Way Past Dead

Barnes stood in the doorway wearing a black satin bathrobe. Her jet-black hair splayed across her forehead. She looked tired and washed-out without all the makeup. Behind her, in a doorway inside, the blonde stood with her arms crossed.

“You have any idea how late it is?”

“Yeah, midnight.”

“What do you want?” she asked.

“We got to talk, Alvy. It’s about Mac.”

Her face tightened. “What about him?”

“I think he’s in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble.”

“Money trouble, for one thing. Maybe more.”

She chuckled. “Shoot, you’re crazy. Mac Ford’s got more money than Moses.”

“Then Moses went broke.”

She scowled at me. “It’s late and I’m sleepy. Call me Monday morning and we’ll set something up.”

Alvy pushed the door to, only I stuck my foot inside and stopped it cold. I’d never done that before. Made me feel like a film noir star. She turned and glared.

“You can go now, Harry.”

“Alvy, we really need to talk.”

“Monday, Harry,” she said, her voice angry. “Go.” She pushed again.

“I had lunch today with Agon Dumbler,” I whispered so only she could hear me.

What little color she had in her face faded away immediately. She looked behind to see if her roommate had heard me, then turned back.

“Oh, really?”

“Can we talk now?”

She rolled her lower lip out in a pout and bit it. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Alvy held the door open and let me in. I got my first good look at the roommate; she was taller than Alvy, although about the same age. All she had on was a robe as well. I wondered how many bedrooms the apartment had, then decided that was none of my business.

“Alvy, you okay?” she asked, glaring at me. “You need any help here?”

“No, Cheryl, I’m fine. He’s a friend,” she said, resigned.

“I’ll be in my bedroom,” she said. “You need anything, just yell.”

I smiled at Cheryl as she turned and left the room, a smile that was decidedly unreturned.

“Sit down,” Alvy said. I stepped through a curved plaster archway into a small living room. A music video played low on a television that sat against the front wall across from a Mission-style sofa. A couple of wood and cushion chairs complemented the room, which was done in pastel blues and dusty roses. Art prints covered the walls: Georgia O’Keeffe’s blossoming erotic petals, mostly, along with a stretched Navajo-print fabric in a box frame.

Alvy sat on the sofa; I sat in one of the chairs across from her and leaned forward.

“That fat bastard,” she said wearily as she settled into the couch. The bottom part of her robe shifted as she crossed her legs, exposing them most of the way to her waist. She was young, attractive. I tried not to notice. “He always told me I could count on two things: his discretion and his checks being good.”

“It’s not Agon’s fault,” I said. “We used to work together on the newspaper. I’ve known him for years and asked for a favor.”

“I hope I can count on your discretion. If Mac ever finds out I’ve been a source for Agon, he’ll kill me.”

Her words made a shiver run up the back of my neck. I tensed and crossed my legs, grabbing my right ankle in both hands.

“You can count on my discretion, as long as you help me.”

“What do you mean?” Her eyes widened. She sat up straighter, the robe opening a little wider at the neck. If this went any further, I was going to have to ask her to retie the damn thing.

“Alvy, I’ve been doing some digging into Mac Ford’s life. He’s in a lot of trouble.”

“You keep saying that, but it’s not true.”

“It is true. He’s in hock up the ya-ya, and it’s all about to fall in on him.”

“How do you know?” she said, her voice tense, strained.

“Because I do part-time work for the guy who just got hired to repossess his Rolls. I started digging, ran a credit report.”

Her jaw dropped. “You can do that?”

“He’s nearly bankrupt, Alvy. It’s all caving in on him.”

“This is awful. I mean, the company, all the employees.”

I nodded my head. “When he goes under, the company won’t be far behind.”

She bit her lower lip again and her eyes became heavy with tears. “We’re nearly there now,” she whispered.

“Really?” I asked. She got my attention with that one.

She shook her head. “Terrible cash-flow problems the last couple of months. But I thought it was normal business stuff. I never thought it was because …” Her voice dropped. “Mac’s driven a lot of business away the last year or so.”

“He has?”

She leaned back against the couch, the robe nearly open now. If she was aware of what she was doing, she sure hid it well. “Mac’s pretty crazy sometimes, the way he goes off the handle and stuff. I’ve heard him rant and rave.… God, sometimes it’s pretty scary. My roommate Cheryl’s a part-time grad student in psychology. She says he’s a rageaholic.” She smiled wanly. “Oh, God, I hate this.”

“I need to know two things, Alvy. First, did Mac have key-man insurance on Rebecca Gibson?”

“What?”

“You know, did he have a life-insurance policy on her?”

“I think so,” she said. “I mean, it’s standard. But I don’t know how much for. You have to understand, I’m Mac’s assistant. I did all of his correspondence and scheduling, but there was a lot of business he kept private. Contracts, for example. The exact terms of the contracts with all the artists are something he alone knew. He kept them in his private files. There’s a locked room off his office where they’re kept.”

“Okay, fine. If there was key-man insurance, I want to know how much there was.”

“It’s in those files. And I don’t have a key to the room.”

“I can take care of that,” I said. “The other thing I need to know is …” I hesitated, trying to figure out the best way to say it. “Well, you said Mac had lost clients in the last couple of years. Was Rebecca Gibson one of them?”

“Oh, no,” she snapped. “That’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’d have known. He’d have told me.”

“What if he didn’t want you to know?”

“Why would he not want me to know? That doesn’t make any sense.” She was almost angry now, but I didn’t care. I was getting tired myself, and very impatient.

“Because maybe he didn’t intend to tell anybody. Maybe he had a life-insurance policy naming him or the company as beneficiary as long as she was a client. Maybe he just figured something might happen to Rebecca Gibson, and he could collect the money rather than let her go. Then he’d not only have the insurance income, but a substantial income from being her artistic executor.”

She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God, you don’t think-” Her eyes grew even bigger, and bright with tears.

“If it plays out like I’ve described, Alvy, then Mac Ford had the best reason in the world to want Rebecca Gibson dead. He’s the only one who really benefits.”

“Oh no,” she cried, starting to weep. “That’s not possible.”

“And you’ve got to help me find out.”

She curled up in a ball, burying her head in her hands. “No …”