All or Nothing (9 page)

Marla’s eyes were fastened on him. Her cushiony lower lip caught in her teeth and a little sigh escaped her. “Why don’t you wear the Calvins I bought you?”

“I’m just an old–fashioned guy, Marla. A Jockey man from day one.”

“Perhaps you should try changing with the times.”

He grinned at her as he walked past and she hooked her fingers into the back of his shorts. “Hold it, where d’you think you’re going?”

His eyes were as innocent as his smile. “What else would a man who’s had a hard day do but take a shower?”

“Not yet   .   .   .” Her hands slid down inside his shorts. “Oh, God, Giraud,” she moaned, “why must you have the butt of a teenager?”

“And what do you know about teenagers’ butts?” He turned so she could get a better grip and so he could put his arms around her.

“I was a teenager once. . . .” She was kissing him now, nibbling hungrily on his mouth.

“A long time ago   .   .   .” He gripped her hair, pulling her face from his, laughing.

“Don’t play the detective with me,” Marla said. “Anyway, it wasn’t so long ago, not nearly as long as you.”

He sighed. “You got me there, honey.” And then he kissed her. Forcefully. The way a man kissed a woman he was crazy for, Marla thought happily, already wriggling out of her short little blue slip dress.

“Jesus!” He looked at her, stunned. “I can’t believe you’re not wearing underwear.”

“I was coming to visit you. It’s just quicker this way. . . .” She was in his arms, belly to belly, pointed breasts crushed against him, excitement rising. She gave his ear a little bite. “Fancy a shower?” she murmured.

“Either that or a cold beer.”

“Bastard,” she yelled as he picked her up laughing and carried her into the bathroom.

The black–tiled bathroom was a cool cave, the water gently warm and the halogen light directed at the shower definitely not conducive to romance.

“It’s like starring in a porn movie,” Marla gasped, thrusting her long wet hair out of her eyes. “Oh, God, oh, God, Giraud, do that again, yes, oh yes, do it again. . . .”

Her back was against the wall, her legs wrapped around his waist, her buttocks gripped in his hands as he thrust into her. “Oh, Giraud, Giraud,” she sobbed, “you’re the best, the very best. . . .” And she was whirling over the edge into that other consciousness, that altered state of being that nothing could equal.

Al still gripped her to him, legs trembling, sweat mingling with the water from the shower. “I’m getting too old for this.”

She snuggled her face against his shoulder. “Not a chance, baby. You’re still up there with the best of them. At least,” she added maliciously, “in my experience.”

“Bitch.” He nuzzled her neck, dropping kisses on her throat. Then, muscles groaning, “I can’t go on like this, you gotta let me go.”

Marla laughed, sliding her long, slim legs the length of his until she was upright, belly to belly with him again. “I think I love you, you decrepit old man,” she whispered.

Al’s booming laugh echoed from the black tiles. “Yeah, honey. Wait ’til you see the porn movie, though. You’ll look great.”

“I knew there was something about the angle of that halogen. And to think I put my trust in you.” She was soaping his back now, very busy with the sponge.

“Better watch out, you might get yourself in trouble again.”

“Wanna bet?” She was laughing as he took her in his arms again.

“Where are you going?” Marla sprawled contentedly on the gray linen bedspread that was, by now, severely wrinkled, eyeing Giraud, who was stepping into a pair of clean shorts, hopping on one hairy, muscular leg like an unbalanced stork. “I thought maybe we’d send out for pizza. A margarita with pepperoni on one half.
Your
half,” she added, smiling.

“Sorry, babe, but I’m on my way. I’ll order in for you, though.”

She shot up, eyes flashing again. “What do you mean? You’re on your way? To where?”

“San Diego, hon. Laguna to be exact. I have an appointment with Steve Mallard’s destiny.”

She sank gloomily into the pillows. “I might have known it. Kiss and run, that’s you.”

“At least I don’t kiss and tell. You want that pizza?”

“Of course I don’t. I don’t even like pizza. I only eat it to keep you company.”

He paused in buttoning his shirt to look at her. “Hah, then who is it eats half my pizza whenever I order one? Must be some other woman in my bed.”

“Oh, alright,” she said sulkily, pushing her still–damp blond hair from those famously flashing gray–green orbs. “But I only like it after sex.”

“With me, I assume?” He was laughing at her now. “Sorry, hon, there’s nothing I’d like more than pizza in bed with you. I’d even pour you a glass of Italian red to go with it. A nice little Chianti from Vons Market that I happen to have in my extensive wine cellar.”

“Your wine cellar is under the kitchen counter and I happen to know it contains two bottles of cheap Italian red, a good bottle of California chardonnay that someone must have given you because you certainly would never pay sixty bucks for a bottle of wine and several large bottles of Asahi Japanese beer. Oh, and a couple of Perriers, though why they’re not in the refrigerator beats me.”

“Okay, so I’m no wine connoisseur, I never took time out to learn all that stuff. Pour it by the glass and I’m happy.” He zipped up his jeans and thrust his bare feet into the sneakers. He bent to tie the laces. “Wanna come with me?”

“What?” She was out of bed in a second, tugging the blue minidress over her head.

He looked up at her. “I just changed my mind.”

“What d’you mean?” She pushed her feet into cream leather slides, tugged down her dress and beamed at him. “I’m set.”

“Do you really think I’m gonna let you out of here in that outfit? With no underwear?”

She tugged at the dress again. “Oh, don’t be such a prude, Giraud. I promise to keep my knees together.”

“Hah! No way, lady. No way are you going to the San Diego PD dressed like that. Or
undressed
like that is more like it.”
“Ohh   .   .   .” She strode across the room, opened the drawer of the gray metal filing cabinet where Al kept his underwear. “There,” she said, pulling on a pair of his Jockeys. “That should cover all that’s necessary.”

They drooped around her slender thighs, hung off her butt. Despite himself, Al laughed. “I’ve gotta hand it to you, Marla. You have an answer for everything.”

“It’s the legal training. They don’t let you out of law school without knowing all the answers.” She hitched up the Jockeys and said, “And that’s why you need me with you when Bulworth is interrogating your client. I’m the legal mind that will stop him tripping himself up. You’re the one looking for loopholes in what he’s telling them.”

“Ya got it, babe.” He had her by the elbow and they were in the garage and he was opening the door of the Corvette for her.

“Uh–uh, why can’t we go in my car?” She stared beseechingly at him.

“Nah, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you. I’ll put the top down––your hair’ll dry on the freeway in minutes.”

“Shit.” She climbed in gloomily and he slammed the door.

“Love me, love my car.” He laughed as they roared out of the garage, down into Queens Road and the Sunset Strip, heading for the 405 South. But his mind was already back on Steve Mallard and the mounting circumstantial case against him.

Bulworth wasn’t talking to Giraud at this point. His broad, beefy face had that closed look about it and he was into his hard–eyed mode, a cop with a man he knew was a killer and whom he wasn’t about to let off the hook. He certainly wasn’t allowing Giraud access to the suspect and to his interrogation. Only Mallard’s lawyers could be present.

“That’s okay,” Giraud said easily, “Ms. Cwitowitz is joining Mr. Lister as Mallard’s attorney.”

Bulworth flicked him a hard glance. “You got your own Dream Team now, Giraud?”

“Darn right, buddy. And Ms. Cwitowitz has all the necessary qualifications.”

“I’ll bet she does.” He looked at Marla. In that outfit with her hair pulled back and no makeup she looked about sixteen. “She doesn’t look old enough to order a drink in a bar, never mind represent a suspected killer.”

“
Suspected
is the correct word, Detective,” Marla said crisply. “And I have my ID if you’d care to inspect it.”

Bulworth sighed, outflanked. “No, I guess you’re in.”

Marla buttoned her pale blue cashmere cardigan up to the neck, tugging down her dress as she followed him into the interrogation room. She hoped the Jockeys didn’t leave a visible panty line under her dress.

Steve Mallard was already seated at a Formica–topped table that contained a single, dirty ashtray and a glass of water. He was not smoking. On his left was Ben Lister, a small, rotund balding man whose deep blue eyes were magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses, and whom Marla knew from legal fraternity encounters. She introduced herself, stated her position and took a seat on Steve’s right.

She checked him out from the corner of her eye. He looked okay. Calm, though beaten down. Still, there was something about being unshaven that always made a man look guilty.

She placed her yellow legal pad on the table and settled in, ready to listen to what came next.

Giraud wasn’t too surprised when the three of them emerged half an hour later, followed by a frustrated–looking Detective Bulworth and his cohort, Powers.

“So how’d it go?” He was sipping a Diet Coke out of a can.

“Fine,” Bulworth retorted bitterly. “Just fine. Your client is outta here, but he shouldn’t count on for how long. I already told him that.”

“Great. Then we know just where we stand. Thanks, Detective.” He already had his hand on Steve’s elbow, easing him out of there. The guy walked as though his legs were filled with lead. “Remember me to the wife and kids, Bulworth. We’ll have to do that barbecue again sometime.”

“Yeah.” Bulworth sighed. “Soon, I hope.” He watched his suspect exit the station. “Soon as I get this mess cleared up and that bastard in jail” was what he meant.

They were seated in a booth in a Denny’s coffee shop right off the freeway exit just north of Laguna. Ben Lister had ordered a burger and fries, Giraud was having two eggs over–easy with sausage and fries and Marla was eating a toasted sesame bagel. Steve was drinking a cup of coffee thirstily, his third in as many minutes. No wonder he was wired, Marla thought.

“You really should eat something,” she said, though the truth was she didn’t really feel like coaxing Steve Mallard to eat. He hadn’t come off too well in that interrogation, clamping his mouth shut unless he was given permission by Lister to reply, and then those replies had been minimal, mostly just yes’s or no’s.

“Here, have some bagel.” She pushed the plate in front of him and for a second his eyes met hers. Nice brown eyes, she thought. Frightened eyes.

“Thanks. Thank you   .   .   .” He took the half bagel and, suddenly famished, wolfed it down.

Giraud called the waitress over. “Another toasted bagel, and a couple of fried eggs for my friend, please, honey.”

The waitress, middle–aged and comfortably endowed and at the end of a long day, gave him a pointed glare and Marla grinned.

“Don’t mind him, he’s a Southerner, he calls everyone “honey,’” she said.

“Not the guys, I hope,” the waitress snapped as she walked away.

“You should take lessons on how to make friends and influence people, Giraud.” Marla sighed. “You never know when it might come in handy. And by the way,
legally
that’s known as sexual harassment.”

“Is that so?” He raised a wicked eyebrow. “And all this time I thought it was gentlemanly appreciation for a fine–looking woman.”

Lister laughed and even Steve cracked a smile.

“Okay, so the scene is this,” Lister said between bites of the burger. “There is no body. But there are bloodstains in the car. On the rear seat. They’re being tested for type––to see if there’s a match for Steve’s.”

“There isn’t. I mean, there can’t be. I was never in her car,” Steve blurted.

“Never?” Giraud asked the question.

“Well, yes, a couple of times when we went to look at houses. Laurie drove because she knew the way. That’s what real estate agents do. But not on that night I wasn’t.”

“The night she disappeared,” Lister said gravely.

Steve hung his head miserably, just as the waitress arrived with his eggs and the toasted bagel.

“Okay, without the body it’s impossible to check DNA with the blood found in the Lexus,” Lister said. “So, if that blood is
not
yours, Steve, they still can’t prove it’s Laurie’s. Meanwhile, as we speak, they have infrared helicopters over that canyon, plus tracker dogs, the works. They’re digging through local landfills and dumps. We should be prepared for the fact that, sooner or later, they’re gonna find her.”

Steve stared at the bagel and eggs. He looked sick.

Marla helped herself to half his bagel. “Kind of in trade,” she explained, biting into it hungrily, watching Steve as Lister spoke.

“They’ve already lifted Steve’s prints from the Lexus, but as Steve just said, there’s a logical explanation for that. They’ve also found other, as yet unidentified prints, probably other clients of Laurie’s. Deputies are tracking them down even now.”

“As we speak,”
Marla murmured mockingly, shooting a sly glance at Giraud. He glared back.

“Subversive,”
he mouthed, then looked away and she grinned, wondering if he was remembering the Jockey shorts preserving her dignity under the blue dress. But no. Giraud was all business.

“They’ve checked Steve’s Visa account, turned up every place he ever went with her, restaurants, hotel bars––and like that. Steve has already acknowledged that he was with her at those times. He has never made any secret of it.”

“And how many times was that?” Marla asked.

Lister looked inquiringly at Steve.

“Six, seven maybe. That’s all.” He gulped the coffee, not looking at them.

“Okay.” Lister took a last bite and washed it down with Coke. “So there’s no way they can hold Steve. Nothing to charge him with. We all have to wait now for Laurie Martin’s body to surface.”