“No, we never had that conversation.”
“Well, gee, Bobby, didn’t you tell him the tape was only his whole fucking case?”
“I’m sure I never...”
“And when he said he was sorry, didn’t you say, ‘Oh, you don’t know sorry, Brett! You’ll find out sorry!’ Isn’t that what you said?”
“No.”
“You told Sheila he’d be sorrier than he’d ever been in his whole fucking life! Those were your words, Bobby.”
“She’s wrong.”
“Then she’s also wrong about you leaving the condo a few minutes later.”
“I told you she was.”
“To go down for a pack of cigarettes.”
“Oh, that. Sure. I thought you meant leave her. I didn’t actually leave her till eight the next...”
“Yes, that’s what she thought, too.”
“Good. Then...”
“She thought leaving for the night. Not just running down to pick up a pack of cigarettes. Which is where you said you were going.”
“That’s exactly right.”
“So what took you two and a half hours, Bobby?”
He did not answer.
“Sheila says you didn’t get back till almost midnight. Where were you?”
He still said nothing.
“Where’d you go for those cigarettes, Bobby?”
“I sure as hell didn’t go to the Silver Creek Yacht Club, if that’s what...”
“Well, now, who said you did?”
“If that’s what you’re sugg—”
“But where did you go?”
He turned back to me. Mixed himself another drink. Dropped a wedge of lime into the glass. Turned to me again.
“What deal did you offer, Bobby?”
“Ten percent of the bear’s gross, okay?”
“For handing over that video to Brett?”
“Yes. I didn’t kill him.”
“Even though he turned you down cold?”
“That only made him a son of a bitch. It doesn’t mean I killed him.”
“What’d you mean when you said you’d make him sorrier than...”
“I meant I’d get even.”
“How?”
“By making him sorry.”
“By killing him? By going to the boat...”
“I didn’t go to the fucking...”
“...and shooting him twice in the head...”
“No!”
“...with his own gun? Weren’t you the man in black who parked your car outside...”
“Man in black? What man in...?”
“...the club and then walked to the boat...”
“I was nowhere near the boat, nowhere near the cl—”
“Didn’t you board the Toland boat at eleven-fifteen that night?”
“No, I didn’t!”
“Didn’t you shoot Brett Toland at eleven-forty?”
“No!”
“Then where were you at that time, Bobby?”
“In my car! On the way back to Sheila’s condo.”
“From where? Where the hell were you for two and a half...?”
“I went to see Brett. But not on the boat. I didn’t know he was on the boat. He was home when I called him, I thought that was where I’d find him.”
“You went to the Toland house?”
“Yes. I wanted that tape back. If Brett...”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want him to use it unless he fucking well paid for it!”
“There are other copies out there, you know. He could easily have...”
“Good, let him go find them! Meanwhile, a judge was making his decision and Brett knew he’d stolen the bear! If he wouldn’t deal with me, then I wanted that fucking tape back!”
He nodded angrily, took a long swallow of the drink.
“That’s why I went there that night.”
“What time did you get there?”
“Around ten. He wasn’t home. Etta told me...”
Etta tells him her husband has gone to the boat.
Bobby figures he’ll catch him there. It’s only ten, fifteen minutes from their house to the club. But then she tells him he’s gone there to meet Lainie. So he asks Etta if Brett happened to mention a videotape to her. No, he hadn’t. What videotape? Well, did he happen to be carrying a videotape when he left the house? No, she doesn’t know anything about a videotape. What videotape?
He tells her what it is.
Idle Hands.
Lainie Commins’s busy little hands.
He tells her about the deal he offered Brett, a lousy ten percent of the gross, is that a lot? As a finder’s fee? People get more than that for finder’s fees, Etta. But now Brett was going to bypass him and use the tape, anyway. That isn’t fair, is it, Etta?
Etta tells him she’s sure he’s mistaken.
Brett is going to offer Lainie a flat five thousand dollars in settlement.
That’s why he’s meeting her on the boat.
That’s what he plans to propose to her.
She doesn’t know anything about a videotape.
“So it suddenly occurred to me,” Diaz said, “that maybe he didn’t take the tape with him, after all, maybe it was still there in the house someplace. Maybe he really didn’t think he could use it, the shmuck, or maybe he was saving it as an ace in the hole in case Lainie turned down the flat five, who knew? So I asked her did she know where he might keep such a tape if there was such a tape?”
Diaz drained his glass.
“We went into the den, where their television set is, and their VCR, and all their stereo equipment. This is now maybe twenty to eleven, I’d been there forty minutes already. We searched through all their videos, but we couldn’t find Idle Hands — though there were some other porn flicks there, which Etta knew about, and which she didn’t find embarrassing, by the way. I asked her if they had a safe. I figured if Brett planned to use the tape later, then maybe he’d put it away someplace secure. I wanted to get out of there already, it was at least a forty-five-minute drive back to Sheila’s, but I didn’t want to leave if there was a possibility the tape was still there. I wanted that tape.”
“Did they have a safe?”
“Oh yes. Upstairs. Etta went up to check, and five minutes later... this is now a quarter to eleven, around then... she comes down with a videotape, but no case. The cassette is there, but it’s not in the little black vinyl case. She tells me this is the way she found it, at the back of their safe, and I say Well, that must be it, don’t you think? and she says There’s only one way to find out. So we played it. Just enough to confirm it was Lainie doing her thing.”
“Then what?”
“I told Etta I wanted the tape, please. She said she was sorry but she would first have to ask Brett if he’d already paid me anything for it. So I thought Oh yeah? Well, fuck you, lady. And I told her.”
“Told her what?”
Diaz nodded.
A small satisfied smile crossed his handsome face.
“That until last Christmas her husband was having an affair with Lainie Commins.”
12
Warren was telling her the guy upstairs had a gun. Toots was translating what the guy upstairs was yelling. He wanted a poncho. He was getting soaked up there, bring him a fucking poncho. She was thinking if they took the guy out, she’d have a gun and eight kilos of coke.
The rain was one of those hard hasty squalls that came on you suddenly and made you think you were going to drown. They seemed worse when you were on a boat because suddenly the entire world was overwhelmed by water. Thing about them was that they didn’t last long. Even so, the guy upstairs kept yelling for a poncho. Bring me a fucking poncho, Luis!