'I know I'm not welcome in this,' I said. 'But it was my case first, and I can still serve a purpose.'
'Yeah, I know. You just slapped my lieutenant in the face with it.'
A hint of a smile pulled at his mouth. His approval meant too much to me.
'Subtlety is overrated and it takes too long,' I said. 'We don't have time to fuck around.'
I took the cigarette for one last puff, my lips touching where his had been. I didn't want to let myself think there was anything erotic in that, but of course there was, and Landry knew it too. Our gazes locked and held, a current running between us.
'I've got to go,' I said, backing down the sidewalk.
Landry stayed where he was. 'What if Dugan wants you back inside?'
'He knows where I'm going. He can come and buy me a drink.'
He shook his head in wonder. 'You're something, Estes.'
'Just trying to survive,' I said as I turned and went to my car.
As I pulled around past the sidewalk on my way out of the lot, my headlights flashed on Weiss standing in the doorway to the building. Little prick. I figured he would make trouble for Landry sharing his smoke with me, but that was Landry's business. I had problems of my own. I had a date with a killer.
38
Women. Stupid, ungrateful bitches. Van Zandt spent most of his life courting them, flattering them-no matter what they looked like-carting them around to look at horses, giving his advice and counsel. They needed him to tell them what to do, what to think, what to buy. And were they grateful? No. Most of them were selfish and silly and didn't have a brain in their heads. They deserved to be cheated. They deserved whatever happened to them.
He thought of Elle. He still thought of her by that name, even though he knew it to be false. She was not 'most women.' She was clever and devious and bold. She thought with the hard logic of a man, but with a woman's slyness and sexuality. He found that exciting, challenging. A game worth playing.
And she was right: there was nothing she could do to hurt him. There was no evidence against him, therefore he was an innocent man.
He smiled at that, feeling happy and clever and superior.
He snatched up his cell phone, punched the speed-dial number for the town house, and listened to it ring unanswered on the other end. His mood spiraled back down. Another ring and he would get the machine. He didn't want to speak to a fucking machine. Where the hell was Lorinda? Off somewhere with that obnoxious dog of hers. Horrible, flea-ridden beast.
The machine picked up and he left a curt message for her to meet him at The Players later.
Angry now, he ended the call and threw the phone onto the passenger's seat of the cheap piece-of-shit car Lorinda had given him to drive. He hadn't wanted to tolerate the police following him around. Following him for no good reason, he had told her. He was the innocent victim of police harassment. She had believed him, of course, despite the fact that she had seen the bloody shirt. He had excused that away, and she had believed him in that too.
Stupid cow. Why she didn't rent a better car when she traveled was beyond him. Lorinda had money she had inherited from her family in Virginia. Tomas had taken it upon himself to do the research. But she wasted it on charities for abandoned dogs and broken-down horses, instead of using it for herself. She lived like a gypsy on the farm that had belonged to her grandmother, renting out the grand plantation house and living herself-with a pack of dogs and cats-in an old clapboard farmhouse that she never cleaned.
Tomas had told her she needed to get a face-lift and a boob job, and fix herself up or she would never get a rich husband. She laughed and asked him why she should get another husband when she had Tomas to look out for her best interests.
Stupid creature.
Women. The bane of his existence.
He drove east on Southern Boulevard, thinking about the woman he was to meet. She thought she could blackmail him. She told him she knew all about the dead girl, which, of course, she did not. But she had already become a problem before that, because of the lies she told the Americans about him. Bitter, vindictive cunt. That was the Russians. A more vicious race of people had never lived.
The death of this one would be, of course, the fault of Sasha Kulak. Tomas had taken her in, given her a roof over her head, a job, an opportunity to learn from him and take advantage of his vast knowledge-in the barn and in the bedroom.
She should have worshiped him. She should have wanted to please and service him. She should have thanked him. Instead, she had stolen from him and stabbed him in the back and spread stories about him.
He had, at great cost to himself, called any clients she might have known, might have contacted after she had left him, to warn them this girl was trouble, that she was a thief and probably on drugs; to tell them of course he hadn't done anything wrong.
And now he had to deal with her friend, Avadon's Russian girl. Avadon should have fired her on the spot Friday when the girl had tried to kill him in Avadon's own stable. Incredible what these Americans would tolerate.
He'd had his fill of Florida. He was ready to go back to Belgium. He had a flight already lined up. A cargo plane traveling to Brussels with a load of horses. Going as a groom, he never had to pay. One more day he would do business here, showing everyone he had nothing to hide, no reason to worry about the police. Then he would return to Europe for a time, and come back when people had better things to gossip about than him.
He slowed the car as he looked for the sign. He had suggested meeting at the back of the show grounds, but the girl had refused, insisting on a public place. This was the place she had chosen: Magda's-a shitty bar in an industrial part of West Palm Beach. A clapboard building that even in the dark looked as if it needed paint and had termites.
Van Zandt pulled in the drive alongside the bar and drove around back to find a parking place.
He would find the girl in the bar, buy her a drink. When she wasn't looking, he would slip her the drug. It was a simple thing. They would talk, he would try to assure her there had been a misunderstanding about Sasha. The drug would start to take effect. When the moment was right and she was incapable of protest, he would assist her outside.
She would appear to be drunk. He would put her in the car and drive away to a place where he could kill her and dispose of her body.
He found a spot to park, backing in along a chain-link fence that separated the bar's property from an auto salvage yard. The perfect place. Out of sight. This problem would be dealt with quickly and neatly, and then he would go to The Players to have a drink with Elena Estes.
I went into The Players alone. If Van Zandt showed with Lorinda Carlton, I would make Sean's excuses, but I wouldn't drag Sean any further into the drama than I already had.
The club was busy. Celebrants from the showring and losers drowning their sorrows. Most stables are closed on Mondays so everyone can recuperate from the weekend's competition. No reason to go to bed early on Sunday.
The place was a stage with a hundred players. Women showing off the latest in Palm Beach fashions and the newest plastic surgery. Swarthy polo players from South America hitting on every rich thing in a skirt. Minor celebs in town for a long weekend. Saudi Arabian royalty. Every pair of eyes in the place sliding to the next most promising conversation partner in the room.
I found a small table in the corner of the bar and settled in with my back to the wall and a view of the room. I ordered tonic and lime and fended off an ex-baseball star who wanted to know if he knew me.
'No,' I said, amused he had singled me out. 'And you don't want to.'
'Why is that?'
'Because I'm nothing but trouble.'
He slid into the other chair and leaned across the table. His smile had lit up many an ad for cheap long
