“I appreciate where you’re coming from. If I were you looking at me I’d think the same thing. But I am sincerely here because I know who killed Nicholette Bradley. She came to me earlier that day. She thought her friend was in danger.”
“She thought her friend was in danger and she came to you? How did that work out for her?”
Stein took the cheap shot and did not return fire, which quelled some of the chief’s animosity, though he remained healthily wary. “If you are fucking with me, Howard, I will have your Sammie’s tacked up to that bulletin board.”
“I’m here. Why would you think I’m fucking with you?”
“Because a prick can only do two things and you’re not pissing.”
“Why are you holding Morty Greene? He didn’t kill her.”
“You’re so sure of that?”
“Yes I’m sure of it.”
“His truck was stopped under suspicious circumstances.”
“Carrying a load of designer shampoo bottles?”
“Yeah. How’d you know that?”
“This is what I’m saying.”
“In the course of a legal search, the deceased’s name was found written on a piece of paper in the glove compartment of Duluth Greene’s truck.”
“Give me a fucking break. By that logic I killed Chiquita Banana and Jennie Craig.”
“Nobody’s charging him with any crime yet. We want to talk to him.”
“And that’s why he’s handcuffed?”
“You see the size of that boy?”
“Coach, I’m going to repay you for every bad thing I ever did. You’re going to be a national hero.”
Stein gave Bayliss the streamlined version of the connection between Morty and the counterfeit shampoo bottles, and what had happened that gruesome night when Michael Esposito and Paul Vane had killed Nicholette. It choked Stein to mention Paul Vane’s name in connection with the event, but in the spirit of full disclosure he did. The only minor detail he omitted was that he had come to his revelation stoned on Goodpasture’s orchids.
The funeral cortege played on Bayliss’s TV in the background. His office was sparsely furnished with the impersonal essentials, desk, metal chairs, file cabinets, a phone with six buttons, a computer- highlighting the chief’s tenuous interim status. Celebrities and common people alike pronounced eulogies for the slain woman. From PETA, from the pope, from parents of children with anorexia. It was a revelation to Stein that she was so much more than just a pretty face.
The desk sergeant who was not O’Bladovich blew into Bayliss’s office, all red-faced and puffing. “Chief, there’s a civilian loose in the building.” Then he noticed Stein standing there before him. He put two and two together at the speed of a battleship trying to change direction. He finally came up with, “Oh,” and reckoning that his work had been effectively done, he hitched his pants up over his belly and exited.
Bayliss had never taken his eyes off Stein. “Why are you telling me this, Howard? Maybe to set me up to arrest the wrong people in the biggest case of my life?”
“Not this time, chief.”
“What’s in it for you?”
“The people who killed Nicholette have my daughter.”
Stein saw the two movies running alongside each other in the chief’s internal Cineplex. In Theater 1 he is a decorated hero, parades in open cars, fear and respect in the eyes of the world and the interim tag is removed. In Theater 2 Stein is pointing at him and laughing hysterically.
“I swear to God, Howard. If this is you being you I will see you burn.”
Bayliss ’ S assembled task force was all in military black, adorned with gas masks and automatic weapons. Stein felt the room begin to shudder. He thought at first it was his heart but it was the police chopper revving up on the helipad. Bayliss strapped his flight helmet in place.
“Where’s mine?” Stein asked.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“It’s my daughter. What about our deal!”
“We had no deal.”
“And if she needed an appendectomy would you do it yourself? No, you leave it to the professionals.”
Stein hurried along in their wake. Morty Greene was still handcuffed to the bench outside the office. “And let this guy out of his damn cuffs, for chrissake!”
Bayliss nodded subtly to his sergeant and Morty was carefully uncuffed.
“Thanks for nothing,” Morty said, and wouldn’t look at Stein.
“Hey! I didn’t get you into this. I’m getting you out of it.”
“Boys,” Edna mediated, “Thank you, Mister Stein.”
Stein’s attention was arrested by the TV at the front desk. Celebrity mourners were being interviewed like it was the red carpet at the Emmy Awards and again there was the aggrieved face of Paul Vane on screen. The pain behind his soulful eyes still looked real. Was he that good an actor to feign such innocent grief? And why wasn’t he at the Ivy, which was where he was sending chief Bayliss? Stein tried to peer behind Vane in the camera’s shot to see if Angie and Lila were with him in the limo. But its windows were tinted. He yelled to the chief to wait a second, but the cordon of commandos was clattering up the stairs to the roof.
He jumped back into Bayliss’s office and used his phone to call Mattingly at the warehouse. He was actually glad to hear the familiar nasal, wheedling tones.
“Mrs. Higgit. This is Harry Stein.”
“Why are you calling from the police station?”
The caller ID thing still freaked him out but he brushed past it. “This is very important. I need to know if Michael Esposito is there.”
“I have no dealings with that area of the company,” she said even more officiously than usual. “I work strictly with Mister Mat-tingly.”
“I know who you work for. But I want-”
She would not yield him conversational right-of-way but plowed straight through the verbal intersection. “Whatever goes on behind closed doors, and I’m not saying anything does, it’s not my business.”
“Mrs. Higgit.”
“I don’t judge. What other people choose for themselves-”
“Stop talking!” he commanded.
She allowed herself to be interrupted long enough to hear his question and to reply that although she had neither the time nor inclin-a-shee-on to keep tabs on anyone else’s business, she had noticed in passing that Mr. Esposito had two visitors today. She described Lila in fastidious detail and the “wild and unruly” teenage girl with her.
Stein smarted under the indictment of his permissive child-raising. “Listen to me carefully. Your office looks down onto the visitor’s parking lot. Is there a white Acura?”
“I don’t know brands.”
“Look out your window.”
“Is there a white car? With a sunroof?”
“It would appear to be so, yes.”
“Do not let them leave.”
Watson was barking excitedly in the car when Stein ran out into the parking lot. A cordon of police had surrounded Stein’s Camry. Stein looked with disbelief at his rear tire. It had been booted.
“Real sorry,” the fat desk sergeant said looking with ironic concern at the piece of heavy metal machinery locking the wheel in place. “I had no idea it was you.” He made a show of examining his key ring, then pronounced with great dole. “Oh I seem to have misplaced the key.”
The chopper had lifted off and was vectoring off toward the canyon. Stein was crazed enough to grab non O’Bladovich by the shirtsleeve. “Listen to me. You’ve got to radio the chief and bring him back.” He looked deeply into his face for a sign of intelligent recognition. From the far side of the complex, Morty Greene’s red pickup truck had gotten out of impound and was heading down the driveway.
Stein released his hold and unlocked his own car door, grabbed Watson out of the front seat and chased after Morty’s truck, which had now driven past. He waved his free arm wildly, trying to put himself into the reflection of his rearview mirror. The truck slowed by degrees, allowing Stein to catch up.