'Maybe he had another name?' she asked. 'Talked with a Texas drawl, soft-spoken?'
'No. Y'all.'
Nikki took back the photo he was holding out to her. 'Did you employ a firm called Hard Line Security for your inquiry?'
He smiled. 'With all due respect, Detective, they don't sound expensive enough to be a firm I would hire.' Since it was past noon and they were on the East Side, Rook said lunch was on him at E.A.T. up near 80th and Madison. After she ordered her spinach and chevre salad and he put in for a meat loaf sandwich, Nikki said, 'So you're still not going to talk about it?'
He feigned innocence. 'Still not going to talk about what?'
She mocked him: 'What? What?' Her iced tea arrived and she peeled the straw wrapper thoughtfully. 'Come on, seriously, it's me. You can tell me.'
'I'll tell you what… This table is wobbly.' He grabbed a sugar packet and ducked under the table, then came up seconds later, testing the adjustment. 'Better?'
'Now I understand why you were so hesitant about going with me to the publisher this morning.' He shrugged, so she pressed. 'Come on. I promise not to judge. Have you seriously been trying to break in as a romance fiction writer?'
'Trying to break in?' He cocked his head and grinned. 'Trying? Lady, I am in. I am so in.'
'OK… how are you in? I've never seen one of your books. I've even Googled your name.'
'For shame,' he said. 'OK, here's the deal. It's not uncommon for magazine writers to supplement their income. Some teach, some rob banks, some do a little ghostwriting here and there. I do mine there.'
'At Ardor Books?'
'Yes.'
'You write bodice rippers?'
'Romance fiction, please. You might say I make some pretty handy side money as one of their authors.'
'I know 'romance fiction' a little bit. What name do you use? Are you Rex Monteeth, Victor Blessing?' She paused and pointed at him. 'You're not Andre Falcon, are you?'
Rook leaned forward and beckoned her closer. After a glance side to side at the other tables, he whispered, 'Victoria St. Clair.'
Nikki shrieked a laugh, causing every head in the place to turn. 'Oh, my God! You're Victoria St. Clair?!!'
He hung his head. 'It's nice to see that you're not judging.'
'You? Victoria St. Clair?'
'No judging here. This is more like straight to the execution.'
'Rook, come on. This is big. I've read Victoria St. Clair. There's nothing to be ashamed of.' And then she laughed, but covered her mouth with her hand, stopping herself. 'Sorry, sorry. I was just thinking about what you said the other day about everybody having a secret life. But you. You're an A-list magazine writer, a war correspondent, you've got two Pulitzers… and you're Victoria St. Clair? This is so… I dunno… beyond secret.'
Rook turned to the restaurant, to see all the faces staring, and said, 'Not so much anymore.' Roach entered the law offices of Ronnie Strong on a floor below the DMV in Herald Square, and both detectives felt as if they had walked into the waiting room of an orthopedic practice. A woman with both hands fully casted so that only the tips of her fingers were visible was dictating instructions to a teenage boy, probably her son, who was helping her fill out an intake form. A man in a wheelchair with no visible injury also completed paperwork. A strapping construction worker whose chair was flanked by two Gristedes bags of receipts and paperwork gave them a sharp look and said, 'He ain't here, fellas.'
The receptionist was a very pleasant woman in a conservative suit but with a fish hook in her lip. 'Gentlemen, have you been done wrong?'
Ochoa turned so he wouldn't laugh and muttered to Raley, 'Hell, it's been a while since I was even done.'
Raley maintained his composure and asked to see Mr. Strong. The receptionist said he was out of the office, making a new series of commercials, and that they could come back tomorrow. Raley flashed his tin and got the address of the studio.
It wasn't much of a surprise to Roach that Ronnie Strong, Esq., was not in his law offices that day. The joke in the legal profession was that Ronnie Strong might have passed the bar, but he couldn't pass a TV camera.
The production facility he used was a graffitied brick warehouse abutting a Chinese import distribution center in Brooklyn. Situated halfway between the old Navy Yard and the Williamsburg Bridge, it wasn't exactly Hollywood, but then Ronnie Strong wasn't exactly an attorney.
There was nobody stopping Raley and Ochoa, so they just walked in. The front office was empty and smelling of coffee and cigarette smoke that had fused with the water-stained Tahitian-themed wallpaper. Raley called a 'Hello?' but when nobody responded, they followed the short hallway to the blaring sound of the same jingle the squad had recited that morning. 'Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong! Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong! Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong!'
The door to the stage was wide open. Clearly, these were no sticklers for sound aesthetics. When the detectives walked in, they both took a quick step back. The studio was so small, they were afraid they were going to walk into the shot.
On the set, which was a rented motor boat on a trailer, two buxom models in scant bikinis wore props indicating some sort of accident. One had her arm in a sling; the other stood on crutches, although without a cast. That could have been a budget saver, although more likely it was to keep her legs visible.
'Let's go one more time,' said a man in a Hawaiian shirt, chewing an unlit cigar.
Raley whispered to Ochoa, 'Bet he's the owner. He matches the wallpaper.'
Ochoa said, 'It's an unfair world, partner.'
'How so… this time?'
'Nikki Heat, she goes to a TV studio, it's polished marble and glass in the lobby, green room with hot and cold running canapes, and what do we get?'
'Know what I think, Detective Ochoa? I think we've been wronged.'
'And, action!' called the director, and he added for clarity, 'Go!'
Both actresses reached down into a bait box and came up with handfuls of cash. There seemed to be no concern that the one in the arm sling had full utility of the limb. She's the one who smiled and said, 'Justice is no accident.' To which the other held up her loot and shouted, 'Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong!'
That was when Ronnie Strong himself, who looked something like an overripe pear in a toupee, popped up from the hatch between them and said, 'Did somebody call me?' The girls hugged him, each planting a kiss on a cheek as the jingle played, 'Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong! Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong! Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong!'
'And we're clear,' said the director. And then for good measure, 'Stop.'
Roach didn't have to get the lawyer's attention. Ronnie Strong had spotted them during the commercial, and both detectives would know when it aired that his side-stage eye line when he said, 'Did somebody call me?' was directly to them. Such were the small perks of police work.
While the girls left to change into nurse uniforms, Ronnie Strong beckoned them over to the boat. 'You want some help down?' asked Ochoa.
'No, we're doing the next one in the boat, too,' he said. 'It's a nurses script, but hey, I rented it for the day. You guys are cops, right?'
Roach flashed ID, and the lawyer sat down to rest on the gunwale close to Raley. Rales couldn't stop staring at the orange makeup ringing Strong's white collar, so he concentrated on the hairpiece, which had a sweat curl in the front that was starting to expose the tape.
'You boys ever get hurt on the job? Suffer hearing loss from the firing range, maybe? I can help.'
'Thanks just the same, but we're here to talk about one of your clients, Mr. Strong,' said Ochoa. 'Esteban Padilla.'
'Padilla? Oh, sure. What do you want to know? Saw him yesterday, he's still pressing charges.'
Ochoa tried not to make eye contact with Raley, but peripherally, he caught his partner turning away to mask a chuckle. 'Esteban Padilla is dead, Mr. Strong. He was killed several days ago.'
'Wrongful death, I hope? Was he operating any machinery?'
