“Are you Virgil?” Frost asked.
“In the flesh,” the waiter replied. His voice was extravagantly gay. “I remember you.”
“Oh?”
“You’re Frankie’s cop, right?”
“You have a good memory,” Frost told him.
“I do for some people, and you’ve got that Justin T vibe going on. Very nice.” Virgil primped the gel in his hair and grinned. His dark eyes were accented by lavender eye shadow.
“Speaking of Dr. Stein, does she still come in here?” Frost asked.
“Frankie? Oh, sure, she’s in here a lot. Always alone, like you. Sad, sad, sad, you people. She’s not doing the memory thing anymore, did you know that?”
“I didn’t.”
“Would you believe she’s doing psychic research now? She’s on the hunt for what she calls sensitives. The people who can bend forks and do remote visualization and wild things like that. It’s very creepy.”
Frost smiled. “Well, her memory practice was pretty creepy, too.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Of course, there are some nights in my teens that I wouldn’t mind forgetting if you gave me a choice.” Virgil waved at a waiter who was carrying a plate of crab cakes and pointed at Frost. The plate arrived at the table. “So Lydia the Tattooed Lady says you were asking about Chester.”
“That’s right.”
“Are you a friend, or is this police business?”
“A little of both. I knew Chester back in high school, but mostly, I have some questions for him. I want to make sure he knows that a mutual friend of ours was killed. Chester and Denny were pretty close.”
Virgil’s eyebrows cocked. “Denny? Denny Clark? He’s dead?”
Frost leaned across the table. “He is. You knew Denny?”
“Oh yeah. He was a regular at the bar whenever Chester was here. Nice enough guy. One hell of a boat, too. I could get used to living like that.”
“You spent time on the Roughing It?”
“A million-dollar yacht on the bay? Are you kidding? I was all over that. Chester brought me along sometimes when Denny needed an extra hand for one of his gigs.”
Frost realized that he hadn’t met anyone yet who’d actually worked on one of Denny’s charters. “What were the gigs like? Who was there? How did it work?”
“Well, technically I’m not supposed to say anything,” Virgil replied with a roll of his eyes. “Can you believe they made us sign confidentiality agreements? Please, what kind of nonsense is that? But hey, I get it. Some of the guys looked like billionaires, and these were tripped-out parties. Plenty of eye candy. Plenty of nose candy, too. Denny was a generous host.”
“When was the last time you were on the boat?”
“Last summer. There was an overnighter in August. Super crowded, really glam. When Chester and I took a break, we had to squeeze into a bunk down with the engines. Not that I ever got much sleep with Chester around. Just a little recreation for an hour and then we were back at it. Most of the guests were up all night, too.”
“August,” Frost murmured. He dug out his phone and found the photograph taken on the Roughing It of Denny Clark, Belinda Drake, and Greg Howell. “Do you remember seeing these people on the boat? The ones with Denny?”
Virgil nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen the lady a few times, but I don’t know who she is. Stick-up-her-ass type. She never remembered me from cruise to cruise, and I’m pretty memorable, if I do say so myself.”
“What about the guy?”
“The silver fox? Greg Howell? Yeah, he was on the August cruise. Tipped me a hundred bucks with each drink and told me to split it with Chester. I got the feeling he wouldn’t have minded a little party with the two of us, but it never happened. His mind was elsewhere. He wasn’t exactly having a good time.”
“Oh? How so?”
“He kept getting into it with one of the other guests.”
“You mean like fighting?” Frost asked.
“No, it wasn’t physical. The two of them were just arguing, but it was pretty hot. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see one of them take a swing at the other.”
“What were they arguing about?”
Virgil shook his head. “No idea. I wasn’t being paid to listen, and I wouldn’t have cared anyway.”
“Did you recognize the guy that Howell was arguing with?” Frost asked. “Do you know who he was?”
“No idea. I’d never seen him before.”
“What did he look like?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Virgil said. “He wasn’t anything special to look at, but I guess it doesn’t matter when you’ve got that kind of money, right? I was more impressed with the girl he had with him. She was high class. If I had to guess, she was a pro.”
“A hooker?”
“Oh, honey, not just a hooker. She was the kind of girl who gets the big bucks to not look like a hooker. Chester and I sussed her out right away, but we were probably the only ones who knew.”
Frost scrolled to the picture of Fawn on his phone. “Is this the girl?”
Virgil leaned forward and whistled. “Definitely, that’s her. Don’t you love Indian women? They manage to look haughty and horny at the same time.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“Oh no. She wasn’t there to talk to the help.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about the guy she was with? The one who was arguing with Howell?”
“No, sorry. I might recognize him if you had a picture, though.”
Frost eased back in his chair. He took a bite of one of the crab cakes and then followed it with a swallow of Anchor Steam. “So why did Chester quit? The new bartender made it sound sudden.”
“Yeah, it was very sudden. And weird, too. Like I told Denny, Chester didn’t even come into the restaurant. He texted the manager on Thursday morning and said he was moving to Idaho. I mean, seriously? Are you kidding me? He said he wanted to be closer to his parents. I guess some people voluntarily choose to be in the same time zone as their parents, but not me.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Frost interrupted him. “You talked to Denny Clark? When?”
“Friday night. He called looking for Chester. I told him he was too late, that Chester had given us the heave-ho. I figured Denny had another gig that he needed help with. I was going to volunteer my services, but he got off the phone before I could say anything. I can’t believe he’s dead. That sucks. No more cocktails on the bay, I guess.”
“What time did he call?”
“Middle of the evening, I guess. Ten o’clock, maybe? It all runs together.”
“Did Denny say anything else?”
“Nope. He just said he needed to talk to Chester and that it was important.”
Frost was silent. The voice of the singer wrapped itself around his brain while he gathered his thoughts. Denny had called Mr. Jin on Friday night and left a message telling him to get out of his apartment. He’d called Chester, probably to give him a similar warning. Denny knew that something bad was happening. He knew the witnesses to the cruise were being eliminated and that he was next.
“When did you last see Chester?” Frost asked Virgil.
“Wednesday night. He did his shift at the bar like usual, and the two of us left together.”
“Did he mention anything about a gig on Denny’s boat on Tuesday?” Frost asked.
“Yeah, he told me about it last weekend. I asked if he could get me in, but he said it was a small party. Too bad. When I saw him on Wednesday, he flashed me the cash in his pocket. Must have been five thousand dollars. I mean, that’s crazy. I joked about it with him. I asked him how many bananas he had to peel to wind up with that kind of dough.”