Everybody Takes The Money (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries) (23 page)

EVERYONE NEEDS MONEY. More importantly, everyone wants money. The people who say they don’t want money? Those are the ones you really have to keep an eye on. Because at the very least you want to eat well enough to be healthy, and that takes money.
 

It’s like anyone who goes out of their way to tell you what a good Christian they are. If they have to keep telling you, they’re not.
 

Greg Hitchcock, by any remote stretch of the imagination, had a good construction business. Construction can be cutthroat and maybe you end up working with some less-than-savory types—I did grow up in New York City, after all—but Hitchcock’s firm was working steadily and by all accounts they did quality work. They weren’t building with substandard concrete and low-grade steel. And they were everywhere I drove, once I knew to look for the HCFC logo on construction signs.

But for some reason he couldn’t stop himself. He used money to control women who needed help. And a lot of women, if the ease with which I found one was any indicator.
 

And he also had some kinds of dealings with Roger Sabo, a drug dealer who had his own problems with women. Perhaps Sabo hung around Hitchcock’s construction projects and sold meth to the workers who had to work obscene hours doing heavy manual work, and maybe Hitchcock got a percentage of that. But that seemed like a stupid risk to take, one that could easily bring down his legitimate business, let alone his access to an easy supply of women. Why would he do it?
 

It seemed strange, coincidental even, that Chris McClanahan, another construction firm owner, had gotten involved in drug trafficking, just like his acquaintance from ten years ago, Greg Hitchcock. Maybe if I were nice to McClanahan, he could explain to me how it had happened. Of course, the likelihood that I was going to be nice to him was just about nil, but a girl could dream.

“Stevie,” I said, “do you still have those printouts about Chris McClanahan’s arrest?”
 

She rocked back and forth and her fingers nervously played together. “They’re in the library.” She made no move toward the library.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. Stevie practically lived in Gary’s house most of the time: it was bigger, it had a nicer view, it had books...Randi. Had to be.
 

“I told Gary this morning about what happened last night.”

“Stevie!” I hissed.

“It’s his property. He deserves to know. And that woman started yelling at me. Started saying these horrible things. They’re in the library now. I don’t want to see her again.”

My sister did not do well with confrontation. I reached down for her hand. “Come on.”
 

Gary’s house was quiet, except for the sounds of jazz or a light-rock station playing somewhere off in another wing. Stevie flew across the marble floor to the doors of the library, which she pulled open before dashing inside...and stopping short.

Gary and Randi were standing at the window, looking out at the Pacific. He was pointing out the landmarks that were visible. “Oh!” he said, upon seeing us. “Are you all right?”

“What do you think you’re doing, bringing people like Roger to this house?” Randi said. “He’s a really bad guy.” She turned to Gary. “Seriously, I know this guy. He is bad news. She’s probably into drugs or something.”

“I didn’t bring him here,” I said. Why was I justifying myself to her anyhow? Who cared what Randi had to say. “Gary, have you contacted the alarm company?”

“They said the gates were opened.”

“With whose code?”
 

“Yours,” he said simply.

“That’s impossible,” I said. “I couldn’t have done. I was gone all yesterday.”

“Well, your sister was here,” Randi said. She looked at the floor Stevie was working on. “This place is a mess. You gotta clean this up. You can’t leave your messes all over Sir Gareth’s house. You and your sister. How are you putting up with this?” she asked Gary.

“Um. Well. Stevie’s doing a project for me.”

Stevie grabbed the pile of papers about McClanahan and ran out of the library.
 

I stared at our landlord. “Stevie can stop doing this for you anytime. Just say when.” I smiled, not nicely.
 

“Wait,” Gary said.
 

“You don’t need to be bossed around like this,” Randi said, clutching his arm. “From what you’ve told me, this woman is dangerous.”
This woman
being me.
 

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’d say there’s one,” Randi said.

Gary held his hand up and sputtered a bit, trying to find the words to start. Funny how a man so famous for speaking words found choosing them so difficult on his own. “There are some things I have been wondering about,” he finally stammered.

Randi smiled. Big.
 

“Fabulous,” I said. “Want to do this now?”
 

She shook her head. “Can’t. We’re having lunch with Tyler Faustus. You know him? No, you haven’t met him.”

Some Hollywood bigwig, undoubtedly.
 

“And then we’re going away to Catalina until Sunday night. I don’t want him around in case your friend Roger shows up again. So you can talk to Sir Gareth next week.”

Whoa. No. That was not okay. Stevie and I were Gary’s human pill-reminder alarms. He had a nasty habit of missing doses if he didn’t have someone opening his mouth and shoving the medications in. “Could I talk to you for a moment?” I said. “
Alone
.”
 

He held up his hand. “It’s fine. Away for a day.”

“I count that as
two
days, Gary.”
 

Randi nestled in closely to Gary’s side. “I’ll take care of him, honey. Don’t you worry about him. Come on, Sir Gareth. We have to get to Santa Monica.”
 

She remained locked to him as she pulled him out of the library.

Stupid bastard. Old men were ridiculous when it came to young women.
 

Well, if that’s what he wanted, far be it from me to stand in his way.

Zeus on a cloud, I’d introduced them. Stupid, stupid,
stupid
. If there’s one person on earth who knows how easy it is to worm her way into someone’s life lightning-fast, it’s me. I just didn’t think Randi was that good.
 

I put off any and all thoughts about what I’d have to do in the coming week about Randi, provided she didn’t talk herself out of her newfound relationship by the end of a weekend away. Women who move in tend to be unpleasant about women who are still living there.
 

Stevie was in the guest-house kitchen, sitting at the breakfast counter. She had laid the papers she’d printed about McClanahan’s arrest down the length of the counter. And she was crying.

“Sweetheart,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
 

“He’s listening to her,” she said. “He asked me to sort his papers, and he didn’t tell her that. He just let her say those things.”
 

“I know. He’s being a bastard. He’ll get over it.”
 

“He won’t,” Stevie said. “They never do.”
 

For a girl who’d never had a relationship with a boy, she was remarkably sour on the whole idea already. We hadn’t had the best examples of human relationships while we were growing up, and I’d hardly been a model of right behavior over the past decade.

“There’s nothing we can do about Gary right now,” I told her. “Let’s look at these papers. Where are the ones about the police officer?”

Her index finger stabbed out blindly and hit a paper to her right. Stevie knew where everything was all the time.
 

The first time, I hadn’t looked closely at the photo of Officer Broderick Tennyson shaking hands with his lieutenant, commending him on his arrest, because I didn’t think it was important. But my second look showed me something different. Ten years, a man in his early twenties now in his thirties, with a couple of years of heavy drug use. It was possible, but not certain. The uniform hat, low on his forehead, obscured the view.

“Any other pictures of him?” I asked my sister.

She typed on her computer quickly. “Not much about this fellow out there,” she said. “Odd, given that he was a decorated police officer. But there’s this. It’s old. Low resolution.”

She turned her computer around and showed me the picture. I was right.
 

“Dammit,” I said before I could stop myself. Stevie sharply inhaled, but if there was one time that had earned every swear I could think of, this was it.
 

Two men involved in the construction business who were also involved in drugs wasn’t as much of a coincidence as I had thought. Not that my stepfather Roberto had known this when he set me on the task of helping Dr. Anson Villiers—he had asked me to do that specifically to get two pieces of information through to me.
 

The first was, Roberto was watching me all the time. He knew I accompanied Anne on her interviews and story gathering, so he followed Anne’s career closely. He was finding out about the people and places she was going. He knew about the Baldwin Park trip, and he knew that my injuries had come from meeting Courtney Cleary and her boyfriend, Roger Sabo. I would not hide from Roberto Montesinos again.
 

The second thing he wanted me to know was that, when he found out Anne had that assignment, he had found out who Roger Sabo was. And when I got beaten up, he knew who’d done it. He wanted me to find out who had done it. And maybe figure out I was in over my head this time.

Because the cop who’d arrested Chris McClanahan twelve years ago, Broderick Tennyson, had changed his name. He was now known as Roger Sabo.

I had the feeling that Tennyson-Sabo’s connection to two very different construction firm owners—who knew one another back in Simi Valley—wasn’t a coincidence after all.
 

If Chris McClanahan answered one question for me he would tie together a lot of these loose ends. There was no earthly reason he’d want to answer this.
 

So I would offer incentives. How generous was Roberto willing to be to ensure Erica Rose performed at Dr. Villiers’s nonprofit fundraiser?
 

He’d given me permission to speak for him, so I was figuring damn generous.

I pulled out my cell phone.
 

“Who is this?” Stevie asked. She blinked a few times and then turned the computer around. “You clearly know him... This is Roger Sabo, isn’t it? I’ll see if I can find out if he’s still a police officer.”
 

How my sister figured that out so quickly, I had no idea. If Stevie and Roberto ever went into business together, the rest of us should just swear fealty and be done with it.
 

“Might be tough. I think he’s a very, very undercover cop,” I said. Then, to the phone, “Hi Chris, it’s Drusilla Thorne. We need to finish our little chat... No,
now
... Where and when?” I memorized the name he gave me. “I’ll be there in half an hour.” I kissed the top of Stevie’s head. “I’ll call you as soon as I’m done.”
 

Chris and Erica Rose were at a photographer’s studio in Westwood. I felt a little exhausted when he told me. Westwood wasn’t over the hill in the San Fernando Valley, but it was on the far side of the 405. When I had money again, I would travel solely by chauffeured car and helicopter. It was a tiny office in a converted house near UCLA. A modest black wooden sign with white lettering posted in the yard out front listed the occupants. Ottofocus Photo was the third one down and had the best graphic design for its logo.
 

I let myself in the door in the back and a female assistant with spiky green hair and striped zebra leggings under her purple sweatshirt stopped me in the doorway. To prevent me from running pell-mell through the place, yelling, perhaps.
 

The photo shoot was in progress. Erica Rose was following the instructions the photographer yelled out at her: jump, wave her arms, look enthusiastic, try
really
enthusiastic this time. Instead, the teenager looked exhausted. Didn’t she have to be in school? I wondered.

Chris McClanahan watched his daughter with a combination of pride and a critical eye, waving his hand at her from behind the photographer’s back, telling her to move, to smile, to bend over. At one point the photographer turned and shot the world’s meanest glance at him, and McClanahan didn’t even notice.
 

Then he happened to look in my direction and swear.

The photographer looked at me to see who had possibly interrupted McClanahan’s backseat driving. Then he went back to shooting Erica Rose.

“Five minutes,” McClanahan said to me.

“Make it twenty-five,” I said, opening the door I’d just walked through. “Or however long this is going to take.”
 

We stood out in the parking lot behind the house. McClanahan took a soft pack of cigarettes out and lighted one. He didn’t offer me one. I told myself I wouldn’t have taken one anyhow. The easiest way to believe a lie is to tell it to yourself.

“Why are you here?” he said.

“Because you want to be convinced to come to the fundraiser tomorrow.” And because Roberto had given me the task of making this happen. I had all sorts of incentive.

“Fuck you. We’ve talked about this. We’re done,” McClanahan said.
 

He didn’t really think we were done, of course. You don’t give directions to your location to someone you’re done with. If you’re talking, you still want something.
 

I smiled and shook my head. “You walk back in there, I assure you here and now your daughter has played her last shopping mall. Or fundraiser. Or birthday party. Or street corner. Roberto Montesinos’s wife owns the company that produces your daughter’s show and syndicates it. They will stop buying it. Tomorrow.”

Maybe Roberto had a third thing he wanted me to figure out: I did have the power to settle this. He wanted to see how I was going to do it. This issue with Erica Rose was small potatoes compared to what I might have to deal with when I came back from the dead. He wanted to see how much work I was going to need.