I like women who make the first move, although this strategy, if it can be called a strategy, can result in long periods of celibacy.
Franklin’s office was no less grand than the building lobby except it lacked the two-story ceiling. The built-in front counter and desk combination was backed up by a lady with her hair stacked on top of her head and held there by a couple of those things that look like chopsticks. She was no less pretty than the lady in the elevator. Her outfit held no polka dots, but she did have cleavage. You know me well enough by now to realize that I would trade polka dots for cleavage any day. What man wouldn’t? I mean, I like Polka dots, but it’s no contest. After four years in a prison of men, I no longer took my appreciation for the female form for granted, honoring it at every sighting. I gave her my name and took a seat in the lobby hoping that Franklin and I would become great friends so I would have a reason to frequently visit this building. There are so many lovely ladies assaulting your senses at every turn. It’s like wanting an apple and waking in an orchard.
After a few minutes, Franklin came out to get me. I recognized him. He recognized me, although Charles had made that easier by calling ahead to remind the attorney that the general wanted everyone to fully cooperate with me. Keep no secrets from good old Uncle Matthew, especially anything you know that might shed light on who murdered Ileana Corrigan.
After chatting back and forth about everything and nothing, we took coffee in china cups brought in by the cleavage from the front counter. Styrofoam in this office would be a crime punishable by banishment from the ranks of the employed.
“Mr. Franklin, other than the general’s will, what legal matters do you handle for him?”
“I do the legal end of all his business dealings. Look over limited partnership agreements he might be considering investing in. The leases he uses for a small apartment building he owns near the Long Beach traffic circle. He sometimes buys or sells real estate and a few times he has invested in a couple of small businesses. The last six months or so, he’s divested himself of many of those holdings.”
“Getting his estate in order?”
“Something like that, yes.” After a pause he added, “The general’s instructions were that I was to give you a copy of his latest will. It has been mailed to you.”
I nodded while mouthing the words, “I got it.”
“The general asked that I cooperate with you. What is it you’d like to know?”
“Has he recently changed his will?”
“No. We prepared the current will about five years ago, perhaps a little farther back than that.”
“I’d like a copy of the former will, the one he changed from, also the one in effect at the time of the murder of Ileana Corrigan.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Kile. The general said to give you a copy of his will. Then again, the general said to cooperate fully with whatever you wanted to know. All right, his former will dates back fifteen years so that would have been before the Corrigan woman’s death. Do you want anything farther back than that? I think we had one, but it involved Benjamin, his son, before his death.”
“Skip that one. The one I have and the former one executed fifteen years ago will be fine.”
Franklin buzzed his receptionist, told her what he wanted and we chatted about the L.A. Lakers until she brought it in. I left a few minutes later, resisting a desire to approach Franklin’s receptionist. At this point it seemed a little too strong a mix of business and pleasure. The polka dot dress in the elevator was still in play, although what might come from that would be up to her.
Chapter 24
Whomp. Whomp. Whomp. I opened my eyes to see a guy in a ski mask slamming his fist into my navel; it didn’t fit. The blows had somehow brought me around. I hadn’t felt anything before that, but the way his chest was heaving he had been working hard on me long enough for sweat moons to have formed under his arms. I knew I had taken more than three blows. My feet were off the ground, my hands tied above my head. That allowed me to swing back and forth a bit with each blow. He timed his punches so I would swing forward to meet each of them.
The last thing I remembered, I walked out of Russell’s restaurant on Atlantic Avenue just north of Carson Street. I had parked in the back lot along the alley. Then I remembered my head being hit, after that I remember only now, now with nothing in between.
I was trussed up like a carcass from a hunt, and that’s likely how my friend in the ski mask saw me. My hands were tied, but they didn’t feel super tight. I fought against the binds without progress. A blow struck the left of my jaw. Thump. Then just below my right ear. Schwap. The meaty part of my face came into play for a while. After that, he zoned in just below the eye where body design forgot to leave any padding. Crunk. Crunk. The internal sounds of blows to the face varied according to bone density and tissue thickness. He was an equal opportunity thug as he worked one side of my head and then the other. The man was nasty and clearly enjoyed his work. I did not.
I thought about how I would enjoy returning his kindness, should events give me that opportunity. I looked around the room and saw no vise. I had always wondered how well a man would hold up with his testicles in a vise, his in particular.
Then he left the room. I was alone. I tried to take inventory. It appeared I was in an industrial building. One light was on, a lamp sitting on a metal bookcase against the wall near the single door through which my keeper had exited. There was also a big door, a loading type that had a chain pulley next to it for raising and lowering. The ceiling was dotted with hooks, big hooks. Meat hooks, or ones that looked like meat hooks, spaced evenly along a chain belt likely controlled by a switch somewhere that moved the entire row around the room. The whole set up looked like the thing on which your local dry cleaner hangs clothes. Only, if this had been a conveyor belt for a dry cleaner, it took some serious steroids. More like hooks which might move hanging car fenders through a paint booth, and I was suspended on one of them. The walls appeared to be metal, the floor concrete. I swung my legs up enough to see there was duct tape around my ankles, likely from the same roll used to tape my mouth. I wrenched my head back and saw that my hands were bound at the wrist with a white cord that had been looped above the hook.
Screeeeech, the metal door dragged on the cement floor. My keeper had come back. The only good thing, he still wore the ski mask. It was warm. He would be uncomfortable. If he planned to use me as a punching bag until I no longer offered entertainment, and then kill me, he would have left the mask off and gone for comfort. I imagined him ugly, as in if I had a dog that ugly I would shave his butt and teach him to walk backwards.
Thump. Thump. This visit he came to work on my stomach, chest, and kidneys. At least that’s where he started. Thump. Thwack. That last one landed on my chest, those sound different. More hollow. At least they do on the inside. Thump, the stomach. Thump again, then twice more. Thwack. Thwack. These two absorbed by the other side of my chest. Whatever he was being paid, he was earning it. Normally I respect a man who takes pride in his work, but not so much when I’m the work. The number of blows disappeared within the pain which had quit ebbing and flowing between blows and became a constant with periodic highlights. The repetition would have been monotonous, if not for the hurt. Instead, I focused on keeping count of the seconds my host spent with me. The last time we had been together a little over 800 seconds.