"From what I hear, Frank Lorentian pays well for information, Jess. What I'm saying is-"
"Anyone at the crime scene might've sold the information to Lorentian?"
"Or used it to pay off a debt."
Sharon Pierson looked on, a glint of pleasure spreading across her face. Jessica guessed it was the feeling of comfort that the younger woman had gained on learning that someone else shared her position on the field-that she was not the sole target of Frank Lorentian's anger and revenge. Jessica refused to give in to the Lorentian phobia, but she felt her own anger welling inside. She wanted to slap herself for having acted so unwisely the night before at the crime scene.
She turned to J. T. and muttered, ''Damn it. I ought to've known better than to shoot off my mouth." Jessica paced in the tight apartment room and reproached herself. "I wanted to tell Santiva the details personally."
"I thought you called him last night."
"I did, but I had to leave a message on his machine. I couldn't go into the detail I wanted."
"Guess he's likely gotten all the details by now."
"Along with all the wire services."
J. T. began talking to himself. ''A flash fire in a five-star hotel, a gambling princess burned alive, all the makings of a Movie of the Week. Press's having a bountiful time of it…"
''Stupid, stupid me. Damn, just what this phantom fire nut likely wants, too."
There came a loud, firm knock at the door.
Sharon Pierson, her print dress smudged with cigarette and drink splotches, went for the door a bit shakily, wary, her mind filled with notions of how the powerful Frank Lorentian might wreak revenge on her for Chris's demise.
"Who… who is it?" she asked.
"LVPD, ma'am, Detective Sternover. Mrs. Pierson?"
"You the cops?" she asked.
"Homicide investigation, ma'am. Like a few words with you about Chris Lorentian, when you last saw her, ma'am; help us with a number of unanswered questions, ma'am."
"Why don't you guys get your act together?" she asked of Jessica and J. T., frowning before she pulled the several latches from her door. She now peeked out and insisted on seeing ID with the new intruders. Finally, she waved two men inside, this time not bothering with the locks. "Guess I ought to feel pretty safe with the cops and the FBI on my doorstep, shouldn't I, Dr. Coran?" she asked. "But I won't bank on it."
Jessica introduced herself and J. T. to the local investigators, the one calling himself Sternover nodding appreciatively, introducing himself and his partner, Ned Gaites. Sternover stood a head taller than Jessica, a giant of a man, while Gaites stood perhaps five-nine. Both men were in their mid- to late thirties, but while Sternover was graying at the temples and dressed neatly and expensively, Gaites looked like a dark-haired college kid with no regard for fashion. In fact, he wore a Hawaiian shirt, white tennis shoes, and khaki pants, completely clueless. Perhaps he was doing some undercover work, Jessica decided. Sternover was a stovepipe, Gaites the stove.
"Been reading about you, Doctor," said Sternover. "Also, Gaites and me, we were looking for Chris Lorentian as a Missing Persons case."
"Really? How long?" Jessica pretended amazement.
"Right, for the past forty-eight-odd hours," sputtered Gaites.
Sternover added, "Didn't know we'd find you here, one jump ahead of us. Guess you're as good as they say."
Gaites's lip curled just enough to tell Jessica that these men had arrived in so timely a fashion thanks only to Frank Lorentian's influence. Obviously, Sternover and Gaites had had the apartment and Sharon Pierson staked out for some time, too.
Sternover was most likely Frank's friend on the force, but Sharon Pierson obviously did not know this. She also didn't know just how right she'd been about Frank Lorentian's interest in her. Perhaps Miss Pierson was in danger. Perhaps she ought really to heed her first instinct to survival. Perhaps the only chance Frank Lorentian had at a full recovery might be through his innate nature, via a kind of global vengeance Jessica and the others could only guess at. Certainly the man's influence was being felt here, now, like some primordial octopus with multiple tentacles. "We'd like to ask you some questions, Miss Pierson," began Sternover, his mustache twitching and feeding into a large creased wrinkle on either side of his mouth. He'd have a hell of a time as a diver, Jessica thought, for with such a smiler's wrinkle positioned as it was, no mask made could stop the leaks. She thought he resembled Glenn Ford in all the old Westerns.
"Are you here in your official capacity then, Detective?" Jessica asked.
"That's a strange question, Doctor. Just what're you implying? What other capacity would we be here in, Dr. Coran?" Sternover's thick mustache twitched.
Gaites interceded, saying, "We're here just like you, for the same reasons."
Sternover verbally shunted Gaites aside, saying, "Just seeking to stomp out the ignorance that plagues us poor working cops; just here to open ourselves to the fire of truth, so to speak."
Gaites laughed at his partner's philosophizing words. "Damn, Ted, listen to yourself sometime. Can you 'magine being next to this guy all day, Doctors? Tellin' you, it's enough to make a good man go bad." Then Gaites turned serious. "We're here because some psycho's out there with a blowtorch, and according to you, Chris Lorentian may not be his first…" His words made Jessica wonder where they were getting their information. Nothing had been said by fire authorities about previous fire murders in the area; nothing had indicated any sort of previous pattern. There'd been none of that in the newspaper accounts either.
"… and it certainly, certainly won't be his last victim," finished Gaites. "So, if you Feds'll stand aside and allow us to do our job…"
"We're not interested in doing your job for you," countered J. T.
"There a problem here?" asked Sternover, pushing his bull weight and size forward.
"Just one," Jessica returned, holding her ground, staring long into Sternover's cold eyes, a pair of purple grapes in the dim light, no seeds at the center to reflect back light.
"And what's that?"
"How much are you in for?"
''In for?'' Sternover pretended ignorance.
"How short are the strings Lorentian's got over your head?"
Gaites stared hard at his partner, either a fine actor or a man amazed. ''Ted, is that true?'' asked Gaites, grabbing his partner by the lapels.
"All right, all right… enough with this machismo crap," said J. T. in an attempt to quell the sudden animosity. He then proceeded to offer up what little they had gotten from Sharon Pierson, finally telling the detectives, "We'd hoped to get more, but Miss Pierson obviously knows very little that might help in the investigation."
"Listen," Jessica told J. T., waving the newspaper story, "I'm going to let you three men coordinate information on this, okay, J. T., and I'm going to get back to the hotel, put in a call to Eriq Santiva before he hears what's going on without my input."
"Sure, sure," agreed J. T. "We can manage here."
With that, Jessica beat a hasty retreat, glad that she had conveyed to Sternover that she knew exactly whose payroll he was on. He didn't dare rough up or harm Pierson, not now.
Jessica flagged a cab, and in the ride back to the Flamingo, she stewed about all that had happened and all that she felt must happen in the next few hours. She needed to coordinate with local law enforcement through proper channels, and this meant she needed Quantico's okay and support as well as their manpower. She also very much needed a psychological profiling team assigned to this fire phantom. Most of all, she needed Quantico's immense storehouse of knowledge, its computers, to search for like killings that might be tied to the Phantom.
And she needed to get to Eriq before the news services did, if she weren't already too late.