Gumshoe Gorilla (53 page)

"Leroy's not rich," Linda said, definitively. "If he was rich, he wouldn't be so damn frustrated. He'd just hire some people to boss around."

I looked at the frog.

"OK. So Leroy's not poor, but he's not rich. He's frustrated, because he wants a job that will give him power over people, but he can't get it. He's not a cop or a soldier, but he might be a reporter or a publicist. He reads the tabloids. He's kind of a prick, because he tries to control everyone around him, and he doesn't have the charm to pull it off. And he has some horrible grudge against Trent Reed. What else?"

Linda and Drew stared at the puppet.

"There's Eddie," Drew suggested. "Why did the LeRoy decide to use Eddie?"

"Because Eddie fits the bill," Linda said. "LeRoy needs someone famous and a little sexy to make this work. And someone with a drug problem so that he can get leverage on them."

"Yeah," Drew agreed, "but that describes half the actors in Hollywood. Why did LeRoy pick
Eddie
to blackmail?"

I thought about it.

"It could be revenge," I said. "He's pissed at both Eddie and Trent and decides to kill two birds with one stone."

Linda shook her head.

"No. That can't be it. I already looked at all of Eddie's enemies. Mostly pissed off ex-girlfriends. Believe me, nobody on that list had any connection to Trent Reed. He and Eddie don't exactly run in the same circles."

"Maybe," Drew said.

He pulled out his palmtop and set up a search. Comparing news stories about Eddie Rockland and Trent Reed, to see if there was anyone who turned up in both. The sight of the computer got me thinking.

"Eddie? How many e-mail accounts do you have?" I asked.

He put down the crystal ball he'd been looking at.

"Six. I've got one for acting business, one for my fan site, one for..."

"Which one did the blackmail notes come in on?"

"The one I use for friends and stuff."

Linda and Drew looked up.

"Interesting," I said. "And how many people have that address?"

Eddie shrugged.

"Uh... I don't know. A couple hundred?"

Linda and Drew groaned. For a minute there, we'd thought we had a lead. But if that many people had the address, LeRoy could have gotten it almost anywhere.

Still, now that my brain had latched on to the idea, it couldn't let go of it. There was something that bothered me about those e-mails. I finally put my finger on it.

"Wait a minute," I said. "E-mail? LeRoy sent the blackmail notes by
e-mail
? Doesn't that strike anybody as weird?"

"No," Linda said. "Why would it? Everybody uses e-mail."

"Yeah," I said, "But not for secret communications. Not when you don't want to leave a copy lying around for other people to read."

Drew saw where I was going.

"Right," he said. "There's a copy of all the blackmail notes sitting in Eddie's e-mail box."

"Yeah," I agreed. "So suppose something happens to Eddie? The police find his murdered body in a hotel room, with signs of a lovers quarrel. The first thing the cops will do is get a warrant and read all his e-mail for the last few months."

"At which point they'll find the blackmail notes," Linda said, catching on. "And the whole frame-up of Trent will collapse."

Drew scratched his head.

"Is it possible that LeRoy is stupid?" he asked. "That he's good with people but incredibly inept with computers?"

"No," Linda said. "That's not it. The blackmail notes were bounced through a third-party remailer so that they couldn't be traced. The guy who sent them knew what he was doing."

"So what then?" I asked. "LeRoy is smart enough to make his e-mail's untraceable, but stupid enough to leave them lying around in Eddie's account for the police to find?"

We all looked at each other. This didn't make any sense. I noticed that Eddie was holding up his hand.

"Yes? Do you want to say something?"

"Just that the police won't find anything in my e-mail account. It's all encrypted."

The rest of us groaned. Drew politely tried to explain it to him.

"Um... Eddie. I know you have a password on your account. And that your service says that they encrypt your private information. But the police can get this thing called a 'warrant', and then the company will give them the keys to unlock all your..."

Eddie waved him off.

"I know about that. I'm not
stupid
. I run a separate encryption program. It scrambles all my data. E-mail. Address book. Phone numbers. All that kind of stuff."

It took us all a second to realize the implication of what he'd said. If LeRoy wasn't stupid, then he had to know about...

"Eddie? How good is that encryption program?" I asked.

"Oh, it's cherry. Charles helped me set it up after I got busted for possession. It comes from China or somewhere like that, so the police can't get the keys for it. I mean, I didn't want the cops reading the notes I was getting from the escort service or..."

Drew interrupted him.

"Eddie? How many people know about this?"

"That I'm encrypting all my shit? Uh...."

"Think," I prompted him. "It's important."

"Well, uh.... I guess my brothers all do. My mom. The lady who runs the escort service. I think I mentioned it to my old girlfriend Sally once..."

I handed him the pad.

"Make a list."

He thought for a few minutes and jotted down the names. It was a damn short list.

I passed the list around, and we all had a look at it. But none of the names seemed like they could be LeRoy.

"Who else?" Linda pressed. "Come on Eddie, there's got to be somebody else who knows about this."

Eddie just shrugged.

"I'm pretty sure that's it."

Linda looked at the list again.

"Christ!" she shouted. "Now this thing makes no fucking sense at all. Why the fuck would any of these people have a beef with Trenton Reed?"

Drew ran a web search to find out. But as near as he could tell, none of the people on the list had even met Trenton Reed.

"So who the fuck is doing this, then?" Linda asked.

She paced around the room, looking like she wanted to break something. Drew slowly banged his head against the back of his chair. I took another look at the list.

Linda was right. It was hard to imagine that any of these people had a beef with Trent Reed. If it weren't for that, we'd be in business. Hell, there was one name on Eddie's list that was an almost perfect match to our profile of LeRoy.

I looked at that name. It was such a good fit. But why would that person do all...?

And then I saw it. What would happen when the police found Eddie's murdered corpse?

A media feeding frenzy.

And what would happen when the reporters made the connection to Trent Reed? When they pieced together all those little clues that he was Eddie's gay lover?

A fucking enormous media feeding frenzy.
It was the sort of story that comes along once in a lifetime. Like the O.J. murders, or the Tori Spelling conviction.

But it wasn't about Reed. And it wasn't even about Eddie.

"I've got it," I announced.

Linda and Drew looked up.

"The spirit world tell you something?" Linda asked.

"Yeah, a poltergeist came and whispered in my ear," I said sarcastically. "But I know who LeRoy is. And I know why he's doing all this."

I let them wait for a few seconds to build up the suspense.

"And...?" Linda prodded.

"We've had it all wrong. LeRoy's not trying to take down Trent."

"He's not?" Linda asked.

"Nope. You said so yourself. There's no one who knows Eddie well enough to pull this off
and
who has a grudge against Trent. So this can't be about Mr. Reed."

"So it's about Eddie?" Drew asked.

"No. If LeRoy wanted to take Eddie down, he would just send the blackmail videos to the police and let Eddie rot in prison. Why would he go to all the trouble to drag Trent Reed into this? There'd be no point."

"But..." Linda stammered, getting confused. "If it's not about Eddie or Trent, then what's the point?"

"The point is the scandal itself. Eddie and Trent are each famous in their own way. But when you put them together? The headlines will be irresistible.
Baptist Televangelist murders hunky actor in gay lovers quarrel!
It will be the biggest story of the decade. And because all the evidence is circumstantial, the press will be able to keep talking about it for months. Every new clue they uncover. Every new document that points to the affair. Every new conjecture about what really happened."

Linda still looked skeptical.

"OK, it will be a big story," she admitted. "But who the hell benefits from that?"

I made the frog puppet wave at her.

"LeRoy does," I explained. "Because he's frustrated. Because he wants attention. Because he wants to be
famous
."

I waited for the others to get it. Drew and Linda stared at the puppet, but they couldn't quite put it all together.

And then Eddie sat up suddenly. He'd figured it out.

"You think it's..."

"Yeah," I said, "but I can't prove it yet."

I turned to Linda.

"You'd better call Charles," I said. "Tell him to invite the blackmailer over for dinner tonight. We'll need the distraction."

I once read a movie script that started with the phrase, "you could cut the tension with a knife." At the time, I thought the writer was a hack. I was sure that if I ever had to describe a scene like that, I would certainly come up with something more original. But there we are, all gathered in my hotel room, waiting for the blackmailer. And all I can think to say is... "you could cut the tension with a knife."

Room service had sent up some coffee and croissants and stuff, but nobody much felt like eating. Linda was busy checking the windows. Studio security had put some little gizmos on them when I moved in, little boxes that hum a little and are supposed to prevent anyone from listening in with a rifle mike. Linda just wanted to make sure that they were all still working. In the meantime, Parker and his associate were going through the room, looking for bugs. Just in case the maid or someone had planted something. After all, this was one conversation that we did not want the press getting wind of.

Albert was on the monitor, phoning in from his movie set in Thailand-- on an encrypted line, of course. Bernie and Doug and Eddie were clustered around the screen, chatting with him, catching up. I know it seems weird to be making small talk at a time like this, but it was the first time we'd all been together in a couple of years. It's funny how we still fall into the old patterns. Bernie trying to be funny, teasing Eddie about his hair. Doug laughing a little too hard at the jokes, but biting his lip whenever the others aren't looking. Albert, pretending to be the strong one, trying to radiate calm. And Eddie, playing the kid brother, looking up to the rest of us to protect him.