“What do you mean, when ‘things were right?’”
She grinned like the Cheshire cat. “You ever play games? I love games. I play them on the computer all the time. Like dominoes. Ever play dominoes?”
“Dominoes? What’s dominoes got to do with anything?”
She studied me for a moment then looked away with a laugh. “Jesus, you really are stupid, just like the rest of them. I thought you were smarter. The night you followed me back to Vegas, you acted like you were. I saw you were right behind us. First, I’d seen Nick in the rearview mirror, with that big guy. That’s why I had Eddie leave the car in the parking lot of the Fantasy Lady. I wanted you to have time to get the cats and take Lady Gaga back with you. I couldn’t bring her here with me. After you were done, I sent Eddie back out to the car to drive home. You followed him, and I followed you. When you left, I snuck in the back way and took care of business.”
“You figured a few additional suspects in Eddie’s death couldn’t hurt.”
“It was easy.” She looked at me and said pointedly, “You were easy.”
For a moment, I was completely at a loss. Then things clicked together so fast and so furiously, I’m surprised the noise in my head didn’t scatter the birds in the trees.
“You set all of us up. Eddie, Nick, Spaulding, me, even your father.”
“Now you’re getting it.” She leaned forward, licking her lips in anticipation of the new game she and I were playing.
“You meet and marry Nick, even though you’re already married to Eddie, to get close to his client, Lou Spaulding.”
“Exactly.”
“Somehow you get hold of Spaulding’s books. Then what? Real hubby, Eddie, who’s in on this from the beginning, pilfers money from the mob accounts, digitally copied the books on the microchip—not just for the fifty mil but as blackmail.”
Kelli looked at me with a disappointed air. She let out a noise that sounded like the buzzer for a wrong answer on a quiz show. She lay down again.
“Incorrect answer. Eddie didn’t even know how to read a ledger, let alone drain money from it. He was a computer geek. You’re just like all the rest. You don’t think I’m smart enough to embezzle money. Nobody does. Stupid little blonde bimbo with big tits. Well, I took accounting in night school for a year and a half. It was simple.”
“All right, so it was simple.” My mind started racing again. Let’s face it; I love a good game.
“Let’s do this methodically,” I said. “You get involved with Spaulding, siphon off money from his bank accounts, taking digital pictures of the entries of the second set of
accounting books for extra measure. Eddie steals a microchip and downloads the images onto it, not just as potential
blackmail on Spaulding but…so…you could pin the theft of the money on Nick!” The last words were said in a rush. “That’s why you put the chip on Nick’s dog tags, so Spaulding would go looking for him and not come after you. Nick was a decoy. By the time Spaulding could figure it out, you’d be long gone.”
She looked pleased and sat up again. “You’re getting better.”
“But Nick got away, nobody could find him, and you decided to come to me for help.”
Her face clouded over. “That was a mistake.”
“You needed me to flush Nick out. Either Spaulding was getting suspicious, or you were simply running out of time. When I refused to help you, you took Tugger and Baba. Another mistake.”
“I used them to make you find Nick, so I could tell Lou where he was. And just so you know, I’d never have hurt the cats. But it got you to Vegas, searching for Nick. That’s what I wanted.”
“And your plan was back in action.” She nodded. I looked down at her, totally involved in the game now. “How did Eddie get involved?”
She sat up taller and nodded. “When I was sixteen, I thought he was my ticket out of the horrible life I lived. You know, when we were dating he only kissed me once. I thought I was safe. So I forced my father to sign the papers, and Eddie and I got married. Then it started all over again, the demands, the touching, always grabbing me.”
Her body began to writhe in revulsion, as she thought of it. “All those
things
he wanted me to do, just because I’d said ‘I do.’ It was disgusting. But eventually I found it easy to get Eddie under control. He wound up doing anything I told
him to and never asking any questions, especially if I did put
out now and then. But what I wanted was freedom and money equals freedom.”
“Spaulding and the syndicate’s money? Chancy stuff,” I remarked.
“Not if I did it right. Last year, Lou Spaulding came into the casino, throwing money around like it was water. He was an important, rich man, part owner of his own casino. I knew he liked the ladies and spent lots of money on them, because one of the women, a pit boss, got a three-bedroom condo out of the deal, and she’d only been with him eight months. Right after he dumped her, he hit on me, but I was a lowly blackjack dealer, so I only got a night in the sack. Just one night got me a bottle of perfume and a thousand dollars in chips. But he’d left his books sitting out on his desk, just like that. He probably thought I was so stupid I didn’t know what they were. He dismissed me and handed me a hundred for a cab home the next morning, but it came to me. The pit boss, she’d been married to the hotel owner’s cousin. He liked them married. Nobody knew I was married; I’d kept it a secret. I was going to tell him, but it occurred to me. It couldn’t be as Eddie’s wife. It had to be a
somebody’s
wife. If he thought I was coming at him like somebody’s wife…well…he’d probably pay more attention and for longer. Men like a challenge.”
“And you thought Nick was somebody?”
“Nick had a successful real estate business, and I saw him and Lou having lunch a couple of times, talking, laughing, just like friends, equals. I didn’t know Lou saw Nick as a smalltime asshole until later. When Nick looked at me the same way Spaulding did, I knew I could have him.” Her voice tapered off. “It didn’t even take much effort.”
“So you married Nick, even though you were already married to Eddie, and after a respectable amount of time, had a thing with Spaulding for, what, two or three months?”
“He loved screwing around with his real estate agent’s wife, just like I knew he would. It made him feel so macho. What a jerk. Being his girlfriend made me somebody, but I was going for more than that. All I had to do was hold his attention long enough to get at those books. I found out where he hid them in the second week and started making transfers and withdrawals while he was recuperating from our sex life.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’d put half a sleeping pill in his drink right before we screwed. Having sex took a lot out of him, anyway. You know, he’s fifty-eight. He would be out for at least an hour each time. Then, after I had everything in place, I told him Nick was on to us, had managed to get a microchip with copies of his accounting books on it, and was hell bent for revenge. Lou knocked me around a little at first but got very protective after that.” She threw her head back and laughed. “Poor, stupid Nick. He didn’t have a clue.”
“Your plan was Spaulding would kill Nick for the evidence on the chip. If Spaulding didn’t go to jail for murder, maybe you’d make sure he did for embezzlement. Were there two data chips? One for Spaulding to find, and a second one ready to send to the FBI, as added insurance?”
“You’re getting good,” she praised.
“Why kill Eddie?”
“I wasn’t taking him with me, even though I’d told him I was, and I couldn’t leave him to talk. Men seem to do that a lot.” She looked at me with cool detachment. “My father thought getting rid of Eddie was a good idea, too.”
“He knew about this?” I tried not to sound as incredulous as I was feeling. “All of it?”
“From the beginning. As long as he got his share, he didn’t care what I did to anybody else.” She threw her head back and laughed. “But he didn’t think I would do the same thing to him. Another asshole.”
She stared straight ahead for a moment, lost in what seemed to be a deep emotion. Then she burst into tears and leaned forward, almost tummy tucking into herself.
“Oh, God, listen to me,” she wailed. “What kind of person have I become? I must be crazy, mental.” She cried into her hands with deep, gulping sobs.
I leaned forward to comfort her, one consoling hand on her shoulder. It wasn’t planned. I didn’t think about it. It was instinctive.
I didn’t see the knife but felt the sharp sting of it as it grazed my chest in its upward quest for my throat.
Chapter Twenty-Two
An Iago Kind of Villainy
I grabbed her hand just as the blade reached my throat, pushing down as hard as she pushed up. Kelli was stronger than I’d thought. Our arms shook almost as one from the exertion and strain. With her other hand, she grabbed my hair and tried to pull my head forward into the knife. Maybe only a second or two went by, but it seemed like an eternity to me.
My karate teacher will probably never forgive me, but instead of doing one of the exquisite moves I’d been learning for the past five years in his classes, I chose the Killer Volley Ball Method from my old college days. I swung my free arm back, the exposed part of the palm where the thumb meets the wrist aimed right for Kelli’s face. Then I hauled off and slugged her in the mouth, as if she was the ball, and I was driving that sucker down into the center of the opponents’ court for a winning score. Kelli flew backward over the lounge, with me snatching the knife from her hand as she fell.
Even though my serving hand hurt like hell, I looked down at my burning torso and let out a string of explicatives a sailor would have blanched at. From the middle of my chest half way up my neck, a thin ribbon of red began to show. It stained my ripped leotard, even in places not cut by the knife. I studied her weapon of choice, a small, two and a half inch gutting knife, with a hook on the end. It could have done some serious damage, rather than one helluva scratch. This was, indeed, my lucky day.
I hurried around to the other side of the lounge where Kelli lay spread-eagled and moaning. She would revive soon, so I gave her a thorough body search to make sure there weren’t any other hidden surprises. Now I understood her need for the more modest bikini. I found and removed the leather sheath for the gutting knife, tucked into the front of the bikini, near her belly. Nothing else. After the search, I pulled the scarf from my ponytail and tied her hands behind her back so tightly, I’m sure I cut off circulation. I wasn’t taking any more chances with this one.
* * * *
Twelve hours later, I sat on a plane heading back to the States too exhausted to sleep, my mind going over what happened again and again, like a film loop stuck in a projector. Looking back on it, the day’s luck had held for me. In fact, the next time I crab about any lack of said luck, someone take a CD with “The Girl From Ipanema” on it and smack me over the head.
The officer in charge,
Capítan
Almaral, speaking fluent English was only a small part of my good fortune. Mainly, he had worked on a drug-running case in conjunction with Dad years ago. In fact, it had been the reason for our trip to Ipanema when I was a kid. Dad had smoothed out some drug bust improprieties on the California end and went to South America to help wrap everything up, combining it with a family vacation—i.e., the
capítan
was very familiar with Discretionary Inquiries and the Alvarez family.
Plus, the day Kelli shot her father, an eyewitness had turned in a report of a person answering the description of the new and improved Kelli leaving the scene. The Brazilian police had been searching for the suspect for two days. For me, all good luck. Not so good for Kelli.
The
capítan
thanked me generously for doing much of his work for him. He pushed through papers that should have taken days, had me sign off on my part of everything, and got me on the first plane home. Albeit with a two-hour layover in Atlanta, Georgia, but let’s not get petty. I would land in Palo Alto the following day in time for Stephen’s funeral. That’s all I cared about.
As I stared out the window into black nothingness, I had a long chat with myself about the idea of bringing Kelli back with me and my ensuing, but ridiculous, guilt at not doing so. My ego was at war with my conscience, both putting in an appearance at thirty-six-thousand feet. You can never get away from yourself.
Ego:
Lighten up. You only said you would take Kelli back with you in the excitement of finding your prey.
Conscience:
Yeah, but you said it. And once it’s out there, you need to be true to your word.
Oh, stop it. You were talking through your hat, as Raymond Chandler would say. Who are you kidding? Reality check: Even if you had managed to start the journey back with her, she’d either wait for the first opportunity to cosh you over the head or do something to create a major confusion. Then she’d make a run for it. Just two of the possible thousand things she could pull.
Maybe you’re right, but you have a way of being wrong, too.
Shut up, bitch. There was no way you could trust Kelli unless she was so heavily sedated, she couldn’t move under her own steam. I suspect that wouldn’t go over so well with the airlines.
If you’d tried to take her out of the country, where she’s wanted for the crime of murder, it would be a felony. Get caught by the Brazilian authorities, and you could wind up in jail yourself. That’s all you need. Besides, thanks to you and D.I., relations between Brazil and the United States couldn’t be better. Okay, maybe only Ipanema and Palo Alto, but still. You have been heralded as nothing short of a hero, a heady and rare experience for you. Even Lila seemed impressed when the
capítan
spoke to her over the phone, conveying his gratitude.
I sat back in the leather seat, making peace with the events and my unexpected role in them. I am usually the sous chef of D.I., in that I gather, slice, prep, and put the culprits on a plate, so to speak, and hand them over to Lila. Then my mother throws a parsley sprig on them, and presents them to the world at large, collecting all the applause. This time, instead of being behind the scenes, I had apprehended the suspect in an internationally cooperative way. All in all, I had done a good job. I became smug in the assessment of my actions.
Then I revisited the look on Kelli’s face right before they took her away, because Latina Catholic guilt and I are old friends. Scared and miserable, she’d cast me a fleeting look of hope right before they hauled her off, as if somehow I might save or rescue her. Probably at that juncture, going back with me was preferable to spending her life in a South American hoosegow.
“Promise me you’ll take care of Lady Gaga,” were the last words she’d uttered.
I would have thought she’d curse at me, spit at me, scream I’d caused her downfall. Instead, she wanted a promise I’d take care of her beloved goldfish.
I felt my eyes fill up at the memory. Even if only a small fraction of what her father did to her was true, she’d been abused horribly as a child. It didn’t justify what she’d done by a long shot, but it did explain a part of it. Uh-oh. My
conscience was back in full force. My ego rebounded, coming front and center.
Whoa! Hold the phone, kiddo. Before you get carried away and hire her a defense attorney, time for strong Note to Self: You’re lucky to be alive. Some people, like her husband and father, were not so fortunate. Save your sympathies for starving widows, orphans, and people in third world countries. Kelli is one dangerous woman. Don’t let her sob story fool you. And don’t let her concern for Lady Gaga get to you, either. It’s Lady Gee now, anyway. She’s yours and has been, ever since you took her from the back of the station wagon the day Kelli catnapped Tugger and Baba. Remember? And putting the fin swimmer aside, Kelli would probably try to kill you as soon as look at you. Wait a minute. She did.
I touched the line of sixteen Band Aids running half way down my throat and onto the top half of my chest, as if to prove my point. Sometimes I can be tough to win over.
A whispering voice brought me out of my reverie. I turned toward the sound and saw the flight attendant, a blonde woman about my age, leaning in with a smile.
“Excuse me, Miss. You’re Lee Alvarez, right?”
I nodded, looking around at the rest of the first class passengers, most of whom were fast asleep. Mom had insisted I fly back first class, and the
capítan
had managed to get me the last seat.
It being around one-thirty a.m., the lights had been dimmed to accommodate the late hour. Even still, I couldn’t help but notice the woman’s healthy, clean, and well-scrubbed good looks, in sharp contrast to my own.
The tic had returned to my right eye, and I had steamer trunks loitering under each eye in place of the usual bags. I’d lost the floppy hat somewhere along the line, and my hairbrush had also gone AWOL. Renegade tufts of hair broke through the confines of a rubber band I’d snitched from the
capítan’s
desktop earlier in the day, when I still had the energy to try and do something with my mop. I didn’t know what happened to my treasured scarf once it was removed from Kelli’s wrists, but gone it was. I was still in the throes of grief over its loss.
I wore no makeup, as it had, hopefully, been packed in my overnighter by police officers while I was being interrogated, in an effort to help me to make the plane. Fingers crossed my makeup kit was, indeed, residing with the rest of my stuff in the belly of the plane. If not, I was out several hundred bucks, not to mention my favorite color lipstick,
Raspberry Poof
. No longer being manufactured, it could not be bought for love or money. My lips and I were enamored of that lipstick.
Speaking of lips, when I wasn’t thinking about my swollen and achy Volley Ball Hand, I felt like I was getting a cold sore on my upper flapper. Either that or I had bit my lip when no one, including me, was paying attention. Maybe around the time someone had been trying to cut my throat.
To sum it up, I looked and felt like a bucket of horse manure. It had been a hot day with no shower, so maybe I smelled like one, too.
I studied the flight attendant or, rather, what was in her hand. A small, metal tray rested directly under my nose on which sat a frosty cold martini, brandished with two huge olives. My eyes crossed as I looked down.
“The captain sent me over with this,” she murmured, “at the request of Gurn Hanson.”
I blinked several times, staring at her, slow on the uptake.
She smiled again, and I know her orthodontist was proud. She had a sparkling and glorious set of choppers, unlike me. Only moments earlier, I’d found a stray piece of spinach loitering on my front tooth, thanks to the airline’s tasty dinner. But did they provide you with dental floss at the end of the meal? No. I had to dig the green stuff out with a toothpick I’d found at the bottom of my handbag.
“The pilot of the plane sent this?” I finally stammered, trying to concentrate on the icy liquid and not recalcitrant pieces of spinach.
“Yes, that’s right.” She continued to whisper, smile never fading. She nodded her head reassuringly, as if I were a backward three-year old, not taking the lollypop as my reward at the end of a visit to the dentist office. Whoa. Do I have teeth on the mind or what? Moving on.
“The captain told me to bring you this,” she said again, but this time emphasizing each word. “Captain Silvers said he and Mr. Hanson served together in the Navy Reserves. They’re old friends.”
I silently took the drink, still trying to grasp what was going on. Meanwhile, she undid the food tray on the back of the seat in front of me and set down a napkin. A small silver bowl of mixed honey-covered nuts miraculously appeared from I don’t know where. Her third hand, maybe?
“Mr. Hanson contacted Captain Silvers, asked him to do him a favor, and bring you a martini. He said you probably needed it.” She let out a soft laugh. “I think so,” she said, more to herself than to me.
I started to laugh, too, and took a sip of the fortifying nectar.
“Oh, and I nearly forgot.” She reached into a pocket of her crisp, blue uniform. “Here’s a note from Mr. Hanson, via the captain. I don’t know who this Mr. Hanson is, but the captain’s never done anything like this before.” She thrust the folded note into my other hand, winked, and drifted away as silently as she had come.
I set the martini down on the food tray and opened the note with stiff fingers. It read,
Gurn said for you to have this drink on him, and he would be waiting at SFO when you landed. I saw you come onto the plane. He’s a lucky guy. Tell him I said so.
Scrawled right below the hastily written note was the name,
Ron Silvers.
He thinks Gurn’s a lucky man? Maybe I didn’t look as bad as I thought. Wondering, I squinted at my reflection in the side of the shiny silver bowl.
OMG
, I thought.
As if.
Well, there’s no accounting for taste.
Then I giggled, wondering how many rules these two silly men had broken to get me this drink, not to mention the note. I chomped on one of the honey coated nuts, sipped my drink, and for the first time since I started this mess in Ipanema, felt a bit more relaxed and optimistic.