No Reservations Required (18 page)

31

After Bram’s radio show was done for the day, he drove across town, sailed over the Roberts Street Bridge, and eventually located Old Mill Road Mini Storage. Chris had doodled the name “Del” the day he’d taken her to lunch. She’d also written down the name “Old Mill Road.” If the Del was Del Irazarian— and Bram had a hunch they were one and the same— there had to be a connection. Bram recalled that when he asked Chris about it yesterday, she’d said that Phil rented a storage garage “over there.” It seemed a good bet to Bram that if Del Irazarian was mixed up in it somehow, that the mini storage place might be an important spot to check out.

Sitting in the parking lot, he removed his cell phone from his vest pocket and punched in the office number. He disguised his voice because he was, after all, a well-known radio personality in the Twin Cities. Perhaps he flattered himself, but he didn’t want anything to prevent him from getting the information he needed.

A male voice answered: “Old Mill Mini Storage. This is Mike.”

“Mike, Phil Banks. Hey, I’m leaving for Brazil tomorrow, going to be out of the country for the next couple of months. I was just writing you guys a check so you don’t toss my shit out on the street.” He smiled, thinking he’d nailed Phil’s limited vocabulary. “But I don’t have a bill in front of me, so I need the monthly amount. Oh, and your mailing address.”

“Okay. Let’s see,” said Mike.

Bram silently sent up a prayer of thanks. His ruse had worked. He could hear the guy tap his computer keyboard.

“You’ve got a double. That’s one-thirty-seven a month. Two months would be two-seventy-four.”

“Maybe I should be on the safe side. Do it for three. That would be four-eleven, right?”

“Exactly.”

“Hey, give me the number of the unit. I always put that on my check, but I don’t have it in front of me.”

“It’s 2298. And our address is Box 481, St. Paul, 55103.”

“Thanks. I’ll drop the check in the mail on my way home from work. Later, man.”

Bram cut the connection.

Now that he had the number, he could begin phase two. On the way across the lot to the office, he decided he’d missed his calling. With his looks and charm, and his obvious ability to ferret out information, he should have been an international spy. But that would actually mean he had to work. Nah, on second thought, he liked his radio gig much better.

Stepping up to the counter, Bram waited for Mike to take a drag from his cigarette and then stand up.

“Help you?” he asked. It was more of a grunt.

“I’d like to rent one of your storage units.” He waited to see if the guy recognized his voice. When there was no look of recognition, he figured Mike either didn’t have a radio in the office, or he had no taste.

“We got two sizes. Single and double.”

“Single would be fine.”

“Fill this out.” He pushed a form across the counter.

It took Bram only a couple of minutes to complete it. As he wrote in his name and address, he asked the man about security.

“We got good security. You gotta have the correct numbers to get in and out of the gates. And nobody gets over that fence, believe me, not unless they want their legs sliced up.”

“What about at night?”

“What about it?”

“Do you have a security guard on duty?”

“If you want that kind of protection, you better hire yourself a private company. But don’t worry. We haven’t had a theft in all the time I’ve been working here.”

“And how long is that?”

“Going on eight years.”

“You like the job?” Bram looked around the dingy office.

“It’s a living.”

He finished the form and handed it across the counter.

“Now, you gotta pick a personal password—a four-digit number—to get you into the lot. Just write it at the bottom there.” He pointed. “There’s only one way in and one way out. It’s well marked. When you get up to the gate, tap in the number of your unit and then your password. It’s gotta be in that order or the gate won’t open.”

“What’s the number of my unit?”

“3412.”

Bram scratched “0007” at the bottom. The extra zero didn’t bother him, and it seemed to fit the occasion.

The guy looked at it. “You know how many 0007’s we got here?”

“You mean I’m not the only one?”

“World’s filled with wise guys.”

“Maybe I better change it.”

“Up to you.”

Bram thought about it for a second. “No, it’s okay.” What did it matter? He’d only use it twice.

Mike circled the number and said, “That’ll be eighty-seven dollars even.”

Bram wrote a check. “What are your hours?”

“The office is open from eight to six. But you can get into the storage lot 24-7. Just use your unit number and your password. We’ll bill you by the month.” He handed Bram the paperwork.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

On the way back to his car, Bram surveyed the lot, locating the entrance gate about twenty yards to the right of the office. The entire property was surrounded by a high fence topped with wicked-looking razor wire. Mike had been right. Nobody but an idiot would try to climb over it.

After tapping in his unit number and his humiliatingly trite password, the gate swung open and Bram drove in. Instead of looking for 3412, he eased slowly down the lanes searching for 2298. He found it at the end of a long row of doubles. Slipping out of the Bentley, Bram quickly checked the padlock. It was a standard issue steel-and-chrome variety. A heavy bolt cutter would slice through it like butter. The fact that he didn’t have a bolt cutter was a minor issue. By tonight, when he came back, he’d own the very best.

After hunting down a hardware store, Bram drove to Lyle Boerichter’s downtown St. Paul condo. He’d been thinking about Lyle all afternoon, recalling the comment that his ex-wife had known Phil’s second wife. Bram was trying to get a bead on Phil, figure out whether he really was capable of giving Chris more than a black eye.

Bram had called Chris several times on her cell phone, but with no luck. Maybe Al Lundquist was right. Maybe he was worried about her for no good reason, but after talking to Phil this morning, the bad feeling in his gut wouldn’t go away. If anything, it was getting worse.

Bram tried calling Lyle from the station during one of his breaks. His voice mail had picked up, but Bram hadn’t left a message. The condo wasn’t far from the Maxfield, so he decided to give it another try, this time in person.

After driving around forever looking for a parking spot, Bram finally entered the building, quickly locating Lyle’s name on the list of residents posted in the central hall. He used the security phone and punched in the numbers. After the third ring, Lyle answered.

“Hello?” He sounded like he’d been sleeping, his voice low and groggy.

“Lyle? It’s Bram Baldric.”

No response. Then, “Ah . . . hi. What’s up?”

“I need to talk to you. It won’t take long.”

“This is kind of a bad time. I’m flying out this evening, and I’ve got a bunch of stuff I need to do.”

“Headed someplace glamorous? Hawaii? Tokyo?”

“Just L.A. and back.”

“Look, it would only take a second.”

More silence. “Well, okay. I guess.”

When Bram heard the buzzer, he pulled back the door and entered the lobby. The cavernous old building had once been a furniture manufacturer’s sales-room and warehouse. A few years back it had been renovated and turned into condos.

Bram took the elevator up to four. Lyle was standing out in the hallway, waiting for him. Even at a distance, Bram could see how disheveled he looked. His stomach hung over his sweatpants, his white T-shirt was a stained mess, and his hair looked like a whirlwind had combed it.

“Thanks for letting me come up.”

Lyle nodded to his door. “Like I said, I don’t have much time.”

As he passed into the condo, Bram couldn’t help but notice that Lyle reeked of liquor. He turned around and stared at him. Lyle’s eyes were blood-shot and his face was an unhealthy splotchy red.
This
was a man who was about to fly a plane? “Are you feeling okay?”

“No. I’ve got a rotten cold. Took some Nyquil and been sleeping most of the day.”

That might account for the alcohol smell, thought Bram, but it was so strong that he doubted it.

Lyle dropped unsteadily into a chair and immediately fired up a cigarette. “What do you want?” he asked, tossing the Bic lighter next to an ashtray on the coffee table. “I gotta shower and shave. So make it quick.”

Bram sat down opposite him. He wondered if he should say something. Lyle was in no shape to get into a cockpit. “Maybe you should call in sick.”

“I’ll be fine. I just need to wake up.” He took a long drag, then blew smoke out of his nose.

“Okay. You mentioned the other day that your ex was a friend of Phil Banks’s second wife.”

“Good friend.”

“And that Phil’s second wife used to call your wife and complain about him.”

“God, yes. Terry called all the time.”

“What did he do to her?”

“Beat her up. Accused her of cheating on him.”

“Did she?”

“Hell no. She was terrified of him. When they got divorced, she dropped off the face of the earth. Left the state and never called my wife again. You know, Sonny came by once.”

“Sonny?”

“Oh, sorry. Sonny was what Terry used to call him. It was apparently a family nickname. His dad’s name was Phil, too, so when he was a kid, they called him Sonny to differentiate. Anyway, Phil came by once when my wife was out. He told me he was trying to locate Terry because he owed her money.” Lyle grunted. “Like I should believe that. My wife figured she was hiding from him. All I can say is, I hope to God he never found her.”

“You think, even after they were divorced, that he might have tried to hurt her?”

“Phil doesn’t get married, he takes prisoners. Same with his first wife. Her name was Candy. I never knew her personally, but I’d see him with her every now and then. We used to frequent the same bars. I’ll tell you this much, she was one frightened woman. I saw him slap her around more than once. That guy’s a mean son of a bitch.”

“What happened to his first wife after their divorce?”

Lyle shrugged. “No idea.” He tapped ash into the ashtray, then took another long drag. “How come you’re so interested?”

“Chris. I stopped by their house this morning and Phil said she’d left town, gone on a trip. It sounded fishy to me. I talked to her mom later. She said Chris had left her a message around eight fifteen, said her car wasn’t working right and that she was going to drop it off at Phil’s mechanic’s place. Phil was going to give her a ride back home.”

Smoke drifted out of Lyle’s nose. “You think he did something to her?”

“I think somebody’s lying and I don’t think it’s Chris.”

“Jesus.” Lyle stubbed out his cigarette. “Call the police.”

“I did. But they can’t do anything until she’s gone for twenty-four hours.”

Lyle shook his head. “Figures.”

As Bram’s gaze traveled over the living room, he noticed an open bottle of Johnny Walker Red sitting on top of the TV set.

Lyle turned around to see what Bram was looking at.

“Listen, Lyle, are you sure you should be flying tonight?”

“None of your goddamn business,” said Lyle, jerking to a standing position. “It’s nobody’s goddamn business. Not yours. Not Vince’s. Not Bob’s. I know what my limits are.”

“Bob’s?”

“You’re all the same. You think because a guy takes a little drink every now and then, his judgment goes AWOL. I drank when I was in Nam, and I drink now. So what? Doesn’t make me an alcoholic. You ask me, people use that term pretty damn freely.”

He seemed so instantly belligerent, Bram assumed he’d had the conversation before. “Did Bob think you had a problem with alcohol?”

“So what if he did? He didn’t know everything. He wasn’t
God.
”

“Did he threaten to talk to Sunrise Airlines if you didn’t get help?”

“Get out,” said Lyle, lurching past him and disappearing into the kitchen.

Bram got up and followed. He found Lyle standing at the kitchen sink with his back to the door. Next to the sink was another bottle of Johnny Walker Red. This one was empty. “Answer me. Did Bob threaten to talk to your employer?”

“Yes!”

“Did you fight about it? Did you—”

He whirled around. “What are you saying?”

“Were you the one at his house that night?”

In one lightning-quick movement, Lyle was at his throat, pressing him backward, knocking over a chair and toppling the kitchen table. “You think I hurt Bob? Do you?” He grabbed Bram’s lapels and slammed him into the wall. “He fucking saved my life! I owe him everything. Do you get that? I loved him. Guys like you . . . you can’t begin to understand the bond we had. War is like fire, Baldric, fire that melted our souls together. We’re
brothers
! You think I shot him? I would have done anything for him.
Anything.
” His eyes were wild.

“I believe you,” said Bram. “I do. Honestly.”

Lyle glared at him a moment, his eyes boring into Bram’s; then, as suddenly as the attack had begun, it ended. Moving back over to the sink, Lyle said, “Get out.”

Bram eased around the table. “I believe you. But I agree with Bob. I think you need help.”

Lyle bowed his head. “Just leave.”

Bram felt that a hasty exit was, for now, the better part of valor.

On the way down in the elevator, his thoughts turned to the conversation he’d had several days ago with Sheldon Larr. At the time, Bram had shrugged it off, thinking Sheldon was just being his usual eccentric self. But Sheldon missed very little that happened around the Rookery Club. Perhaps he overheard a conversation between Lyle and Bob. Whatever the case, his words now took on an ominous meaning. They’d been talking about Bob Fabian, about who might have murdered him. Sheldon said he knew. But he’d been typically cryptic. He’d asked Bram to define the word “rook.” Bram said it was a bird.

“And what do birds do?”

Bram could hear Sheldon’s response even now.