“All I can say is that I’ve never robbed anybody. And I like to think that if I were to start now, I’d be smart enough not to pick the kind of businessman who has leg-breakers on the payroll. The reason I was spending cash when you met me was that I had pretty much maxed out my credit cards moving here from South Carolina, but I had closed my bank accounts there and had taken a lot of it in cash.”
She stared into his eyes with determination. “I’m going to do my best to undo this,” she said. “I’ve got to make it right.”
“I didn’t come here to get you to do anything. In fact, if gangsters could be talked out of what they wanted to do, we wouldn’t need police. I just wanted you to know why I hadn’t called.”
“I usually leave at eight-fifteen—ten minutes from now, but I don’t care if I’m late for work. I’ll call these people and tell them they’re wrong.”
“Staying home to do that isn’t necessary. These guys are all-night people. You can’t call them up at eight- fifteen A.M. and expect them to have a rational conversation. They don’t get up before noon.”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “Of course. That makes sense.”
“Please. Go to work. If you want to call later and plant some doubt in their heads about me, that would be all to the good. But I’m here because I didn’t want to leave you under the impression that I was a robber.”
“No,” she said. “I never thought you were. I didn’t think anybody was talking about robbers when I mentioned your name. All I can do now is try to fix it.”
He moved to her door. “I’d better be going now. You need to go to work, and it’s best if I do all my errands in the morning before those guys wake up.” He grasped the doorknob and gave a little wave.
“Call me?” she said.
“I’ll try.”
As he walked out to the front door, he wondered whether he had overdone it at the end. Playing on someone’s guilt was a delicate thing. Just going a tiny bit too far would make her sympathy vanish. He should have sounded more eager to call her. She had harmed him, and any observation that proved he had deserved it would be a reason not to bother to make up for it. He hurried back to her door before it closed. “What I mean is, I’d absolutely like to see you the minute I’m sure that it won’t put you in danger.”
He felt better as he went out the main door at the foyer. Guilt only worked if it came from her own sense of responsibility. He walked back to his car studying the apartment complex. He searched for places where a man could watch Sonia Rivers’s apartment without being noticed. He had checked the area from his car when he had arrived, just to be sure that one of Kapak’s men had not anticipated that he might visit. But the view from the sidewalk was much closer and more complete. He could see the places where a man on foot could lurk. He noted the four most likely without changing his pace.
Carver got into his car and drove. The other girl the Gaffneys said had mentioned his name was Sandy Belknap. He didn’t know her as well as Sonia, even though he’d seen her on more occasions. Their talk had always been breezy and superficial. He knew that she worked at a Toyota dealership on the way to the airport and lived somewhere in Manhattan Beach. He stopped at a gas station that had a pay phone. Her number was unlisted, but he found the right number for the Toyota lot and dialed.
“My name is Joe Carver. I’m trying to reach Sandy Belknap. Is she in this morning?”
“No, I’m afraid she’s not coming in today.”
“I wonder if you could possibly give me her number.” He knew the receptionist would never do it, but he also knew that salespeople didn’t want to miss calls.
“Please hold and I’ll see if I can connect you to her personal number.”
There was a series of clicks and dead seconds, and then he heard a ring signal. The phone was snatched up immediately. “Hello? Joe?” It was Sandy Belknap’s voice, but it sounded oddly distant and unclear.
“Hi,” he said.
“This is a surprise,” she said. “I haven’t seen you around lately. What have you been up to?”
“Do you have me on the speaker?”
“I’m sorry. Most people don’t notice, but it keeps my hands free. I was just getting dressed.”
“Just give me a second to picture that.”
She laughed. “It’s okay, but only if you have me wearing a nun’s habit or a space suit.”
“That ruined the moment.”
“It’s supposed to. So what’s up? We’ve missed you at the clubs.”
“Who’s the rest of ‘we’?”
“The girls. Nobody’s that fun lately. That’s the consensus.” There was a hum in the background, as though someone were whispering to her.
“Is somebody there?”
She didn’t answer directly, but he heard a distinct irritation in her voice. “Just a sec. Let me turn the TV off.” He heard a change in the sound as she turned off the speaker and picked up the phone. “Hi. Still with me?”
“Yes,” he said. “Let me tell you the reason I called. Since the last time I ran into you, I’ve been having trouble. There’s a powerful man named Manco Kapak. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him.”
“Manco Kapak? No. What an odd name.”
“He owns Wash, on Hollywood Boulevard, and a couple of strip clubs in the Valley.”
“That’s who owns Wash?”
“Yep. What happened was that he was out late depositing money in his bank’s night drop, and a guy robbed him at gunpoint. He got mad. He sent a few of his goons out to find the robber. So they asked a lot of people— mostly girls in clubs—if they knew somebody who had just moved here and was spending a lot of cash. I think you might have seen two of them. They’re both tall, with red hair.”
“Oh my God.” It was quiet, just above a whisper.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. Just what you’re saying. It’s so scary. They think you did it?”
“Yes. I’ve been trying to find out how they even heard I existed.”
“I … can’t imagine.”
“It doesn’t matter how, I guess. I just wanted to call you in case the rumor reached you. I’ve never robbed anyone in my life. It’s true I was new in town when I met you, and I guess I was spending more cash than I usually would, so it might seem odd to people who didn’t know me. I had just flown in and paid to have my furniture shipped, and put a lot of other charges on my credit cards. But I had cash from closing my bank accounts in the East.”
“Look, Joe. We really should talk.”
It was the kind of statement he had been waiting for to confirm his suspicion. Next she would say she wanted to meet him someplace at a particular time to discuss the past relationship they’d never had and the future that would never come. “That’s really all I wanted to say. I’m on a pay phone and I’m out of change. If you hear any of those rumors, please tell people I’m not a thief, I’m a mass murderer. That way they won’t want to get near me.”
“Oh, I will. I promise.”
It took Sonia Rivers three calls before she got the right number for Manco Kapak’s house. It rang a few times, and then a man’s voice came on. “Mr. Kapak’s residence.”
“May I speak to Mr. Kapak, please?”
“I’m sorry, miss, but Mr. Kapak isn’t at home right now. Can I take a message?”
“My name is Sonia Rivers. I think there’s been a misunderstanding, and I’d like to correct it as soon as I can.”
“My name is Richard Spence. I’m Mr. Kapak’s assistant. If you tell me, I’ll be sure your message gets to him as soon as possible.”
Sonia hesitated for a second or two, until she felt the awkwardness increasing. She had to talk or hang up. “A month ago, two men who work for Mr. Kapak began talking to me while I was waiting to get into a concert. One of them asked if I happened to know a man who was new in town and who had been in clubs spending a lot of cash. I thought—I don’t know exactly what I thought—maybe this was somebody they knew and they were going to tell me something funny about him, or they had met a man like that but didn’t know his name, or something. So I said the
