“Are you okay, Paul?” she asked. “Are you angry that that man was staring at me?”
Together they watched Carl Obst leave the restaurant with his date. He didn't look back.
Henri smiled, said, “No, I'm not angry. Everything is fine.”
“Good, because I was wondering if we should continue the evening more privately?”
“Hey, I'm sorry. I wish I could,” Henri told the girl with the most elegant neck since Henry VIII's second wife. “I really wish I had the time,” he said, taking her hand. “I have that early flight tomorrow morning.”
“Screw business,” Mai-Britt joked. “You're on holiday tonight.”
Henri leaned across the table and kissed her cheek.
He imagined her nakedness under his hands – and he let the fantasy go. He was already thinking ahead to his business in L.A., laughing inside at how surprised Ben Hawkins would be to see him.
Chapter 63
Henri spent a three-day weekend at the airport Sheraton in L.A., moving anonymously among the other business travelers. He used the time to reread Ben Hawkins's novels and every newspaper story Ben had written. He'd purchased supplies and made dry runs to Venice Beach and the street where Ben lived, right around the corner from Little Tokyo.
At just after five that Monday afternoon, Henri took his rental car onto the 105 Freeway. The yellowing cement walls lining the eight-laner were illuminated by a golden light, randomly splashed with spiky vines of red and purple bougainvillea and gothic Latino gang graffiti, giving the drab Los Angeles highway a Caribbean flavor, at least in his mind.
Henri took the 105 to the 110 exit at Los Angeles Street, and from there he made his way through stop-and-go traffic to Alameda, a major artery running to the heart of downtown.
It was rush hour, but Henri was in no rush. He was keyed up, focused on an idea that over the last three weeks had taken on potential for life-changing drama and a hell of a finale.
The plan centered on Ben Hawkins, the journalist, the novelist, the former detective.
Henri had been thinking about him since that evening in Maui, outside the Wailea Princess, when Ben had stretched out his hand to touch Barbara McDaniels.
Henri waited out the red light, and when it changed he took a right turn onto Traction, a small street near the Union Pacific tracks that ran parallel to the Los Angeles River.
Following the poky SUV in front of him, Henri trawled down the middle of Ben's homey neighborhood, with its L.A. hipster restaurants and vintage clothing shops, finding a parking spot across from the eight-story, white-brick building where Ben lived.
Henri got out of the car, opened the trunk, and took a sports jacket from his bag. He stuck a gun into the waistband of his slacks, buttoned his jacket, and raked back his brown and silver-streaked hair.
Then he got back into the car and found a good music station, spent about twenty minutes watching pedestrians meander along the pleasant street, listening to Beethoven and Mozart, until he saw the man he was waiting for.
Ben was in Dockers and a polo shirt and was carrying a beat-up leather briefcase in his right hand. He entered a restaurant called Ay Caramba, and Henri waited patiently until Ben emerged with his take-out Mexican dinner in a plastic bag.
Henri got out of his car, locked it, followed Ben across Traction right up the short flight of stairs to where Ben was fitting his key into the lock.
Henri called out, “Excuse me. Sorry. Mr. Hawkins?”
Ben turned, a look of mild alertness on his face.
Henri smiled and, pulling aside the front of his jacket, showed Ben his gun. He said, “I don't want to hurt you.”
Ben spoke in a voice that still reeked of cop. “I've got thirty-eight dollars on me. Take it. My wallet's in my back pocket.”
“You don't recognize me, do you?”
“Should I?”
“Think of me as your godfather, Ben,” Henri said, thickening his speech. “I'm gonna make you an offer -”
“I can't refuse? I know who you are. You're Marco.”
“Correct. You should invite me inside, my friend. We need to talk.”
Chapter 64
So, what the fuck is this, Marco?” I shouted. “Suddenly you have information about the McDanielses?”
Marco didn't answer my question. He didn't even flinch. He said, “I mean it, Ben,” and standing with his back to the street, he drew the gun from his waistband and leveled it at my gut. “Open the door.”
I couldn't move my feet, I was that stuck. I'd known Marco Benevenuto a bit, had spent time sitting next to him in a car, and now he'd taken off the chauffeur's cap, the mustache, put on a six-hundred-dollar jacket, and completely skunked me.
I was ashamed of myself and I was confused.
If I refused to let him into my building, would he shoot me? I couldn't know. And I was having the irrational thought that I should let him in.
My curiosity was overriding caution big-time, but I wanted to satisfy my curiosity with a gun in my hand. My well-oiled Beretta was in my nightstand, and I was confident that once I was inside with this character I could get my hands on it.
“You can put that thing away,” I said, shrugging when he gave me a bland, you-gotta-be-kidding smile. I opened the front door, and with the McDanielses' former driver right behind me, we climbed up three flights to the fourth floor.
This building was one of several former warehouses that had gone residential in the past ten years. I loved it here. One unit per floor, high ceilings, and thick walls. No nosy neighbors. No unwanted sounds.
I unlocked the heavy-duty dead bolts on my front door and let the man in. He locked the door behind us.
I put my briefcase down on the cement floor, said “Have a seat,” then headed into the kitchen area. Perfect host, I called out, “What can I get you to drink, Marco?”
He said from behind my shoulder, “Thanks anyway. I'll pass.”
I quashed my jump reflex, took an Orangina out of the fridge, and led the way back to the living room, sitting at one end of the leather sectional. My “guest” took the chair.
“Who are you really?” I asked this man who was now looking my place over, checking out the framed photos, the old newspapers in the corner, every title of every book. I had the sense that I was in the presence of a highly observant operator.
He finally set his Smith and Wesson down on my coffee table, ten feet from where I was sitting, out of my reach. He fished in his breast pocket, took out a business card held between his fingers, slid it across the glass table toward me.
I read the printed name, and my heart almost stopped.
I knew the card. I'd read it before: Charles Rollins. Photographer. Talk Weekly.
My mind was doing backflips. I imagined Marco without the mustache, and then envisioned Charles Rollins's half-seen face the night when Rosa Castro's twisted body had been brought up from the deep.
That night, when Rollins had given me his card, he'd been wearing a baseball cap and, maybe, shades. It had been another disguise.
The prickling at the back of my neck was telling me that the slick, good-looking guy sitting on my sofa had been this close to me the whole time I was in Hawaii. Almost from the moment I arrived.
I'd been completely unaware of him, but he'd been watching me.
Why?
Chapter 65
The man sitting in my favorite leather chair watched my face as I desperately tried to fit the pieces together.
I was remembering that day in Maui when the McDanielses had gone missing and Eddie Keola and I had tried to find Marco, the driver who didn't exist.
I remembered how after Julia Winkler's body was found in a hotel bed in Lanai, Amanda had tried to help me locate a tabloid paparazzo named Charles Rollins because he'd been the last person seen with Winkler.