Cantor wrote him a check.
“My name’s Jim O’Brian.” He stuck out his hand.
Cantor shook it. “Back to this guy Dryer; tell me about him.”
“He kept to himself, didn’t make any noise. I only saw him coming and going, or when he paid the rent. Always paid in cash, which was okay with me.”
“How long was he here?”
“Eight months.”
“Anybody room with him?”
“A long string of girls, one night at a time.”
“Any guys visiting him?”
“He was straight, believe me.”
“I mean friends staying over a few days, that sort of thing.”
“Not that I recall.”
“When he rented the place, did you take an application from him?”
“No, I don’t bother with written applications if the renter looks okay. I never got burned until now.”
“What did Dryer do for a living?”
“Said he was a filmmaker.”
“You ever see any evidence of that?”
“What kind of evidence?”
“Cameras, film equipment?”
“The only equipment Dryer had here was a computer, a copy machine, and a fax machine. Pretty neat computer, though – Pentium, fast laser printer, big monitor.”
“Did Dryer apply for his own phone service?”
“Nah, the phone’s on my bill. Shit! I forgot about the phone bill. That’s more money out of my pocket.”
“Did he make many long distance calls?”
“Yeah, quite a few.”
“Could I have a look at your phone bills? I’d like to know who he was calling.”
“I’ve got to go upstairs and get you a lease form; I’ll dig them out for you.”
“One more thing; did Dryer leave anything here?”
“Nothing but trash.”
“Has it been picked up yet?”
“No, it’ll still be out in the alley next to the building. There’s two plastic bags in the first can. It has a ‘B’ on it, for basement.”
“Thanks, Jim, I’ll take a look at that while you get the lease and the phone bills – all eight months, if you’ve got them.”
“I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Cantor followed him outside, walked into the alley, and found the garbage cans. There were three bags; one of them contained uninteresting kitchen garbage, the others a lot of paper and magazines. He pulled out the two bags of paper and walked back to the front of the building. O’Brian was coming down the front steps.
“Standard lease; I’ve already signed it,” he said, handing Cantor the document.
“What about subleasing?”
“No problem, if I approve the tenant.”
Cantor signed the lease, kept a copy, and handed it back. “Jim, you really ought to start taking a written application from your tenants; there are a lot of bad people out there.”
“You’re probably right; was Dryer one of them? Why are you checking up on him?”
“He did something impolite to a friend of a friend of mine. I was just going to talk to him and tell him not to do it again. Don’t worry about him; if he walked out on his lease, you won’t be seeing him again.”
O’Brian nodded and handed Cantor a manila envelope. “Here are the phone bills. The basement number is 1232.”
“Can I borrow these for a day?”
“Sure, but I need them back for my taxes.”
“I’ll get them back to you. Thanks, Jim; I’ll probably move in at the weekend, if that’s okay.”
“Fine with me. Glad to have you aboard.”
Cantor tucked the manila envelope under his arm, grabbed the two trash bags, and started looking for a cab.
Chapter 38
Stone was working at his desk when he heard the street door open, and a moment later Bob Cantor walked into his office carrying two garbage bags.
“Never say I didn’t give you anything,” Cantor said, dropping the two bags on the floor and depositing a manila envelope on Stone’s desk. “Dryer jumped his lease and moved out of the apartment last weekend.” He grinned. “Nice place; I rented it.”
“Did he leave anything in the apartment?” Stone asked.
Cantor pointed at the garbage bags. “If he did, it’s in there. His phone bills are in the envelope; the landlord says he made a lot of long distance calls.” He pulled up a chair.
Stone opened the envelope and shook out the phone bills.
“The phone was in the landlord’s name; last four digits are 1232.”
Stone began going through the bills. “L.A., L.A., L.A. Jesus, he lived there for what…?”
“Eight months.”
“And he never called anywhere but L.A.? Hard to believe.”
“Yeah.”
“And only one number,” Stone said. He turned to his computer, inserted a CD-ROM, and brought up his national telephone directory. He typed in the L.A. phone number and waited while the computer searched. “Here we go,” he said, “the Santa Fe Residential Apartments, in West Hollywood. When did you say that Dryer moved out?”
“Sometime between last Friday and Wednesday.”
“Look, he’s called this number virtually every day, sometimes three or four times a day.”
Stone picked up the phone and dialed the L.A. number.
“Santa Fe,” a man’s voice said.
“Hello,” Stone said, “this is Detective Cantor of the New York City Police Department.”
“Thanks a lot,” Cantor whispered.
“Yes?”
“Do you have a regular apartment building there, or what?”
“Short-term furnished apartments, by the week or month.”
“I’m trying to reach someone who may have moved out last Wednesday or Thursday; could you check your records and tell me who that might be? I don’t have a name.”
“Don’t need a name,” the man said. The sound of pages turning came over the phone “Only one person has moved out in the past couple of weeks. We stay pretty full.”
“Who would that be?”
“A Mr. G. Gable.”
“Can you tell me what he looks like?”
“Early thirties, dirty blond hair, kinda long, fairly tall. Nice-looking guy.”
“Have you got a forwarding address?”
“Nope, nothing. You looking for this guy or something?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, if you find him, will you let me know? He owes a month’s rent. He left here by the back way, very early in the morning.”
“Has his place been cleaned out?”
“Oh, yeah; I rented it right away. We always have a waiting list.”
“Thanks very much; I appreciate your help.” He hung up and turned to Cantor. “He was using the name of G. Gable.”
“And we’re looking for G. Power. It’s gotta be our guy.”
“Right. Let’s see what his trash looks like.” Stone cleared off his desk and, a handful at a time, they began going through all the paper.
“Okay,” Cantor said, “we got a lot of very real trash – newspapers, magazines.”
“Vanity Fair, New York, People, Us. He seems to be celebrity-oriented.”
“Here’s a receipt from Saks, from the Armani shop,” Cantor said. “He paid cash. The landlord said he paid his rent in cash, too.”
“What’s the date of the receipt?”
“Let’s see, nearly a month ago.”
“He would have already picked it up after the alterations, then. Too bad.”
“More receipts; one from a limo service; here’s one from the Four Seasons – Jesus, nearly three hundred bucks for dinner!”
“He’s living well, isn’t he? And he doesn’t seem to use credit cards or write checks for things that most people would. I wonder where he’s getting all this cash?”
“I don’t see any old bank statements in all this stuff,” Cantor said, dropping another double handful onto the desktop. “Look at this, another limo receipt, more clothes – Alan Flusser, this time, who’s that?”
“High-end tailor and ready-made clothes.”
“Here’s one from Ferragamo for six hundred and change.”
“That’s two pair of shoes.”
“Every one of them is marked cash. Oh, he told the landlord he was a filmmaker. Where does a filmmaker get this much cash? A bookie doesn’t have this much cash!”