“It never does until it is.” But she was feeling the futility as well. “Tell you what, I’ll take the closet, you do the dresser, then let’s call it a night.”
Nikki was sliding suits on hangers along the wooden pole when Rook said, “Oh, Detective Heat?” When she stepped out of the walk-in, he was at the dresser. The top drawer was open.
“I’m not sure if this will be anything, but if it is, I figured you deserved the honors.” She slowly crossed the room to join him, then followed his gaze down into the open drawer.
Captain Montrose’s sock drawer. In it were about a dozen pairs of black and navy dress socks, folded and balled to marry the pairs. And toward the back of the drawer, a lone beige sock without a mate. Nikki looked up at Rook. Both were thinking it, but neither was saying it.
An odd sock.
Heat picked it up. Her heart raced when she did. “There’s something in it.”
“Come on, I’m gonna pee myself.”
Nikki opened the sock and reached inside. “It’s cardboard.” She pulled it out. It was a business card. For a talent representative. “This is for Horst Meuller’s agent.”
When she turned it over her throat contracted and she stifled an involuntary wail. She covered her face with one hand and turned away as she handed the card to Rook. He flipped it over. The ballpoint handwriting read, “Nikki, just be careful.”
Sixteen
At nine the next morning, when Heat and Rook climbed the subway steps up to 18th Street, a frozen mist was descending on Chelsea, wrapping the neighborhood in a harsh, woolen chill. They crossed Seventh, heading west, toward the agent’s office, joining an eclectic sidewalk mix of tortured young artists and upstart dancers who might have been cast in a music-video salute to brooding. By the time they reached Eighth, Rook said he had stopped counting navy berets.
When they entered the third-floor walk-up office of the Step This Way Talent Agency, Phil Podemski was eating take-out oatmeal at his desk. As he swept old trade magazines and newspapers from his couch onto the floor so they could sit, the agent eyeballed Nikki and said he could really do something with her, considering her figure and looks. “You have to strip, of course. Not for me, I don’t go for any funny business, I mean in the act.”
“Much as I appreciate the offer,” she said, “that’s not why we’re here.”
“Oh...” Podemski sized up Rook and tugged at his orange Yosemite Sam mustache. “Sure, guess I could give you a bullwhip and a fedora. We’d market you as Indiana Bones. Or maybe go sci-fi. You sorta look like that guy who roamed outer space everybody’s so crazy about.”
“Malcolm Reynolds?” asked Rook.
“Who?... No, I’m thinking we give you a space helmet and some assless chaps and call you... Butt Rogers.”
When Nikki jumped in and told him they were there to talk about Horst Meuller, Podemski stuck the plastic spoon back in the wide-mouthed deli cup and frowned while he finished chewing. “You cops?”
Nikki dodged telling an outright lie by saying, “You already spoke to one of my squad members, a Detective Rhymer?” When that seemed enough of an answer, she pressed forward. Heat wasn’t sure what she was looking for yet, but Captain Montrose had gone to great effort to leave her a posthumous clue leading to Podemski’s agency. He had also told her to be careful, although her assessment of the agent himself was that he was more colorful than dangerous, a lovable schemer straight out of Broadway Danny Rose.
Nikki told Podemski she was with his client the day he got shot but that Horst had been uncooperative. “Do you have any idea why he won’t speak to us?”
“That kid, I dunno. Since the boyfriend passed on, he hasn’t been the same. His act as Hans Alloffur is my big draw. But he ducked out on me after his pal Alan died, didn’t even tell me where he moved.”
Nikki remembered that from Rhymer’s report, which was why her plan with Phil Podemski was to drill down more on the dead lover, since that was driving Meuller’s actions. She flipped up the cover of her notebook. “Tell me about the boyfriend. Alan who?”
“Barclay. Nice guy. Older than Horst, maybe fifty. In good shape but had one of those gray complexions with the hollow eyes and dark circles like you see on people in nursing homes.”
Rook said, “And health food stores.” Nikki shot him a look. “OK, tell me I’m wrong.”
She turned back to Podemski. “He had some cardiac problems, right?”
“Yeah, that’s how he kicked. Tragedy.” The agent stirred his cold oatmeal and shook his head. “I never got that demo reel he said he’d make for my agency.”
“Was he in advertising?”
“Nuh-uh. Cameraman.” Phil held up both hands. “Videographer, pardon me.”
“What sort of video, Mr. Podemski?”
“Reality TV. You ever watch that show Payback Playback?”
Rook sat upright. “I love that show.” Nikki shrugged, unfamiliar with it. “You haven’t seen it? It’s great. Every week they have a different victim who has been screwed by someone — personal relationship, car mechanic, whatever — and they devise a hidden camera payback for the creep and play it back with him sitting right there in front of a nasty studio audience that yells, ‘Playback’s a bitch!’ ”
“My loss,” she said. “So did this Alan Barclay do any other kind of video work? Anything like porn or maybe bondage videos?” It was a long shot, but she had to ask, given where the case started.
“Porn? No way. I’d bet the farm against that.”
Nikki asked, “How come?”
“He was too religious. Strict Catholic. Alan was always trying to get Horst to give up the strip clubs and go legit. Maybe try out for Alvin Ailey or Juilliard. Messing with my income, that guy, may he rest in peace. Even tried to get his pastor to convert him.”
Rook blurted the question before Nikki could. “Do you know who Alan Barclay’s pastor was?”
“Sure I do. He’s the one who got murdered. It was on the news the day after I met him.”
Heat exchanged a glance with Rook and asked, “Where did you meet him?”
“Right here. The morning before he was killed. He was camped out in the hall when I came to open up. Said Horst Meuller told him to meet him here at nine sharp, so I let him in. All the while, I’m wondering how the hell do I entertain a priest? But Horst shows up pretty quick. Naturally, I ask him where he’s been, and he says never mind — he’s very nervous, freaked even. Then he and the priest take a walk. Last time I saw Horst till I heard he got shot.”
Heat quickly ran the events of the the past week through her memory and asked, “How come you didn’t tell any of this to Detective Rhymer when he interviewed you?”
“Hey, don’t get mad at me, I was only doing what that other cop told me to do, which was not to tell anyone.”
Heat felt her pulse flutter. “What other cop said that to you, Mr. Podemski?”
“He was a detective, too. The one who killed himself.”
Heat said, “Captain Montrose?”
“Montrose, that’s right.” Podemski fished the captain’s business card out of the slush pile atop his desk. “He showed up here a couple hours after Horst took off with that priest. Said he wanted to know where they went or if they left anything behind, you know, for me to hold or stash.”
“Did he say what it was? Money, an object?” asked Rook.
Podemski shook no. “Just told me to call him if anybody else came looking and to tell nobody about any of it. Not even other cops.”
“Has anybody else come by looking for whatever this is?” asked Rook.