I gawked over his shoulder, which isn't hard to do when you're nearly a foot taller. True enough, Bobbie was nowhere to be seen. Max wore a black T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve. I hadn't seen anything like it in years.
"Actually, I came to see you," I said, and waited for my nose to grow.
He looked at me skeptically. On his forearm, the tattooed snake seemed to hiss. Looking down, I noticed a bald spot expertly camouflaged by some vigorous back-to-front combing and a healthy dose of hairspray.
"I wanted to apologize for that story in the Journal," I continued, making it up as I went along. "Bobbie threatened a lawsuit because of what it would do to your business. I just wanted you to know that I had nothing-"
"Fergit it. Hey, business never been better. Babes are calling in, wanting to join, talk to the murderer. Some kind of turn-on, can you believe it? And guys, too, one wants the handle 'Sexy Strangler,' I won't give it to him." He paused a moment to pat himself on the back. "This is a classy operation."
I nodded in agreement, and my nose was still normal except for a curve where an elbow once came through my face mask. "It's a strange world out there, eh, Max?"
"Yow."
"One more thing. When Bobbie responded to the subpoena, she gave me a printout of the calls to both women on the nights they were killed."
"Yow."
"Could the list be wrong?"
"Whaddaya mean?"
"Is it possible for someone's name to be listed by mistake? Can the computer be wrong?"
He loosened up a bit, probably figuring I'd have served him with a warrant by now if that was my mission. "Don't see how. The computer records the handle automatically when the customer gets online. No human error possible."
"What about an impostor? My handle's Stick Shift, but what's to keep me from logging in as Passion Prince?"
"Won't work. Customer's handle can only be used when matched with his password. And that's something known only to the customer."
"Not quite," I said.
"How's that?"
"You know all the passwords, don't you, Max?"
A smile flashed like a blade beneath his mustache. "Yow. What of it?"
CHAPTER 19
"But I can't go to England."
Charlie Riggs continued packing his battered leather suitcase.
"I've got a partners' meeting next week. If I miss another one…"
Charlie neatly folded a heavy mackinaw and placed it in the case. Next came a woolen scarf and a pair of gloves.
"I've got a libel trial with H. T. Patterson. If I can prove that Chong Gong Wong pisses in his soup…"
With his hand Charlie dusted off an old fedora that Harry Truman would have loved. He placed it lovingly on top of the clothes and gently closed the case.
"To say nothing of the Diamond murder investigation. I'm stuck with a suspicious state attorney and a horny professor, and I don't think either one is Jack the Ripper. Plus the reporters are driving me crazy. Rick Gomez was hiding in a mango tree this morning when I went outside to water the crabgrass."
"Precisely why you should accompany me to London. While I'm lecturing, you can follow up on the Ripper connection. Tour the East End if you wish. Call New Scotland Yard. Anything."
"I don't know, Charlie. I think the Mr. Lusk stuff is a curveball."
Charlie was stuffing his favorite pipe with cherry-blend tobacco. He would have to go eight hours without a puff and was going to miss it. "I'm sure Nick Fox would approve your travel expenses as part of the investigation."
"No doubt. He probably wants me out of town."
"It could be useful, getting away, thinking about the case. Tempus omnia revelat. Time reveals all things."
"It doesn't feel right, leaving just now."
Charlie shrugged. "It's up to you. And maybe just as well. You didn't seem to get along that well with Pamela Maxson."
"What's she-"
"As the hostess for the lecture tour, she'll be around quite a bit. I can understand your reluctance to go if the two of you don't-"
"What time's our flight?"
The Miami airport in July. An air-conditioned icebox stocked with frozen tourists. Shorts and thongs and legs broiled lobster red. Europeans on charters to art-deco South Beach. South Americans booking off-season rooms and escaping winter back home. Miamians heading for Asheville, Bar Harbor, and Aspen.
Intentional tourists. Tourists from the islands hauling boxed Sonys and Panasonics, tourists from the Midwest loaded with tax-free liquor from the islands. Tired children screaming, caged dogs yowling, monotone messages in three languages on the PA.
And the businessmen. Another day, another city. Gray suits, blue shirts, rep ties, a thousand weary faces. Briefcases stuffed with forms, Dictaphones, and calculators. Guys from sales or marketing peddling software or mainframes or this season's widget, sitting at the gate, figuring last week's commissions, fudging the expense accounts, making lists, taking inventory.
The modern drummer, poised for his daily dose of cardboard food and stale air. No more Willy Lomans in the Studebaker getting just past Yonkers. These days a guy from Richmond or Memphis can make the Atlanta hub for the morning flight to Pensacola or Biloxi, hop the bus to the rental lot, slip into the still-wet Taurus, and have lunch with the purchasing agent he's been sweet-talking all year. If he makes the sale, great, and it's bourbon on the rocks at the Holiday Inn before dinner alone and a pay movie in the room. No sale, there's always tomorrow and a hot new prospect in Mobile.
Charlie spent the interminable flight reading the Select Coroners' Roles, A.D. 1265–1413 while I went over what I knew. As usual, it was less than I didn't know. I knew Marsha Diamond was curious about Nick Fox's war record, but I didn't know why. She wanted a story, of course, but what story and why wouldn't Nick open up? Maybe I should talk to Priscilla Fox again. Maybe there's something she left out, something she knew from years ago. What happened in Dak Sut and on the dike outside the village and which happened first? Marsha thought the shooting on the dike happened before the troops entered the village. If it did, when was Evan Ferguson killed? And what about the translator? How did she die? What did Marsha know, anyway? And if Nick thought she had something on him, would he have killed to silence her?
So many questions.
What about Gerald Prince? He denied chatting with Marsha even though the computer recorded his password and handle attached to the crude dialogue. Then there were the frenzied lyrics from "Great Balls of Fire." It isn't too much love that drives a man insane, I thought. But what is it? Maybe Dr. Pamela Maxson knows.
Thinking about the professor inspired me to grab two little bottles of Jack Daniel's when the flight attendant rolled by. I listened to the drone of the engines, my eyes growing heavy, my mind drifting over the clouds.
Tom Carruthers. Now there's a character. Homophobic, chauvinistic tough guy in rawhide and boots. Who knew what evil lurked in his heart.
Henry Travers. A sad, middle-aged faker, scrounging for two-dollar winners and lusting for the friction of body parts. A lifetime of resentment against women by a guy who never did anything but lease them.
And how about Max Blinderman? He could have been an electronic imposter, plugging into Marsha's line by signing on as the Passion Prince. But a guy with a record of misdemeanors doesn't usually leap to a Murder One. Unless he's done it before and has never been caught.
Back to Nick Fox. Maybe he liked beating me in court and wanted me to play the fool twice. If Nick Fox killed Marsha Diamond, unthinkable as that was, who killed Mary Rosedahl? Someone did, after apparently consensual sex, but why? And what did it have to do with Marsha?