“That’s absolutely correct, Mrs…” I clicked off the television before I could hear how much money she had won and picked up the ringing phone at the side of my bed.
It was the polite, slightly Southern accented voice of FBI agent Luther Waldron, greeting me with a “Hello, Alex, I never thought I’d find you at home tonight.” Well, I might ask, why did you bother to call me here then? But I didn’t.
“Hi, Luther. I’m just on my way out the door.”
“Wanted to let you know I’m in town. I’ve arranged for some of Isabella’s disgruntled suitors to be here for interviews.”
“Yes, I’ve heard.” as “ Course none of them look quite as likely as that character you had yourself mixed up with. That was certainly a kc shocker. Next time you get serious with somebody, you let me help you with a little background check, young lady.”
I’ll just ignore that one for the moment.
“How can I help you, Luther?”
“Just thought you’d like to know I was in on this. Your Homicide guys may do fine with street criminals, but I’m not sure they know how to carry off the interrogation of Hollywood types, businessmen. You know, the more intelligent kind of suspect. I’m staying right on top of it.
“Couple of other items. Just tried to pass them along to Chapman, but he’s out in the field. I’ll brief him when I see him tomorrow.”
“What are they?”
“Well, for one thing, Burrell’s back into the ice. Cocaine.
We’ve got a snitch in Boston who says his main man made a delivery to Burrell’s hotel room the same day Isabella checked out. You add that to his secret trip to the Vineyard, spice it up with his rage at her, and who knows what he did, without ever planning it in advance. We’ll be talking to him before the end of the week, and I hear he’s mighty nervous already.“
“What else?”
“One of our L.A. agents tracked down the local psychiatrists whose names were on the pill bottles in Isabella’s bathroom. Three of them had been fired over the years for not giving her the ups and downs she wanted. The current guy seems pretty cool, but he’s pulling all kinds of patient-doctor privilege stuff now. You know, he can’t divulge things Isabella said to him because she was his patient. Claims he has no information about her that has anything to do with the murder anyway. Wants to confer with his lawyer first to find out, legally, whether the privilege survives her death. How can he know what’s relevant to her murder without knowing half the details we know? The only thing he’d give up was that the lover she was talking to him about – sorry-, but we figure that’s Segal he’d had an experience with a stalker, too. That’s one of the reasons she was so comfortable with him. The shrink’ll talk about Segal says that he wasn’t the patient, so there’s no privilege with whatever things he told Isabella. He never met with Segal directly -just says Lascar told him Segal had also been stalked by some woman while he was running for political office. Did you know about that?”
“Yeah, we did.”
“We’ll keep working the psychiatrist, Alex.”
“Okay, Luther. I’ve got to run.”
“Hey, got a couple of jokes for you, Alex. Heard them at Quantico the other day right up your line of work, so I saved them for you.”
The guy just doesn’t get it, I guess.
“Anybody down there tell you the one about FBI agents about why each male agent has a hole in the end of his penis?” I asked him, cutting him off at the pass, before he had another chance to offend me.
“No,” he replied cautiously, ‘haven’t heard it yet.“
“So oxygen can get to their brains.” Have a nice day, Luther.
“See you tomorrow.”
I put out my lights and locked the door behind me as I went off to meet one more of the men who might have had a motive to take the life of Isabella Lascar.
CHAPTER 7
I walked into Rao’s a few minutes before eight, while Tina Turner was asking the gathering of diners what love has to do with it, and reminding me once again, as if the lessons of the last week had not been enough, that it was a secondhand emotion. There was no sign of the Gorilla, but I got a warm hello from Joey Palomino when I reintroduced myself to him and said I was happy to wait at the bar. I walked over and sat on one of the handful of stools, next to a very attractive black woman Maureen Forester who was sipping white wine, while her date Mike Chapman was working on what looked like a vodka and tonic.
The bartender was opening a bottle of wine at Woody Allen’s booth, so I began to make small talk with the couple sitting beside me at the bar while I waited for him to return to take my order.
I’ll bet you twenty dollars you don’t know the answer to tonight’s question,“ I said, leaning across Maureen and grinning at Mike.
“What’s the subject?”
“World geography.”
“You’re on.” n I knew I had a winner. I gave Mike the final answer, but before I could sit up straight, he came back at me with s Bayeux.
“What’d you do, call your mother?” Mike’s widowed mother was glued to the television most of the day and night in her little condo in Bay Ridge, and she was his shill when he couldn’t count on seeing the show.
“No. I swear to God, that was an easy one.” “Bullshit. How’d you know?” I couldn’t believe it. And Luther’s worried that Mike’s too unsophisticated to interview a cokehead producer, an illiterate stunt man and a cheating businessman.
He laughed.
“I was there in ‘94 fiftieth anniversary of D-Day. Bayeux was the first French city liberated by the Allies. June 8, 1944.” Mike and his military history.
“Went with my uncle Brendan, who landed with the invasion force, remember? The only other thing in town is the tapestry museum. Had to take Aunt Eunice through it twice. Relax, blondie, you can pay up tomorrow.”
Vie came back behind the bar, shook my hand, told me he was sorry he couldn’t remember my name but he was dead straight on the drink order. Maureen and I pretended to become acquainted while I waited for my host to show up. She complimented my outfit and thanked me, under her breath, for getting her out of the fleabag hotel where we stashed our recalcitrant witnesses during trials.
We three chatted about the music, the changing weather, and what the prospects were for the Knicks this season.
About ten minutes later the door pushed open and Johnny Garelli stood in the frame, striking a pose and waiting to be fussed over by Joey. He was big and solid, as good-looking as the magazine photos, but with the most awful hair plugs dotting the front half of his head.
“ Jesus, Mo, would you take a look at those implants?
How’d she ever get in bed with that guy?“
“Now, now, now, Alex. You know better than that. A man’s hair is like his penis they get very sensitive about comments like that. I’ve had at least three domestics’ men who killed their wives ‘caused by fighting over that kind of insult about hair. Be nice to the man.”
Joey and Johnny finished embracing each other, and I walked toward Garelli as Joey pointed in my direction. He had put us in the second booth Woody had the best table, of course and Johnny gave me the once-over as we made our way to our seats. I didn’t think I was exactly his type, but at least my hair was my own.
“Nice of you to call. How’d you know I was in town?”
“Actually, one of the cops told me, when he was talking to me this morning. I’ve been interviewed by them a lot, too.”
“I forgot what you do. Are you in soaps? Acting?”
