Cold Night (Jack Paine Mysteries) (10 page)

She turned her head on the pillow and lay staring at the ceiling, her face suffused with what looked like dreams. Paine watched the track of a single tear ride the corner of her eye down into the trimmed, unbrushed wave of her hair.

"I think she got it all from books," Rebecca said, and then she was quiet for a time before she rolled to Paine like a weeping child.

He held her, felt his hands around her and wanted to take whatever was gnawing through her and tear it out and kill it and then take the ripped pieces of her and fit them back together again. He had never felt like this before.

"I think I'm in love with you," he said.

"Don't say that," she sobbed gently, and he continued to hold her.

At the end of the night, he awoke and looked at her. Sleep, or what they had done, or his words, perhaps, or her words, had loosened the spring that had been wound so tight within her, and had left her limp and free to dream. Her head lay on the side of the pillow, her mouth slightly open. The hollows around her closed eyes, the dark circles of makeup, made her look as if her eyes would be larger than they were. He studied the curve of her nose, the artistic sculpture of her cheek leading to the firmer flesh of her chin and down into the valley of her throat. He thought
about how few times in a man's life he was able to study a woman without her knowledge or consent, as merely a work of art.

He watched the coming light through the window play across the landscape of her face, until some relay switched within her and she stirred. She opened her eyes at him, still in her dream or just coming through its portal back into life, and for the tiniest of moments he felt on the verge of revelation. It was like the time Ginny had come into the room as he cocked the gun to his head, the frozen second of time that had forever colored her for him and opened her secret heart to him. It was like that, only it was different, and for the briefest measure of time he was on the edge of knowing what made him feel the way he did about her, and then it was lost to him. It was in his consciousness and then it was gone before he could grasp and know it.

Then her eyes really saw him, and without moving her head she smiled, and then she stretched beneath the covers. "What time is it?" she asked.

"About seven."

Keeping her smile, she reached her hand to lay it on his arm. "I have to be at the house at nine. Lawyer business."

He brought his own arm out of her light grip. "Did your father ever mention anyone named Lucas Druckman?"

He reached over to the floor and picked up his jacket, taking the slip of paper he'd found in Paterna's office and handing it to her. "Did he ever mention someone named Izzy?"

She shook her head.

"Did your father have any business in California?"

"Nothing that I know of."

Paine reached back into the jacket pocket and retrieved the photo of the older couple with the horse. "Those are eucalyptus trees," he said, pointing to the stand of California conifers bordering the pasture in the photo. "And the phone number on that slip of paper is a Los Angeles number." He took out the picture of the head shot in sideburns. "And that's Lucas Druckman."

She looked at him. "I don't understand."

"All this has something to do with California. Does your sister Gloria have any dealings on the West Coast?"

"I don't think so. Her husband might. He's a budding politician, you know." She gave a slight smile. "He wants to be President."

Again she laid her hand on his arm, squeezing it. "If I want to see you again, do I wait outside your door?"

Paine laughed. "If you want. If you can't find me, there's a fellow named Bob Petty who might know where I am." He gave her Petty's number.

"I've got to go," she whispered.

She slipped silently out of bed and went to the bathroom. When she came out, she was dressed.

He lay in bed, looking at her. The angle of morning sun made a partial shadow of her face.

"How did your mother die?" he asked quietly.

Her face went deeper into shadow. "The death certificate my father bought said cardiac arrest. But she took an overdose of sleeping pills. She killed herself."

The shadow receded; a cloud outside the window moved away from the sun. Occluded light leapt back into her face. "I have to go," she said.

M
argie said, "Henry Kopiak is in your office."

"Shit," said Paine. On his way down the hall, Jimmy Carnaseca called to him from his office, and Paine went in.

"How you doing, Jack?" Jimmy smiled. He had the box of little wooden girders out, and he was fitting one of them precisely into the growing structure on his desk.

"Any guesses?" Jimmy asked. "You should be able to figure it out by now."

There was an Italian architect who designed things like this, all angles. It looked a little like a temple Paine had seen once in
National Geographic.
It looked a little like a lot of things.

"It's an office building," Paine said.

"Not even close," Jimmy answered, grinning. He fit another tiny girder into its slot. "You know, Jack," he said, "you still look like shit. Worse, even."

"Thanks."

"I still say you should do like me. What you need is more sex."

"Don't you ever work, Jimmy?"

"All night, Jack." He laughed, picking another tiny bit of wood from its box, examining it carefully, applying a dab of glue to it before wedging it between two struts.

Paine reached out to turn the model's box over and look at the picture, but Jimmy clamped his hand down.

"No fair, Jack," he said.

When Paine walked into his office, Kopiak was standing with his hands behind his back, looking out the window. He had opened the blinds, but had done it without soiling his fingers with the dust.

Kopiak's briefcase stood upright next to the visitor's chair, and his raincoat was hung neatly on the hook on the back of the door.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Kopiak?" Paine asked.

Kopiak turned and frowned, then nodded. His face was smooth and full, the kind that would turn jowly without exercise. His hair was stylishly long and gray. His clothes weren't cheap but he looked like a suburban lawyer. He looked like the kind of man who didn't like dust, but didn't mind disturbing things.

"You're certainly the Jack Paine that Mary Wagner described to me," Kopiak said. "At least you're who you say you are." A grim smile flirted with his face but lost out to the frown. He left the window and sat in the visitor's chair, and Paine sat behind his desk. Kopiak didn't reach for his briefcase immediately, which to Paine was a good sign.

"I don't approve of your impersonating me, Mr. Paine," Kopiak said. The frown deepened to borderline scowl.

"I was just doing my job, Mr. Kopiak."

"There are other ways you could have gone about it."

"Would
you
have let me in there to see her?"

"No, I wouldn't have."

"I hope you see my point, Mr. Kopiak."

"I wonder if your employer, Mr. Barker, would see it that way."

Paine shrugged.

"You could have hurt Ms. Wagner's case by prompting her to reveal information she had withheld from the police."

"Aren't lawyers supposed to keep people from incriminating themselves?"

"That's not the point, Mr. Paine."

"Did you get her out of jail?"

"Certainly I did—"

"Why don't you tell me why you came here then, Mr. Kopiak? If you wanted to slap me on the wrist about practicing law without a sheepskin, you would have called me on the phone or had me arrested. Why didn't you have me arrested?"

Kopiak glared at him.

Paine said, "You don't like me, do you, Kopiak? I certainly don't like you."

Kopiak took a deep breath and shook his head. He pulled his briefcase onto his lap and snapped it open. It was neat and tidy and he lifted a slim envelope out of a trimmed leather pocket and handed it over to Paine.

There was no writing on the envelope; it was uncreased and flat. The flap was tucked in and Paine pulled it open and lifted a blue rectangular check out.

"The check is endorsed to you, personally, for five thousand dollars, Mr. Paine. Mr. Barker needn't know about it. If you would prefer, we can go through the agency. It makes no difference to me."

"What do you want for all this money, Mr. Kopiak?"

"I want the material from the folder Mary Wagner mentioned to you, the one that was in Les Paterna's desk. I found the torn pieces of the folder in Paterna's wastebasket, which means that you were there and found it empty. Someone was obviously there before you. I'd like you to find that material and return it to me."

"Would you like to tell me what's in it?"

"No, I would not."

Paine slipped the check back into the envelope and tucked in the flap. The envelope was creased now, and he liked that. "You take this out to Margie Miles at the front desk, and she'll help you fill out one of our standard contracts. She'll also help you sign over the check to the Barker Agency. If you want to do that, I'll be glad to look for your material."

Kopiak produced a business card from another leather pocket in his briefcase and handed it to Paine. "If you find anything, call me." He snapped his briefcase shut and got up. He walked to the door and took his raincoat off the hook and draped it over his arm.

"Good-bye, Mr. Paine," he said, and left without looking back.

Paine pulled the phone in front of him on his bare desk, pulled out the slip of paper that said "Izzy" on it and dialed the California telephone number.

It rang for a long time. Then someone picked up the receiver and a woman's drowsy voice said, "What?" When Paine asked for Izzy she told him to wait. There was a long wait. Paine heard argument in the background. The phone sounded like it was picked up and then put down again. Finally, a man's voice said into it tentatively, "Hello?"

"Izzy?" Paine asked.

"Who's this?"

"I'm calling for Lucas Druckman."

There was a tiny intake of breath, and for a moment
Paine thought he had hung up. Then the voice said slowly,
as if it wanted to remember everything about his answer,
"Who is this?"

"A friend of Lucas Druckman."

There was more argument between the two voices on the other end of the phone, then the voice came back.

"Druckman had no friends."

Paine looked at the number on the slip of paper, 33,000,
and repeated it into the phone.

There was a new intake of breath, a big one. The voice
said, "Who gave you that figure?"

Paine played the fear in the voice. "Druckman gave it to
me."

"When?"

"Recently."

"Bullshit."

"Why is that bullshit?"

Paine heard the female in the background yelling at Izzy
to hang up. He kept telling her to shut up. "I'll take care of
it!" he shouted, and she answered, "Shit you will." It sounded like an exchange they had often.

Izzy's voice came back to Paine.

"Who are you?"

"A friend—"

"I'll tell you," Izzy interrupted. His words trembled with
suppressed fear. "I don't know who gave you that figure, or what you did to get it, but that was between Druckman and
me."

Paine heard the female yell something loud and Izzy's voice shouted back at her and the phone went dead.

Paine called the number back and let it ring for five minutes. Nobody answered. He pictured the two of them, Izzy a short punk with a spreading bald head, the woman a frowzy blonde in her fifties with thick legs, the two of them packing suitcases, Izzy stopping every minute or so to say to her maybe it was just a joke, maybe it didn't mean anything, and the frowzy blonde yelling at him to remember what happened to what's-his-name, what happened when he didn't pay and thought he could get away with it, why didn't you pay Druckman, why didn't you do this and that, and then Izzy continuing to pack, the woman throwing things into suitcases now, imagining the knock at the door, imagining herself dead, a stupid old bleached blonde hooked up with an asshole named Izzy, her whole life reeling across the back of her eyes as she jammed black negligees into a suitcase and, down at the bottom, hidden, Dr. Scholl's footpads for her aching feet and a girdle she wore when they went out, which was almost never, anyway, but if Izzy knew she wore a girdle and Dr. Scholl's footpads he might dump her, even though he was an asshole, what would she do then, and Izzy pausing again, saying, "Maybe—"

Paine dialed Bob Petty. Someone told him that Petty wasn't there. He was about to hang up when Petty got on the phone.

"Glad you called, Jack."

He sounded tired and mad.