“All right, Lupe. That will be all.” She continued to look at him, unblinkingly, as the maid drifted away. The gray eyes were as cold the rest of her. She might have been a mature thirty-five or a face-lifted forty-five.
When they were alone, she said, “I’m Sharon Rossi,” without offering her hand.
“It’s your husband I wanted to see, Mrs. Rossi.”
“My husband left this morning on a business trip. Perhaps I can help you, Mr.-Spicer, is it? Court Spicer?”
“No. My name is Fallon.”
Her unpainted mouth shaped itself into a faint, humorless smile. “You told Lupe you were Court Spicer. A ploy to get yourself admitted?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What do you want with my husband?”
“To ask him about Spicer.”
“Why?”
“I think he may know the man, know where I can find him.”
“Why do you want to find him?”
“Personal reasons.”
“I see. Do you have identification, Mr. Fallon?”
He opened his wallet, slid out both his driver’s license and his Unidyne ID. She studied them for a full minute each, as if memorizing the data they contained, before she handed them back.
“Sit down,” she said then. “It’s cooler under the umbrella.” She waited until he was seated before sitting again herself. On the table next to a cloth pool bag was a pitcher of pale-green liquid with ice cubes and lime wedges floating in it. “Would you like a margarita?” indicating the pitcher. “They’re very good. Lupe’s special recipe.”
“Nothing, thanks.”
Sharon Rossi poured her glass three-quarters full, took a sip that lowered it to the halfway mark. Her movements were slow, deliberate, and for the first time, watching her, Fallon realized she was a little drunk.
“Now then,” she said, “I’d like to know exactly why you want to find Court Spicer.”
“First tell me this. Is Spicer a friend of your husband’s?”
“I highly doubt it.”
“Business acquaintance?”
“No.”
“Friend of yours?”
“Hardly.
“Then why did you agree to see me?”
“Your motives first, Mr. Fallon. Then we’ll get to mine.”
Lay it out for her? He couldn’t see any reason not to, up to a point. He said, “When I find him, I’ll also find his son.”
“His son.” The way she said the words told him she hadn’t known about the boy. “And why do you want to find his son?”
“Spicer kidnapped him four months ago, in San Diego. No one’s been able to find them since. The boy is eight and a half, asthmatic, and his mother is desperate to get him back.”
“I see. And what is your interest?”
“Let’s just say I’m a friend of the mother.”
“Your Unidyne card says you’re a security officer. Does that mean you have experience in detective work?”
“Not if you mean finding people. Military police for four years, private security work for the past dozen.”
“I see,” she said again. Another sip of her margarita. She seemed to be thawing a bit. Maybe it was the liquor, maybe what he’d told her. Or maybe a little of both. “What made you come here to ask about Court Spicer?”
“A jazz musician who knows Spicer saw him at a jam here last Sunday.”
“Ah, yes. David’s all-consuming passion for jazz.”
“Did you see Spicer then?”
“I saw him, yes.”
“Talk to him?”
“No. We have nothing to say to each other.”
“So he’s been here before. At other parties.”
“But not to listen to the music. On business, I think.”
“What kind of business?”
“My husband prefers not to tell me that.”
Fallon said, “Spicer was with a man called Bobby J. last Sunday.”
“Was he? I wouldn’t know.”
“The initial J. Bobby J.” Fallon described him. “Familiar?”
“Vaguely. I seem to recall the tattoo. But there were quite a lot of people here. There always are at one of my husband’s jams.”
“His jams?”
“Ours,” she amended, but a faint resentment lingered in her voice. David Rossi was the jazz buff, not his wife.
“Was Spicer playing at the Sunday jam?”
“No. He wasn’t a spectator either. He and my husband spent some time together in David’s study.”
“Any idea why?”
“No, but I’d like to know. I’d very much like to know.” Sharon Rossi drank again before she added, “My motives now, Mr. Fallon.”
He waited.
“Do you know anything about my husband?”
“Not much, no.”
“He’s usually very sure of himself. I’ve never known him to be afraid of anything or anyone-except Court Spicer.”
“How do you mean, afraid?”
“Just that. Nervous, on edge-afraid. Every time Spicer has come here, David has looked and acted the same, during and afterward.” She made a low, mirthless chuckling sound. “It’s almost Pavlovian, the effect that man has on him. And I haven’t a clue why. The one time I asked him about Spicer, he told me to mind my own damn business.”
Fallon asked, “How long has he known Spicer?”
“I’m not sure. A while.”
“More than three years?”
“At least that long.”
“How often does Spicer show up here?”
“Not often. And when he does, judging from David’s reaction, it’s without an invitation.”
“I wonder if your husband knows where he’s living now.”
“He might. It would depend on their business, wouldn’t you say?”
“What do you think that business is?”
She poured her glass full again, drank deeply this time. The thaw was complete now; there was high color in her cheeks, a faint glaze on her eyes. She was the type of drinker who knew her limits and seldom exceeded them, but she seemed to feel she had cause today. Dutch courage for what she was about to reveal.
“I think Court Spicer has some sort of hold on my husband,” she said. “I think he comes here for money, large amounts of money.”
“Blackmail?”
“Or extortion. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but David keeps a large sum of cash in his safe. The morning after the last jam, I opened the safe and there was quite a bit less than there should have been.”
“How much less?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
Spicer’s outside source of income-not much doubt of that now. He must have stumbled onto something three years ago, something David Rossi didn’t want revealed, and been using it to bleed him ever since.
Fallon asked, “So you thought I was Spicer coming back for more. What were you planning to do?”
“Confront him.”
“Just like that?”
“No.” She reached into the pool bag, came out with nickel-plate and pearl shining in her hand. “With leverage.”
It wasn’t much of a gun. A.32-caliber automatic slightly larger than her palm. Lethal enough at close range, but unreliable at any distance.
“Suppose he wasn’t intimidated,” Fallon said. “What would you have done then?”
“Would I have shot him? I don’t know, I might have.”
“It takes a lot of courage to shoot a man.”
“Or a lot of provocation. When it comes to protecting my nest, I’m as much of an animal as any wild thing.”
Fallon believed it. He said, “Why tell me all this, Mrs. Rossi? It’s personal and you don’t know me, you didn’t even know I existed until a few minutes ago.”
“Isn’t it obvious? You have a good reason for finding Court Spicer and you seem determined to do so. When you do, you’ll be in a position to find out what hold he has on my husband. And to recover anything in his possession that might be… shall we say embarrassing?”
Fallon said nothing.
“The idea doesn’t appeal to you? You’re big and strong, Spicer is small and soft. You shouldn’t have any difficulty.”
Still didn’t say anything.