Finally they were at the velvet rope. The goon at the door gave Jack a once-over, then focused on Kelsey. Her proverbial hit counter was overheating.
“You with him?” he asked, as if he couldn’t believe it.
Jack was about to give it right back to him, but Kelsey moved closer and locked arms with Jack. She was clearly just playing the game and pushing the goon’s buttons, but Jack liked the feeling nonetheless.
“Is that a problem?” she replied flatly.
Attitude ruled in South Beach, and it both amused and intrigued Jack to see that Kelsey had it in her. The goon unhooked the rope, and with a jerk of his head he signaled them to enter.
Club Vertigo was in an old hotel that had been gutted on the inside and completely reconfigured with a tall and narrow four-story atrium. The main bar and dancing were on the ground floor, and if you looked up into the towering atrium from the center of the dance floor, the mystery behind the club’s name immediately unraveled. Several large mirrors suspended at different angles made it difficult at times to discern whether you were looking up or down. With even a slight buzz, the pounding music, swirling lights, and throngs of sweaty bodies were enough to give anyone a sense of vertigo. The sensation worked both ways, with hordes of people-watchers looking down on the dance crowd from second-, third-, and fourth-floor balconies.
Jack gave his name to the female bartender at the main bar and told her he wanted to see Javier. She picked up a phone for about a ten-second conversation, then looked at Jack and said, “Second floor, Room B.”
Jack and Kelsey meandered through the crowd and took the stairs to the second floor. A muscular guy dressed in tight black clothing and wearing a thick, gold chain around his neck was standing outside Room B. It was one of the champagne suites, a private room away from the commotion where people could have more intimate gatherings. Sort of a sex and drug club within a sex and drug club. The night was young enough that most of the suites were empty.
“You Tatum’s friend?” he asked.
Jack shook hands, then introduced Kelsey.
“Nice to meetchya,” he said, looking past her. Javier looked Hispanic, but he talked like a New York Italian. It seemed that everyone on South Beach was pretending to be something they weren’t.
“Please,” he said, inviting them into the suite. Jack and Kelsey entered first. Javier followed and closed the door behind him, shutting out the noise. The sudden solitude was a strange sensation, like submerging into the silence of the deep end. The room itself was nothing spectacular, just a fake-leather couch, an armchair, smoky glass-topped table, and cheesy red velvet wallpaper.
Jack started to explain what he was after, but Javier stopped him. “Tatum already filled me in,” he said. “And I can only give you about ten minutes.”
“Let’s get to it,” said Jack. “Kelsey, why don’t you start.”
Kelsey gave a little smile, as if to thank Jack for keeping his promise to let her take an active role. She scooted to the edge of the couch, leaning forward slightly, trying to make eye contact. Javier seemed to be looking beyond her, just as he had with their handshake, as if something on the wall behind her had caught his attention.
“How long did you work for Sally?” she asked.
“Few months, on and off.”
Kelsey paused, as if she’d expected at least a little eye contact with his response. But he still seemed obsessed with something over her or behind her.
“What did you do for her exactly?” asked Kelsey.
“Bodyguard.”
“Did she really need a bodyguard?”
“She was a rich lady. And she scared pretty easy. She’d be alone a lot. Her old man-and I do mean old man-was from France or someplace. And you heard about what happened to her and her daughter a few years back.”
“Yes,” said Kelsey, “we know about that.”
“So, she’d be alone, sometimes afraid to even go anywhere. She hired me to drive her around. The mall, restaurants, wherever. I’m not saying she needed me. But I made her feel safe.”
Kelsey asked, “Didn’t she have any girlfriends?”
“I suppose. None that I saw, though. She struck me as a loner. Real pretty lady, but not a very happy person. Know what I mean?”
Javier was talking to Kelsey, but he wasn’t looking at her face. His focus had seemed to shift from the wall behind her to the top of her head. Kelsey tried to sit taller and make eye contact, but his gaze rose with her, as if he’d developed some bizarre fixation with the crown of her skull.
“For crying out loud,” said Kelsey. “What are you looking at?”
“Huh?”
“Did a bird shit on the top of my head or what?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then what is it? You’ve been staring at the top of my head from the moment I opened my mouth.”
“I’m not looking at your mouth,” he said.
“I know. You’re staring at the top of my head.”
“I understand that this is what you think. But what I’m actually doing is not looking at your mouth.”
“You’re losing me.”
“I’m a recovering porn addict.”
“A what?”
“I was addicted to porn. I can’t look at a woman’s mouth without having impure thoughts, which is a very distracting thing when you’re trying to have an intelligent conversation. So I don’t look at her mouth.”
“I see.” Kelsey glanced at Jack and said, “Why don’t you take it from here, boss?”
“Good idea.” Jack handed him a list of the beneficiaries under
Sally’s will-her ex-husband, the lawyer, the reporter, the prosecutor, Tatum, and the unknown sixth beneficiary, Alan Sirap.
“Did you ever hear Sally mention any of these people?”
“Tatum, of course. After I linked them up together.”
“I’ll get to that in a minute. What about these other people?”
“I’m sure she said things about Miguel Rios. Mike, she called him. Her ex, right?”
“Right. What did she say about him?”
“I don’t remember anything specific.”
“How about the other people? She ever say anything about them?”
He read over the list and shook his head, then stopped himself. “This guy. Gerry Colletti. If I’m not mistaken, he was her ex-husband’s divorce lawyer.”
“That’s right.”
“Him I remember her talking about.”
“What was that about?”
“We was out driving somewhere one night, and we passed this restaurant on the highway. And she says that used to be Alfredo’s.”
“Alfredo’s?”
“Sally and her ex-husband used to own a little Italian restaurant that went broke. Poured everything they had into it.”
“Miguel told me about that,” said Jack. “In fact he says it was Colletti who sold it to them.”
“That’s right. I think him and Gerry were friends way back or something.”
“Actually, it sounded to me like Miguel isn’t too keen on him anymore. But I’m more interested in what Sally told you about Gerry.”
“As I recall, she’d had a couple of glasses of wine and was talking to me pretty freely. She just starts saying how she couldn’t stand this Gerry from the day she met him.”
“Why not?”
“From the way she described him, he was one of these real slippery guys who turn a girl’s stomach. She was telling me about how Gerry took her and her sister out to dinner one night to try to talk Sally into letting her husband buy the restaurant from him.”
“Sally has a sister?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t…Rene, I think. She lives in like Africa or some place. According to Sally, she’s even more gorgeous than she was. But I find that hard to believe.”
Jack glanced at Kelsey, as if to say “Remind me to follow up with this Rene.”