“Have you located Mr. Jin?” she asked him, as if he hadn’t said a thing.
“Not yet.”
“That’s priority one.”
“I know that,” he replied icily. “Mr. Jin disappeared before I was brought in. It’s not my fault.”
“Regardless, it’s essential that we find him before Easton does. He’s the only one left who can talk.”
“I have a plan,” the man said. “I’ll get it done.”
“See that you do.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s all,” the woman replied.
Geary was about to hang up, but he decided to push his luck. “Make sure you tell Lombard what I said. Easton is a wild card we weren’t anticipating. As long as he’s alive, we have a problem.”
12
Frost awoke to the ringing of his phone. The clock on the wall told him it was already eight o’clock on Sunday morning. He’d slept late and badly. On the way back from Berkeley, he’d dropped Tabby at her car in SoMa, and then rather than going home, he’d driven out to Ocean Beach to sit by the waves crashing in from the Pacific. Tabby was still on his mind. By the time he got back to Russian Hill and fell into a restless sleep, it was almost two.
He climbed off the sofa, dislodging Shack from the small of his back. He was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. He grabbed his phone from the coffee table and saw no number on the caller ID. He tried to shake the dreams out of his head and sound conscious as he said hello.
“Inspector Easton?” a woman greeted him with a cool, professional voice.
“Yes.”
“I understand you’d like to talk to me,” she said.
Frost blinked. “I’m sorry, who is this?”
“My name is Belinda Drake.”
He remembered now. She was the mystery woman in the photograph with Denny Clark and Greg Howell. “Ms. Drake, yes, you’re right. I do want to talk to you.”
“I don’t typically take meetings with people I don’t know, but I understand you’re a friend of Herb’s.”
“I am.”
“Well, you can have ten minutes.”
“Where should we meet?”
“I’ll send a car for you,” Drake told him. “Be ready in half an hour.”
“All right. My address is—”
“I already know the address,” Drake replied, cutting him off. She hung up without another word.
Frost jogged upstairs and woke himself up with a lukewarm shower. He went into his closet to pick his wardrobe for the meeting. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn a suit, but something told him that Belinda Drake was accustomed to dealing with lawyers and hedge-fund managers who still wore ties. He pulled the one nice suit he owned off a hanger. It was wool, navy, and very expensive. He’d bought it for a gala retirement party five years earlier for the former police chief. He put it on and matched it with an Italian silk tie that looked as lonely in his closet as his suit did.
Ms. Drake’s car was prompt to the minute. Half an hour after her call, a black Lincoln arrived to pick him up at the dead end of Green Street. A cup of black Starbucks Blonde Roast was waiting for him in the back seat. So was an array of Danish and croissant muffins from his favorite bakery in the Tenderloin. The television mounted in the rear seat was tuned to the History channel, which Frost watched almost exclusively if he ever turned on the TV. The preparations all sent a message: Belinda Drake had done her homework on him.
Meanwhile, he knew almost nothing about her.
The town car cruised through the weekend morning streets, and he didn’t object to the luxury ride. He drank coffee. He ate a grapefruit-ginger cruffin. The car headed south through Chinatown into the financial district, which was like a ghost town. The praying in this part of the city took place at the market’s opening bell, not on church Sundays. Near the Hilton, they turned off Kearny Street into a narrow alley and then again into the underground parking lot of a high-rise apartment building. The car whisked him to a remote section of the lot where there was a lobby for a private elevator. The driver used a key card to swipe him inside.
“Someone will meet you at the top,” the driver told him. He hadn’t said another word since they’d left Russian Hill.
Frost took the elevator. As promised, an Asian butler met him where the elevator opened into the living room of a penthouse suite. The butler handed him more coffee and offered him another pastry, which he declined, and then the man led him through the condominium to an outside balcony thirty stories in the air, with a view immediately across the street to the pyramid of the Transamerica building. Up here, the tower appeared to float in the sky. The wind was strong, and a seagull glided on the breeze.
Belinda Drake waited for him.
“I hope you don’t mind heights,” she said.
Frost wandered to the balcony railing, looked straight down, and then took a seat across from her at the glass table. “I don’t.”
Drake wore a beret over her blond hair and a casual outfit that consisted of tight stonewashed jeans, heels, a white T-shirt decorated with a tiger, and a red leather jacket studded with zippers. She looked him up and down with an approving eye, in a way that made Frost think he’d chosen well in selecting the navy suit for the meeting. She had a ceramic teapot in front of her, a plate of multicolored macarons, and an iPad propped on an acrylic stand. She took pointed note of the time on her watch, as if making sure he knew that the clock was ticking. A ten-minute meeting with this woman lasted exactly ten minutes.
“So,” she said. “Homicide Inspector Frost Easton. What can I do for you?”
“Herb says you’re a matchmaker,” Frost said. “You bring powerful people together.”
“You could say that. Do you want to be introduced to someone?”
“Actually, I’d like to know how this man fit into your matchmaking program,” Frost replied. He showed her the photograph taken aboard the Roughing It, and he watched her carefully as she studied the picture. With an experienced professional like Drake, he suspected that her only reaction would be in ways she couldn’t hide. The widening of her pupils. The flicker of her eyelids. The tremble of her fingers. In this case, she glanced at the picture, looked away, and took a sip of tea without any change of expression.
“I assume you’re talking about Denny Clark,” she said.
“I am.”
“I was very sorry to hear about Denny. I liked him. His death was a shock.”
“Can you tell me about the cruise where this photo was taken?” Frost asked. “Who else was there? What was it about?”
“Why would that matter to you?” she asked.
“Denny Clark and Greg Howell were both on the boat. The cruise seems to be the only connection between them. Now they’re both dead.”
“Greg had a heart attack. That’s hardly suspicious, is it?”
“I don’t know. Is it?”
A puzzled little furrow came and went on Drake’s forehead. “What a strange thing to say.”
“Can you think of anything that happened on that cruise that could be connected to Denny’s murder?”
“Of course not. It was months ago.”
“I’d like to talk to the other guests who were on board. Maybe they remember something.”
Drake shook her head dismissively. “I’m sorry, I don’t tell anyone about the work I do or the people I work with. I’m extremely sensitive to the confidentiality of my clients. That’s how I stay in business. Let’s move on, shall we?”
“Okay,” Frost said. “Tell me more about your relationship with Denny Clark.”
“I often booked private charters on Denny’s boat. In fact, I was the one who suggested the charter business to Denny and helped him arrange financing to acquire the Roughing It. I wanted a luxury resource at my disposal for clients. Denny understood what I needed, including my demand for absolute discretion. He knew the importance of delivering whatever I wanted for my clients without asking questions.”