“Here” – Champ pushed the plate across – “it would be an honor. Try some, Mr. Roth.”
“No, thanks,” Sol said. “I’m trying to live past noon.”
I put down my fork and huddled close to him “So, you make any progress, Sol?”
“Some,” he said with a shrug. He mopped his toast in the goopy egg. “Though some of what you hear is going to hurt you, kid. I know you were keen on that girl. I did a little checking around with my own sources. I’m afraid it’s not quite what you think, Neddie. Dennis Stratton wasn’t using Tess. It was the other way around.”
“The other way around,” I said. Liz was setting him up. “What do you mean?”
Sol took a sip of coffee. “Liz Stratton was actually behind her husband’s affair with this girl. More than behind it, Ned-die, she orchestrated it. Set him up. She had the girl on a retainer.”
I blinked back, confused. “Why would she be doing that?”
“To discredit him,” Sol replied, spooning another packet of Cremora into his mug. “Everyone knows this Stratton marriage isn’t exactly what it seems. Liz has wanted out for a long time. But he’s got a stranglehold on her. Most of the money’s in his name. She was going to set him up and walk away with everything he’s got.”
“You know I heard about these tarts who…” Geoff gobbled a forkful of omelet.
I held him back. “So, what are you saying, Sollie? Tess was hired? Like some kind of actress…Or scam artist?”
“A little more than that, kid.” Sol pulled out a folded piece of paper from the pocket of his sweater. “I’m afraid she was a professional.”
It was a faxed copy of a police rap sheet. From Sydney, Australia. I was staring at Tess’s face. Her hair was pulled back, her eyes downcast. A different girl. The name on the rap sheet was Marty Miller. She’d been arrested several times, for selling prescription drugs and for prostitution in King’s Cross.
“Jesus Christ.” I blinked, and sank back in the booth.
“She was a high-class call girl, Ned. She was from Australia. That’s why there was nothing on her around here.”
“ New South Wales,” I muttered, recalling our first day on the beach.
“Hmmph,” Geoff snorted, taking the sheet from my hand. “An Aussie. Not surprised…”
A call girl. Paid to screw Dennis Stratton. Hired to do a job. My blood started to simmer. All that time I’d been thinking there was no way I deserved her – and it had all been just a sham.
“So, he found out about her,” I said, clenching my jaw, “and had her killed.”
“Stratton’s got people who work for him who would do just about anything, Ned,” Sol said.
I nodded. I thought of Ellie’s doubts about the local cop, Lawson. The one who always seemed to be around Stratton. “That’s why the police are dragging their heels. They knew there was a connection between them. He owns them, right?”
“If you want to catch him, Neddie,” Sol said, looking at me earnestly, “I own a few things, too.”
I smiled gratefully at Sollie. Then I stared at the rap sheet again. Poor Tess. Such a beautiful face. She probably thought this was the payday of her life, too. That shimmering, hopeful look came back to me, the one I couldn’t understand. How she felt that her luck was about to change as well.
I’m going to get him, Tess, I vowed, looking at her face. Then I dropped the rap sheet onto the table. “Marty Miller,” I said, smiling at Sol. “I didn’t even know her name.”
Chapter 65
DENNIS STRATTON left his office in one of the financial buildings along Royal Palm Way a little after five.
His Bentley Azure pulled out of the garage and I started up my dingy Impala.
I’m not entirely sure why I had the urge to follow him, but what Sollie had told me really pissed me off. I had seen Stratton in action on the terrace with Ellie. I guess I just wanted to see firsthand what this asshole was about.
Stratton swung around at the light and continued over the bridge into West Palm. I followed, a few car lengths behind. He was busy talking on the phone. I figured even if he noticed, there was no way a guy in an old clunker like mine would register on his mental radar.
His first stop was Rachel’s out on 45th Street, a steak-house where you can wolf down a large porterhouse and watch strippers on the stage. A bouncer greeted him as if they were old friends. All the pretension of class with his big house and the fancy art. Why was I not surprised?
I pulled into a Rooms to Go parking lot across from Cracker Barrel and waited. After fifty minutes I almost decided to call it a night. Maybe half an hour later Stratton came out with another man: tall, ruddy, white-haired, a navy blazer and lime green pants. One of those “I can trace my roots back to the Mayflower” kind of faces. They were laughing and smirking.
They both climbed into the Bentley, put the top down, and lit up cigars. I pulled out behind them. Blue bloods’ night out! They headed down to Belvedere, past the airport, and turned into the Palm Beach Kennel Club. VIP parking.
It must’ve been a slow day, because the attendant rolled his eyes jeeringly at my wheels, but he seemed happy to take my twenty and slip me a clubhouse pass. Stratton and his buddy headed up on an elevator to the fancy seats.
I took a table on the other side of the glass-enclosed clubhouse. I ordered a sandwich and a beer and felt obliged to go up to the window every once in a while with a couple of two-dollar bets. Stratton seemed to be into it, though. He was loud and garrulous, puffing on his cigar, peeling off multiple hundreds from a huge wad on every race.
A third person came to the table: a fat, balding guy, suspenders holding up his pants. They kept betting wildly, ordering bottles of champagne. The more they lost, the more they laughed, throwing big tips to the stewards who took their bets.
About ten, Stratton made a call on his cell phone and they all stood up together. He signed for the bill – it must’ve been in the thousands. Then he put his arms around the other two and headed back downstairs.
I paid my check and hurried after them. They piled into his Bentley. They had the top down and were all smoking cigars. The Bentley was weaving a bit.
They crossed back to Palm Beach over the middle bridge. Stratton wrapped around to the right and turned the Bentley into the marina.
Partytime, huh, boys?
A gate rose and a guard waved them through. No way I could follow. I was definitely curious, though. I parked the car on a side street and climbed back up onto the walkway of the middle bridge. I headed up the ramp. An old black guy was fishing off the bridge farther ahead. The spot gave us a bird’s-eye view of the marina.
Stratton and his cronies were still winding around the dock. They walked to the next-to-last berth and climbed aboard this enormous white yacht, Mirabel, the kind of gleaming white beauty you couldn’t take your eyes off. Stratton acted as if he owned it, greeting the crew, taking the others around. Trays came out – food, drinks. The Tres Assholes had the party thing going: booze, cigars, sitting around on Stratton’s yacht as though they owned the world.
“Oooh-wee,” the black fisherman up the way whistled.
Three long-legged model types were making their way in high heels along the dock. They climbed aboard the Mirabel. For all I knew, they might’ve been the same girls who were performing at Rachel’s that night.
Stratton seemed pretty familiar with one of them, a blonde in a short red dress. He had his arm around her, introducing the others to his friends. They started passing around drinks and pairing off. The fat one started dancing with a thin redhead in a waist-baring T-shirt and denim skirt.