Now.”

“That’s a no on
The Watchtower
, then. How about a brand-new vacuum cleaner? Okay, okay, you’ve got us. We’re actually here to see Tanesha.”

“We got here first.”

“Yes,” Caitlin agreed, nodding. “But it doesn’t sound like she wants to talk to you.”

One of the thugs—one with his hand two inches from his gun and not bothering to hide it—got into her personal space.

“You need to mind your own business, bitch. The man told you to get lost. So do it.”

Caitlin looked over at me, mock pained. “Oh,” she said, “he didn’t.”

“Yep.” I took a deep breath. “He did.”

I sounded cockier than I felt. Even with the extra firepower Caitlin could bring to a fight, two against eight wasn’t the kind of odds I liked. I kept a placid smile on my face while I ran the angles, figuring out where the guns were, who looked like a tough customer and who looked jumpy, putting together something close to a plan in case we couldn’t talk them into leaving peacefully.

Besides, I wasn’t looking to kill anybody today. Back home in Vegas, I could make a corpse disappear without too much of a problem. Eight bodies three hundred miles away and on a celebrity’s front porch were a whole different kind of trouble. We didn’t need that, and neither did Tanesha.

“I’m gonna count to three,” their boss said. The tire iron twitched in his grip.

My left hand touched my hip pocket. A spark of raw magic danced from my fingertips, lancing into my deck of playing cards. Waking them up. The deck tingled against my skin, growing hot.

“Listen,” I said, “we’re not looking for a fight—”

“Well, you found one.
Three
.”

The tire iron swung up as fifty-two cards burst from my pocket like an explosion from a confetti cannon, bouncing off the flat of my hand and whipping across the porch in a chaotic whirlwind. The confusion bought me three seconds: one to drive my knee up between the thug’s legs, one to rip the tool from his fist as he doubled over in pain, and one to bring the tire iron whistling down on his buddy’s hand just as his gun cleared its holster. Cold metal met bone, shattering his wrist and sending the pistol scattering across the porch.

A spatter of blood hit my cheek, and a shrill scream sent birds winging from the pines as Caitlin grabbed another gunman’s forearm with both hands and snapped it like a turkey’s wishbone. His flesh tore, and bloody broken ivory jutted out from his jacket sleeve. She didn’t stop to admire her handiwork, shoving the crippled man aside and grabbing the next closest target, flipping him over her shoulder and sending him flying. He hit the asphalt driveway face-first.

I kept the cards swirling wild, using the pasteboard cyclone for cover as I swung the tire iron like a major-league batter aiming for the fences. Another thug went down, howling and clutching his smashed kneecap with both hands. I turned just as a fist sailed toward me, crashing into my left eye with an explosion of pain that sent me reeling. My concentration broke and the cards fluttered to the ground. I fought off the sudden disorientation, the black splotches in my vision, just in time to see the next punch coming. His fist met the tire iron with the satisfying sound of cracking finger bones. I followed up with a vicious lunge, driving my knuckles into his throat.

Caitlin moved like a serpentine blur, striking with ruthless efficiency and leaving writhing and groaning bodies in her wake. She could have killed them as easily as hurting them, but I guessed she had the same idea I did. Fewer headaches this way.

Fewer headaches for us anyway, the sting in my eyelid and the throbbing pain behind it notwithstanding. As the last thug dropped, hitting the blood-spattered beech planks like a sack of potatoes, I leaned against Caitlin to catch my breath. One of the men, one who could still walk, tried to tug his buddy to his feet. Another staggered over to one of the Lincolns, steadying himself against it with one hand and gripping his belly with the other as he threw up on the hood.

“You should leave now,” Caitlin told them.

“Yeah.” I took a deep breath, my lungs burning like I’d just run a marathon. “What she said.”

We stood silently as the battered men bundled themselves into their cars. No parting shots from their boss, no threats of vengeance. Just gritted teeth and muffled whimpers of pain as they made their getaway. The Lincolns were well on their way down the drive, slipping almost out of sight, as I stretched out my fingers. The cards, scattered across the porch and spotted with droplets of blood, leaped through the air and riffled into my palm. I gave them a thankful pat before shoving them back into my pocket.

The front door opened just a crack. A soft brown eye, like a perfect chip of amber, looked out at us.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Curtis sent us.”

The door opened a little wider. Even dressed in a casual sweatshirt and jogging pants, Tanesha looked like a queen. Regal, high cheekbones, her hair braided in immaculate beehive cornrows, and eyes you could fall right into. No missing the worry in those eyes, though.

“From the lawyer’s office?” she asked.

“Law is a rough business.” I nodded over my shoulder. “I don’t think those guys are gonna be back anytime soon.”

She opened the door all the way and stepped aside.

“I wish I believed that. Come in.”

Caitlin and I stepped into her foyer. She had the air conditioning running full blast, museum cold, and we stepped onto a span of polished dun tile as she shut the door behind us. She’d decorated the open, breezy lodge in southwestern style, all earth tones and rugs in Native weaves.

“Who were those men?” Caitlin asked her.

“You answer my questions first,” Tanesha said. “Who do you really work for? What are you after?”

I shrugged. Honesty wasn’t always the best policy—in my experience, it was highly overrated—but the probate-lawyer line was dead in the water.

“CMC Entertainment,” I said. “They own about half the casinos on the Vegas Strip. Including the one Monty Spears died at.”

“On the phone, Curtis said they lied. That Monty didn’t have a heart attack.”

“That’s right. He was murdered.”

She shook her head, torn between not believing me and believing me but not wanting to. “Then why aren’t the police involved?”

“Because CMC doesn’t
want
them involved,” Then I chased that little nugget of truth with a bald-faced lie: “At least, not until we’ve conducted an independent investigation. Given the high profiles of the people involved, and the risk of a media circus, my employer thinks this is a better way of getting at the facts.”

“Monty,” she said, looking lost. She drifted through the house and we followed, through the living room to a row of framed photographs on her rough stone mantelpiece. Family photos, vacations someplace tropical, a gap-toothed little girl who might have been a cousin or a niece. And one of Monty and Tanesha in a recording studio, in front of a mixing console. Both of them with thousand-watt smiles, Monty embracing her from behind. In her hands, a gold record in plastic wrap.

“That was the day,” she said. “That’s the day I knew I’d made it. My first single was blowing up all over the radio, album sales spiked, and I officially went from being Tanesha Brown to just…Tanesha. That was Monty’s idea, the one-name thing.”

“He was your producer, back then,” I said. “But not lately.”

She stared at the photo with something wistful in her eyes. A little distant, a little sad.

“Once I made it big, he couldn’t take me where I needed to go. He didn’t have the juice, didn’t have the industry contacts. Not back then. So we parted ways. He
got
the juice later on, but…”

“But he was keeping bad company. Curtis told me about Dino Costa, and the coke.”

Tanesha turned and looked our way. She took a deep breath and let it out as a weary sigh.

“Monty was a good man who made a whole lot of bad decisions. Working with Dino? Number one on the list. Everybody could see Monty was on the road to ruin. Everybody but him. I told him…”

She trailed off. Her eyes flicked downward. Caitlin squinted, just a bit, reading her like a book.

“You feel guilty,” she said. “Why?”

Tanesha met her gaze.

“Because I’m pretty sure I know who killed Monty,” she replied in a soft voice. “I did.”

I blinked. “Murder isn’t a subjective kinda thing. Either you did or you didn’t.”

“I don’t mean I did it with my own hands. But I made it happen. Look, you have to understand, Monty…he wasn’t too bright, but he had a big, big heart. And he carried a mile-high torch for me.”

“You were in a relationship?”

She shook her head. “Business. Friends. Nothing more than that. Didn’t stop him from following me around like a puppy dog, hoping for something he was never gonna get, but every time I said ‘no’ he heard ‘maybe someday.’ When we parted ways, he was determined to win me back. Thinking maybe if we worked together again, he’d have another shot with me. Blue Rhapsody? All those artists he poached, all those bridges he burned to make a name for himself in the industry? He did that for me.”

“Nothing drives ambition like desire,” Caitlin mused. “And the more foolish the desire, the more fervent the drive.”

“Got that right,” Tanesha said. “So my contract with EMI is up and I’m a free agent. Not one day goes by before he’s burning up my phone, trying to get me to sign with Blue Rhapsody.”

“Curtis said he sounded worried to you,” I said.

“Dino’s going all in with this streaming-music scheme of his. Sinking all the label’s cash into it. If it flops, Blue Rhapsody is finished. They
need
big names to give people a reason to subscribe.”

“Names like yours,” Caitlin said.

Tanesha turned. She took the studio photograph down from the mantel, running manicured fingernails along Monty’s smiling face.

“I told him I knew about Dino, about the smuggling and the blow. I wanted nothing to do with it. I told him, grow a backbone, and force that viper
out
. He could have done it. Monty had controlling interest in Blue Rhapsody. He could have bought Dino out and kicked him to the curb, if he’d just stand up for himself for once in his life.”

She looked up at us, silent for a moment.

“I finally told him I was done. Done with watching him let Dino drag him down. I told him, either be a man and fight back, or never call me again. Not long after that, Monty left a voicemail for me. He said he was going to do it. He was going to put Dino in his place and take his label back.”

She bit her bottom lip. A tear pooled in one amber eye.

“Two days later,” she said, “Monty was dead.”